Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Only if you don't understand the vast disparity between human strength and machine strength. Even light industrial machinery that isn't designed to maximize strength can easily rip you in half if you aren't careful with it. Adding human muscle strength to that would be about as useful as adding the bicycle-driven prop to an F-22.

I'm very aware of machine strength. Given that power armor doesn't completely obviate the strength of the user, we can assume that it's *not* the kind of device you're describing.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Only if you don't understand biology. GW uses the terms but they have no connection to reality.

They're written in a far more plausible way than the sentence with physics terminology you described. And it's funny you're knocking my understanding of biology considering you were claiming there's no difference between a human with XY chromosomes compared to a human with XX and an sry gene.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Yes, let's look at what that context is. This is what I said:

No, memories are stored in the arrangement of cells. If you destroy that arrangement there is nothing left. It's like saying you can access the contents of a computer if you take the hard drive out, grind it into sand, and then eat the sand. It's pure "a wizard did it" magic.

To which you replied:

That's not a good analogy because you can't reconstruct a hard drive from sand - but you can reconstruct the structure of a brain from DNA, and re-arranging cells in a given brain doesn't produce new memories. There's a molecular basis for memory, though some of it may be stored in the extracellular matrix.

It's very clear from context this is about the information content of the brain, not the recipe to construct a blank brain, because that's what my original analogy explicitly referred to. If you didn't understand and thought you were talking about something else that's fine, but don't condescendingly talk about "context" when the context is so very clearly against you.

No, I understood exactly what was going on, but it's clear that you barely understand what you're saying. When talking about the "information content" of the brain, as you put it, I used the term "memories." When talking about the information in DNA about how to construct a living organism, including its brain, I used the term "information."

Hecaton wrote:
I'm very aware of machine strength. Given that power armor doesn't completely obviate the strength of the user, we can assume that it's *not* the kind of device you're describing.

That's like designing a car with no engine and talking about how you need superior male strength to push it. It might technically be true but it's an unimaginably bad design that doesn't deserve to be called a car.

Though I suppose that could be a valid interpretation of the fluff given how stupid and self-destructive the Imperium is. Is your theory that marines need to be male because only males have sufficient strength to make the "armor" function at even a level where it can compete with that plastic knight costume from the halloween store?

They're written in a far more plausible way than the sentence with physics terminology you described. And it's funny you're knocking my understanding of biology considering you were claiming there's no difference between a human with XY chromosomes compared to a human with XX and an sry gene.

Given that people often are not aware that they have chromosomes other than XX/XY until they have genetic tests done for some unrelated reason I stand by that assertion.

No, I understood exactly what was going on, but it's clear that you barely understand what you're saying. When talking about the "information content" of the brain, as you put it, I used the term "memories." When talking about the information in DNA about how to construct a living organism, including its brain, I used the term "information."

Lolwut. The context here is the space marine ability to recover MEMORIES by eating a brain.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Only if you don't understand the vast disparity between human strength and machine strength. Even light industrial machinery that isn't designed to maximize strength can easily rip you in half if you aren't careful with it. Adding human muscle strength to that would be about as useful as adding the bicycle-driven prop to an F-22.

Exoskeletons aren't jet planes, and light industrial machinery is a misnomer as I doubt you'd find any full sized industrial robot arm that doesn't weigh several times it's rated maximum payload.

As perhaps a better comparison the Boston Dynamics 'big dog' robot - 240lbs of servos and power supply capable of carrying 340lbs over and above. If you could wear it as an exoskeleton that's a lot but it's not 'invalidate the user' levels of strength, especially when the user is a genetically engineered superman and the servos need to operate both at those strength levels and at speeds that will not compromise the agility of said superman.



As for female thunder warriors, I think in the lore they are just another example of the Emperors 'boys only' preference. But given the setting and the era in question i'm sure more than a few were squashed in combat by a thousand pounds of gene-enhanced, borged up, and/or rad mutated killers of unspecified sex from the various techno-barbarian tribes of earth.

GW is inconsistent about it but usually depicts power armor as providing most of the strength of a Marine. e.g. when the power armor loses power the Marine become either unable to move around or is basically crippled.

So yes, even withing GW's own lore the power armor provides most of the strength and the user is borderline irrelevant.

