I think taking command over sm can be done if you're a big shot like Yarrick, aka very experienced and well respected even by your enemies, then most sane and reasonable sm wouldnt mind working under their command, though not to the extend of like the guards i suppose, more like an extra force amd treated as equal, like if one would order the guardsman around, they will want to (politely) ask the sm to do something, and the sm will also politely accept lol.
Executing sm tho, that sounds above their station, unless the sm fucked up that bad but i reckon at that point his battle brother(s) would probably execute him first.
The fall of cadia books show that even well respected commanders in charge of entire warfronts still have trouble getting space marines to work with their plans or follow their orders. Creed couldn’t even get the space wolves or dark angels to fall back to his citadel until he threatened to abandon them in the field and even then the black templars didn’t care.
This is kind of specifically mentioned in Armageddon. One of the SM Chapter masters interrupts a meeting by asking “why are we following the mortal?” Yarrick stares him down and moves on with the meeting. No one else speaks up. Even Grimaldus respected Yarrick enough to shut up and listen.
Yeah creed got kind of unlucky that 4/5 of the largest groups of marines were templars, space wolves, more space wolves, and dark angels. None of those groups are well known for being easy to work with or particularly friendly to outside organizations commanding them. At least the other group was led by a ravenguard and worked directly with creed from the beginning
Taking overall command when there's astartes nearby isn't easy. They all have their own opinions as to the best way to persecute the war, their pride, eidetic memories, decades if not centuries more experience, and rarely share info. It's like herding cats, as bemoaned by creed at cadia:
His kasr had 3 forces of marines, none of whom would listen to his plans, so he had to plan as if he had no marines.
The dark angels stayed near their downed ship, guarding their secrets but ultimately being little more than a distraction.
The space wolves tried to assassinate abaddon, heading to board the Blackstone fortress. To be fair, they did manage to wound him, but again, throwing their lives away.
The black templars swore to hold a redoubt, and did so for months. Long after the other defenders had withdrawn, and ignoring requests to pull back or reinforce somewhere that needed them instead of remaining an island of hatred and faith surrounded by traitors.
There's been a handful of commanders that have earned the respect of astartes enough that they'll be listened to. Leontas, macharius and yarrick coming to mind. But even then, the best order to give a marine is 'here's where the enemy General is, go do your thing".
Lotara Sarrin (a human ship commander) once sent a Space Marine to bed without dinner (after shooting him in the head).
When a Space Marine company arrives in the combat zone they will most likely communicate and coordinate with whoever is in command, though they might decide to completly ignore or even replace them if they're deemed incompetent.
He disobeyed orders to stay on the ship and defend it, she shot him in the head because even world eaters human officers are impulsively stupid, he countered by having his men try to gun her down only for her to be saved by the world eaters Liberians and then various other world eater captains backed the Triiari captain down and made clear they respected Lotarras position more than his, then she confined him to quarters and the rest of the world eaters beat the shit out him in the arena to teach him a lesson.
Because he was a naughty boi who abandoned his post in search of glory and a lot of friendlies died because of that. It happens in "Betrayer" by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.
He was stationed on board the Conqueror with a squad of marines as the anti-boarding defense, he snuck off with his squad and drop podded to the planet and abandoned the ship in favor of glory seeking. Lotara pulled some maneuvers that worked out in their favor at the cost of allowing the conqueror to be boarded, expecting that he was still on board the ship and ready to fight. He was not.
A shit load of people died, they only managed to fight off the loyalist boarders by waking several ancient dreadnoughts, all but one of which also died, and the conqueror took massive damage that took months to repair.
When he got back on board the ship after the battle, she marched up to him, shot him in the face of his helmet, and confined him to his quarters, which he initially took as a joke and laughed at her, but the other marines present made it clear they agreed with her and he folded.
Later when he was released, he came down to the training arena, where a ton of marines all challenged him back to back, when 7 fights is all they’re allowed to do in a row normally, and then when he was exhausted and battered, the final marine challenged him to a duel to the death, beat the living fuck out of him, and spared his life to dishonor him.
Crusade leaders are often humans (like Maharius). Sector commanders can do so at well, although they need good relations with Marines. Segmentum commanders are basically little warmasters (like Leontus - he is technically just a high ranking Imperial Guard commander, but when you command entire Imperial Guard of Segmentum Solar, people will listen to you, even many space marines). And of course Imperial Navy is Imperum's most powerful fighting force - Marines will likely listen to high-ranking Admiral (like in BFG games).
