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@Sienisoturi

not to mention and all the african and Rom (avout 100 000) who fought alongside their German coloniser during the war. All GW armies are a mix and match of various cultures, myths, prejudice and sci-gy/fantasy twist.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Do you know what is silly? Vikings riding wolves. Some Viking riding an antigrav sledge that is tracted by wolves.

Yes, but so is shoehorning in a variety of genders into a theme based around white people. Instead ask for a chapter to be more represented of a differing culture.

There is a Space Marine chapter I saw once in GW fluff that are based of The Maori people in NZ. They had the moko designs on their army and everything. GW has all these cultures in the fluff to use, but instead the popular ones happen to be white or alien. (Oh gee, wonder why...)

So instead ask for the other cultures to be represented if you desire, dont simply demand the other ones change.

I am pretty sure thats all he is arguing for. Its what I prefer as well.

You do realize that Maori Chapter if fanfic.... riiiight?


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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Hybrid Son of Oxyotl, I find it symptomatic that you in particular would use "hard data" like that fifty fifty viking squads link of yours

http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/raining-on-your-parade-about-those-women-viking-warriors/

Not sure where you are going. Those were vikings. Maybe warriors or maybe not, but female vikings. And, from your very own link:
“And there is plenty of evidence that, yes, there were female Norse warriors (and neither I nor the source am saying there were not). ”
So what is wrong with female space wolves again?

Yes, just like there are female Americans and female Franks. Viking does not mean soldier, it means a Scandinavian culture and people who were traders and colonists first, raiders second. That has never been questioned, because obviously around fifty percent of any population is going to consist of women. What's questioned, and your link(s) utterly fail to address is if these women actually ever fought in combat and worked as volunteer soldiers alongside the males.

There's not going to be female Space Wolves because they're warriors, which is a predominately male occupation- plus in universe there's zero reason to take more unreliable female candidates. Obviously around fifty percent of Fenrisian humans are female, as they're the same unto the Vikings. Many men and women were Normans, but only men were Norman Knights.

Let's not go making statements you can't actually back up, wyzilla, as much as you love doing that.

"Unreliable female candidates"...yeah, that's why the new Dark Eldar codex sucks so much, I hear; the 60/40 split between male/female bits on the sprues and being forced to use more "unreliable" female rules and stat lines.

If only they were 100% male, then they might be competitive.

About the female warrior from Norse society, I may shed some light. Has an historian who specialise in early medieval era, I do have a decent working knowledge about these people.

It's commonly admited that both women and men were warriors in Norse and Viking society. In fact, from the few burial ground we have (Norse burial sites are few because they mostly cremated their dead), sagas and writings from other civilisation who encountered them, we can reasonnably say that some women Vikings were indeed warriors.

The most commonly used numbers were of around 10% so a small minority, but still far from being uncommon or surprising. Some sites would make that number rise to nearly 50/50, but this seems to be dubious and more of an exeption than actual norm (we are talking about about 15 dead bodies all partial skeletons in a colonie so they might have been explorers ready for trouble more than actual warriors).

Most of the time, women were used to defend the keep while men were away fishing or raiding and only a minority of adult women without children or of high social standing were actively warriors and participated to expedition regularly. The term «shield maiden» that is use to describe them relates to unmarried daughters of Jarls. Norse culture changed significantly by the turn of the first millenia when they converted to christianity and had more frequent, peaceful and cultural excanges and contacts with other civilisations.

In the end, if we talk about Space Wolfs, beside names and some iconographie, they make a terrible job to represent actual Norse people. They are closer to a mix and mash of Celts, Britain, Norse with a dash of mythological reference. Than again, all these civilisations were known to have «shield maiden» warriors amongst their rank in similar proportion.

The reason there will never be female Space Wolf holds more to the fact that Space Marines were declared all male for genetic reasons (even if they make little sense, but Space Marines biologie doesn't either, so we won't hold it against them) than because the inspirationnal source material (Norse, Celts and Britains) were predominantly male dominant warrior cultures. In fact in that regard they were amongst the most equalitarian civilisation of Europe in that era.