I don't think "light industrial machinery can rip a man apart" is a very good argument against a powered assist, because so can a human with a maul or slegehammer (simple machine assisting human strength).

Bicycles are another great example, in which a human is able to outperform horses with a simple mechanical assist for a very low overall weight.

However, these are multipliers- stronger humans get more benefit from the above machines.

If a powered system enhances the strength of the user by a multiplier, then it will benefit stronger users.

 Tyran wrote:
GW is inconsistent about it but usually depicts power armor as providing most of the strength of a Marine. e.g. when the power armor loses power the Marine become either unable to move around or is basically crippled.

So yes, even withing GW's own lore the power armor provides most of the strength and the user is borderline irrelevant.

I thought GW was generally consistent in showing Marines still being able to move in deactivated power armour, but it becomes an exhausting burden that is probably no longer combat effective in melee against a competent enemy. I doubt they would be significantly affected in a firefight, but mobility and stamina between fights would be affected.

Apparently MkI "Thunder" armour increased the users arm strength by 3-4 times (I presume this would be greater if there was no armour, but it may be somewhat countered by the weight of the armour plating). We also know Marine power armour is generally at least 180kg. These are both in the realm of the strength of the Marine being significant, but less than the strength of the servos. In addition, a Marine can almost certainly carry 180kg distributed over the body, although heavier suits will be more challenging (especially artificer armour).

 Haighus wrote:
I don't think "light industrial machinery can rip a man apart" is a very good argument against a powered assist, because so can a human with a maul or slegehammer (simple machine assisting human strength).

Bicycles are another great example, in which a human is able to outperform horses with a simple mechanical assist for a very low overall weight.

However, these are multipliers- stronger humans get more benefit from the above machines.

If a powered system enhances the strength of the user by a multiplier, then it will benefit stronger users.

Mauls and sledgehammers and bicycles are human powered machines. Their power comes from human muscles and thus the stronger the human muscle the stronger the benefit.

Power armor meanwhile is reactor powered (presumably fusion). How strong the user is irrelevant to the output.

 Tyran wrote:
GW is inconsistent about it but usually depicts power armor as providing most of the strength of a Marine. e.g. when the power armor loses power the Marine become either unable to move around or is basically crippled.

So yes, even withing GW's own lore the power armor provides most of the strength and the user is borderline irrelevant.

I thought GW was generally consistent in showing Marines still being able to move in deactivated power armour, but it becomes an exhausting burden that is probably no longer combat effective in melee against a competent enemy. I doubt they would be significantly affected in a firefight, but mobility and stamina between fights would be affected.

Apparently MkI "Thunder" armour increased the users arm strength by 3-4 times (I presume this would be greater if there was no armour, but it may be somewhat countered by the weight of the armour plating). We also know Marine power armour is generally at least 180kg. These are both in the realm of the strength of the Marine being significant, but less than the strength of the servos. In addition, a Marine can almost certainly carry 180kg distributed over the body, although heavier suits will be more challenging (especially artificer armour).

As I said, it is inconsistent. You can find evidence of both cases. It also depends on how stronger you believe a marine is supposed to be. Usually the higher end feats like lifting cars and punching tanks require the armor to make most of the job because if it is the marine then it doesn't make sense that lack of power would noticeably slow them down.

A.T. wrote:
As perhaps a better comparison the Boston Dynamics 'big dog' robot - 240lbs of servos and power supply capable of carrying 340lbs over and above. If you could wear it as an exoskeleton that's a lot but it's not 'invalidate the user' levels of strength, especially when the user is a genetically engineered superman and the servos need to operate both at those strength levels and at speeds that will not compromise the agility of said superman.

Nope. We know that marines are capable of things like ripping apart tanks with only their armored hands, that's way beyond "a bit of a boost".

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

That's like designing a car with no engine and talking about how you need superior male strength to push it. It might technically be true but it's an unimaginably bad design that doesn't deserve to be called a car.

Though I suppose that could be a valid interpretation of the fluff given how stupid and self-destructive the Imperium is. Is your theory that marines need to be male because only males have sufficient strength to make the "armor" function at even a level where it can compete with that plastic knight costume from the halloween store?

Making a flexible powered suit of armor that a user can operate via neural link is not a small ask. See the other poster referencing BigDog; there's not actually that much room for hydraulic pistons to give machine press strength in power armor.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


Given that people often are not aware that they have chromosomes other than XX/XY until they have genetic tests done for some unrelated reason I stand by that assertion.