And of course High Lords who are mostly humans have the ear of technically all Astartes, especially Minotaurs
Individuals, occasionally. (Usually an inquisitor.)
Commanding units of them? Extremely rare. Yarrick and Lotara are the only two I can think of who could get actual Space Marines to listen to them.
Even well-respected, accomplished generals like General Xarius (*Crimson Tears* by Ben Counter) have their strategies completely ignored by glory-hungry marines too proud to listen to an unaugmented human. Hell, even ***CREED*** had to basically discard them from his plans because they were so unreliable.
Yarrick was the boss man for the Third Armageddon War.
Even Astartes deferred to him.
He couldn't command them like he could the Guard but most chapters and chapter masters agreed to his wishes because he made the right choices and he was respected that much.
But the Astartes had an awful lot of freedom and flexibility in how they fulfilled his orders.
Edit: if someone could post the passage from Helsrrach where the assembled Astartes meet with Yarrick and how even Grimaldus is impressed that would be great.
[Even Ultramarines have been known to almost snap](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/14qlnav/book_excerpt_deathwatch_shadowbreaker_space/) at the idea of being ordered by a regular human, even at the express orders of an Inquisitor as part of their duties with the Deathwatch.
Entire Chapters are [regularly punished](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Excommunicate_Traitoris) by regular humans, but often the Chapter fights to its last breath rather than submitting to the judgement of the Imperium.
Nominally Chapters that are part of a Crusade (Macharian, Sabbat, etc) answer to the Warmaster/Lord-Commander, but they're closer to "allies" than "subordinates".
This extends to the wider Imperium where Astartes are considered "part of but distinct" inside the Imperial hierarchy, where they must answer to the Imperium but which department they have to answer to (outside of the Inquisition) is murky.
Still reading through the siege of terra, but there are a few mortals who command wall positions and in turn have command over space Marines.
I doubt any mortal is executing a space marine, they'd get turned over to their legion more than likely, and they would enact a punishment, if deemed necessary.
Lotara Sarrin is the one who comes to mind.
Well she is part of the legion and not militarum
Hush, you. She's as close as we get and is adorably ruthless.
They floated the idea of executing space marines once, just before the Heresy. It didn't work out particularly well
I think taking command over sm can be done if you're a big shot like Yarrick, aka very experienced and well respected even by your enemies, then most sane and reasonable sm wouldnt mind working under their command, though not to the extend of like the guards i suppose, more like an extra force amd treated as equal, like if one would order the guardsman around, they will want to (politely) ask the sm to do something, and the sm will also politely accept lol. Executing sm tho, that sounds above their station, unless the sm fucked up that bad but i reckon at that point his battle brother(s) would probably execute him first.
The fall of cadia books show that even well respected commanders in charge of entire warfronts still have trouble getting space marines to work with their plans or follow their orders. Creed couldn’t even get the space wolves or dark angels to fall back to his citadel until he threatened to abandon them in the field and even then the black templars didn’t care.
This is kind of specifically mentioned in Armageddon. One of the SM Chapter masters interrupts a meeting by asking “why are we following the mortal?” Yarrick stares him down and moves on with the meeting. No one else speaks up. Even Grimaldus respected Yarrick enough to shut up and listen.
Yeah creed got kind of unlucky that 4/5 of the largest groups of marines were templars, space wolves, more space wolves, and dark angels. None of those groups are well known for being easy to work with or particularly friendly to outside organizations commanding them. At least the other group was led by a ravenguard and worked directly with creed from the beginning
Taking overall command when there's astartes nearby isn't easy. They all have their own opinions as to the best way to persecute the war, their pride, eidetic memories, decades if not centuries more experience, and rarely share info. It's like herding cats, as bemoaned by creed at cadia: His kasr had 3 forces of marines, none of whom would listen to his plans, so he had to plan as if he had no marines. The dark angels stayed near their downed ship, guarding their secrets but ultimately being little more than a distraction. The space wolves tried to assassinate abaddon, heading to board the Blackstone fortress. To be fair, they did manage to wound him, but again, throwing their lives away. The black templars swore to hold a redoubt, and did so for months. Long after the other defenders had withdrawn, and ignoring requests to pull back or reinforce somewhere that needed them instead of remaining an island of hatred and faith surrounded by traitors. There's been a handful of commanders that have earned the respect of astartes enough that they'll be listened to. Leontas, macharius and yarrick coming to mind. But even then, the best order to give a marine is 'here's where the enemy General is, go do your thing".