I am white as the driven snow and about 10% of the human figures I have painted over the last 15 years have been black. It's a non-issue guys. Hell, there's just as much of a lack of freaking redheads among studio models, too.

Hell, an entire faction in one of GW's past games, Necromunda, is exclusively women. Not only is one of my Escher juves black, one of the gangers is an albino.

 Sidstyler wrote:
"Unreliable female candidates"...yeah, that's why the new Dark Eldar codex sucks so much, I hear; the 60/40 split between male/female bits on the sprues and being forced to use more "unreliable" female rules and stat lines.

If only they were 100% male, then they might be competitive.

Eldar aren't human, we don't know to what degree sexual dimorphism affects them. Indeed, they appear to be pretty much the same with the only difference of the females obviously having breasts, but otherwise they seem to share the same musculature and lithe build- IIRC from official artwork their hips don't even appear to be notably wider. So there's not going to be any significant difference in strength between the sexes as there is in humanity.

Humans however, do have sexual dimorphism. Females on average are weaker thanks to the way their bodies have evolved for childbirth- their skeletons had to sacrifice strength in favor for childbearth (because humans have gigantic heads compared to other mammalian species). This isn't some disputed idea, this is a biologic fact of humanity, and why women aren't typically allowed into the special forces as combat roles in real life. You've got to be drinking some serious Kool Aid to think that somebody in charge of recruiting super soldiers that cares only for efficiency is going to start testing a new (female) pool that have a higher chance of failure if geneseed was even compatible with female bodies.


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 Melissia wrote:
Let's not go making statements you can't actually back up, wyzilla, as much as you love doing that.

Exactly how much of Viking culture do you actually know of?

I personally would like to see more badass female guardsmen models (that are not hyper-sexualized for a change) than some female-for-the-sake-of-it variant of tragically flawed, hypno-indoctrinated living weapons who aren't even fully human anymore. Seriously, this "female Space marine" thing is becoming something of a variant of the Nazi rule that inevitably shows up in half the threads on Dakka.

At least female guardsmen can show female versions of humans fighting the good fight despite the horrible odds the galaxy can throw at them, rather than having your females be another version of lab-created monsters.

As for the racial issues among the models, you have to remember that 40K is another example of the classic Sci-fi tropes, like entire planets having only one biosphere, only one racial example, only one language, etc. And also all the painters are probably trained to the same style, and dark colors of any sort (either skintone or armor) are harder to photograph well and get all the crisp details without them being hyper-exaggerated.

Light skin tones are easier to photograph on models because the darker shading shows up better against a lighter palette. I highly doubt among toy-soldier circles it's racially motivated.

@Wyzilla

Why would hypothetical female Space Marines be less srong and tall than male ones? They could very well be even taller and stronger because the organs responsible for their growth of muscle and bones, linked to testosterone, would try to overcompensate for the small quantity of it in a women body thus resulting in larger and more powerful Space Marine with a female gender. Why would they not be identical since it's an effect of a preprogammed body modification thus under the control of the apothicary who will regulate the body until it reaches correct parameters. Why would Space Marine have the same kind of sexual dimorphism in the same fashion than humans? That seems to me a weird choice. There is no specifically good reason to do so. Eldar don't have that problem, orks being all plants don't have that problem, tau neither (apparently) neither do kroots or tyranids (which are mostly sexless) so why not Space Marines? They are about as close to humans as eldars after all.

Plus, Space Marines would know a lot more about combat than you seem to. Because of this, they are fully aware that slightly lower average strength as absolutly no impact on combat capacity since the simple concept of strength = better in combat is strongly dependant on a very specific and limited number of martial traditions. The very best fighters on any given planet might very well count a good number of women if they were given the chance to grow in an environment that nurtures these types of skills amongst them (like a death world for exemple). It could be a good thing since it reduces the numbers of none excellence based criteria to become a Space Marines from three to two.

Female Astartes would simply be a moot point, as they would look very similar to the men, and all the defining emotional characteristics that define a woman (reproductive drive, nurturing, etc) would be violently removed from their psyche, where at least with Imperial Guardsmen(women) you would get the full spectrum of balance between nurturing protection and badass-itude, Ellen Ripley-style.

