From the outset of his re-taking of Terra, the Emperor genetically modified warriors within his forces and in these early enhanced troops lay the origins of what would later become the Space Marine Legions. Terra under the Old Night had seen more than its fair share of augments and 'super'?soldiers created both from bio-alchemy and cyber-augmentation, and as early as the 25th Millennium the Horiax Treatise mentions the use of bioenhancements in the wars of Ancient Earth. Since that time gene-breeds, war-wights and ironsides had all carved their bloody names in history as part of the incessant conflict between the techno-barbarian tribes and city-states of Old Earth as war raged unabated for thousands of years. But it was the Emperor's own Thunder Warriors—named for the thunderbolt and raptor's head heraldry of their master—that were to prove superior to them all. A gestalt mix of unprecedented superhuman physical power, gene-programmed resistance to environment and even psychic attack, warlike spirit and the Emperors own strategic genius, the Thunder Regiments were an army unlike any that had come before them, and the forces of the powerful tyrants of Earth had nothing to match them. But despite their many early victories in the Unification Wars,the?Thunder Warriors were far from perfect. Some?were mentally unstable, others suffered?catastrophic biological failure after an?unpredictable?span of years, their own superhuman physiques?turning against in the end. As the Remembrancer Dolvar?put it: Alas for them, the warriors of caged thunder?and with whom?lightning smote,they have?burned the brightest in glory, but burned brief.?

從收復(fù)泰拉的開始階段，帝皇就在他的軍隊(duì)中使用基因改造戰(zhàn)士，星際戰(zhàn)士軍團(tuán)也起源于這些強(qiáng)化部隊(duì)。舊夜時(shí)期的泰拉已經(jīng)見證了過多的由生物煉金術(shù)和義體植入所創(chuàng)造出的強(qiáng)化造物和“超級(jí)”士兵 而且早在第25個(gè)千年，《霍利亞斯著錄》中就提到古老地球的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)中使用了生化增強(qiáng)戰(zhàn)士。從此，隨著戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)有增無減地進(jìn)行了數(shù)千年之久，基因培植術(shù)士、戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)亡靈師和鐵甲武士們都參與到了舊地球上科技野蠻人部落與城邦國(guó)家間無休止的沖突，他們都在歷史上留下了自己血腥的名諱。但只有帝皇的雷霆戰(zhàn)士們（這些戰(zhàn)士們因自己主人的雷霆與猛禽鷹首紋章而得名）被證明冠絕群雄。這些戰(zhàn)士完形地融合了前所未有的超人類身體力量、對(duì)于環(huán)境甚至靈能攻擊的基因調(diào)整耐性、好戰(zhàn)的秉性與帝皇本人的戰(zhàn)略天才，雷霆戰(zhàn)士團(tuán)是一支前無古人的軍隊(duì)，地球上的強(qiáng)大暴君們的部隊(duì)也無法匹敵他們。但盡管他們?cè)诮y(tǒng)一戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)時(shí)期取得了許多早期勝利，雷霆戰(zhàn)士也遠(yuǎn)非完美。某些人精神不穩(wěn)定，其他人則在（經(jīng)過）不可預(yù)測(cè)的數(shù)年時(shí)間后出現(xiàn)了糟糕的生理惡化，他們的超人體質(zhì)最終也變得虛弱崩壞，就像記述者道瓦爾所記錄得那樣：唉，他們（曾）是困住雷霆的戰(zhàn)士，痛擊閃電的勇者，他們?nèi)紵鼕Z取了最為璀璨的榮耀，但他們?nèi)紵臅r(shí)間也如此短暫。

