User blog comment:EliteHawks123/Space Marines(not the game..)/@comment-4206721-20110812115432/@comment-4206721-20110812115939

Thematicaly, space marines are angelic-warrior-knights. They are the ultimate embodyment of war as prosecuted by the imperium of man, bred to destroy its enemies with bolter and blade. Hate, and agression are bred into them, trained into them, conditioned into them, that they become weapons in the literal, not metaphorical sense.

An Astartes, is the "man with rifle" taken to it's most logical extreme. Most citizens of the imperium will live and die have never seen a real marine, to the teeming trillions of citizens they are warrior gods who can crush battle tanks with their fists and kill armies in the blink of an eye.