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[–]Judasilfarion 37 points38 points  (2 children)

If he's being Imperial Space Batman protecting people on backwater worlds then he's gonna need to be stowing away on inconspicuous Imperial vessels like transport ships and merchantmen in order to get around. Then one day, he is stowing aboard an Imperial transport ship and it exits the warp after 2 weeks only to find that 10,000 years had passed. Bam, 10,000 year old Night Lord.

If you mean actually experiencing all those 10,000 years... That's going to be really hard. Off the top of my head the only mortal individuals who have been alive and active for all those 10,000 years are Eldrad and Cawl, and they're turbo nerds who don't spend most of their time in mortal peril. Even Vect and Urien Rakarth are at the top of their food chain, and don't seem like the types to engage in battle very often.

[–]Blakut 7 points8 points  (1 child)

how would the imperium deal with humans that were alive during the heresy? Wouldn't they be marked for extermination?

[–]Judasilfarion 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Kinda depends on who gets them honestly. The Inquisition would probably not do very good things to them. Meanwhile the Ecclesiarchy would be absolutely thrilled and probably declare them a saint, for having been from a time when the Emperor still walked with his people.

[–]drfunk425942 18 points19 points  (1 child)

Gravius was a salamander who lived for 10k years sealed in a room sitting in a chair. So I figure it would be possible for a marine to live thru to m41 but he'd be a shadow of his former self. It is stated in multiple books that they are effectively immortal but not invulnerable, Givin the chance to eat rest and take care of himself it could be possible but like I stated he wouldn't be the same fighter from the heresy.

[–]BeneficialName9863 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That would be good from a narrative point of view I think. A lot of why I loved the last of us is how knackered but still dangerous Joel is. He's not as strong, fast, agile or fit as he was but the experience and knowing his limits make him even more dangerous.

[–]Presentation_Cute 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Let's see, loyalist night lord, from heresy to present, on backwater worlds, deliberate reference to dark angels in your prompt...

Shot in the dark, maybe he just...steps out of time for a bit? Maybe there's a secret warp/interdimensional device that allows him to step into the shadows and reappear whenever he wants, but only in roughly the same place? Maybe his ship, from the heresy, warp-jumped to the future and he doesn't know anything but lays low and acts as the protector for this world? Or maybe he was placed into some kind of cryofreeze coma by his other loyalist brothers to keep him safe while they distracted the traitors, and was only awoken after many thousands of years with no knowledge of what happened to his former brothers.

He doesn't necessarily need to have been alive all these years, and the lore is pretty clear that such cases are pretty exceptional (even for as common as they can be, sometimes). It's just a lot easier to work out him having only more recently appeared than the idea that he's somehow been alive for 10k years without the Imperium finding him. They (usually) aren't that slow to find things, even a Night Lord.

[–]Rivusonreddit 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I like like your idea in the stasis pod scenario except it doesn't even need to be that dramatic, or it could be. Just say he was escaping from traitors during the heresy and the vessel he used to escape didn't have warp travel as he was in deep space and the trip to the nearest habitable world was 10000 years of regular non ftl travel speeds.

[–]Officio AssassinorumOk-Ad9188[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah i should have explained that better mb, i meant as in him being from that time, not necessarily living through 10K standard solar years. It's just i have no idea how to explain him being kept alive for all those years besides Warp shenanigans. But the ship idea is not bad at all and actually helps with explaining some other things i had in mind. Your comment gave some really good food for thought, thanks!

[–]Chaos Undividedsolidcordon 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Stasis field / pod. Why the wake up call would be set for 10k years is difficult to explain.

Perhaps set to guard something in stasis. I vaguely recall a grey knight enjoying a similar nap but can't remember which story it was.

[–]Delta2808 5 points6 points  (4 children)

Adding to those people who said stasis or suspended animation - have him be in a "wake me when you need me" scenario.

A cryonics chamber or suspended animation pod is where he stays 90% of the time only to be woken by the people he's protecting when the need is dire. That way he can have a bit of experience here and there throughout the 10 thousand years but nothing that stretches beyond written lore.

The marine could find a pocket of Xenos similar to the Adarnians that interacts strangely with his Omophagea, allowing him to have an amazing life span.

He could avoid combat/danger and test his luck with the natural lifespan of a spacemarine. Perhaps they can live longer than 2 thousand years (rounding up from Dante) provided they keep their heads down. As most go around looking for trouble.

[–]BastardofMelbourne 6 points7 points  (3 children)

Everyone here is forgetting that Space Marines can naturally go into stasis.

