Gert wrote:
Yeah, you aren't getting what I'm saying here chief.
Hecaton made an unfounded statement that has since been shown to be untrue and only true within their headcanon. Other people have decided that instead of saying "maybe you shouldn't make up nonsense", they jumped right on in to support a completely untrue statement.
I'm objecting to this untrue statement on the grounds of:
A - It's not true.
B - It can cause actual real harm to real people who already have to deal with loads of persecution anyway.

If you want to headcanon that the Imperium kills babies with disabilities, that is up to you just don't frame it as "official canon" then get mad because everyone, including the source you provided, says you're wrong.

I get it Gert. What you say is well intentioned but it's misplaced.

What hecaton says is not 'untrue' or 'unfounded'. Its not 'wrong' either. What he says here is no more 'unfounded' than your interpretation. He refers to an open ended statement by gw, and beyond that, it's left to your own imagination. Theres enough other statements in various places and enough hints and inferences and through various times that a reader is not exactly wrong for interpreting a very dark scenario from this. Gw have always painted in broad strokes like this. If you're looking for explicit admissions or references you won't find them- broad strokes. Doesn't mean there's not room for them, and flat out shouting, as you did, in ALL CAPS to SHUT UP and SHOVE YOUR OPINION UP YOUR [bleep] is rude, disrespectful and frankly, just as oppressive.

 Gert wrote:

Aash wrote:

The aggressive tone is unnecessary. As for reading and jumping in, I did read what came before. I only commented now because I felt I had something to add to the conversation.

And on the subject of mutants and mutations, they aren’t dirty words. There’s nothing wrong with having a mutation, whether that mutation causes webbed toes, blue eyes, Down’s syndrome or any other generic abnormality.

I don’t know you and your background just as much as you don’t know me or mine, so let’s not make assumptions?

I personally don’t have an issue with the horror-state of the 41st millennium persecuting innocents any more than I do with Brave New World and its dystopia or The Left Hand of Darkness commenting on gender.

Ok, I apologise for causing distress.
As for your point about mutants, firstly within the context of the Imperium being a mutant is a bad thing, and secondly, have you read or watched any X-Men media? That should give you a really good understanding of how the term is used by people. It doesn't matter if the mutants and their select allies see themselves as part of the wider humanity, enough people hate and fear them to make them "the baddies".
Do you understand how you can make something bleak and dark without also making it hostile to people who already have to deal with prejudice and discrimination IRL? 40k can be dark because humanity is enslaved to a vile regime that doesn't care who lives or dies, why add transphobia into the mix?
Justifying hatred with "but its grimdark" is a sad excuse and it lessens the hobby for everyone involved.

I take your point. For what it’s worth, I haven’t made a single reference to intersex, gender fluidity, transphobia or the like.

All I was ( evidently, quite poorly) trying to say is that although I’m not aware of specific reference to the imperium persecuting any existing real world mutation, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine they would, and that the very idea is horrifying.

To follow on from your reference to x-men, I think the mutant cause in those stories is a great example of holding a mirror up to the real world’s problems with discrimination ( race and gender specifically).

Edit- and yes, in the context of the imperium, being a mutant is a bad thing. Living in the imperium is “to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable” after all. They think mutants are bad, and they are wrong. That’s my point.

I am particularly baffled by the double standard for which in the 40k universe the genetic science is both like our own (when defining mutants, or what is a xeno) and at the same time it does work by unknowable criteria (about the possibility of a female space marine: then it b came the fantasy version of itself).

Pick one.

I don't think that 40k science is like our own for defining mutants. In real life, we define mutants as genetic disorders, The most common of which may change your eye or hair colour or make you fractionally more susceptible to sunburn. Such things are mostly there from birth, and are generally benign.

40k science defines mutants as people who have tentacles for limbs, insect-like jaws, multiple extra arms, becoming enormous, gaining psychic abilities, and other vastly exaggerated things, most of which have never actually happened (10 internets if someone finds someone who was born with a genuine, besuckered tentacle for an arm or a beak for a mouth!). The excerpts added earlier also explain that these can happen suddenly to fully grown humans due to local events like warp storms or ships emerging badly.



I also agree with the sentiment that there's no need to add any reference to real-life conditions which could upset people when you could say "this baby was born with one wing instead of an arm and speaking in tongues, so we killed it". The grimdark setting, for me, works better with more extreme situations. Reading about how the imperium purges the mutants can leave you thinking that they are doing the best they can to protect humanity, even if it's a bad thing to do. If they didn't do it, you have dangerous psykers killing people accidentally, so they have to either purge or train them. Can't really get behind that if you walk real-world conditions into the firing line.


In any case, it's all made up. the fact that they purge mutants, the fact that there are only male space marines, the giant green monster who's totally not named after Margeret thatcher (Ghazgul Mag-Uruk Thrakka), all of these are just decisions made once upon a time to create something. Perhaps it's a good explanation for the question "why is there something and not nothing". Perhaps I'm going too philosophical again.

Either way, you can have a fictional universe in which both magic juice only works on boys and people can recognize that having tentacles for arms isn't normal. But you can also have one where magic juice works on anyone, so we should just do that, because it would be cool.

(wondering if I should put a disclaimer in my signature that I'm for female marines so I don't have to iterate it every time I post and it seems like I'm against it again! XD)

Hecaton wrote:Well, the same section I was referring to said that something like one in 10,000 mutants were kept alive, that might account for what you're talking about. But given there are armies of abhumans... that means that anyone without a militarily useful suite of mutations is getting purged. Anyone.

The section you're referring to doesn't actually define what "mutants" are beyond the extreme side of things - ie, your 12 foot hulks of flesh and bone. Because realistically speaking, *all* humans are mutants, built up of hundreds of thousands of small minor mutations. Hair colour, eye colour, allergies, height, metabolism, hormone levels - all susceptible to mutation. What draws the line at what is an isn't an "acceptable" mutation - could someone be killed for heterochromia? Vitiligo? The colour of their skin? Albinism? Because GW never explicitly calls out any *real world* cases of what we might consider "major mutations" (a horribly clinical phrase, I do apologise), with their only examples being the extreme and fantastical cases.

So, I'm not convinced that "anyone without a militarily useful suite of mutations" is getting purged, until we can define what mutations GW are talking about.

Mmmm, it's worth noting that Klinefelter's syndrome (xxy sex chromosomes) isn't really "intersex,"

That's not the only form of intersex?

 Gert wrote:
I'm still waiting for the passage that says the Imperium kills babies with disabilities or who are intersex.
I mean I know exactly what is going to happen but still.

I told you where it was found. Do you want a screenshot?

Yes, we did, actually. Thank you for providing it later.

Hecaton wrote:

 Gert wrote:

I mean it further normalises fascism within a hobby that already has a problem with normalising fascism. "Oh but Orks are the comedy faction" doesn't hold up because the Orks aren't normalising fascism, the player who made them is.

The thing that people are dancing around is that portraying the senselessly cruel and oppressive Imperium as unironically heroic normalizes fascism in a way that an ork army painted like real-world fascists cannot, because basically everything that orks do is ironic.

I don't think anyone is dancing around that. If someone painted their Space Marines or Guardsmen like real world fascists, I'd equally have major issues with it.

No-one here is claiming the Imperium is supposed to be heroic or "good" - but simply including women Space Marines doesn't make a faction "good" or "heroic", it just means that the arbitrary restriction on women doesn't exist.

And I'm still going to say that orks dressed up as fascists is an issue, regardless if someone claims irony or not.

 Gert wrote:

Yeah, I want the direct quote from a GW publication that says the Imperium mandates the killing of babies with disabilities or who are intersex. It seems to me you're just applying the term "mutant" to people with disabilities or who are intersex despite knowing that when the Imperium talks about mutation, it means tentacle arms or goat legs.

The way "mutation" is used in 40k is not the scientific sense, but rather in the "abnormal physical phenotype" sense.

Is it? In the example you give, it only highlights the extreme cases - those with claws for hands, or third eyes, or 12 foot talk hulks of muscle. Not "I've got a cleft lip" or "I have an extra finger". You're adding that part in entirely on your own.

The relevant quotes (from p. 8 of the Rogue Trader KT book) are as follows:

Rogue Trader wrote:Amongst Humanity in the 41st millenium, mutations are commonplace. While many can be attributed to environmental conditions such as rad-pollution, the most insidious are those caused by the powers of Chaos...

...But for every sanctioned mutant that serves the Imperium ... there are a thousand lesser mutants that are slain outright, and another thousand that dwell hidden in the shadows, rightfully afraid to reveal themselves...

So what we can see here is that the Imperium doesn't distinguish between mutations caused by pollution and those caused by Chaos, and it kills 99.9% of mutants it can. The ones who aren't are mentioned - abhuman soldiers, navigators, psykers, etc.

Does it kill 99.9% of mutants? Because it actually more sounds like they kill 50%, and then another 50% escape ("a thousand lesser mutants that are slain... and another thousand that dwell hidden"). Not exactly this whole "culling from birth" thing you describe.

