Robocat

goals_on_dw

Right, so for those who aren't familiar with Warhammer (aka normal decent folks) there are these things called Space Marines.  They're humans who have been augmented with biological enhancements which sound exactly like the most poorly thought out nonsense a bunch of dudes in the 1980s could come up with to make the most rawr badass space marines possible. 

Like check this out: one of the organs Space Marines have is one that allows them to have acid spit.  How...stupid. Only a twelve year old boy would think that's cool. That's about the mentality of most Space Marine anatomy. Oh, we puny humans have two lungs? THEY HAVE THREE.  Oh, you have only one heart? Pfiffle. Space Marines have a second one. It's all so stupid and yet I love it SO MUCH. 

But I'm here to talk about the Black Carapace, the fused ribs, 

Okay so we all have this 10th cranial nerve, the vagus nerve. This is the one that connects the brain to the gut brain. It's also responsible for switching activation between the sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight, run by adrenaline system) and the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest system). Ideally we need both but more importantly we need to switch them on AND OFF as we need them. 

Most people have issues with this switch. There's tons of great beginner friendly books on whatever book site (I like to search up a title on Amazon and then...buy it somewhere else) on the vagus nerve where you can read a lot more but the quick version is: the vagus nerve gets screwed up when exposed to constant stress/trauma.  

If you've ever done yoga, and did Camel Pose and thought 'holy cow why do I feel like I'm dying?' that's because your vagus nerve is out of whack.  I actually use camel pose as a test to see how effed up I am when things get stressful.  It's also one of the ways to tone the vagus nerve (though camel pose can be a bit intense--you might try supported Fish pose instead (scroll down for supported options))

So Space Marines are under a lot of stress (in SMII they fight a bajillion life or death missions in less than a week) it's safe to say they would have some vagus nerve dysfunction. 

ADD to that the Black Carapace and the fact that they have fused ribs, it means they can't do long slow deep breathing very well.  Because the OTHER way you work to tone your vagus nerve is to do long slow deep breathing, the kind that activates your intercostal (rib) muscles as well. If your ribs are all fused into one giant bone barrel, you, uh, you can't do that.  

So it's safe to say they are just traumatized hot messes of vagus nerve dysfunction.  Which can look like digestive issues, sleep disorders esp insomnia (bc the sympathetic nervous system is basically jammed on with no off switch), and emotional regulation issues.  Yeah that sounds like, basically EVERY Space Marine faction. 

The person I'm talking to on the fic is pointing out that that's why they think the Blood Angels in canon do art--that it is an attempt to do something to at least help with a forced switch to regulation.  Neat!