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 kodos wrote:

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:
But official lore says "men only"

no, not any more
official lore is that there have always been female Custodes everything else is not official, or canon or whatever

Right. It was retconned to "always be". That's what a retcon does.

But back to pedantry here, sure, I should have said "said", past tense. I wasn't debating what the current lore is. The debate was "retcon" vs "clarification" definitions.

for the current canon lore, it is a clarification
for the previous lore it is a retcon, but also the last Codex was a retcon for the previous lore and a clarification for past Edition canon

which is the general theme with 40k, new books at more detail to the setting, while at the same time changing it

that is why the lore does not really matter much anyway, it will change with every edition

 BertBert wrote:
Yeah, he's way out of his depth here and likely just cashing in on the outrage.

Yeah, that's definitely a thing right now. There are loads of people who jump in so that they can "fight the culture wars" by stoking outrage.

Seriously, there was never any definitive lore indication that custodes were exclusively male. This probably should be about as remarkable as GW releasing a female commissar miniature.

But this is being received as some kind of harbinger of the end times.

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

I haven't read this entire thread, so I'm not sure if you are being pedantic about "retcon" vs "clarification". But official lore says "men only", so I'm not sure how this change is a clarification. It's a retcon, plain and simple. No mental gymnastics required.

There was no mental gymnastics in my response. Yours, however, suggests that you're not actually sure if you're arguing that it's a retcon or a lie.

?? Is the fact this backlash exists not enough to show "why not both"? But okay, sure, I'm all for movements that risk backlash. But besides that, loss of revenue, disrespect to the lore, insulting the fans, etc are all reasons to not have done this this way.

If you think there will be a noticeable loss of revenue over this, I think you're vastly overestimating how many people are actually upset enough about it to change their buying habits. From the discussions on social media, many of those complaining aren't actually a part of the hobby, just jumping on the complaint wagon to fight the evil woke.

There is no disrespect to the 'lore'. It's their setting. They constantly change bits of it, and they've been doing so since the beginning.

And how exactly are the fans being insulted?

Being guided by a corpo agenda is a reason to not do things in general, too.

I'm not sure how else you would expect a corporation to do business, frankly.

Oh, and also, homogenization is not good, if the "why not both" response actually supports the idea of homogenization of a faction. The irony of wanting diversity is that it just ends up in homogenization, the opposite of diversity. Within the part and within the whole. Keep diversifying every faction to the point of homogenization and by 2055, it'll just be genderfluid beefcakes vs genderfluid beefcakes, just with different headgear.

Allowing women to wear Custodes armour doesn't change the armour, or their weaponry, or their army composition, or their special rules, or their play style. It just makes some of them women.

 morganfreeman wrote:

While inclusion can be helpful in terms of ‘I see myself in this and that makes it easier to engage,’ that’s not the only or even primary reason to do it.

Again, having diverse representation in something makes those who engage with it more open and friendly to the represented parties. This is you universally find strongholds of hatred in areas that are more remote and isolated regionally, societally, or even both. It’s also why legitimate hate groups and those who openly benefit from them fight tooth and nail against diversification in media and condemning areas of intermingling (cities, college, ect). Because it’s very easy to have people you never have contact with outside of hostility and violence, but as soon as your favorite super hero is on screen with a diverse cast of co-heroes / you have to shop shoulder-to-shoulder with more melanin inclined people at the grocery store, people rapidly become less bigoted. Not prejudiced free mike you, but less aggressively and forwardly so because it’s no longer tolerated. That’s a big part of terraforming insular groups, such as various bastions of nerddom, into hotbeds of racism and misogyny.

TLDR: diversification is only partially about letting people see themselves in something. It’s other (and I’d argue primarily) purpose is about letting the primary see people other than themselves in something, which in turn makes them less insular and allows those other parties a more safe entry and comfortable environment when they choose to take an interest and partake.

I think this post really hits the nail on the head. I feel it needs to be highlighted once more since people have straight faced said that women are less mentally capable than men since then and other such stuff.

I feel someone noted pretty nicely as well, that if space marines weren't such a looming, ever present thing in 40k, but were just one of many armies it would be more fine. As is we have 'no girls allowed' space vikings, space romans, space vampires, space knights, space mongols, spikey space warriors, and so on. Its to the point that there is a second full system that is largely based on space marine civil wars while the non super humans watch from the sides (though they are at least slowly adding non astartes support to heresy with models). As others have said, if being specifically an all male group was a defining feature of them, that you would go out of your way to denote, instead of the default, it would be a bit better. As it is, when discussing marines its basically 'super soldiers in power armor', while discussing sisters its 'nuns with guns', and progress is that you at least don't here bolter <things> anymore.