Also, would you care to explain how the Blood Angels get their recruits, if not from mutants? The inhabitants of Baal Secundus are all mutants, to a degree. They live in an irradiated wasteland, constantly bombarded by toxins and radiation. And yet, they are recruited in one of the most prestigious Chapters in the Imperium.
Strange, that.

Mutations caused by environmental toxins can cause things like extra or missing limbs or digits due to interfering with developmental genes, like the infamous case of thalidomide in the 20th century. This is consistent with the way mutations are depicted in 40k, with extra limbs being a common effect of mutation, and nowhere is it said that the Imperium distinguishes between mutation caused by environmental causes or Chaos.

I don't recall it actually saying that? It says how many mutations are attributed to the environment, how the worst are Chaos-inflicted, but in the quote you listed, I don't see at all where it says they don't distinguish between them. Additionally, it even says mutations are commonplace, but the examples it gives in the parts of the quote you omitted (thanks for the screenshot, by the way!) don't ever refer to "mundane" mutations being persecuted, but instead to the more extreme examples.

Basically, I think you're reading a lot into this text, and inferring things that don't actually exist there - namely that the Imperium has a "kill on birth" policy regarding all mutations (evidently, it doesn't, if thousands of mutants can escape into the slums), that the Imperium doesn't distinguish between different forms of mutation (because the only examples of ones being persecuted are the extreme cases, not the examples of sixth limbs, or albinism), and that the Imperium has a zero tolerance policy on people with mutations anyway (the Blood Angels recruits exclusively from mutant populations).

Do you really think I said that Klinefelter's was the only form of intersex characteristics, or are you joking around?

It's the only example you gave. That is all.

Yes, because all the results of the study were statistically insignificant. /s

You put a sarcasm sign on, but you're right - it *was* a statistically insignificant study.

Andykp wrote:
Smudge has covered all of the points I wanted to make so I will just say that it is painfully clear that you do not any case or argument and are not prepared to even pretend to have a discussion with any honesty at all. From what I can see you basically trolling now, not willing to provide any real constructive argument at all, just saying “nah” and “don’t care”. I do think you should have a good look at yourself though if you have an issue with those receiving death threats and online abuse and no empathy for them but have no issue at all with those giving it out. You are maybe on the wrong side of decency on this one? I would say so.

Smudge was misrepresenting my points

Such as?

As opposed to you quite literally just editing out my entire post to requote it as "lies"?

I'm not really sure you can argue that in good faith here.

Gert wrote:None of that says the Imperium kills kids with disabilities or who are intersex. You've projected your personal opinion on something and declared it fact.
GW is very clear about what they consider mutation and the very passages you've just sent show that.
...
When dogma comes face to face with reality, even in the Imperium, dogma backs down quite a bit.

Precisely. The quotes given don't support a position beyond "the Imperium hunts down people with wildly fantastical and fictional mutations, and even then, isn't perfect at it".

Mutation in 40k does not seem to count real world "mutations" in it's kill-list - and I think that's for good reason.

Andykp wrote:Smudge was not misrepresenting your words at all. He summed them and your argument up very nicely. It might be tricky to see from your view but he is not the discussing in bad faith. You have done than time and time again.

And those pics of text really do not say what you claim they do. That is not evidence of what you claim. And still you have not answered my question.

I appreciate the support, and I very much agree with how the quoted text from the Rogue Trader source absolutely doesn't support their claims, but I'm sorry, I do have to remind again on my pronouns again - it's only fair that I remind everyone fairly. It's not personal, just a reminder!

Deadnight wrote:There's better things to argue against than standing on a hill saying 'the imperium is not as horrible as you are implying' or 'how dare you say they do bad things to these people!'

At the same time, when someone is making blatantly *incorrect* posts, or inferring things that don't have evidence to support them, is it not acceptable to challenge that?

Most of this kind of stuff is heavily implied and inferred and left to your imagination rather than described in exacting detail in black and white.

Sure, but implication and inference aren't an exact art, and claiming that something *definitely happens* because of something you "inferred" is not a solid core for an argument.

I can "infer" that Space Marines are completely sexless and removed from all concerns of reproduction and suchlike (let's ignore that there are even sources in modern BL books that support this idea) - but evidently, it doesn't stop certain users here seeing women Space Marines as "temptresses" and "maternity leave", or how suddenly sex would be on their minds.

When going for this, we really can only make straight calls based on what GW describes in black and white, because we could infer many, MANY things - such as how that "purity" might not just be limited to mutations, but to race and ethnicity as well - something we explicitly *do not see happen*, yet could be inferred.

Youre talking, frankly about a medieval or dark age world view turned up to 11. Crippled kids were absolutely left out in the cold to freeze in our history. Not unheard of at all.

You're right, it absolutely is a horrible setting - but one where those same mutants are elevated into Astartes by the Blood Angels, where women serve on the front lines of battle, where ethnicity seems altogether ignored.
It's an awful place, but it's not awful everywhere. Rather, I think that the Imperium being so careless of human life that it simply *doesn't* distinguish between ethnicity, gender or even some body types is much more interesting than "they persecute minorities".

Mutation is more than just spikes and tentacles. Anything deviating from the baseline Human phenotypic state is technically a mutant.

That would imply that people with blue eyes are mutants. Hell, I seem to recall that everyone born on Cadia has violet eyes (I believe that was in The First Heretic?) - are they all mutants, because they deviate from the baseline phenotypic state?

It's the Imperium. Life is pretty cheap. And utterly horrible.

Exactly - which is why I tend to lean on the side that the Imperium simply don't care about minor mutations like vitiligo, or albinism, or polydactylism, or so on - because life is cheap, and it's just more meat for the grinder.

some bloke wrote:Regarding mutation and intersex or disabled children:

the writers are quite clearly referring to physical, unnatural mutation - 12 foot high monster people, people with mandibles instead of jaws, or insectoid limbs. They aren't scanning babies to see if they have extra or lacking internal organs. If a person cannot walk, then they aren't about to be purged - though they might end up on the wayside of society begging for scraps, but that's a different thing entirely. A lack of social support is an issue from the imperium being stretched thin and overpopulated, not from their inherent decisions. Someone born disabled in a hive city is getting a shorter shrift of life than one born into a more luxurious planet where their family can afford to look after them.

Exactly, very much agreed. When the text refers to mutations, it is invariably talking about the extreme cases - not ones that translate onto real life humans of now.

Gert wrote:See the difference between someone with tentacles getting burned and someone with Downs Syndrome getting purged, is that people with tentacles AREN'T REAL.
By Hecaton's logic, the Imperium would also purge people modern society considers LGBTQ+ because they "deviate from the divine perfection of the baseline Human form in mind or body" as you put it.
You can portray the Imperium as a bad place without making people who already suffer stigmatism and difficulty in our society feel even worse about themselves.
THAT is the point I am objecting to here.

Absolutely spot on.

The Imperium is awful, we can all agree on that - but we don't need it stigmatising against people who are stigmatised nowadays to showcase that. In fact, it's vastly more original and generic for it to completely abandon all sense of modern stigmas, but still be portrayed as utterly evil through its treatment of fictional people.

Aash wrote:Should we also remove any reference to religion and gods, or the Emperors attempt to stamp out religion and the destruction of churches in the pre-heresy lore such as “the last church” too?

I mean, it kind of *does*. There is only one state religion, and it's an entirely fictional one - even references to real world religions are hidden behind bastardised naming and intentional vagueness.

The whole point of the setting is how insanely awful the imperium is, and how any number of normal things in reality would get you summarily executed or worse in the dystopia of 40K.

Which you can show without needing to mindlessly copy existing prejudices from our time, surely?

Again - people saying that "the Imperium kills deformed babies and people with sixth fingers and just HATES women" are inferring things that simply don't exist. I have to wonder why they're making up those issues.

Aash wrote:My point is I don’t think that just because something is fictional it should flinch away from painful subjects.

And I don't think that those painful subjects need to be handled without a degree of allegory.

Take Chaos mutations, or the Imperium's xenophobia. While the Imperium itself may be mostly ignorant to dealing with minor mutations that would be eye-opening here, or uncaring of ethnicity, their responses to major mutations and against fictional aliens are still emblematic of those painful subjects *without having to go after real world people*.

The Imperium can still be shown as evil without needing to perpetuate those same evils done on real humans currently.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Deadnight wrote:What hecaton says is not 'untrue' or 'unfounded'. Its not 'wrong' either. What he says here is no more 'unfounded' than your interpretation. He refers to an open ended statement by gw, and beyond that, it's left to your own imagination.

The issue is that Hecaton doesn't seem to think so - their comments are very much absolutist, very much "no! the Imperium DEFINITELY kills babies!!", not something which is perhaps left in the dark.

Again, all we're saying is that GW never describe the Imperium persecuting non-fictional "mutations", in much the same way as we don't see institutional racism or sexism. And while we can imagine they exist, I have to wonder why we need to do that?

The Imperium is clearly evil and dark and horrible - without needing to bring in real-world hatred. If the only way you can make your fictional empire evil is by perpetrating existing prejudices and intolerance, how much of that empire is fictional?

