Philip Sibbering had his interpretation of Space Marine body proportions on his site, which gave Space Marines roughly the height of some of the world's largest basketball players, but made them almost twice as wide, which did indeed give them a very small head, proportionally.
For your amusement, the original artist of the image that I posted in the OP told me once that he had taken Phil's image and "squished" it to remove the wackiness.
This is my roundabout way of saying that as soon as somebody uses the word "realistically" to apply to anything in 40k, I sort of turn my ears off because somebody has definitely missed the point.
I see the point that you're making, but admit that I've never really be overtly drawn to it. This might be because of the original intent that I had when I originally came back to the universe, which was to make it into a viable RPG setting by creating a solid framework behind the "rule of cool" (aesthetics, feel, riff, or whatever you want to use).
So, for me, injecting some "realism" works fine. Warp travel that works like Age of Sail, a Geller Field that's not just about preventing gribblies from coming in (the "submarine approach"), but rather about acting like electromagetic/magic sails. More
Spelljammer than World War I.
*shrugs*
I'm pretty sure the Emperor would not design his perfect super-men to dissolve their own teeth out of their skulls.
On this I would tend to agree, though with that said there's a difference between that assumption and that of (relative) perfection. For example, with that kind of metabolism I can very much imagine that they require a whole bunch of drugs to keep 'em going. What happens when those drugs are no longer part of the picture?
That, again for me, is an
interesting question that extends from a
reasonable approach.
Again, though. Potaytoes - Potahtoes.
It's about what we think make the setting more interesting.
Yes!...and I think it undermines some of the built-in dystopism of the process
I've often used them so I won't repeat them, but there are quotes from
Terminator and
Prophecy that are perfect for Space Marines insofar as they are the "Angels of Death".
I apologize if I offended, but I do find these discussions somewhat counterproductive. I'll bow out, now.
Perfectly reasonable. These kind of discussions have waned since the mid-00s to early-10s, possibly because of the introduction of the official RPGs?