Space Marines are just biological versions of Men of Iron, more easily controlled.

@AegisGrimm

I would disagree a little bit (I don't seriously think female Space Marines are needed since there is Sisters of Battle who are equaly badass and similar in style). Women are far more divers than what you seem to think. I know some who hates children so much they can't stand being in the same room than one for more than 15 minutes. Others who have no nurturing interest or very little. One who's even a pro culturist whose completly infertile because of it. None of these women are any less womenly than any other. If I was to transport you in time to Sarmatian land you would think these women to be insanly and pointlessly violent and aggresice while they would think that someone transformed ours in house pets.

epronovost wrote:
@Wyzilla

Why would hypothetical female Space Marines be less srong and tall than male ones? They could very well be even taller and stronger because the organs responsible for their growth of muscle and bones, linked to testosterone, would try to overcompensate for the small quantity of it in a women body thus resulting in larger and more powerful Space Marine with a female gender. Why would they not be identical since it's an effect of a preprogammed body modification thus under the control of the apothicary who will regulate the body until it reaches correct parameters. Why would Space Marine have the same kind of sexual dimorphism in the same fashion than humans? That seems to me a weird choice. There is no specifically good reason to do so. Eldar don't have that problem, orks being all plants don't have that problem, tau neither (apparently) neither do kroots or tyranids (which are mostly sexless) so why not Space Marines? They are about as close to humans as eldars after all.

Plus, Space Marines would know a lot more about combat than you seem to. Because of this, they are fully aware that slightly lower average strength as absolutly no impact on combat capacity since the simple concept of strength = better in combat is strongly dependant on a very specific and limited number of martial traditions. The very best fighters on any given planet might very well count a good number of women if they were given the chance to grow in an environment that nurtures these types of skills amongst them (like a death world for exemple). It could be a good thing since it reduces the numbers of none excellence based criteria to become a Space Marines from three to two.

I have no idea how you think female SMs would be bigger and stronger than male ones. Men are naturally bigger and stronger than women, and that won't change after implantation. the female body would require far more work, probably even more organs than neccesary to have the desired effect than it would for males.

And also, another thing everyone fails to notice on here is that the Imperium likely will not turn women into Space Marines if they knew it wasn't needed. Women are important in the 41st millennium because they give birth, something that is very crucial for the continued survival of humankind. At this point, men are cannon fodder for such situations, most SM recruits are psychotic male gangsters taken from the streets of hive worlds and turned into Space Marines. Women serve in the IG obviously but guardsmen aren't always forced into duty, some of them can join on their own accord.

epronovost wrote:
@AegisGrimm

I would disagree a little bit (I don't seriously think female Space Marines are needed since there is Sisters of Battle who are equaly badass and similar in style). Women are far more divers than what you seem to think. I know some who hates children so much they can't stand being in the same room than one for more than 15 minutes. Others who have no nurturing interest or very little. One who's even a pro culturist whose completly infertile because of it. None of these women are any less womenly than any other. If I was to transport you in time to Sarmatian land you would think these women to be insanly and pointlessly violent and aggresice while they would think that someone transformed ours in house pets.

Well, obviously, I was being pretty general in my statement, because mot all guys are alike. But the nurture/badass elements I speak of are pretty universally a part of women in fiction of the type 40K is a part of. Like the woman I can't remember for the life of me her name (Tona Criid, maybe, or something like that??), from Gaunts Ghosts.

But- keep in mind I am being pretty generalist- (most) women in my experience have different psyches than men, and they tend to think differently. But anything that makes a woman different than a man- and vice versa- has no purpose when making a Space Marine, both in the fluff and on the tabletop. Especially, like lots of people have said, we have Sisters of Battle.

I simply take the best of both worlds and have both Space Marines and Sisters of Battle for armies, for years and years now (Since the SoB came out in 2nd ed.).

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
Women are important in the 41st millennium because they give birth, something that is very crucial for the continued survival of humankind.