Aash wrote:To follow on from your reference to x-men, I think the mutant cause in those stories is a great example of holding a mirror up to the real world’s problems with discrimination ( race and gender specifically).

Absolutely right, because they use *allegory* - they use fictional characters to stand in in the place of persecuted groups to highlight that persecution, without explicitly putting real people on the line.

We know the Sentinels in X-men are bad, without them needing to go after homosexuals.

some bloke wrote:I don't think that 40k science is like our own for defining mutants. In real life, we define mutants as genetic disorders, The most common of which may change your eye or hair colour or make you fractionally more susceptible to sunburn. Such things are mostly there from birth, and are generally benign.

40k science defines mutants as people who have tentacles for limbs, insect-like jaws, multiple extra arms, becoming enormous, gaining psychic abilities, and other vastly exaggerated things, most of which have never actually happened (10 internets if someone finds someone who was born with a genuine, besuckered tentacle for an arm or a beak for a mouth!). The excerpts added earlier also explain that these can happen suddenly to fully grown humans due to local events like warp storms or ships emerging badly.

Exactly. Mutation in 40k is not the same as "mutation" IRL, and I think that's for the better.




Now, back on track, why can't women be Space Marines again?

Deadnight wrote:

I get it Gert. What you say is well intentioned but it's misplaced.

What hecaton says is not 'untrue' or 'unfounded'. Its not 'wrong' either. What he says here is no more 'unfounded' than your interpretation. He refers to an open ended statement by gw, and beyond that, it's left to your own imagination. Theres enough other statements in various places and enough hints and inferences and through various times that a reader is not exactly wrong for interpreting a very dark scenario from this. Gw have always painted in broad strokes like this. If you're looking for explicit admissions or references you won't find them- broad strokes. Doesn't mean there's not room for them, and flat out shouting, as you did, in ALL CAPS to SHUT UP and SHOVE YOUR OPINION UP YOUR [bleep] is rude, disrespectful and frankly, just as oppressive.

The source material states mutations that are common and it is widely accepted that mutation in 40k is crazy wacky stuff like tentacle arms and twenty eyes but good job in mixing and matching what I wrote to suit your post. Open-ended would be "there are many forms of mutation that range from mental deficiency to growing tentacle arms", none of the publications say this
Here's what I actually said:

And for the thousandth time in this cursed nightmare of a thread, YOU CAN SHOW THAT THE IMPERIUM IS BAD WITHOUT MAKING REAL PEOPLE FEEL BAD.

You've taken the final parts and decided all my posts are shouty rants. I'm using caps lock to identify the important part of this point. If an individual can't imagine a bad Imperium without adding in things that might be a thing but have never been stated in any GW publication, especially when those things can cause real harm to real people, I'm not going to say "well that's ok that's just your opinion".
As for the other part:

Just so we're 100% clear on the hypocrisy of the Imperium BTW, Space Marines are mutants, Ogryns are mutants, Ratlings are mutants, every shade of Psyker under the stars is a mutant and every single one is not only tolerated but seen as a vital part of the Imperium.

I've been in this thread for nearly two months and have seen some exceptionally rubbish arguments or arguments that are just dressing for people to be hateful. There is a line between dark and concerning and Hecaton crossed that line IMO (and others have agreed). To quote me:

40k can be dark because humanity is enslaved to a vile regime that doesn't care who lives or dies, why add transphobia into the mix?

I'd like to leave basically everything to Smudge because they are objectively better at this kind of thing than I am but it seems unfair to pin it all on one person.

That passage hecaton posted does not say, as he claimed, that disabled and intersex people are killed at birth in the imperium. It does not say they aren’t either but it most definitely does not say they are. That is a grey (very dark grey) area filled in by your own imaginations.

Somehow as well hecaton was using this imagined fact of disabled babies being killed at birth to justify only having male marines, ill be honest I cannot fathom how the two would be connected but that’s the state of affairs we are in at the minute with this discussion. I think we should leave mutant killing another thread. This one is about female marines, not mutants, just to be clear, being female is NOT a mutation.

Andykp wrote:
That passage hecaton posted does not say, as he claimed, that disabled and intersex people are killed at birth in the imperium. It does not say they aren’t either but it most definitely does not say they are. That is a grey (very dark grey) area filled in by your own imaginations.

Agreed. And while you can totally say that you think the Imperium does do those kinds of things, it's entirely headcanon, and not supported by GW's materials.

Somehow as well hecaton was using this imagined fact of disabled babies being killed at birth to justify only having male marines, ill be honest I cannot fathom how the two would be connected but that’s the state of affairs we are in at the minute with this discussion. I think we should leave mutant killing another thread. This one is about female marines, not mutants, just to be clear, being female is NOT a mutation.

Also very much agreed. I'm not entirely sure how this was related to the topic in the first place, especially when so many other points are being overlooked in the wake of this - most notably how apparently including women Astartes means that all the male Astartes would suddenly have sexual urges?

I'll be totally honest, I'm struggling to work out exactly what the reasons against including women Space Marines are now, with the range of arguments being presented ranging from preserving the sanctity of the lore, to some genuinely horrifically misogynistic-sounding takes.

At this stage it has only come down to posters either saying:
1 - I don't think there should be any female SM *cue misogynistic rant* (these are getting very rare which is a good sign).
2 - I don't care (not great and surprising considering that you're interested in the hobby enough to even post in the first place).
3 - I think it would be cool.
4 - I don't care, do what you want but GW shouldn't make it canon (thereby making the "I don't care" part irrelevant because if you don't want it in "canon" then you are invested in maintaining the status quo).

 Gert wrote:
At this stage it has only come down to posters either saying:
1 - I don't think there should be any female SM *cue misogynistic rant* (these are getting very rare which is a good sign).
2 - I don't care (not great and surprising considering that you're interested in the hobby enough to even post in the first place).
3 - I think it would be cool.
4 - I don't care, do what you want but GW shouldn't make it canon (thereby making the "I don't care" part irrelevant because if you don't want it in "canon" then you are invested in maintaining the status quo).

5 - I think it would be cool, but only do it because it would be a cool thing to do and not for the political inclusion reasons. Add to the lore, don't overwrite it, and expand the story.


Probably the most succinct statement of my viewpoint.

I would count your point 5 under my point 3. It doesn't matter if you want female SM for conflicting reasons because inevitably GW will make a botch job of introducing them and annoy literally everyone in the process

In the spirit of getting back on topic, were GW to introduce female space marines, what would be your preferred background justification?

Some examples off the top of my head are:

- Retcon, there always were female space marines.
- Cawl or someone else figured out how to do it recently, so there are now twice as many potential space marines in the population.
- it was always possible but there was some reason why it wasn’t done until now (what would be amazing interesting reason?)


Or any other suggestions?

 Gert wrote:
I would count your point 5 under my point 3. It doesn't matter if you want female SM for conflicting reasons because inevitably GW will make a botch job of introducing them and annoy literally everyone in the process

Fair point!

Aash wrote:

- Retcon, there always were female space marines.

Pass, this would annoy too many people and taint the introduction.

- Cawl or someone else figured out how to do it recently, so there are now twice as many potential space marines in the population.
- it was always possible but there was some reason why it wasn’t done until now (what would be amazing interesting reason?)

TBH these two are the same IMO. Most things are possible you just have to try and do it, so in my mind, someone could have made SM out of both sexes, it just wasn't the Emperor. The wider Imperium doesn't need to know that just like they don't know about Imperium Secundus or Daemons or the Fallen. Just lie and say "Oh yeah we found some of the Emperor's old records and now we can make female SM, praise be unto Him for his amazing foresight and genius!".

Aash wrote:
In the spirit of getting back on topic, were GW to introduce female space marines, what would be your preferred background justification?

Some examples off the top of my head are:

- Retcon, there always were female space marines.
- Cawl or someone else figured out how to do it recently, so there are now twice as many potential space marines in the population.
- it was always possible but there was some reason why it wasn’t done until now (what would be amazing interesting reason?)


Or any other suggestions?

Well, I'm firmly in camp 2. I don't think it wise to retcon the fluff for changes, especially when there's such a convenient reason for why it's suddenly an option! Adding to the fluff always trumps retconning to me. Retcon should be reserved for when they can't smoothly get to where they want to get to without it (like they had to with newcrons, or if we had oodles of fluff explaining how the emperor was fixed on only having boys and they are clones of him so boys and the third commandment of the emperor is "boys only", in which case yeah, that would need retconning out!)

Aash wrote:
In the spirit of getting back on topic, were GW to introduce female space marines, what would be your preferred background justification?

Some examples off the top of my head are:

- Retcon, there always were female space marines.
- Cawl or someone else figured out how to do it recently, so there are now twice as many potential space marines in the population.
- it was always possible but there was some reason why it wasn’t done until now (what would be amazing interesting reason?)


Or any other suggestions?

Any of the above. I don't mind retconning this - the only issue might come in books where characters explicitly talk about the lack of women Astartes, but as with many outdated 40k books, it's not hard to just say "yeah, that got retconned, just skip that whole bit".