So long story short, the only problem I have with Custodes being allowed to be something other than male is that my youtube feed has been a minefield lately solely because I watch 40k related stuff sometimes.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBZj5OvSI2U

For those who'll be convinced from a woman's perspective to understand the "bigots" who are against this change, for some reason. Or you can just call her a bigot, too, I guess.

Nah, they'll call her a grifter and dismiss it as "not a real fan's take" (despite talking about gatekeeping being bad....) while their confirmation bias kicks in and they only broadcast the women they want to hear that match their narrative.

Has anyone done that, well except this post, who is using it to step over other women who have discussed it.

I also don’t think it’s a particularly good video that ads much at all to the discussion, the first part was about who is picked. Being adolescents, taking girls in for the process would actually be grim dark. Was it handled well, no. But GW isn’t great at handling 40K lore at its best.
I also think sisters of silence being expanded isn’t really great as they have a super neche faction identity that effects there rules, could be done.. but doesn’t help much Especially if you want the super Human aspect.
A new faction of all women also poses some issues, I would actually expand the inquisitor range if I was give the choice.

Honestly she lost me at BolS, they should be called out if needed. But she didn’t show the article itself yet, so it could be a title to draw eyes with the article actually pointing out specifics. But I don’t like BolS, and I don’t like click bait like that.

But considering some of the posts I seen on YouTube and some other places, we do get to see which side some of those people fall.
If no men are even going to say anything, and they get upvoted high enough. There is a worrying trend.

There is also that women in the geeky spaces do, and can be harassed relentlessly for even minor things. If it’s your career, and possibly also having too worry about safety and mental health. It should be obvious why women are less likely to share there positive thought on the change.

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

The debate was "retcon" vs "clarification" definitions.

No, it wasn't. You said it was a lie. I said it was an in-universe clarification of the retcon. No idea why you suddenly jumped to arguing over retcon vs clarification.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm not sure how much it matters how much he knows. It sure seems like a lot of commentators on the either side miss a lot of the nuances in the 40k verse, either out of ignorance or convenience.

I do agree that much of the noise is people trying to cash in on controversy though.

It matters because he accuses others of the same. He's a hypocrite.

And agreed on people trying to cash in on the controversy (the Drinker being a prime example).

Eh, I'm not going to watch the video to judge.

I think in the drive to meet the 10 min mark for optimal monetization or whatever, a lot of people say a lot of things that smack of hypocrisy, honestly. Gotta get those youtube bucks somehow!

Seriously? You haven't watched the video? But you continue to defend it? Insectum7, I am disappointed. I give up. Say what you want.

Ugh, fine.

I watched it just to see what all the fuss was about, and you know what? Within the context of the video I found the description of Custodes as "fine".

Sure, technically it's incorrect, Custodes are not actually Space Marines. But they are also gene-enhanced, power armor wearing super soldiers, and the elite of the elite, and (at least formally) all male. He does indicate that they are in fact different, but also lumps them in at the same time because they are still largely the same concept. I don't really see that as a major mistake or gotcha. It functions as a shorthand, and again, it's a shorthand I myself have used.

If you really want to harp on it, be my guest. But it seems to me like just searching for ways to demonize the other side.

Which, btw, I'm not on. I'm on record as pushing for female Custodes. I think it's a good change, but possibly poorly handled, and even more poorly recieved in the fury of the internet rage machine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

There is no disrespect to the 'lore'. It's their setting. They constantly change bits of it, and they've been doing so since the beginning.

Well that's a bit disingenuous. They can own their own lore but also crap all over it too. And there have been major portions of the lore which remained very stable . . . until they decided to throw it in the bin. *Ahem* Primaris introduction and loyalist primarchs rising from the grave.

Just because you own something doesn't mean you can't treat it poorly. Star Wars being a major example.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 BertBert wrote:
Yeah, he's way out of his depth here and likely just cashing in on the outrage.