But even if both the IG and space marines were 100% female they would have a negligible effect on birth rates. Remember that IG regiments are taken from the elite of a planet's military, and outside of Cadia/Krieg/etc only a relatively small percentage of the population is going to be in the military at all. Taking a regiment every year from a population of billions is just a rounding error. And space marines take even smaller numbers. You aren't going to see the level of mass conscription that would threaten birth rates outside of extreme circumstances like a Tyranid fleet about to eat the planet, and in that kind of situation you can't afford to hold women back to give birth to the next generation because there might not be a next generation if you do.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
Women are important in the 41st millennium because they give birth, something that is very crucial for the continued survival of humankind.

But even if both the IG and space marines were 100% female they would have a negligible effect on birth rates. Remember that IG regiments are taken from the elite of a planet's military, and outside of Cadia/Krieg/etc only a relatively small percentage of the population is going to be in the military at all. Taking a regiment every year from a population of billions is just a rounding error. And space marines take even smaller numbers. You aren't going to see the level of mass conscription that would threaten birth rates outside of extreme circumstances like a Tyranid fleet about to eat the planet, and in that kind of situation you can't afford to hold women back to give birth to the next generation because there might not be a next generation if you do.

In that regard, perhaps you are right but it still doesn't explain the difference in strength between men and women. You believe women would make better SMs? I'm of the mindset that their body would not be able to accept the genetics of geneseed and like I said, women would require even more organs than men to be sufficient. Like Wyzilla has explained in much better detail, the female body is simply too fragile for the implantation process.

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
I'm of the mindset that their body would not be able to accept the genetics of geneseed and like I said, women would require even more organs than men to be sufficient. Like Wyzilla has explained in much better detail, the female body is simply too fragile for the implantation process.

You have an awful lot of confidence in your understanding of a process that is entirely fictional. The only reason space marines are all-male is because GW said so. You could just as easily create an alternative technobabble explanation of geneseed where only women can survive the process and there are no male space marines.

Even so, with their helmets on people might as well be demanding more female representation in the Death Korps of Kreig.

I think it's a little curious that someone who wants to join the Boy Scouts , joins the Girl Scouts, and that a religion-loathing secularist would join a church army.

But, obviously ( ? ) , I love the Girl Scouts and I love the Eclesiarchy.

And when I go for a little diversity and build an IG Army , it will be nearly all girl. The commander, the rank and file, most of the Commissars . Only a very few males here and there ( because that figure was so cool I couldn't resist adding it even though it was a male. )

Am I discriminating ?

I certainly am.

Am I a bigot ?

I certainly am.

I hate 'Nids, I hate Tau, I hate Space Marines, and I really really hate Grey knights.

I'm a terrible person ?

You weren't going to loan me a few thousand , or invite me to your birthday party, anyway.

So I'll collect what I arbitrarily like .

I thought women couldn't become space marines because the implantation was keyed to an XY setup going to an XYZ setup for almost every cell in the body. Therefore an entirely new process would have to be developed to key it to an XX system, and the only guy capable of doing that is a vegetable. Also, why would you want female space marines? I don't get the need for it. I mean there is less than one marine per world of the imperium so it's not like they have to keep recruitment numbers up.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
I'm of the mindset that their body would not be able to accept the genetics of geneseed and like I said, women would require even more organs than men to be sufficient. Like Wyzilla has explained in much better detail, the female body is simply too fragile for the implantation process.

You have an awful lot of confidence in your understanding of a process that is entirely fictional. The only reason space marines are all-male is because GW said so. You could just as easily create an alternative technobabble explanation of geneseed where only women can survive the process and there are no male space marines.

Yet with all your babble you fail to explain why women would make better or even equal SMs. SMs are brotherhoods, they are composed of men, the obviously logical choice of sex if you were to create superhumans. The geneseed process can only be made based on a single sex. In order to accommodate both males and females, a second process would have to be created, making things rather more expensive and complicated than it needs to be. So of males and females, any person with half a brain would just stick with producing men instead of risking a process just because someone like you wants to see female SMs. Stick to SOB if you wanna see female badasses.

I'd be perfectly fine with a Sisters army, as soon as GW decides to fething support them.

 Sidstyler wrote:
I'd be perfectly fine with a Sisters army, as soon as GW decides to fething support them.