I think Cawl and Primaris was the main catalyst for me changing my stance on women Astartes, and there was no reason that Cawl *shouldn't* have been able to make women Astartes a thing when Primaris were unveiled. I know that this is a fairly widely shared stance, and many hobbyists I know made mixed gender or even all-women Primaris Chapters because of this, myself included.

And yeah, as mentioned, the last two points really are kind of one and the same - either because Cawl was able to bypass an arbitrary biological restriction, or a cultural one.

I'm not really sure I have any other suggestions, other than it happening.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Aash wrote:
In the spirit of getting back on topic, were GW to introduce female space marines, what would be your preferred background justification?

Some examples off the top of my head are:

- Retcon, there always were female space marines.
- Cawl or someone else figured out how to do it recently, so there are now twice as many potential space marines in the population.
- it was always possible but there was some reason why it wasn’t done until now (what would be amazing interesting reason?)


Or any other suggestions?

Any of the above. I don't mind retconning this - the only issue might come in books where characters explicitly talk about the lack of women Astartes, but as with many outdated 40k books, it's not hard to just say "yeah, that got retconned, just skip that whole bit".

I think Cawl and Primaris was the main catalyst for me changing my stance on women Astartes, and there was no reason that Cawl *shouldn't* have been able to make women Astartes a thing when Primaris were unveiled. I know that this is a fairly widely shared stance, and many hobbyists I know made mixed gender or even all-women Primaris Chapters because of this, myself included.

And yeah, as mentioned, the last two points really are kind of one and the same - either because Cawl was able to bypass an arbitrary biological restriction, or a cultural one.

I'm not really sure I have any other suggestions, other than it happening.

I suppose points 2 and 3 are very similar. I was thinking the distinction would for point 2, it wasn’t known until recently that it was possible/how to do it whereas point 3 was more it was a deliberate decision to go all male until know, or it was covered up that it was possible to make female marines.

While I’m not necessarily against just retconning it in that they were always there, I’d prefer to have them introduced. Cawl or the like figuring out how to do it would probably be easiest because Primaris, but I think it being deliberately hidden might have more scope to tell interesting stories.

Now all I have is an image of Cawl quickly stuffing drawings of female SM into his desk drawer because Guilliman walked into his lab.
"What are you doing Cawl?"
"NOTHING AT ALL NOPE NOTHING TO SEE HERE!"
"Mk, you're weird."

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Also, would you care to explain how the Blood Angels get their recruits, if not from mutants? The inhabitants of Baal Secundus are all mutants, to a degree. They live in an irradiated wasteland, constantly bombarded by toxins and radiation. And yet, they are recruited in one of the most prestigious Chapters in the Imperium.

Strange, that.

Space Marine fiefdom is the simple answer to this. It’s a grey area in Imperial law. Space Marines can kind of do what they want. It’s the same reason SM fiefdoms don’t need to supply regiments to the Astra Militarum. In any case, they’re the Blood Angels. Are you going to tell them they’re wrong?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

At the same time, when someone is making blatantly *incorrect* posts, or inferring things that don't have evidence to support them, is it not acceptable to challenge that?

He wasn’t exactly wrong here in what he said here. And I was commenting towards Gert, not Hecaton. Gert went to the opposite extreme and is as absolutist in characterising it repeatedly as ‘untrue’. it’s a grey area that is quite open to interpretation and inference. And then went and told people to shove their opinions up their [bleeps]. How about some politeness? You're quick to have a go at the folks on the other side of the debate for being rude etc, I don't think it's unfair to ask the same of you.

Sure, but implication and inference aren't an exact art, and claiming that something *definitely happens* because of something you "inferred" is not a solid core for an argument..

Fair, and by the same token claiming them as absolutely ‘untrue’ or 'unfounded' is equally, not a solid core for an argument.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:
When going for this, we really can only make straight calls based on what GW describes in black and white, because we could infer many, MANY things - such as how that "purity" might not just be limited to mutations, but to race and ethnicity as well - something we explicitly *do not see happen*, yet could be inferred.

Youre talking, frankly about a medieval or dark age world view turned up to 11. Crippled kids were absolutely left out in the cold to freeze in our history. Not unheard of at all.

You're right, it absolutely is a horrible setting - but one where those same mutants are elevated into Astartes by the Blood Angels, where women serve on the front lines of battle, where ethnicity seems altogether ignored.

It's an awful place, but it's not awful everywhere. Rather, I think that the Imperium being so careless of human life that it simply *doesn't* distinguish between ethnicity, gender or even some body types is much more interesting than "they persecute minorities".

I strongly disagree. In my mind, one of the best things about 40k, and especially the older stuff is it was absolutely not described in black and white. It was all inference, implied and left up to your own imagination. It made it 'yours'. Im absolutely OK with the Imperium being utterly uncaring about ethnicity etc, but the racism is simply directed elsewhere, towards the heretic, the mutants and the alien. They don’t care about the colour of your skin, necessarily, but if you’re skin is scaled or furry, you’re going to the pyre. Your family too.

Mutation is more than just spikes and tentacles. Anything deviating from the baseline Human phenotypic state is technically a mutant.

That would imply that people with blue eyes are mutants. Hell, I seem to recall that everyone born on Cadia has violet eyes (I believe that was in The First Heretic?) - are they all mutants, because they deviate from the baseline phenotypic state?

It's the Imperium. Life is pretty cheap. And utterly horrible.

Exactly - which is why I tend to lean on the side that the Imperium simply don't care about minor mutations like vitiligo, or albinism, or polydactylism, or so on - because life is cheap, and it's just more meat for the grinder.

Deadnight wrote:

He wasn’t exactly wrong here in what he said here. And I was commenting towards Gert, not Hecaton. Gert went to the opposite extreme and is as absolutist in characterising it repeatedly as ‘untrue’. it’s a grey area that is quite open to interpretation and inference. And then went and told people to shove their opinions up their [bleeps]. How about some politeness? You're quick to have a go at the folks on the other side of the debate for being rude etc, I don't think it's unfair to ask the same of you.

Hecaton was asked to prove their point with specific references to support their statement. They didn't do that. Without going into certain things, I put that specific part of the post (which has been rightly removed since it was out of line) because I'm very much sick of bad faith arguments like the one Hecaton posted. It doesn't matter if it might happen, they treated it as fact when the opposite is instead the case. I'd also like to point out that throughout this thread my opinions have been dismissed as leftist Marxist SJW nonsense and while that is mostly meaningless words, I haven't lied to make a point then get mad that my lie was called out.

I strongly disagree. In my mind, one of the best things about 40k, and especially the older stuff is it was absolutely not described in black and white. It was all inference, implied and left up to your own imagination. It made it 'yours'. Im absolutely OK with the Imperium being utterly uncaring about ethnicity etc, but the racism is simply directed elsewhere, towards the heretic, the mutants and the alien. They don’t care about the colour of your skin, necessarily, but if you’re skin is scaled or furry, you’re going to the pyre. Your family too.

Which part of having scales or fur relates to having a disability or being intersex? There is a big difference between letting someone decide whether history A or B of the Imperium is the correct one and allowing someone to use the background as justification for disparaging people with disabilities. This is literally what a chunk of this thread has been about, people using the lore to justify hateful attacks.

Same reason they included sticking the whole population of armageddon into concentration camps and sterilising them after armageddon.
Sometimes alluding to real world horror makes a far stronger point.

When was the last time you were put in a work camp because you witnessed Daemons from Hell invade your planet? Compare that with the last time a person with a disability was openly mocked or the numerous instances of hatred towards LGBTQ+ people.

It wasn’t shown to be untrue.Stating untrue repeatedly doesn’t make it so. It doesn’t say he’s wrong though either. Its open to interpretation. Saying its absolutely wrong as you do is just as incorrect.

Hecaton couldn't back up their statement with anything more than "grey area lore" and an "X, therefore, Y" argument, which to me isn't supportive of their argument. So in my opinion, they have posted something that is untrue

No. Youre deliberately mischaracterising me. Amongst others, I read the part where you were extremely rude and specifically commented on what you said which has since removed by a mod. I also said several times that I recognise that what you said came from a good intention, so let’s not pretend I’m a bad guy here looking for cheap shots.

As to ‘that’s just your opinion’, why the snark? ‘Just’? That’s a pretty snide doublespeak for ‘stfu’ where I come from and is extremely disrespectful. It doesn’t actually mean ‘you’re entitled to your opinion’ or ‘yeah I can see where you’re coming from’. if you’d actually said ‘yeah, I can see where/how this can be inferred’ that would be fine. Because fair is fair, it is a grey area. But you jump down hard on the polar opposite side and as much as I disagree or recoil from what Hecaton often says, I cannot agree with your position here.

My position is don't make stuff up then declare it as true, then fail to back up your position with anything more than "X, therefore, Y". What Hecaton said specifically is the problem I have with so many 40k hobbyists who use grey area lore to justify saying unacceptable things and present it as truth.

You can infer all you want with whatever "grey area lore" you want, I don't want to be part of that specific discussion, but as soon as people start passing it off as objective truth, then we have a problem because people will take whatever is said literally and use that as an excuse to attack people. We've seen examples in this thread where people think that having male only SM is vital to the hobby to specifically prevent women from joining.