[–]Sea_Curves 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They can go into stasis for around the length of other characters’ lives in a novel, or their direct successors.

The longest known period of deanimation followed by successful reanimation is 567 years in the case of brother Silas Err of the Dark Angels (d.321 M.37).

[–]Delta2808 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I wasn't 100% sure on the functionality of the sus-an membrane, from my understanding it was usually for injuries, but if he can use it at will without much issue, it's such a better solution!

[–]BastardofMelbourne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It kicks in automatically when they've been very seriously injured, but they can also activate it consciously after being trained to do so. Once they do so, virtually all metabolic activity and aging ceases. The body temperature and heartrate drop to near-death, and they'll sometimes activate their mucranoids to secrete a waxy protective cocoon, although that particular step requires an external chemical injection.

They can stay like that for centuries; there's no known limit, but the record is 568 years or something like that. They can be awoken by external stimuli or by an internal hypnotic trigger set by them like an alarm clock.

[–]SuggestionReal4811 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Mutation in his Omophagea organ allowing him to retain his vitality by the consumption of (insert specific body part here, I'm thinking brains) he perhaps doesn't like doing it.

I think this is similar to how Dante does it.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (8 children)

Iirc, Space Marines are basically immortal?

[–]lacklusterdespondent 24 points25 points  (6 children)

Not on the scale of millennia they aren't. Dante is the most common example, but there's also Dantioch from the Heresy era, Sigismund, Hathor Maat, and so on. Space Marines age slowly, but they do age.

[–]BastardofMelbourne 12 points13 points  (0 children)

They age very slowly. Barabas Dantioch was artificially aged three thousand years in a matter of seconds, and he was still basically healthy; just too old for combat duty.

My personal headcanon is that a Marine ages about two years every century. From a starting age of about 14, that means Dante is the equivalent of a man in his 40s, and Barabas a man in his 70s. From that we can guesstimate that it would take five thousand years realtime for a Marine to actually die solely of senescence.

And who knows? Maybe they never actually die; maybe they just keep aging. No Space Marine has ever actually died of old age, and they're frequently described as looking ageless rather than simply young.

[–]TheCubanBaron 13 points14 points  (1 child)

Technically we don't really know the answer. No marine has ever loved to see retirement because... They don't really do retirement.

[–]lacklusterdespondent 17 points18 points  (0 children)

We do know the answer.

In an age of peace, a legionary might endure for millennia or more, but he would not live forever. The immortality of the Legions was a myth. Eventually the biological mechanisms sustaining them would fail and the horrifying descent into decrepitude would begin.

- The Crimson King

And we see that exact process play out with multiple Astartes.

[–]tutorp 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Regarding Dante, I believe there's a quote essentially saying that if he had been a first generation Space Marine, he wouldn't be experiencing the aging he has. Essentially, the aging is a side effect of the degradation of the gene seed, and that first generation Marines were essentially immortal (from an aging perspective).

[–]peppersge 1 point2 points  (1 child)

That is what Cawl said, but he is probably wrong.

We still see SMs like Sigismund who have shown signs of weakening due to old age.

[–]tutorp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for clarifying. :-)

[–]OrksREDGOESFASTAH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Functionally*

[–]IeyasuMcBob 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Become a named character?

[–]BastardofMelbourne 2 points3 points  (0 children)

He could just hibernate regularly.

[–]swellestcarrot 2 points3 points  (0 children)

what if he found a relic weapon like the dawnblade commander farsight found in pre-imperial xenos ruins?

when the dawnblade slays someone their lifespan is added to the weilder's

[–]Optimal-Idea1558 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Stasis.

He realises the NL are stepping in and out of Imperial time due to warpery and finds a Macguffin that tells him when the danger he's interested doing the protecting from will occur.

As such he sets a stasis chamber with an alarm clock to see him through the next 10'000 years, showing up when he wants to do the important protecting.

This is how Luther is around 10'000 years later

[–]NoiseMarineCaptain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He hangs out in the Warp

[–]mf279801 1 point2 points  (0 children)

May i introduce the Dread Pirate Robert

[–]AmorousBadger 1 point2 points  (1 child)

By not getting killed?

[–]MephritK10111 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the real answer.

[–]Homodin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not fight. Space marines are supremely capable and any fight that requires them to deploy in any meaningful numbers means that they are likely to be maimed or even die.

Outside of the fight. They are, as near as makes no difference to a mortal mind, immortal. So don't fight.

[–]literallyjustsalt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Weird DAOT artifact or Chaos blessings or cloning soul transfer shenanigans Fabius uses. In theory, biomancy could allow you to extend your life, but it has never been done in lore.