Yeah, unfortunately SOB are completely neglected, I think the most neglected army in the game. I honestly would feel comfortable collecting a small force of them, they are an awesome faction but they are in desperate need of an update....like a complete makeover. They should be the first thing on GW to-do list.

 Sidstyler wrote:

epronovost wrote:

I would like to have Cadian females since there is a lot of them in the fluff, but I can't because GW doesn't make any. I would also like to have better paint tutorials for other shade of skin beside white, but I don't have them either. The problem isn't what you do with your stuff. The problem is your opposition to me having more options for my stuff. That's the point we are trying to make.

Some people seem to have this idea that you can't add anything to the game without taking something else away, I guess.

But no, we absolutely can not have more options or include anyone else. Even one head bit rendered unusable because it was sculpted with a clearly female face instead of a billionth bald and screaming male is too much. PC GONE MAD!

I assume that you're paraphrasing me there and congratulations on the hyperbole and on the stretch. I could point you to my post where I say that the odd female Cadian general or black Blood Angel wouldnt be the end of the world. Or how you could add/ designate entire factions/ subfactions for things you want represented instead of pushing diversity into every faction. Or how I find valkyries elite units in SW a great idea, they would fit imo as opposed to half of the SW squad being black.

If you go back though, people were implying that half the sm chapter with knight/ monk references being women would be ok because you can dig up the odd chapter that recruited 100 and the odd women knight somewhere else or how gender is not a part of knight reference. You know like those thousands of females in plate armour clashing on medieval battlefields.



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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
The sources for this are too few to draw ultimate conclusions

Depends on what you intent on proving. If you want to prove that 50% of viking warriors were women, yes, you cannot draw that conclusion. If you want to prove that the idea of viking female warrior is not considered ridiculous by historians, then it definitely proves it. Therefore the argument that there should be no women among the space wolves because “Blah blah historical vikings blah blah and just forget about spitting acid and using jetpacks and bikes and absolutely no boat and all that” is moot.

It's better imo than blah blah obscure fact gets arrogant no fact gets boorish blah blah spitting acid detail that is hardly ever on artwork blah blah jetpacks black vikings all the same.


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 Bronzefists42 wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
You can make up reasons for racism being alive and kicking in 40th millenium, wasnt there a book about genocide of natives to make place for new Imperial settlers? I find the idea that just external threat would eradicate racism in a world like that a bit naive tbh.

And you're missing the point: racism isn't gone in 40k, it just has a new target. The Imperium's attitude towards non-humans would make the average KKK member look like a reasonable moderate, and genociding an entire non-human civilization to make room for human settlers is exactly what we'd expect. It just isn't plausible that the Imperium would care about the same racism that existed 40,000 years ago in a completely different society.


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 Swastakowey wrote:
I think the issue many have missed is how many of the cultures that are popular in 40k are actually taken from white culture inspiration. I think Tallarn are the only ones who of our current selection that should feature middle easterners. The rest are taken from white cultures.

This isn't true at all. Catachans are the Vietnam-era US army in space, and that was certainly not an all-white culture. Cadians are generic scifi soldiers with no real-world cultural inspiration. DKoK have uniforms taken from real WWI designs, but their culture has nothing to do with it (and no culture like it ever existed in the real world). Elysians are generic scifi soldiers like Cadians. So of the four IG regiments that GW currently produces none of them have this supposed "white culture" inspiration.

Well the book was about human Imperials genociding human, not alien natives.

It's just as plausible for the Imperium to be racist both externaly and internaly. Opressed and scared individuals fueled with paranoia, living in a violent times in overcrowded places and backwards cultures, that just begs for conflicts driven by differencies including racial ones, especialy given the inherent distrust to everything different that humans seem to carry. Again, what I see is your made up reasons not the ultimately plausible version of fluff.

As for guard regiments, yes Catachans should be racialy diverse that would be in line with their theme, Arnold's squad from Predator with Rambo but 10x tougher, sounds great. You're giving too much weight to the word culture in relation to guard regiments fluff though and visual design is imo most important when it comes to theme. Id say DKoK are clearly associated with white people and Cadians are meant to be main Imperial force, with said Imperium having nods to medieval one, Soviet and Nazi regimes, WW I etc - the majority of it being based on white cultures history. Elysians I dont know tbh.