Deadnight wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Also, would you care to explain how the Blood Angels get their recruits, if not from mutants? The inhabitants of Baal Secundus are all mutants, to a degree. They live in an irradiated wasteland, constantly bombarded by toxins and radiation. And yet, they are recruited in one of the most prestigious Chapters in the Imperium.

Strange, that.

Space Marine fiefdom is the simple answer to this. It’s a grey area in Imperial law. Space Marines can kind of do what they want. It’s the same reason SM fiefdoms don’t need to supply regiments to the Astra Militarum. In any case, they’re the Blood Angels. Are you going to tell them they’re wrong?

Cool, so if Space Marines can kind of do what they want, why can't they recruit women Astartes?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:At the same time, when someone is making blatantly *incorrect* posts, or inferring things that don't have evidence to support them, is it not acceptable to challenge that?

He wasn’t exactly wrong here in what he said here.

Yes, they really were. They could totally have just left it as "I think that the Imperium do XYZ", but they instead went entirely absolutist in saying that it definitely did happen.

And I was commenting towards Gert, not Hecaton. Gert went to the opposite extreme and is as absolutist in characterising it repeatedly as ‘untrue’.

I believe that Gert was simply saying it was untrue that it was 100% confirmed - which is correct.

Unless I am mistaken, Gert was commenting how it was never confirmed to be the case, and that it was wrong to say that Hecaton's quote supported their claim. Not that "the Imperium WOULD NEVER DO THAT!!", but that "we have no evidence that the Imperium does, and that quote doesn't support it".

it’s a grey area that is quite open to interpretation and inference.

You're absolutely right that it is - and because it's up for interpretation and inference, it's rather useless for the purposes Hecaton was using it for. Again, let's not pretend like Hecaton wasn't the one to bring this topic up.

How about some politeness?

Sure. Please, remind me which poster redacted someone's entire comment and replaced it with the word "lies"?

I don't believe that was ever addressed.

You're quick to have a go at the folks on the other side of the debate for being rude etc, I don't think it's unfair to ask the same of you.

You know what - likewise.
And let's be completely transparent here - when I'm calling folks out for being rude, I'm not doing so about tone of perceived voice. I'm doing so because they're making direct personal attacks on users here, or otherwise making ridiculously sexist comments (which are being dealt with very well by mods).
There is a very strong difference in severity at play here.

Sure, but implication and inference aren't an exact art, and claiming that something *definitely happens* because of something you "inferred" is not a solid core for an argument..

Fair, and by the same token claiming them as absolutely ‘untrue’ or 'unfounded' is equally, not a solid core for an argument.

Oh, absolutely - but you seem to misunderstand that it was Hecaton who raised this issue in the first place. This isn't the cornerstone of any of the pro-women Astartes argument, largely because this isn't really anything to do with it.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:It's an awful place, but it's not awful everywhere. Rather, I think that the Imperium being so careless of human life that it simply *doesn't* distinguish between ethnicity, gender or even some body types is much more interesting than "they persecute minorities".

I strongly disagree. In my mind, one of the best things about 40k, and especially the older stuff is it was absolutely not described in black and white. It was all inference, implied and left up to your own imagination. It made it 'yours'.

The problem is when "yours" is quickly twisted into "you can't have women Space Marines because that goes against MY 40k".

"Yours", as evidenced by Hecaton's argument, quickly drops the "Y", and becomes "Ours" - except when not everyone supports that particular inference.

Im absolutely OK with the Imperium being utterly uncaring about ethnicity etc, but the racism is simply directed elsewhere, towards the heretic, the mutants and the alien. They don’t care about the colour of your skin, necessarily, but if you’re skin is scaled or furry, you’re going to the pyre. Your family too.

Yeah - because that's what we have shown to us. That's as far as GW goes on the topic of racism in 40k, because they don't need to infer that there's human-on-human ethnic tensions.

Why is the same not said for "mutation", or gender? Why is the Imperium uncaring about ethnicity, but suddenly caring about sex and gender, even when there's just as little evidence to suggest that they do? Why is it "inferred" in some cases, but not in others?

Mutation is more than just spikes and tentacles. Anything deviating from the baseline Human phenotypic state is technically a mutant.

That would imply that people with blue eyes are mutants. Hell, I seem to recall that everyone born on Cadia has violet eyes (I believe that was in The First Heretic?) - are they all mutants, because they deviate from the baseline phenotypic state?

Why would it? Citation that blue eyes are mutants to be exterminated.

That's my point! It's a mutation, is it not? So, by this whole "mutations are EVIL!!" logic, blue eyed people should be killed at birth, right?

I'm asking for this citation that intersex or polydactyly humans are killed, and all I'm being told is "oh, well, I guess it's inferred" - so should I not also infer that blue eyed humans are killed for their mutation?

Define the baseline phenotypic state.

I'm not the one who mentioned it! That's on whoever mention "baseline phenotypic state" to define, because that's a real doozy of a claim.

Oh, hang on - that was you who mentioned "baseline phenotypic state". Why don't you define it, as you brought it up?

I would assume there is a range of acceptabilities (because hey, people are varied).

That's what I've been saying - and I'm assuming that no-one really cares about albinism, or polydactlylism, or really any *real world condition* because they're never mentioned as being persecuted in the lore.

You're literally reading my argument back to me at this point.

Then again, I doubt the fanatics of, say, House Cawdor or any number of more backward worlds, priests of the ministorum or adepts of the various beurocracies would care too much about the specifics. They just see fuel for the pyre. The Imperium isn’t a hive mind.

Yes, agreed - which is why these claims from Hecaton that "the Imperium would just kill people with six fingers on sight" are so ridiculous, because the Imperium isn't a hive mind!.

It's like you're not actually reading the comments and the context they're in!

Sgt_Smudge wrote:The Imperium is clearly evil and dark and horrible - without needing to bring in real-world hatred. If the only way you can make your fictional empire evil is by perpetrating existing prejudices and intolerance, how much of that empire is fictional?

Same reason they included sticking the whole population of armageddon into concentration camps and sterilising them after armageddon.
Sometimes alluding to real world horror makes a far stronger point.

Allusion doesn't require repeating the same prejudices. See the comment made about the X-Men.

The Imperium's hatred of fictional mutants, deviants, and aliens is perfectly fine as an allusion to real world bigotry without perpetuating it.

In any case I was commenting towards gert.

And in any case, I'm responding to comments that I saw issues in.

Aash wrote:
In the spirit of getting back on topic, were GW to introduce female space marines, what would be your preferred background justification?

Some examples off the top of my head are:

- Retcon, there always were female space marines.
- Cawl or someone else figured out how to do it recently, so there are now twice as many potential space marines in the population.
- it was always possible but there was some reason why it wasn’t done until now (what would be amazing interesting reason?)


Or any other suggestions?

Funnily enough, if we make the 'lost' primarchs female (who were never lost), we could do all three at once!

Altima wrote:

Aash wrote:
In the spirit of getting back on topic, were GW to introduce female space marines, what would be your preferred background justification?

Some examples off the top of my head are:

- Retcon, there always were female space marines.
- Cawl or someone else figured out how to do it recently, so there are now twice as many potential space marines in the population.
- it was always possible but there was some reason why it wasn’t done until now (what would be amazing interesting reason?)


Or any other suggestions?

Funnily enough, if we make the 'lost' primarchs female (who were never lost), we could do all three at once!

Come on folks, let's get three birds with one stone!

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Cool, so if Space Marines can kind of do what they want, why can't they recruit women Astartes?
[

Something something arbitrary space magic?

The sealioning is not necessary. Nowhere in my post was I commenting on female marines. It's not necessary, and for the record, the last time I spoke on that, I stated I was pretty much OK with, and supportive of the idea.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

That's my point! It's a mutation, is it not? So, by this whole "mutations are EVIL!!" logic, blue eyed people should be killed at birth, right?

Depends on whether it's outside the norms of what's tolerated*, surely.

*and coloured by perceptions, dogma and biases etc.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

I'm asking for this citation that intersex or polydactyly humans are killed, and all I'm being told is "oh, well, I guess it's inferred" - so should I not also infer that blue eyed humans are killed for their mutation?

Is it outside the norms of what's tolerated?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Define the baseline phenotypic state.

I'm not the one who mentioned it! That's on whoever mention "baseline phenotypic state" to define, because that's a real doozy of a claim.

Oh, hang on - that was you who mentioned "baseline phenotypic state". Why don't you define it, as you brought it up?

No doozy. Walk back that aggression and snark Smudge it's not needed. What I posted was the exact quote on the wiki. There's that, and plenty more similar quotes like this:

'the Imperium has little tolerance for any who deviate from the divine perfection of the baseline Human form in mind or body'

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

- and I'm assuming that no-one really cares about albinism, or polydactlylism, or really any *real world condition* because they're never mentioned as being persecuted in the lore.

My Interpretation of the lore differs. I wouldn't 'assume'. There's no citation for it. I think plenty people would care, because the Imperium is a backwards and godawful place coloured by fear and superstition.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

It's like you're not actually reading the comments and the context they're in!

