#astartes

Bird dad.

Like yeah they're taken from their families and subjected to horrific extensive surgeries/indoctrination beginning at a very young age, this is true. But the entire process takes years, so even though it starts at 11-12 years old, they have to wait until around 15 for the surgeries to take before they begin training and then they only graduate from the neophyte stage to become true Astartes with interface ports and shit around 18. So all of the Astartes we're seeing are fully grown, we're not seeing 13 year olds who just happen to appear fully grown, as some people seem to think.

The definition of a child soldier is anyone recruited for war under the age of 18, for sure, but I do feel like the term doesn't really accurately reflect the Astartes process; real world child soldiers like in the Congo are being recruited AND thrown into war high out of their minds on amphetamines at like 9, they're not entered into an almost decade long process first.

You know what it is like, though? The K-Pop idol recruitment and training system.

It aligns perfectly: taken away from their families when they're recruited as young as 10-12, put through a grueling training and preparation process, not everyone graduates from the training process but if you do it's around 18 years old, then you "ascend" to idol status and are exploited as a sentient product until your body gives out. Plus it's widely regarded as a dream come true for aspirants, but the reality is pretty much just indentured servitude where you aren't really allowed a life or sense of personhood outside of your job.

But I kinda wish he was the equivalent of Fulgrim's 16-year-old blind dog that bums everyone out when it limps into the room, can't eat without making "HOOORRRRKKHHT" noises, and everyone's commenting on how fucked up it is Fulgrim hasn't put him down yet behind his back, meanwhile Fulgrims like "Heyy there's my guyyy, look at him go. He's doing great since Bile sewed his head back on and we added glucosamine to his diet, you can't even tell"

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