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@epronvost

The viking archetype is white male. Valkyries elite unit for Space Wolves? Great idea. Some women into an SW squad? Maybe, Im not sold as they soften the image of archetypical viking. Black skinned Space Wolves? Nope.

Then amazons as a separate sm unit for those greek inspired chapters, not that bad. Not something Id like to see but not immersion breaking either.

Do you really want a female in disguise thrope for black templars though heh?

WWI was not fought solely by white people as you erroneously imply:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/369th_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29

There were numerous non white soldiers fighting in WWI. DKOK are a smorgasbord of all WWI forces so it isn't too ridiculous to have diverse DKOK.

Point me to the sentence where I imply that WW I was fought solely by white people. I said certain regiments look associated with white people history. Even if you dig me an entire squad of Russian black guys wearing outfits that Vostroyans are based on, it will not change the fact that half of the Russians in space depicted as black would be weird and unnecessary.

You assume that I dont know these facts. I do but consider them irrelevant to the whole picture and just exceptions.


Ask for a guard regiment based on that Harlem guys though, why not.


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 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
1. Why not? They have equipment looking like supercharged 20th century, maybe their racism is supercharged 20th century like as well. Im just saying that arguments can go both ways and there is no hard ultimate reason for GW to start showing all regiments as diverse because it's "more plausible".

It's "more plausible" for the same reason that you don't have racist attitudes based on whatever racism existed in ancient Sumeria. From the point of view of 40k all of our 20th century attitudes are much more distant than the ancient Sumerians are to us.

2. Yes Id say so, especialy when it comes to their skin colour. Just like Tallarn or Catachan, uniforms facial features and skin colour should compliment themselves for at least some resembling of consistency imo.

And exactly how many DKoK have you seen without their uniforms? How do you know what race they are?

3. Yes and no. They still operate that WW I esque equpiment and have comissairs who are clearly white people history based, though indeed there are no clear nods on Cadians themselves. Except for, ofc, all oc them being white on GWs art.

So because they have one feature (commissars) that are related to a "white" culture, just like every other IG regiment, Cadians are somehow inspired by "white culture". That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Also, the only reason Cadians are always white in GW's art is that in our society the default character is almost always a straight white man, and artist who don't think about race/gender/etc very much tend to go with that default. They aren't based on any real-world race or culture where white people are an overwhelming majority.

1. Yes I see your point but then 20th century war organisation, designs and in a fact a lot of things that are in 40k would be long gone and ancient too. I dont think drawing hard conclusion based on prognostics for next 38 thousands of year for a ridiculous space fantasy setting is a way to go. 40k is all about our history, themes and ideas twisted, mixed and reflected on fantasy factions waging a crazy war.

2. I don't but I dont think black face fits that particular uniform. The world didnt crumble when a black actor (that I am a fan of) was cast as Heimdall but there was a significant laughing response from many people watching it. Fething Polish bigots, initiate obligatory gender studies, no tolerance to intolerance! Mythology correction inbound.

Obviously Thor movie is a more obvious example of imo misplaced diversity and not a direct analogy, on the other hand it's the universe full of people running in pyjamas so maybe it's easier to swallow like that. Not to mention Ezra sold it somehow, takes some actor though.

3. Yes I kind of agreed with you, my point was the bigger picture and it made a *bit* of sense heh.

It's not the only possible explanation for Cadian being white, UK media is full of diversity and BBC is on the anti racist crusade.

Well, you're not likely going to find many historic examples of female warriors simply because men have kinda ruled the world this entire time, and decreed that a woman's "place" wasn't on the battlefield. There's been a rather big chunk of time where women were barely even considered people, so...in my eyes it's really difficult to argue that women aren't willing or even capable when historically they just haven't been allowed to prove themselves at all.