And you're reading too much into mine and too quick to attack.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


Allusion doesn't require repeating the same prejudices. See the comment made about the X-Men.

The Imperium's hatred of fictional mutants, deviants, and aliens is perfectly fine as an allusion to real world bigotry without perpetuating it.

Youre entitled to that pov. Personally, I disagree. Whether you, or anyone wants 40k to be a Saturday morning cartoon, or a dystopian horror, or anything in between, that's ok. 40k is a very personal thing. Personally, I feel grounding it in reality, or Iin historical events or actions makes the horror that bit more visceral, since we know how bad those things really are.

Aash wrote:


Edit- and yes, in the context of the imperium, being a mutant is a bad thing. Living in the imperium is “to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable” after all. They think mutants are bad, and they are wrong. That’s my point.

The reason why X-men is typically viewed differently from Warhammer 40,000 in this regard because the people who make the mutant-hunting murder robots in X-men are framed as wrong, while the people who make the mutant-hunting murder cyborgs in Warhammer 40,000 are framed as correct.

Very, very, very few times does any mutation portrayed in the narrative of the imperium not turn out to signify corruption by genestealers, corruption by chaos, or a degeneration in either mental capacity or physical strength. There are VERY few examples of the imperium going a'purgin' of them there mutants and not revealing that they were secretly summoning chaos daemons all along, or they were going to be sterilized by the evil conniving xenos all along, or they were spreading a deadly zombie plague all along, or...etc.

Because the imperium is almost always the protagonist faction, the imperial worldview is nearly always portrayed as "not nice, but necessary" by narrative contrivance.

X-men would still be a good allegory for racism/prejudice/homophobia/whatever, but if the mutants were consistently always portrayed as evil, sinister villains or the puppets of evil, sinister villains seeking to eradicate non-mutant humans, and all the mutants looked like Toad and Juggernaut and Nightcrawler while all the non-mutant humans looked like Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne and Natasha Romanoff, you'd probably end up with a lot of readers wondering exactly what side of that particular debate the writers were on.

Hecaton wrote:

I mean I reject your premises pretty wholeheartedly. The idea that Astartes is the faction with the most potential for customization and self-expression is kinda sad.

Mk. Not sure what the point is here?
I can provide evidence that supports my point if you want. Damien Pedley's Deathwatch and Thunderwulfen's Soul Haunters are some of my favourite examples of hobbyists taking SM and turning them into something brilliant.
Or you could just look at how GW has made boatloads of Chapters with their own identities, aesthetics, and cultures all of which stem from the humble Space Marine.



If you don't even like SM why are you engaging in the discussion? You don't like the faction but care so much about it that you don't want it to change at all? That boggles my mind on so many levels.

 Gert wrote:

If you don't even like SM why are you engaging in the discussion? You don't like the faction but care so much about it that you don't want it to change at all? That boggles my mind on so many levels.

Because instead of making them even more overwhelmingly ubiquitous, I'd rather that be walked back.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:


AIS can’t make space,Raines, that’s the bollocks science bit mate. It’s made up!

Well maybe people with it couldn't become Astartes. I don't know. You don't either.

I actually do agree that the Space Marines are way overdone and I got as fething sick of them as anyone through 2020 - but how to do that is a separate topic, and as several posters have pointed out in exquisite detail, this is not a realistic scenario, nor is it one mutually exclusive to just adding a few lines of text to a book, a few pieces of art depicting female space marines and a headswap sprue somewhere and being done with it.

That's part of what's frustrating about the absence - They've downplayed it so hard that it would be so easy to fix and they've never displayed the gender-neutral gonads needed to do so.

 CEO Kasen wrote:
I actually do agree that the Space Marines are way overdone and I got as fething sick of them as anyone through 2020 - but how to do that is a separate topic, and as several posters have pointed out in exquisite detail, this is not a realistic scenario, nor is it one mutually exclusive to just adding a few lines of text to a book, a few pieces of art depicting female space marines and a headswap sprue somewhere and being done with it.

That's part of what's frustrating about the absence - They've downplayed it so hard that it would be so easy to fix and they've never displayed the gender-neutral gonads needed to do so.

GW does seem to have a very low opinion of their 40k players, especially when compared with how they're handling AoS.

I think that's mostly down to the more unsavoury elements of the WHFB fandom jumping ship when AoS launched. In fact I would be willing to say that most AoS hobbyists are completely new and had never played WHFB, of the people I used to regularly game with I think only one guy actually played WHFB and the rest of us started with AoS.
I'm not saying that there aren't going to be some unsavoury people who are into AoS but the setting and background don't have the "set in stone" nature WHFB and 40k have. GW can advance the story and add whatever they want and nobody can say "but thats not how AoS is".

Hecaton wrote:

Catulle wrote:
You were literally told to knock it off pages ago now. Want to press that point now just to get across how much your conception of the Imperium depends of your... inserting fanon child abuse when the Astartes are literally *right there*?

It's not fanon, it's in the lore.

What you implied? No, it wasn't.
Irrespective of that, we're discussing how the lore is made up, and not set in stone - perhaps the conversation is less about "what does the lore say" and more "why does the lore say that".

Sorry, your precious Astartes support an irredeemably evil regime. So do the Sororitas.

Again, weird flex, we're all on the same page on that.

I'm not really sure why you're trying to act like we don't know that the Imperium's awful?

Catulle wrote:
Dear GOD you people are Boring.

Boring, maybe, right, definitely.

Citation needed.

Catulle wrote:
If you need to be told - Women are women, you imbecile. Men are men. Just listen, we're fundamentally the same.

Hey mods, am I allowed to respond in kind, or do the insults only go one way?

I mean, you've insulted plenty of us over the course of this thread. I think that this *is* the response in kind to your implications that people only want women Astartes for some sexually gratifying reason.

Something something glass houses.

Just because something's socially constructed doesn't mean it's arbitrary

Actually, it kinda does. Most things really are fairly arbitrary, including most human distinctions on gender and sexuality especially.

or doesn't have its roots in human biology.

And it also means that just because something is socially constructed, that doesn't mean it *does* have roots in biology.

Gert wrote: Space Marines are the flagship faction of 40k.
They get the lion's share of marketing/releases.
This means that the majority of factions in the game are some flavour of SM.
Because of this variety in flavour, a core tenant of SM is that the hobbyist can paint/convert/give them whatever background they want and it would still be accepted within the "canon".

I mean I reject your premises pretty wholeheartedly. The idea that Astartes is the faction with the most potential for customization and self-expression is kinda sad.

Sad, but true.
Reject it all you like, but your rejection doesn't change truth. The most varied factions that GW produce, the ones that they have the most design space and expression towards, are flavours of Space Marine. This is a fact.

And just look how popular custom Chapters and custom Space Marine heroes are - it's hard to argue they aren't incredibly appealing to a wide market.

Let Astartes be Astartes.

Sure. Define Astartes in a way that everyone agrees, first. Because I don't think we can all agree on that, if it includes them needing to be male.

It also ties into the idea that characters must have special and unique power in order to be heroic; to be frank, that'a a big part of why I find Astartes to be mostly uninteresting.

I'm not sure I follow. There's nothing "special" or "unique" about women getting to be Space Marines. They just get to join the club of very popular looking Space Marines, and get to do all the stuff that make Space Marines appealing.

Adding women Space Marines wouldn't make women Guardsmen any less heroic than male Space Marines make male guardsmen less heroic.

The other thing is it would recapitulate the idea that men can only have power or heroism becuase they jealously hoard it away from women, which is not really a theme I enjoy, or that I think had much depth to it.

I'm not really sure what this point is at all - how does adding women Space Marines imply this theme?

Fundamentally I think it makes sense for people who are supposed to be lesser reflections of the Emperor to be male.

So, the Custodes, right?
The Emperor didn't/doesn't care all that much about the Space Marines. They delegated it to lesser human scientists, and they were full of corruptible flaws. He wanted soldiers, a mass wall of ceramite and steel to take to the stars - I'm not sure why gender would be on his checklist.

For the record, I see the Emperor as one of the most villainous characters in the setting, not a beneficent precursor whose message was corrupted.

You're right, he absolutely *is* a villainous character.
Having him use women in his armies doesn't change that.

Hecaton wrote:

Gert wrote:If you don't even like SM why are you engaging in the discussion? You don't like the faction but care so much about it that you don't want it to change at all? That boggles my mind on so many levels.

Because instead of making them even more overwhelmingly ubiquitous, I'd rather that be walked back.

And I'd rather that women were able to be Space Marines in the first place.
However, one of our preferences is much simpler than the other, and preferable to GW as a whole.

Well maybe people with it couldn't become Astartes. I don't know. You don't either.

Exactly - you or I don't know, because there's nothing *to* know - it's all made up. There's no biological or scientific argument to be made, because Space Marines are made of sheer unadulterated make believe science. There's absolutely no scientific reason that women should or should not be able to be Space Marines, in the same way that there's no scientific reason that men should or should not be able to be Space Marines. All we have are creative and marketing decisions, and when we see the creative and marketing trends that GW are choosing to pursue, and making no sign of stopping, women Space Marines fits closely on that trend.