It seems obvious in retrospect that the Emperor knew early on that a more permanent and stable force of enhanced warriors was needed, so even while the Thunder Warriors waged war in their early days the?Emperor gathered about him a team?of savants and gene-wrights，some willing and others as captives taken from his foes, and constructed new genetics laboratories deep in the vast dungeons of his?Terran fortress. Labour here went on for?decades in absolute secrecy and here was first created the Primarchs and the?wonders of gene-craft known and unknown, and foremost of these were theLegiones Asrartes. Into their creation went?all the secret history and lore of the Age of Strife, hard wisdom gained through the?successes and failures of the Thunder Warriors?who were their prototype and the Emperor's own inimitable genius. The first?among them were hand-picked men from the Emperor's personal bodyguard. These volunteers were subjected to surgical, genetic and psychological modification.With rigorous training and appropriate mental conditioning they became not only immensely strong and tough, but iron- willed and disciplined, an unstoppable force whose loyalty to the Emperor was unflinching. Quickly the process was refined and systematised, and the numbers of these new enhanced warriors, at first armed and armoured as the Thunder Warriors had been, grew swiftly and they were organised into twenty distinct regiments numbering at first no more than a few hundred warriors each. Although it remained a dire secret at the time, it is now widely believed that this division was more than a merely administrative one,as each regiment contained variant 'gene-seed'?encoding drawn from a different primogenitor Primarch. This often manifested its influence in subtle and unexpected ways, not least of all in influencing the psychological character of the remade and enhanced warrior. With the regiments expanding rapidly into Legions with the intake of new blood from the areas Terra that had already joined cause with the Emperor, the new warriors quickly eclipsed and replaced the mighty but far less disciplined and unstable Thunder Warriors and victory followed victory in quick succession. As time went on the regiments became Legions as the Emperor recruited men from amongst the newly conquered tribes of Old Earth and hundreds swiftly became tens of thousands. These superhuman troops dominated the Wars of Unification, easily defeating all their Terran opponents and forcing the Techpriests of Mars to sue for peace. They fought with righteous zeal and it was they who first referred to their mission as a 'Crusade' and by their efforts for the first time in unrecorded millennia the Earth was united under the rule of one man.

從事后來看，很明顯帝皇似乎早就知道自己需要一支更為長(zhǎng)久穩(wěn)定的強(qiáng)化戰(zhàn)士部隊(duì)，所以早在雷霆戰(zhàn)士們發(fā)動(dòng)戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的同時(shí)，帝皇就聚集起了一群學(xué)者和基因工匠——有些人是自愿的，其他人則是被帝皇的部隊(duì)所俘獲，并在泰拉要塞的巨大地牢中建造了一座新的基因?qū)嶒?yàn)室。此地的實(shí)驗(yàn)在絕密的情況下持續(xù)了數(shù)十年，研究者們首先創(chuàng)造出了基因原體和各種已知未知的基因工程奇跡，而其中最重要的成就便是阿斯塔特軍團(tuán)戰(zhàn)士。他們的創(chuàng)造融入了紛爭(zhēng)紀(jì)元的所有隱秘歷史和知識(shí)、從雷霆戰(zhàn)士（他們是阿斯塔特戰(zhàn)士的原型）的成功和失敗中獲取的艱深智慧與帝皇本人無與倫比的智慧。第一批阿斯塔特戰(zhàn)士是從帝皇本人的衛(wèi)隊(duì)中親手挑選出來的人選，這批志愿者接受了外科手術(shù)、基因和精神上的改造。通過嚴(yán)格的訓(xùn)練與適當(dāng)?shù)木裾{(diào)控，他們不僅身體變得極其強(qiáng)壯堅(jiān)韌，而且擁有了鋼鐵般的意志與紀(jì)律性，這股忠誠于帝皇的力量堅(jiān)定不移、勢(shì)不可擋。改造過程很快就被改良和系統(tǒng)化，起初，許多這些按照雷霆戰(zhàn)士的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)進(jìn)行武裝的新型強(qiáng)化戰(zhàn)士們快速成長(zhǎng)，他們被組建成二十個(gè)獨(dú)立的團(tuán)，每個(gè)團(tuán)最初的人數(shù)都不超過數(shù)百名戰(zhàn)士。盡管阿斯塔特團(tuán)在當(dāng)時(shí)依舊保持著高度機(jī)密，但人們普遍相信這種區(qū)分方式并不僅僅是一種行政操作，因?yàn)槊總€(gè)團(tuán)都保有了來自不同始祖基因原體的各種“基因種子”編碼。這一事實(shí)經(jīng)常以微妙和意想不到的方式表現(xiàn)出它的影響，尤其是在影響改造和增強(qiáng)戰(zhàn)士的心理特征方面。隨著從已經(jīng)加入帝皇事業(yè)的泰拉區(qū)域補(bǔ)充了新鮮血液，星際戰(zhàn)士團(tuán)快速擴(kuò)張為星際戰(zhàn)士軍團(tuán)，這些新戰(zhàn)士很快就使強(qiáng)大但遠(yuǎn)為缺乏紀(jì)律性且不穩(wěn)定的雷霆戰(zhàn)士相形見絀，并最終取而代之，一場(chǎng)又一場(chǎng)的勝利也接踵而至。隨著時(shí)間流逝，帝皇在新近被征服的舊地球部落中征召士兵，數(shù)百之眾的星際戰(zhàn)士團(tuán)也快速發(fā)展為數(shù)萬之眾的星際戰(zhàn)士軍團(tuán)。這些超人部隊(duì)支配了統(tǒng)一戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)（的走向），他們輕松擊敗了泰拉上的所有對(duì)手，并且迫使火星的科技神甫們向帝皇請(qǐng)求和平。他們懷著義憤進(jìn)行征戰(zhàn)，也正是他們第一次將自己的任務(wù)稱為“遠(yuǎn)征”。通過星際戰(zhàn)士們的努力，在沒有記錄的千年里，地球第一次統(tǒng)一在一個(gè)人的統(tǒng)治之下。