Yeah, that's definitely a thing right now. There are loads of people who jump in so that they can "fight the culture wars" by stoking outrage.
Seriously, there was never any definitive lore indication that custodes were exclusively male. This probably should be about as remarkable as GW releasing a female commissar miniature.
But this is being received as some kind of harbinger of the end times.

and even if there was a lore indication for all male, GW decided to change it and case closed

the main problem is how they decided to engage with the community, which was always the problem with GW as sometimes the "we don't care about you at all, we just like money" gets spoken out very clearly and this gets people angry

and because there are the fanboys and white knights around, the anger against the company is redirected to the the people and from that point on it will only get worse

 Insectum7 wrote:

Well that's a bit disingenuous. They can own their own lore but also crap all over it too. And there have been major portions of the lore which remained very stable . . . until they decided to throw it in the bin. *Ahem* Primaris introduction and loyalist primarchs rising from the grave.

Just because you own something doesn't mean you can't treat it poorly. Star Wars being a major example.

In what way does it 'disrespect the lore' to allow Custodes to be women?

 insaniak wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Well that's a bit disingenuous. They can own their own lore but also crap all over it too. And there have been major portions of the lore which remained very stable . . . until they decided to throw it in the bin. *Ahem* Primaris introduction and loyalist primarchs rising from the grave.

Just because you own something doesn't mean you can't treat it poorly. Star Wars being a major example.

In what way does it 'disrespect the lore' to allow Custodes to be women?

It changes previously established lore. Not that I feel it's a bad change. I'm just pointing out that merely owning an IP doesn't mean you can't treat it poorly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 odinsgrandson wrote:

Seriously, there was never any definitive lore indication that custodes were exclusively male.

How is this statement a thing this far into the thread? Didn't the "all Custodes are sons of yadda yadda" excerpt appear several times already?

 Insectum7 wrote:
It changes previously established lore. Not that I feel it's a bad change. I'm just pointing out that merely owning an IP doesn't mean you can't treat it poorly.

you are aware that there is no previously established lore, 40k lore is whatever the current Edition books have written in them
whenever there is a new Edition with new codices, the previous versions are retconned and replaced with the new version

always has been that way and GW does not even care if people think otherwise and never has, 40k is the constant change of rules and lore (for the sake of change to drive sales)

so the established lore is the current 10th Edition AC Codex and nothing else

^Is that a joke?

Hard disagree.

welcome to 40k by Games Workshop, were everything is subject of change, no matter if one notice it, like it or want to ignore it

every new release retcons the previous one, sometimes not many notice it, sometimes everyone likes it, and sometimes everyone just ignores it because it would kill the marketing if "buy the books for the lore because unlike the rules that stays"

any argument of "previously established lore" is about non-canon or outdated lore, you may not like it or think what GW is doing is stupid, but that is what 40k is

 Insectum7 wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Well that's a bit disingenuous. They can own their own lore but also crap all over it too. And there have been major portions of the lore which remained very stable . . . until they decided to throw it in the bin. *Ahem* Primaris introduction and loyalist primarchs rising from the grave.

Just because you own something doesn't mean you can't treat it poorly. Star Wars being a major example.

In what way does it 'disrespect the lore' to allow Custodes to be women?

It changes previously established lore. Not that I feel it's a bad change. I'm just pointing out that merely owning an IP doesn't mean you can't treat it poorly.

I was spending too much time typing out the reply to Insaniak's question, but thankfully you replied in time and what I wanted to say would just perpetuate the tedious back-and-forth. And the question was aimed at you, so I'll just leave it at that lol. Thank you. But be prepared for the "but how is changing lore treating it poorly?" response.

A lot more I want to say and clarify, but it's honestly just not worth it with some people.

So the consensus on YT on the reason behind that change according to the naysayers is that one of the shareholders have infiltrated to company to destroy it from the inside by turning it woke through convising amazone to black mail Cavill to make Eisenhorn a female custodes and therefor the lore change. I want to say it cant get any stupider than that but i dont want to be proven wrong...

well, we know that a 40k writer wanted to feature female Custodes in his novel in 2019 and was denied it by the management because there are only male models

so the only reason will be that at one point we are going to see new models coming featuring both

or that management's stance on the issue has changed. it's been half a decade since then, which is enough time for opinions to shift

If people really want to keep quoting ADB, at the very least it should be clarified that it's not management. It was the person in charge of lore continuity.

So the guy who manages the output of multiple departments and contractors. One might even say, a manager.

I really wish people would stop spouting this nonsense about it being at the whim of two of the shareholders. Even if shareholders had the power to direct either the product lines or IP (which they do not) noone owns more than 11% of the shares, and the two firms people keep ranting about between them have just over 10%.

I like what critical drinker has today on the subject of female Custodes:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rcLRqXE7Les&t=314s&pp=ygUUQ3JpdGljYWwgZHJpbmtlciA0MGs%3D

 ingtaer wrote:
I really wish people would stop spouting this nonsense about it being at the whim of two of the shareholders. Even if shareholders had the power to direct either the product lines or IP (which they do not) noone owns more than 11% of the shares, and the two firms people keep ranting about between them have just over 10%.