People might not know what Klinefelter's is to diagnose it, but they know something's up. Your assertion is incorrect.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


Lolwut. The context here is the space marine ability to recover MEMORIES by eating a brain.

Right, and your analogy of a hard drive is incorrect. The better analogy is if the space marine had an electromagnetic sensor on his tongue and could lick a hard drive and read the bits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
GW is inconsistent about it but usually depicts power armor as providing most of the strength of a Marine. e.g. when the power armor loses power the Marine become either unable to move around or is basically crippled.

So yes, even withing GW's own lore the power armor provides most of the strength and the user is borderline irrelevant.

Not true. Space marines in inactive power armor aren't massively weak compared, they're just hogtied, in the equivalent of full-body handcuffs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:

Mauls and sledgehammers and bicycles are human powered machines. Their power comes from human muscles and thus the stronger the human muscle the stronger the benefit.

Power armor meanwhile is reactor powered (presumably fusion). How strong the user is irrelevant to the output.

You're sidestepping around the fact that I mentioned a motor-assisted bicycle, which is a better analogy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


Nope. We know that marines are capable of things like ripping apart tanks with only their armored hands, that's way beyond "a bit of a boost".

Donwr have evidence that they can't with their bare hands? Let's see the passage.

Hecaton wrote:
Making a flexible powered suit of armor that a user can operate via neural link is not a small ask. See the other poster referencing BigDog; there's not actually that much room for hydraulic pistons to give machine press strength in power armor.

Except, again, we have examples of things like marines ripping apart tanks. That is way beyond giving a small strength boost.

Right, and your analogy of a hard drive is incorrect. The better analogy is if the space marine had an electromagnetic sensor on his tongue and could lick a hard drive and read the bits.

No, my analogy was exactly correct. Eating a brain destroys its structure and therefore destroys any information content it might possibly have had (assuming it wasn't lost when the person died).

Donwr have evidence that they can't with their bare hands? Let's see the passage.

Even as Valdor swung round to face the next foe, he glimpsed one of the Angels rip the turret from a Serpent troop carrier and fling frag-charges through the gaping holes. By the time combat was joined again, that machine was just another blackening ruin and its slayer was already racing toward his next target.

Or:

Tanks did not slow the Space Marines down. They clambered up on to them, ripped off durasteel hatches as if they were made of paper and dropped grenades into the interior.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Nope. We know that marines are capable of things like ripping apart tanks with only their armored hands, that's way beyond "a bit of a boost".

He growled with effort, pressing his fist into the metal of the wall. Alloy stretched as he forced his arm into it.
His muscles burned with the effort.
He snarled, using the pain. Real or unreal it was all fuel.
He drove shoulder deep into it, until he wore it as an armoured sleeve and gauntlet.

"Hunger" by Andy Similie. The marine was unarmoured.

Of course marines are all over the place as the plot demands. The only consistent element is that they always always are described as physically exerting themselves while performing feats of extreme strength in armour, which is not going to be the case if the armour is doing all the work.

 Tyran wrote:
GW is inconsistent about it but usually depicts power armor as providing most of the strength of a Marine. e.g. when the power armor loses power the Marine become either unable to move around or is basically crippled.

Given that the armour isn't that heavy in the scheme of things and marines are strong enough to lift and throw one another around this seems more like a 'seized engine' situation - where the unpowered muscle fibres are inflexible.

ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Lolwut. The context here is the space marine ability to recover MEMORIES by eating a brain.

I've always considered the omophagea thing to be more a psychic/warp/noosphere thing but you should know that there's actually a bit of research IRL going on for years about genetically stored memories. Animals/insects that fear things on first encounter that harmed ancestors, insects/animals that follow migratory patterns that take longer than their lifespan, etc, etc...

And ... it's in Dune, where GW likely ripped it from. The Fremen use changed water of life to access genetic memories/personalities of their ancestors in the seitch orgy. Alia gets taken over by an ancestor's personality (abomination). The ghola, pre-born, etc...etc...