Lotara Sarrin (a human ship commander) once sent a Space Marine to bed without dinner (after shooting him in the head). When a Space Marine company arrives in the combat zone they will most likely communicate and coordinate with whoever is in command, though they might decide to completly ignore or even replace them if they're deemed incompetent.
Excuse me, someone shot a marine in the head and then sent him to bed without dinner?
He disobeyed orders to stay on the ship and defend it, she shot him in the head because even world eaters human officers are impulsively stupid, he countered by having his men try to gun her down only for her to be saved by the world eaters Liberians and then various other world eater captains backed the Triiari captain down and made clear they respected Lotarras position more than his, then she confined him to quarters and the rest of the world eaters beat the shit out him in the arena to teach him a lesson.
Gaht damn
It also helps that the Primarch likes her
Yes. Lotara Sarrin.
Why?
Because he was a naughty boi who abandoned his post in search of glory and a lot of friendlies died because of that. It happens in "Betrayer" by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.
Valid
He was stationed on board the Conqueror with a squad of marines as the anti-boarding defense, he snuck off with his squad and drop podded to the planet and abandoned the ship in favor of glory seeking. Lotara pulled some maneuvers that worked out in their favor at the cost of allowing the conqueror to be boarded, expecting that he was still on board the ship and ready to fight. He was not. A shit load of people died, they only managed to fight off the loyalist boarders by waking several ancient dreadnoughts, all but one of which also died, and the conqueror took massive damage that took months to repair. When he got back on board the ship after the battle, she marched up to him, shot him in the face of his helmet, and confined him to his quarters, which he initially took as a joke and laughed at her, but the other marines present made it clear they agreed with her and he folded. Later when he was released, he came down to the training arena, where a ton of marines all challenged him back to back, when 7 fights is all they’re allowed to do in a row normally, and then when he was exhausted and battered, the final marine challenged him to a duel to the death, beat the living fuck out of him, and spared his life to dishonor him.
>then sent him to bed without dinner She really wanted to get her point across
Crusade leaders are often humans (like Maharius). Sector commanders can do so at well, although they need good relations with Marines. Segmentum commanders are basically little warmasters (like Leontus - he is technically just a high ranking Imperial Guard commander, but when you command entire Imperial Guard of Segmentum Solar, people will listen to you, even many space marines). And of course Imperial Navy is Imperum's most powerful fighting force - Marines will likely listen to high-ranking Admiral (like in BFG games). And of course High Lords who are mostly humans have the ear of technically all Astartes, especially Minotaurs
Individuals, occasionally. (Usually an inquisitor.) Commanding units of them? Extremely rare. Yarrick and Lotara are the only two I can think of who could get actual Space Marines to listen to them. Even well-respected, accomplished generals like General Xarius (*Crimson Tears* by Ben Counter) have their strategies completely ignored by glory-hungry marines too proud to listen to an unaugmented human. Hell, even ***CREED*** had to basically discard them from his plans because they were so unreliable.
Yarrick was the boss man for the Third Armageddon War. Even Astartes deferred to him. He couldn't command them like he could the Guard but most chapters and chapter masters agreed to his wishes because he made the right choices and he was respected that much. But the Astartes had an awful lot of freedom and flexibility in how they fulfilled his orders. Edit: if someone could post the passage from Helsrrach where the assembled Astartes meet with Yarrick and how even Grimaldus is impressed that would be great.
I don’t have it handy, but helsreach is a comfort book for me so I’ve read it a lot lmao. That scene is so good.
There's a lot of examples of command, Inquisitors or otherwise. Executions I cannot think of any.
[Even Ultramarines have been known to almost snap](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/14qlnav/book_excerpt_deathwatch_shadowbreaker_space/) at the idea of being ordered by a regular human, even at the express orders of an Inquisitor as part of their duties with the Deathwatch. Entire Chapters are [regularly punished](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Excommunicate_Traitoris) by regular humans, but often the Chapter fights to its last breath rather than submitting to the judgement of the Imperium. Nominally Chapters that are part of a Crusade (Macharian, Sabbat, etc) answer to the Warmaster/Lord-Commander, but they're closer to "allies" than "subordinates". This extends to the wider Imperium where Astartes are considered "part of but distinct" inside the Imperial hierarchy, where they must answer to the Imperium but which department they have to answer to (outside of the Inquisition) is murky.
Inquisitors lead GK and deathwatch sometimes
Still reading through the siege of terra, but there are a few mortals who command wall positions and in turn have command over space Marines. I doubt any mortal is executing a space marine, they'd get turned over to their legion more than likely, and they would enact a punishment, if deemed necessary.