People just want this to have a "bad guy" behind it all. Someone greedy or uncaring or whatever who just wants money.
Shareholders; an evil manager; evil "influencers or woke whatevers"

Someone to direct their disgruntlement with the choice against.


Personally I'd say the only evil is that GW didn't pair this news with a model. I can 100% bet that if there were a model the nature of the conversations would have shifted considerably. Heck if there were a squad or two or a new kit with optional parts and so forth then again we'd see shifts in the nature of the chat.

Right now its all just a few lines and people have gone kinda hypernuts on over-analysis of it all.

 Overread wrote:
Personally I'd say the only evil is that GW didn't pair this news with a model. I can 100% bet that if there were a model the nature of the conversations would have shifted considerably. Heck if there were a squad or two or a new kit with optional parts and so forth then again we'd see shifts in the nature of the chat.

Given how much the lore follows the models- I'm reminded of how Skitarii were described as marching everywhere literally just because no transport model had yet been designed- I'm most surprised that this is a change written as lore first rather than a retcon associated with new product.

might be that there was a release planned but it did not made it while no one corrected the part in the book

Yeah, the most surprising and disappointing part here is that there is no models accompanying the lore.

 Gert wrote:
So the guy who manages the output of multiple departments and contractors.

Do you know that is what the head of lore continuity does? Or is it just a lore specialist? Plenty of companies have lore specialists who just...specialize in lore.

 Gert wrote:
One might even say, a manager.

At my job and previous jobs, I/others have been in control, or "managed", 3rd-party contracts, policies between departments, and so forth. And guess what we weren't/aren't? Managers.

Anyway, I slept on it and feel more motivated to clarify things that I said I wouldn't in my previous post. If there are 2 things I dislike it's being misunderstood and being straw manned. And seeing how pedantic this thread is, I wanted to join in on the fun for a moment. I'd like to add more from older posts, but again, just not worth it at this point.

 insaniak wrote:

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

The debate was "retcon" vs "clarification" definitions.

No, it wasn't. You said it was a lie

A proverbial lie. Informal semantics. And when it comes from a tweet from an intern, "lie" and "retcon" are 2 sides of the same coin. The tweet had "pull something out of our arse" vibes, hence why there were plenty of replies asking for cites or proof. I'm sure they, like me I suppose, don't really view intern tweets as official lore updates. We prefer official articles, official printed works, etc. I mean, we're aware it's considered official, but people will probably still check the Codex once it's released to confirm. It reminds me of the whole Betsy Braddock/Kwannon situation in 90s X-Men comics and how some creative misunderstandings and temporary art changes turned into haphazard lore changes. Again, "pulling it out of our arse", i.e. a proverbial "lie", and then sticking to it officially.

Also, yes, I'm aware it probably wasn't an intern pulling something out of their arse, it's called hyperbolizing. They probably ran it through the channels or maybe it wasn't an intern at all. That's the beauty of GW resorting to more anonymity like "Warhammer Design Studio" and credit-less articles in the Warhammer Community site - less accountability to the individual! Either way, it's truly irrelevant to the point.

 insaniak wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Well that's a bit disingenuous. They can own their own lore but also crap all over it too. And there have been major portions of the lore which remained very stable . . . until they decided to throw it in the bin. *Ahem* Primaris introduction and loyalist primarchs rising from the grave.

Just because you own something doesn't mean you can't treat it poorly. Star Wars being a major example.

In what way does it 'disrespect the lore' to allow Custodes to be women?

I know this wasn't directed to me, except maybe by proxy, but I just want to clarify, I never said allowing Custodes to be women was disrespectful to the lore. In fact, I never said what the thing was that was disrespectful to the lore. I did imply the disrespect was related to GW doing "this this way." Which I assumed was an easy reference to the unnecessary retcon compounded by the haphazard tweet, supplemented by the SoS neglect, etc. You know, the "disregard" of various things, lore being one of them. And guess what disregard is commonly associated with? Disrespect.

And I'll say again, I'm all for female Custodes.

If you have to clarify that when you were totally being facetious when you clearly meant "lie" in the sense everyone understands it, you've lost the argument.

Waiting for the internet to go ape gak when they see the Pride colour Marines in this month's WD.

It happened a little bit already but it's gone under the radar because "Wiminz in muh Custodez".