CEO Kasen wrote:I actually do agree that the Space Marines are way overdone and I got as fething sick of them as anyone through 2020 - but how to do that is a separate topic, and as several posters have pointed out in exquisite detail, this is not a realistic scenario, nor is it one mutually exclusive to just adding a few lines of text to a book, a few pieces of art depicting female space marines and a headswap sprue somewhere and being done with it.

That's part of what's frustrating about the absence - They've downplayed it so hard that it would be so easy to fix and they've never displayed the gender-neutral gonads needed to do so.

Precisely my thoughts on the matter, both on Space Marine dominance (because my god, do they get far FAR too much) and on how it's much easier to fix their already-near-enough-gender neutrality than it is to propose that GW shoot their cash cow.

 Gert wrote:
I think that's mostly down to the more unsavoury elements of the WHFB fandom jumping ship when AoS launched.

Pretty much everyone else jumped ship too lol

Hecaton wrote:

 Gert wrote:
I think that's mostly down to the more unsavoury elements of the WHFB fandom jumping ship when AoS launched.

Pretty much everyone else jumped ship too lol

Speak for yourself. Former WFB player here who moved over to AoS. Glad I did too. The game, setting and community is a damn site better than fantasy ever was.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 Gert wrote:
I think that's mostly down to the more unsavoury elements of the WHFB fandom jumping ship when AoS launched.

Pretty much everyone else jumped ship too lol

Speak for yourself. Former WFB player here who moved over to AoS. Glad I did too. The game, setting and community is a damn site better than fantasy ever was.

But that doesn’t fit hecatons narrative so he will ignore that. It’s how he rolls.

it really can't. The setting *cannot* grow, because it is fictional. It has no pre-determined end point, it has no guaranteed outcome, because we do not (and this is a good thing) know all the variables.

We don't know if Guilliman will ever successfully close the Rift, but the story could be written that way. We don't know if Abaddon will reach Terra and lay siege to the Palace again, but the story could be written that way. We don't know if Cawl would even work out how to make women Astartes, but the story could be written that way. Or not, for all of the above.
The point is that the story is guided by the whims of *real* people, in the *real* world - and for a company, those decisions are quite often guided by profit and money. Unfortunately, profit and money are "political", to use the phrase.

My reasons for changing Space Marines are because I want representation in 40k where it ought to be. We have, over the course of this thread, outlined why Space Marines don't need to be male, and why them being all male is not just arbitrary, but *damaging* to the identity of what Space Marines are, according to GW.
With that out of the way, and having ascertained that Space Marines don't need to be male in the first place, we can evaluate why Space Marines ought to be representative - and them being a flagship faction is a major part of that, because, as I've said, representation is nothing without visibility.

Space Marines are the most visible faction. The rest stems from there.

Okay, I accept your point that the lore is entirely fictional, made on the whims of the creators of the game.

Let's take your example of guilliman trying to close the Rift and make a hypothetical out of it to try and illustrate my point. I know you don't like hypotheticals, but they are a valuable way of illustrating points and I'm afraid I will continue to use them. I hope that you can respond with more than "but that's not how reality is". On one hand, they write that he doesn't close the rift because they have a story they want to play out of some evil power emerging from it and uniting the chaos powers to combat the growth of primaris marines, possibly by corrupting primaris marines, which may have its roots in trying to sell chaos primaris models but ultimately is written because they thought it would be cool to do. On the other hand, they write in that he does close the rift because some people wrote in to complain about the rift being open and how this offended them for whatever reason.

The first is entirely internal decisions - influenced by model ideas and sales and such because they are a business, but not influenced by anyone complaining about the presence of the rift. The second scenario is externally influenced. Option 1 seems like GW doing what GW do, and the universe progressing. Option 2 sounds like societics interfering with the game.


As for space marines being "the most customisable faction" and so forth, this does not mean that there's no limits. If you made an army of marines with cat heads and tails, and whose vehicles are driven by mice in big wheels, and then tried to say that they were canon, you would probably receive the same level of resistance to the idea as people do now with female marines.



In any case. Your argument is that space marines should be representative because they are the flagship faction and they have no reason not to be. I argue that they should be representative because they have no reason not to be, and popularity shouldn't factor into it.

Put it another way. If space marines weren't the flagship faction ("but they are!" - shush, use that wonderful internal theatre system called "Imagination" and see if you can picture it!), I would argue that they would still need representation. Because they have no reason not to have it, and because female marines would be a cool thing to add. You have said "custodes can stay all male because they aren't the flagship", and honestly, this seems like extremely poor reasoning. This is like saying "we don't need to make the back streets less sexist because we never see them at the popular parties". You're effectively suggesting that representation can be ignored on any factions which aren't featured in the adverts. What you're accomplishing there is making 40k look representative, whilst leaving it not so. You're painting the roses red, and pretending they always have been. I'm suggesting we plant red roses. Both result in red roses, but one is superficial.

And I stand for both. Space Marines both have no "natural" reason to be male in the first place, because the lore is inherently "unnatural", and therefore have no reason not to include women. They also just happen to be the flagship, which furthers the reason why they, and not the other all-male faction, should be visibly gender-neutral.

Space marines have no "natural" reason to be gender neutral either. In fact, there's more in-lore benefits to them being as similar to one another as possible rather than having as much variety as possible. Space marines are an unnatural creation, based off a human but transcended into science fiction. A natural spread of genetic variation is expected from a diverse breeding population. Space marines are neither. Theoretically, the most efficient way to produce ranks of super-soldiers is to modify them all to be the same size & shape, so the armour always fits, and to have the pigments/chemicals in their skin made universal so that they can combat harsh radiation etc. You don't want some of the marines to struggle because they're getting sunburn, whilst others complain that the armour doesn't fit properly, and so on. To properly fit their roles as humanities engineered solution to the horrors of the galaxy, marines should probably look more or less the same as one another.

As such, any arguments about whether it makes sense for them to represent the natural aspects of humanity are a little ungrounded.

The reason isn't "because they aren't", the reason is "because they won't ever be".

"And they dodge the question again! The crowd goes wild!"

I am asking you to defend your position that "The flagship product must be representative". We agree on pretty much al lthe rest of it - that marines should have females, that it would be good to improve representation in the game as a whole - but it is this, and only this, that I am still concerned about.

So, you say "the flagship product must be representative". What if it were orks? they are masculine, very much the embodiment of boisterous lads with a testosterone overdose, and have no female representation at all. Does your reasoning stand up to this? Or is the fact that they are the flagship merely a bonus, meaning it will make the representation more obvious?

The flagship faction is defined by its ability to easily create "Your Dudes" while still fitting into the background at any point.
I could create a Chapter that doesn't have any Chapter command that aren't Librarians and that would be fine. Or a Chapter that only pays lip service to the Imperium but patrols a vital area of space so they're given loads of slack by the High Lords. But the second I dare to make a SM female I'm liable to be harassed and threatened.

If SM weren't the flagship and maybe Aeldari or AM were, then yes I'd still say "hey what's up with the flagship not allowing women?". Of course neither of these factions disallow female soldiers within their ranks so the point is moot. SM are framed as the premier human faction yet 50% of humanity aren't allowed to represent themselves because according to one guy women didn't sell in the 80's which means they can never be allowed in the faction ever, despite the fact that faction gets at least half the releases in a game edition and gets the most novels/audiobooks/games/comics.

Orks aren't mammals, they're fungal lifeforms which don't have sex or gender as we'd apply it to a mammal. Technically Orks are all sexless but just use masculine pronouns.
I can make myself into an Ork Warboss but it's not the same as making myself into a Militarum Officer or SM hero because Orks aren't human. I can't put as much depth into the character because Orks by design (both by GW and potentially the Old Ones) aren't a deep-character faction. And that's fine, it's funny to think of the philosophical debates between humans as to why they are fighting then Orks just do it because its fun. But human factions are better for representing oneself because we are human and can apply our lives onto our characters more easily.

 Gert wrote:
The flagship faction is defined by its ability to easily create "Your Dudes" while still fitting into the background at any point.
I could create a Chapter that doesn't have any Chapter command that aren't Librarians and that would be fine. Or a Chapter that only pays lip service to the Imperium but patrols a vital area of space so they're given loads of slack by the High Lords. But the second I dare to make a SM female I'm liable to be harassed and threatened.

If SM weren't the flagship and maybe Aeldari or AM were, then yes I'd still say "hey what's up with the flagship not allowing women?". Of course neither of these factions disallow female soldiers within their ranks so the point is moot. SM are framed as the premier human faction yet 50% of humanity aren't allowed to represent themselves because according to one guy women didn't sell in the 80's which means they can never be allowed in the faction ever, despite the fact that faction gets at least half the releases in a game edition and gets the most novels/audiobooks/games/comics.

Orks aren't mammals, they're fungal lifeforms which don't have sex or gender as we'd apply it to a mammal. Technically Orks are all sexless but just use masculine pronouns.
I can make myself into an Ork Warboss but it's not the same as making myself into a Militarum Officer or SM hero because Orks aren't human. I can't put as much depth into the character because Orks by design (both by GW and potentially the Old Ones) aren't a deep-character faction. And that's fine, it's funny to think of the philosophical debates between humans as to why they are fighting then Orks just do it because its fun. But human factions are better for representing oneself because we are human and can apply our lives onto our characters more easily.