A.T. wrote:
He growled with effort, pressing his fist into the metal of the wall. Alloy stretched as he forced his arm into it.
His muscles burned with the effort.
He snarled, using the pain. Real or unreal it was all fuel.
He drove shoulder deep into it, until he wore it as an armoured sleeve and gauntlet.

"Hunger" by Andy Similie. The marine was unarmoured.

Of course marines are all over the place as the plot demands. The only consistent element is that they always always are described as physically exerting themselves while performing feats of extreme strength in armour, which is not going to be the case if the armour is doing all the work.

Within the context of that story, the Marine in question was clearly trying to get into a locked fridge.
As the Snickers adverts say, you aren't you when you're hungry.

We know that marines are capable of things like ripping apart tanks

Well, you know that. I don’t hecking know that.

most films or novels that are sequels to another are informed by the previous installment, but don’t have any actual bearing on it. The play Medea doesn’t have to be the absolute last word on what happens to those characters from the voyage of the Argo, they’re each fine stories on their own. So ok maybe that happened in a codex or novel, and that’s fine within that book.

The IRL intention for 40k power armour when it was invented, is that it negates the weight of wearing heavy armour. It’s hard to have extended and fast paced infantry operations in really heavy full-body armour and the first job of power armour is to fix that.

Modern IRL soldiers also carry multiple kg of batteries to power their radios and optics. Power armour power plants are very big for a backpack but very small for a fusion generator and a lot of the mass would be there for containment. The function of the power plant is to power the HUD, vox, and life support, and to power enough metallic fiber muscles to for the armour to carry its own weight, and supply that power for months or years at a time. The strength the armour supplies is mostly like IRL exo skeletons, which are used to prevent injury when lifting heavy loads over a long period, as in its mostly in the strength of the material and distribution of load.

At their size, those backpacks are built to devolver that much wattage over a long period, not some huge amount of machine strength. They put a lot of work into making these troops muscular; they aren’t just giving them robot power armour to pilot.

 Emperors Grace wrote:

And ... it's in Dune, where GW likely ripped it from. The Fremen use changed water of life to access genetic memories/personalities of their ancestors in the seitch orgy. Alia gets taken over by an ancestor's personality (abomination). The ghola, pre-born, etc...etc...

imo it's more likely borrowed from the analeptic alzabo in The Book of the New Sun.

 Haighus wrote:
I don't think "light industrial machinery can rip a man apart" is a very good argument against a powered assist, because so can a human with a maul or slegehammer (simple machine assisting human strength).

Bicycles are another great example, in which a human is able to outperform horses with a simple mechanical assist for a very low overall weight.

However, these are multipliers- stronger humans get more benefit from the above machines.

If a powered system enhances the strength of the user by a multiplier, then it will benefit stronger users.

 Tyran wrote:
GW is inconsistent about it but usually depicts power armor as providing most of the strength of a Marine. e.g. when the power armor loses power the Marine become either unable to move around or is basically crippled.

So yes, even withing GW's own lore the power armor provides most of the strength and the user is borderline irrelevant.

I thought GW was generally consistent in showing Marines still being able to move in deactivated power armour, but it becomes an exhausting burden that is probably no longer combat effective in melee against a competent enemy. I doubt they would be significantly affected in a firefight, but mobility and stamina between fights would be affected.

Apparently MkI "Thunder" armour increased the users arm strength by 3-4 times (I presume this would be greater if there was no armour, but it may be somewhat countered by the weight of the armour plating). We also know Marine power armour is generally at least 180kg. These are both in the realm of the strength of the Marine being significant, but less than the strength of the servos. In addition, a Marine can almost certainly carry 180kg distributed over the body, although heavier suits will be more challenging (especially artificer armour).

In Devastation of Baal, Capt Irwin loses power to his suit. He can still move but the book explains he’s not rly combat effective. He is quickly nom nomed by a Carnifex.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

No, my analogy was exactly correct. Eating a brain destroys its structure and therefore destroys any information content it might possibly have had (assuming it wasn't lost when the person died).

Eating living material doesn't destroy its chemical structure; that's why eating animal protein provides protein nutrition. There's evidence to suggest memories are stored chemically, and it's theoretically possible another organism could integrate and interact with those molecules.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Even as Valdor swung round to face the next foe, he glimpsed one of the Angels rip the turret from a Serpent troop carrier and fling frag-charges through the gaping holes. By the time combat was joined again, that machine was just another blackening ruin and its slayer was already racing toward his next target.