Crusade and Expansion

遠(yuǎn)征和擴(kuò)張

The unity of the Sol system under the Emperor proved the second great catalyst for the expansion both in numbers and capabilities of what? were now being referred to as the Space Marine Legions, and confirmed their destiny as the principal fighting force by which the Emperor would liberate the galaxy from the predation of the alien and the malignancy of superstition and oppression. That there is such a strong link between the Primarchs and their Legion suggests that they were crucial in the Invention of the Space Marines. Certainly the Space Marines share genetic material and some physical and mental traits with their Primarch. So strong is this link that as the Primarchs were encountered in turn they became the natural and obvious leader of the Legion with whom they had so much in common. In many cases the Primarch's adopted world became the new base of operations for their Legion and they were known henceforth as the Legion's homeworld, the Primarchs recruiting their loyal followers from its people into the ranks of their Legion while others were given rights to draw fresh blood from suitable warlike worlds liberated as the Crusade progressed. This served in fact to head-off an impending crisis that was not widely known of at the time outside of the exalted ranks of the Council—the diminishing stability of the gene-seed itself through over use and the increasing need for ever greater numbers of Space Marines in the field. This was a matter that only worsened as the Great Crusade pushed on ever wider afield into the galaxy. Forces could no longer be concentrated as easily as before, and attrition was taking its toll as years of near-constant battle became decades. To relent the pace of the Crusades progress was for the Emperor simply not an option and so the simple truth was that more Space Marines were needed and faster than before. A secret conclave of gene-wrights under the Emperor's direct supervision posited the solution that became known as Grabiya's Theorem, which demonstrared that a Primarch's genetic code could be used to stabilise and expand gene-seed stocks with what was hoped to be 'minimal deviation'. Alongside this accelerated gene-culturing techniques previously unavailable were put into effect, reducing processing time to create a battle-worthy Space Marine to a single year in some cases. Such accelerated gene-seed techniques, along with absent, inadequate or over-forceful psycho-indoctrination techniques were later found to have unseen fundamental flaws. Many since have come to believe that the drive to create larger Legions at speed had a prime role in the degradation in the sanity and physiological make-up of certain Legions and paved the way for the horror that was to come.

太陽系在帝皇治下的統(tǒng)一被證明是這些現(xiàn)在被稱為星際戰(zhàn)士軍團(tuán)的超人部隊(duì)在數(shù)量和軍事武力上擴(kuò)張的第二種重要催化劑，這一事件也確認(rèn)了星際戰(zhàn)士軍團(tuán)的宿命：他們是一支主力戰(zhàn)斗部隊(duì)，帝皇將會(huì)憑借著他們把銀河系從異星人的掠食和惡毒的迷信與壓迫中解放出來。原體和他們的軍團(tuán)之間存在著一種極其強(qiáng)烈的聯(lián)系，他們對(duì)于星際戰(zhàn)士的創(chuàng)造都很關(guān)鍵。星際戰(zhàn)士們確實(shí)與原體們共享著基因物質(zhì)和某些生理與精神上的特質(zhì)。這種聯(lián)系是如此的強(qiáng)烈，以至于在原體們與各軍團(tuán)依次相遇后，他們就成為了這些與自己有諸多共通之處的軍團(tuán)自然而明確的領(lǐng)袖。在很多情況中，原體定居的世界會(huì)成為軍團(tuán)的運(yùn)作基地，這些世界從此會(huì)被稱為軍團(tuán)母星。原體們會(huì)從母星人民中征召忠誠的追隨者們加入軍團(tuán)的部隊(duì)，同時(shí)其他軍團(tuán)會(huì)被給予在大遠(yuǎn)征所解放的合適的尚武世界上補(bǔ)充新鮮血液的權(quán)力。事實(shí)上，這些舉措有助于阻止一場(chǎng)迫在眉睫的危機(jī)，而且這次危機(jī)僅為泰拉議會(huì)中那些最為位高權(quán)重的成員所知——基因種子本身的穩(wěn)定性在由于過度使用而下降，而戰(zhàn)況對(duì)于更大量星際戰(zhàn)士的需求在增加。隨著大遠(yuǎn)征向著更廣闊的銀河系推進(jìn)，這一情況只會(huì)惡化。帝國(guó)不能再像之前那樣輕松地集中力量，而且隨著幾乎不斷的戰(zhàn)斗從幾年延長(zhǎng)為幾十年，傷亡也在緩慢增加。對(duì)帝皇而言，減緩大遠(yuǎn)征步伐根本就不是一個(gè)可選可不選的選項(xiàng)，簡(jiǎn)單的事實(shí)就是：相比于之前，帝國(guó)需要更多的星際戰(zhàn)士，而且需求更為急迫。在帝皇的直接監(jiān)督下，一個(gè)由基因工匠組成的秘密團(tuán)隊(duì)提出了被后世稱為格拉比亞定理的解決方案，該理論證明原體的基因編碼可用于以“最小偏差”穩(wěn)定和擴(kuò)大基因種子庫存。伴隨著以前無法實(shí)現(xiàn)的基因加速培育技術(shù)的應(yīng)用，某些情況下創(chuàng)造一名能夠戰(zhàn)斗的星際戰(zhàn)士的時(shí)間被減少到一年。這種加速（培育）基因種子技術(shù)，以及有缺陷、不充分或過分有力的心理灌輸技術(shù)，后來被發(fā)現(xiàn)具有不可見的根本缺陷。從那以后，許多人開始相信：快速創(chuàng)建更大軍團(tuán)的沖動(dòng)在某些軍團(tuán)的理智和生理退化問題中發(fā)揮了主要作用，并為即將到來的恐怖事件鋪平了道路。