Despite that history is still full of women that have defied all expectation and even surpassed men in their accomplishments from time to time, but you don't often hear about it because men have extremely fragile egos and simply can not process being outdone by a woman in any capacity. For example, Jackie Mitchell, a 17-year-old girl who became famous for striking out the two greatest baseball players in history, including Babe Ruth himself, who shortly after claimed women were "too delicate" and it would kill them to play ball every day. Literally days later her contract was voided and the commissioner declared women unfit to play baseball because it was "too strenuous". Co-ed sports aren't a thing because men are afraid of losing to women, and when they do they're practically dumbfounded and don't know what to do with themselves, like ol' Babe Ruth there who practically fething gave up.

Then there's this lady. Total badass. Started out in a brothel and became one of the world's most powerful pirates, and one of the few who actually managed to retire (and keep all the loot). Call her fragile and you'd probably be missing your head shortly after.

Now obviously war is a whole different ballgame, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if men had the same aversion to seeing women on the battlefield for the same kinda reasons they didn't want Jackie on the diamond. It has nothing to do with their "protection", it's not because women are too "fragile" or "delicate" to fight, it's more to do with the fact that men don't want to be outperformed by women, whom they've long considered to be virtually inferior in every way, only worth keeping around because the species wouldn't survive without them. It's more about the ego, and sexist machismo, than it is about any so-called biological facts.

Regardless of how things have been in the past, or if men really are biologically more suited for fighting than women, it doesn't mean that women can't fight, or that they should somehow not be allowed to if they're willing and able. Women are people, too, and should be allowed to rule their own lives, so as long as they're fit enough to be soldiers then I don't see what the issue is.

As far as 40k goes, when you take into account crap like genetic modification or human augmentation, and the fact that people are walking around with guns that can blow holes in tank armor and swords that cut through it like butter regardless of the strength of the user, it would seem that "stronger = better soldier" doesn't really hold true anymore. No matter how strong you are, your weak, human flesh isn't going to be as strong as a full bionic replacement, and there's an entire faction in 40k religiously dedicated to that idea, to the point where they're almost entirely machine except for the bits that can't be replaced. The biggest, strongest man in the galaxy that can still be considered a human being (and not some genetic freak killing machine) probably still isn't strong enough to survive hand-to-hand combat with an Ork boy, let alone the myriad of things in the galaxy that chew them up like nothing. As far as carrying wounded comrades away, since I always see that brought up during the "debates" about whether women should be allowed to serve in the military ("If I get wounded I'm fethed because women are too weak and frail to carry my ass to safety."), in the 41st millenium there's about a 99% chance that there's not enough left of you to save anyway. Your soul was devoured by a demon, you were dissolved in seconds by powerful acid, you were stripped down to nothing on a molecular level, you were scratched by a weapon covered in poison so virulent that there's literally nothing anyone can do for you, your very life force was sucked out of you by some alien blade and now you're a dry husk, you were eaten, stomped, sawed in half, sucked into a portable black hole...40k's a scary god-damned place and you really don't stand a chance regardless of who or what you are.

Ok but Im talking about history references and functioning archetypes. Apparently we cant rest until those are corrected according to current political ideas even if the correction is based on rare data or questionable conclusions or just not necessary.


It's not a rule, the idea of underappreciated women. I have accomplished girl climbers friends and they are nothing but cherished but then Im quite certain than Polish women rule 90% of the country. My wife has near absolute power over me that's for sure. I dont think there's a lot of sexism here apart from natural douchebags that are bad to everyone just it takes different forms. The most traditional writers 2 centuries back were already showing women in warrior positions whenever possible, one for example saving a knight from a bear in the forest 1410 AD heh, women hunting just as men etc. Or just noble patriots, culture holders, social fighters, intelectuals.

Oh and I dont think women cant fight, or shouldnt be able to, especialy today when automatic weapons kind of equalise on any biological differences heh. Id just like the historical or mythical references not dulled further.

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
YYet with all your babble you fail to explain why women would make better or even equal SMs. SMs are brotherhoods, they are composed of men, the obviously logical choice of sex if you were to create superhumans. The geneseed process can only be made based on a single sex. In order to accommodate both males and females, a second process would have to be created, making things rather more expensive and complicated than it needs to be. So of males and females, any person with half a brain would just stick with producing men instead of risking a process just because someone like you wants to see female SMs. Stick to SOB if you wanna see female badasses.

