i need some lore background or context to this game

[Comrade]

this is my first warhammer game ever and I have no idea about all these things they're talking about in the game, like what is deathwatch? Do the people just live a long life because of the holes in their body that act as an receiver of some kind of substance?

[Netaris]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz2QZ3ascto

You'll learn a lot here, welcome btw. ^^

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Comrade:

this is my first warhammer game ever and I have no idea about all these things they're talking about in the game, like what is deathwatch? Do the people just live a long life because of the holes in their body that act as an receiver of some kind of substance?

I'l try to keep it short.

You are playing as a space marine (aka Adaptus Astares, The emperors Angels of Death), when they create a space marine they are taken as youths (kids really), brain washed, genetically altered (We are talking extra organs and all, they become beyond human), trained beyond belief. The survival rate of the whole process is something like 1 in a 100* (and they are also generally taken from the best candidates inhabiting death worlds where survival is extremely hard as it is). They are basically super soldiers.

Space marines are divided among chapters, each chapter having its own color scheme, symbols, culture, traditions, etc.

The DeathWatch is a group of space marines (lead by the anti alien part of the Inquisition, the "ordo xenos") that take individuals from any chapter if that individual has proven especially adapt at killing xenos (aliens). Its basically something akin to a space marine task force focused on the alien threat in particular. Generally its considered a honor to join the deathguard, but depending on the circumstances it can also serve as a penalty.

Normal humans generally have a short lifespan in 40k (Many are outright worked to death, lifespan expectancy of seconds in combat, living in squalor and poverty, etc).
Space marines (being genetic super soldiers) live for a very long time as a side effect of their enhancements, unless they die in combat (most do, going so far as them outright expecting to die in combat).
Members of the mechanicus replace their body part with machines (cyborgs) and can live for a long time because of that.
Nobles and individuals deemed useful for the imperium of man can get something called a rejuvenat treatment and live longer because of that (the process can be repeated granting a lifespan of hundreds of years, but eventually it stops being effective).

*The source for this statement is a traitor called "Fabius Bile" trying to talk ♥♥♥♥ about space marines in a novel, so it might not be completely reliable.

[Darth Revan]

Deathwatch is a special space marine chapter that serves under the inquisition.

Space marines are genetically enhanced super solders that can live for hundreds of years.

Those holes in a space marines body are there to connect/interface his power armor directly to his central nervous system

[Geredis]

To your questions:


1) Deathwatch: Is a special organization of Space Marines composed of a mix of volunteers, penitent exiles, and other tithed members from the various Space Marine Chapters. These members are all seconded to the Deathwatch for decades or centuries, and they paint the whole of their armor black, except for the right pauldron, which bears the Chapter crest of their original Marine Chapter. Marines of dozens of chapters fight together and learn special skills before being sent out to small Watch Posts, where 4-8 marines will live in vigil, watching for various xenos incursions in their assigned sector of space. THey are also on call for the Inquisition to second them for special or high-importance missions.

2) Space Marines were, originally, functionally immortal once upon a time. However, genetic and technological degradation has simply meant that many are now simply long-lived. By that I mean going from a standard Imperial lifespan of 40-50 years, to one of several centuries. That said, a Space Marine's life is so dangerous that many of them die in relatively short order. But many are several hundreds of years old, and one of them, Dante of the Blood Angels is over a thousand years old. Space Marines in the modern era can become immortal in a fashion, by becoming Dreadnoughts, the giant hulking boxes of death on legs, but only mortally wounded Marines of high value are boxed up in such a manner, but they also tend to slowly go insane over the millennia. There are several, including the Anchorite (a Loyalist Word Bearer captured in the aftermath of Calth) and Bjorn the Fell-Handed, who are over 10,000 years old. That said, it is believed that Primaris might have regained the functional immortality of the Heresy era due to Cawl's various improvements...but the lifestyle of a Marine still means that living more than a couple hundred years is notable.

3) As an addendum to that, the Primaris Marines, at least the vat-grown ones, and not those that started as Firstborn, who later underwent the Rubicon Surgery like Titus or Calgar did, are also 9-11,000 years old, as they were selected/kidnapped/inducted into Belisarius Cawl's Primaris Program way back in M30/M31 during the days of the Great Crusade...and were modified while they were in suspended animation. So the likes of Gadriel and Chairon (one of them recalls being taken "after Calth", which was the sack of a planet back in 007.M31) are ancient fish out of water.

4) Regarding those plugs: They are interface plugs. Under the skin of a Space Marine is a second-skin known as the Black Carapace. It serves as a bio-technical interface between the armor that the marine wears, and the Marine himself, allowing for smoother interactions. They are primarily plugs/connection ports for sensory and motor amplification. However they also do serve as injection points for stimulants and other medical substances designed to heal and/or enhance the Marine in various ways through various drug cocktails. They also serve as feeding tubes, hydration tubes, and waste-filtration tubes as well depending on where they are and all that. A Marine can live in his armor without issue for long periods of time, if properly supplied.