Process of initiation

植入程序

A Space Marine of the Legiones Astartes is transformed from mere hunun frailty by a threefold process of genetic manipulanon,surgical augmentation and psycho-conditioning that in ideal circumstances takes place over a number of years over the course of the individual's adolescence. That the process is conducted while the subject body is undergoing maturation represents the highest chance of survivability and the lowest chance of tissue rejection, and although (at least partial) enhancement with adult subjects is possible, it is extremely dangerous and often unpredictable in result. The process by which Space Marines are created relies inherently on the hormonal and biological make-up of the human male, meaning that only males can?be subjected to the transformation. In practice only a small percentage of potential candidates will for one reason or another be regarded as suitable either because of genetic, environmental or psychological factors. The resultant Space Marine is in many ways no longer functionally human, but in others massively advantaged in terms of physical strength, durability and reflexes over even the most physically adept unaugmented human warrior. Their bodies are also phenomenally efficient biological engines,resistant to disease, contamination, radiation and poison. In addition they are also all but impervious to the natural consequences of aging and cell decay to the extent that other than by extreme physical trauma or incremental toxin and contaminate damage, they may in fact be functionally immortal or at least have life spans far beyond that of the human stock from which they were taken.

阿斯塔特軍團(tuán)的星際戰(zhàn)士是由普通人類經(jīng)過基因操縱、手術(shù)增強(qiáng)和精神調(diào)控的三重改造過程轉(zhuǎn)化而出，在理想的情況下，受試者會(huì)在自己青春期的數(shù)年時(shí)間中經(jīng)歷整個(gè)改造過程。在進(jìn)行改造過程的同時(shí)，受試者的身體也正在成熟，這代表了最高的存活機(jī)會(huì)和最低的組織排斥可能性。盡管對(duì)成年人進(jìn)行強(qiáng)化改造（至少在部分上）是可能的，這這個(gè)過程通常極其危險(xiǎn)，而且結(jié)果不可預(yù)料。創(chuàng)造星際戰(zhàn)士的程序在本質(zhì)上是依賴于人類男性的荷爾蒙和生物構(gòu)成，這意味著只有人類男性能夠接受轉(zhuǎn)化。在實(shí)際情況中，只有少部分潛在候選人由于基因、環(huán)境或心理要素被認(rèn)為是合適的。由此創(chuàng)造出的星際戰(zhàn)士在很多方面都不再是普通人類，他們的體力、耐力和反應(yīng)力相比于那些身法技能最為熟練的未改造戰(zhàn)士都更占優(yōu)勢(shì)。他們的身體也是非凡高效的生化引擎，你抵抗疾病、污染、輻射和毒素。另外，他們也幾乎不受衰老和細(xì)胞衰變的自然影響，除非遭受極端的物理創(chuàng)傷或遞增的毒素和污染損傷（否則他們不會(huì)死亡）。事實(shí)上，他們的機(jī)能或許是不朽的，或者他們的壽命至少遠(yuǎn)超他們所脫胎自的凡人。