Again, the entire thing is fiction. The process only works on men because GW said so, there's nothing inherently more reasonable or obvious about it working on men than on women. GW could change the entire concept of space marines with one sentence of fluff:

"The geneseed process works by merging the two X chromosomes into a single Z chromosome, therefore it only works on women".

Enjoy your female space marines.


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Plumbumbarum wrote:
If you go back though, people were implying that half the sm chapter with knight/ monk references being women would be ok because you can dig up the odd chapter that recruited 100 and the odd women knight somewhere else or how gender is not a part of knight reference. You know like those thousands of females in plate armour clashing on medieval battlefields.

Why are you so obsessed with sex and race matching the source material? Who cares how many women were on medieval battlefields, a female knight is still a knight. And if making a gender swap would ruin the reference for you I don't know how you can tolerate things like "knights" being armed with bolters and chainsaw swords.

I dont think drawing hard conclusion based on prognostics for next 38 thousands of year for a ridiculous space fantasy setting is a way to go.

But that's exactly what you're doing. You're assuming that not only will the Imperium be racist, it will be racist in the exact same ways that people are racist in 2015. And you're complaining that the plausibility of the setting would be destroyed if they aren't racist like that.

2. I don't but I dont think black face fits that particular uniform. The world didnt crumble when a black actor (that I am a fan of) was cast as Heimdall but there was a significant laughing response from many people watching it. Fething Polish bigots, initiate obligatory gender studies, no tolerance to intolerance! Mythology correction inbound.

This makes absolutely no sense. DKoK have no real-world cultural inspiration (and no, borrowing details from a bunch of different WWI uniforms doesn't count as "culture"), so how can you say what race "fits" them?

I do find it odd that in a setting with chainsaw swords, skyscraper robots and mushroom men, people draw the immersion line at women and PoC. A medieval knight carrying a chainsaw sword in SPACE is fine, but having a lady knight is just too far? I simply cannot grasp that logic.

Its more the strange need to make them women just because. It's the same as if it were being demanded that there should be female Orks, just for diversity purposes. Or fantasy Orcs/Goblins, or Brettonian Knights. But ignoring the fact that armies that could easily have female models without even a minute change to decades-established fiction do not have even a bit of them, like Guard, makes it a clearly manufactured issue.

At least some companies like Victoria have awesome looking female guardsmen. Or even the Sedition Wars Vanguard have cool looking women. Or Dreamforge.

Of course other than what I've seen of the Victoria models, when companies typically exaggerate the female form to make them more noticeable at 1 inch tall, they get lambasted by idiots for making cheesecake, like how many thought the Sed Wars Vanguard or Dreamforge troops had "too much bubble butt". You can't win with some people.

I don't really see Astartes as really having a gender, as many chapters and Legions are so monstrous and altered (World Eaters, Carcharodons, Black Dragons, Etc.) they can barely qualify as human.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
YYet with all your babble you fail to explain why women would make better or even equal SMs. SMs are brotherhoods, they are composed of men, the obviously logical choice of sex if you were to create superhumans. The geneseed process can only be made based on a single sex. In order to accommodate both males and females, a second process would have to be created, making things rather more expensive and complicated than it needs to be. So of males and females, any person with half a brain would just stick with producing men instead of risking a process just because someone like you wants to see female SMs. Stick to SOB if you wanna see female badasses.

Again, the entire thing is fiction. The process only works on men because GW said so, there's nothing inherently more reasonable or obvious about it working on men than on women. GW could change the entire concept of space marines with one sentence of fluff:

"The geneseed process works by merging the two X chromosomes into a single Z chromosome, therefore it only works on women".

Enjoy your female space marines.

Yup, but that isn't stated anywhere in the fluff, is it? See, now you're just making things up. I can't believe how hard this is for you to understand, and it isn't hard to understand at all. The only argument you provide is that geneseed implantation is fictional and while true, you can still draw logical reasons as to why there are no female SMs. Several people have provided you with such reasons and you can't reply with a logical explanation, other than "it's fictional and this is only the case because GW says so".

And from what you say, you prefer that SMs be all female. Why? Show me the logic? You're just arguing for fun I assume, as what you're saying makes 0 sense.