Or:

Tanks did not slow the Space Marines down. They clambered up on to them, ripped off durasteel hatches as if they were made of paper and dropped grenades into the interior.

What is the source?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Emperors Grace wrote:

ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Lolwut. The context here is the space marine ability to recover MEMORIES by eating a brain.

I've always considered the omophagea thing to be more a psychic/warp/noosphere thing but you should know that there's actually a bit of research IRL going on for years about genetically stored memories. Animals/insects that fear things on first encounter that harmed ancestors, insects/animals that follow migratory patterns that take longer than their lifespan, etc, etc...

And ... it's in Dune, where GW likely ripped it from. The Fremen use changed water of life to access genetic memories/personalities of their ancestors in the seitch orgy. Alia gets taken over by an ancestor's personality (abomination). The ghola, pre-born, etc...etc...

Space Marines aren't portrayed as eating DNA to gain memories, but nervous tissue.

Hecaton wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

No, my analogy was exactly correct. Eating a brain destroys its structure and therefore destroys any information content it might possibly have had (assuming it wasn't lost when the person died).

Eating living material doesn't destroy its chemical structure; that's why eating animal protein provides protein nutrition. There's evidence to suggest memories are stored chemically, and it's theoretically possible another organism could integrate and interact with those molecules.

Protein is generally broken down into amino acids for digestion- an inability to absorb whole proteins is why no oral form of insulin or heparin have been developed yet. Proteins lose all function during digestion and are rendered into generic components.

However, that is irrelevant for the function of the omophagea- this samples from the preomnor, which is implanted before the stomach. The vast majority of digestion (esp. proteins) occurs from the stomach onwards, so any consumed tissue will pretty much be only chewed by the point it reaches the omophagea and will retain much of its histological structure. Marines only gain some random memories which fits with eating randomly-chewed chunks of brain.

 Emperors Grace wrote:

ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Lolwut. The context here is the space marine ability to recover MEMORIES by eating a brain.

I've always considered the omophagea thing to be more a psychic/warp/noosphere thing but you should know that there's actually a bit of research IRL going on for years about genetically stored memories. Animals/insects that fear things on first encounter that harmed ancestors, insects/animals that follow migratory patterns that take longer than their lifespan, etc, etc...

And ... it's in Dune, where GW likely ripped it from. The Fremen use changed water of life to access genetic memories/personalities of their ancestors in the seitch orgy. Alia gets taken over by an ancestor's personality (abomination). The ghola, pre-born, etc...etc...

Space Marines aren't portrayed as eating DNA to gain memories, but nervous tissue.

Unfortunately Index Astartes states it is genetic material that is sampled to access the memories. Eating nervous tissue is much more plausible.

 Haighus wrote:

Unfortunately Index Astartes states it is genetic material that is sampled to access the memories. Eating nervous tissue is much more plausible.

Other sources disagree and say it needs to be brains though.

Hecaton wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Unfortunately Index Astartes states it is genetic material that is sampled to access the memories. Eating nervous tissue is much more plausible.

Other sources disagree and say it needs to be brains though.

Which sources? It would make more sense. Although they are technically not mutually exclusive and could mean that only neural genetic material is acceptable.

 Haighus wrote:

Which sources? It would make more sense. Although they are technically not mutually exclusive and could mean that only neural genetic material is acceptable.

The rpg supplements, as well as material about how certain groups descended from the BA preserved secret knowledge by eating brains.

The Blood Angels literally just need blood. The Flesh tearers go the full distance and eat people. The Blood Knights go even further, and play with their food.

Hecaton wrote:
Eating living material doesn't destroy its chemical structure; that's why eating animal protein provides protein nutrition. There's evidence to suggest memories are stored chemically, and it's theoretically possible another organism could integrate and interact with those molecules.

Even if memories are stored chemically, those can only be interpreted using the specific neural mapping of someone's brain. And those mappings are not chemical, but due to neuron connections, a physical formation which can be destroyed by physical trauma such as concussion, let alone everything involved in ingestion. If you could drain someone's brain of those chemicals and inject them into someone else's, the recipient would not get those memories, only what their unique neural structure interpreted those chemicals as. It would be more akin to dreaming or going on an extremely strong psychedelic trip, most likely.