How Space Marines are Created - Warhammer 40k Reaction

Ah, the recruitment process for the Space Marines is a wonderful source of grimdarkness that would make Joseph Kony blush. Like how the Blood Angels make their aspirants play out trotting across the Mojave, stand in the sun all day, take another long hike then fight to the death until only 50 are left. Those are then made to stand a 72 hour wake, with those who fail being taken away to what is likely not a pleasant fate. The survivors are then given a sip of the blood of a space marine mixed with the most miniscule amount of Sanguinius' blood, then they are locked in a coffin for a year. Those who don't go insane from the visions of blood and rage emerge from the coffin (which I like to think makes a DING sound like a microwave once the aspirant's ready) having turned from a Fallout NPC (the Blood Angels homeworld is NOT a nice place) into a Pillar Man. Or there's Belial, the First Captain of the Dark Angels. When he was eleven he competed in the tournament to be selected for Dark Angel initiation in a suit of armor he stole (because his father had forbidden him from competing). When Belial won he was told to remove his helmet by the Dark Angels chaplain, to which Belial told the marine that he'd rather fight him. So this space marine threw hands with a prepubescent boy, and Belial lasted seven minutes before losing. Of course he was recruited on the spot. And when Belial finally became a full marine the first thing he did was challenge the chaplain to a rematch, which Belial won in under a minute. Sure a chaplain won't fight to kill against an eleven year old, but still. And then there's the story of Marneus Augustus Calgar himself. Young Calgar was from a noble family, and they wanted to give their kid a leg up by having him train with a failed aspirant. So young Calgar took his helot Tacitan and two friends along for training... only for the trainer to turn out to have fallen to Khorne. Whoops. The two friends got corrupted by the guy, and they managed to actually kill Calgar before being taken out by Tacitan. The young boy decided to take the name of the only person who ever treated him right, transforming Tacitan into one of the most celebrated space marines the galaxy has ever seen. No word on what the Calgar family thought about all this. Finally, the fate of those who have failed. Some become the loyal and valued servants of the chapter and its most influential members. Some just become the waiting and cleaning staff. And some, fortunately in several cases until after their deaths, become something else. They become interred in the Skyspear missiles fired by the Hunter anti-air vehicle, using their brain matter as the targeting systems for these powerful missiles. Yes, your final act of loyalty is to blast a Bloodthirster out of the sky. Exactly how you can use the brains of a dead person to fly a missile is unknown, maybe the missile's machine spirit uses the extra RAM to fly better. And yes, when this bit of lore was introduced it was met to an all but unanimous "what on earth is GW smoking and where can I get some".

Beriorn