Everything you said here is correct. But I also fail to see how the "they are the flagship" argument applies anything to this.

If space marines weren't the flagship, their fluff would still be the same, and people would still be against female marines. The horrible business of death threats etc. is not related to their being the flagship.

A more relevant question, rather than "if X was the flagship, should X be changed?" is "If X was the flagship, should marines still be changed?". If the answer is "Yes" (and mine is, with no higher or lower reasoning than as they are now - they would need changing just as much as they do now), then their being the flagship is irrelevant to the reasoning, though it is a bonus.

So that's my new question (which I should have been asking from the start, my apologies that it's only just occurred to me!):

If Orks were the flagship, would marines still need changing to include females?

I don't know honestly. If SM weren't the flagship faction then would there be more models for other factions that are mixed forces like Aeldari or AM? If Marines were balanced to the other factions like Stormcast are then there might not be an issue. In AoS there's loads of armies with mixed forces, Cities of Sigmar, Stormcast, Sylvaneth (sort of maybe, they are plants but they use pronouns), most of the Chaos factions, Nighthaunt, and Soulblight. There's also a large number of important female characters in AoS like Morathi, Lady Olynder, Allariel, and the new Stormcast character.
The biggest problem with removing SM as the flagship in a hypothetical is that it completely changes the direction of all of 40k's releases for the past 20 years. If a mixed forces faction was the spotlight maybe GW would have put more effort into learning to sculpt better female miniatures before AoS dropped.

Is it your intention to continually compare Female marines to a form of kink? No one here is advocating for cat people and there are zero Catfolk in existence to even argue that. We are talking about representing half the damned population of the planet in our toy soldiers game. Women want to be part of our hobby, I want women to be part of our hobby. People are making that goal MORE difficult with horrifically silly non-sequitur arguments like, "Why are there no CAT MARINES"?

It's like the Newtons law of BS. For every force desperately trying to push humanity into a better place, we have an equal and opposite number of people trying to push this boulder really hard back to the oldtown.

 Gert wrote:
But the second I dare to make a SM female I'm liable to be harassed and threatened.

Threatened by some, and indeed, supported by others. There are some good projects out there that get positive feedback - ever come across thr tigers of veda?

To be fair, this touches on something of a somewhat unrelated issue. death threats, harassment etc seems par for the course for a lot of things in this community and hobby. I don't think it's female marines (or lack of them), per se. I would argue its cause is an undercurrent of entitled, narcissistic , poorly socialised, maladjusted [bleeps] and trolls in our community. In dome cases people being fair too close to their hobby and violently resistant to change. Any change. Combined with the anonymity of the internet.That's the problem there and I think it needs looked at as well.

Matt Ward got death threats apparently. I doubt he's the only writer in that board.

The writers at pp got them with the mk2 field test ten years ago.

Im pretty sure anyone with a platform who pushes any agenda other than 'play as competitive and as hard as you can, step all over your peers' will get death threats. Smudge and myself, amongst others, are often on the 'defending narrative or 'don't go balls to the wall competitive!' and get massive amounts of pushback and negativity.

Yeah, I'll be transparent - a good bit of the reason I'm in favor of GW officially recognizing female marines is purely because I think anyone who would leave the hobby over it would be performing the same service that Clowns serve in human society - to make the space better, happier and more enjoyable for everyone by their leaving.

The reason they havent so far is, I would assume, whatever numbers or analysis they've done has indicated that it'd cost them more money than they'd gain from new customers, at least in the short term, and 40k is their big moneymaker property which is why theyre playing soooo much safer with it than they're playing with AOS.

But it is absolutely costing them in terms of quality of the product lines. AOS' recent stuff has been absolute fire, and we're looking at a huge ork release for 40k and I'm just...I don't know, neutral on it? They're fine. They're all very serious and dour and low-tech orks, I feel the same way about them as I do the big huge plate-armor wearing orks from AOS. None of that charm that comes from goofy scrap metal vehicles and zany tech.

Support doesn't matter when people within the 40k community feel bold enough to send death threats and say it's ok because the lore supports them.
People threatened Matt Ward because of the content he produced that went against the "established" background but it didn't even do that. All Ward was guilty of was not being great at writing and he had to literally disappear for years from the Wargaming scene and GW changed its policy of putting specific author names on rules publications.
There is also a distinct difference between an employee of a company who can get help with their defence from said company, and a random person who can't rely on a corporation to back them up or keep them safe and the UK especially has a problem with women getting help from law enforcement when receiving harassment or threats. It's also the content of the threats that matter, a man isn't going to be threatened with sexual violence but a woman absolutely is, LGBTQ+ people are going to get slurs hurled at them while the individual threatens to kill them, the list goes on.
I know you absolutely aren't being crass or insensitive with what you're saying but it's a very different game that's being played with this specific topic than a GW writer being less than stellar at their job.

some bloke wrote:Okay, I accept your point that the lore is entirely fictional, made on the whims of the creators of the game.

Let's take your example of guilliman trying to close the Rift and make a hypothetical out of it to try and illustrate my point. I know you don't like hypotheticals, but they are a valuable way of illustrating points and I'm afraid I will continue to use them. I hope that you can respond with more than "but that's not how reality is". On one hand, they write that he doesn't close the rift because they have a story they want to play out of some evil power emerging from it and uniting the chaos powers to combat the growth of primaris marines, possibly by corrupting primaris marines, which may have its roots in trying to sell chaos primaris models but ultimately is written because they thought it would be cool to do. On the other hand, they write in that he does close the rift because some people wrote in to complain about the rift being open and how this offended them for whatever reason.

The first is entirely internal decisions - influenced by model ideas and sales and such because they are a business, but not influenced by anyone complaining about the presence of the rift. The second scenario is externally influenced. Option 1 seems like GW doing what GW do, and the universe progressing. Option 2 sounds like societics interfering with the game.

I disagree with the conclusion you came to on this one. The first is still a "politically motivated" decision, as it is influenced so by the need to maintain the setting to support their business and model sales. By keeping the state of the setting in a stalemate, they can indefinitely drag out expansions, updates, sequels, side-stories, etc etc. It is done to continue their business model in the setting - and that is a politically motivated stance, by means of economics.

I don't agree really that any decision can ever be "entirely internal", because internal decisions are still guided by real people in the real world.

As for space marines being "the most customisable faction" and so forth, this does not mean that there's no limits. If you made an army of marines with cat heads and tails, and whose vehicles are driven by mice in big wheels, and then tried to say that they were canon, you would probably receive the same level of resistance to the idea as people do now with female marines.

Anthropomorphic cats don't exist in the real world. Women do.

But you hit on a great thing there - that apparently entirely fictional cat-people would have the same amount of resistance to them as including real life women. Why on earth is there so much pushback against including actual women then?

Your argument is that space marines should be representative because they are the flagship faction and they have no reason not to be. I argue that they should be representative because they have no reason not to be, and popularity shouldn't factor into it.

So, I agree with your main reason for doing so.
Just because you disagree with one of my other reasons is no reason to shoot the idea down, no?

Put it another way. If space marines weren't the flagship faction ("but they are!" - shush, use that wonderful internal theatre system called "Imagination" and see if you can picture it!), I would argue that they would still need representation.

And I would agree. But I'm not going to pretend that them being the flagship isn't also a major reason why they should be made gender neutral.

And sure, I can play pretend and ignore the context of the situation, but that feels like a very intellectually dishonest argument when I'm trying to be as watertight as I can with my reasons and logic, because there's plenty of users here who would be eager to misquote me and misrepresent my argument. If I'm going to make a strong case, I need to rely on the strength of my point without playing with hypotheticals.
I hope that makes my aversion to these hypotheticals clear.

You have said "custodes can stay all male because they aren't the flagship", and honestly, this seems like extremely poor reasoning. This is like saying "we don't need to make the back streets less sexist because we never see them at the popular parties". You're effectively suggesting that representation can be ignored on any factions which aren't featured in the adverts.

That's not at all what my entire point on the Custodes was.

My point on the Custodes was that they could remain all male because of several factors:
1. They are not the flagship faction, and therefore, they contribute much less towards the pervasive sense of an all-male hobby than the figurehead Space marines do - and trying to deal with that pervasive sense of an all-male hobby is part of what I'm trying to do.
2. Custodes embody the stylistic qualities of an all-male warrior fraternity much more than the Astartes do - Custodes have a much tighter core design and aesthetic that hearkens back to similar all-male warrior cohorts reminiscent of classical Greece.
3. Custodes have never had women members represented, point blank. Space Marines had the older unsold sculpts, at one point.

What you're accomplishing there is making 40k look representative, whilst leaving it not so.

Women don't need to be present in *every* faction though, in the same way men don't *need* to be, in order to be "representative".

Representation needs to be present with visibility, but when Custodes aren't exactly a "visible" faction in the same way Space Marines are, they are much less crucial in needing to be representative. Sure, if there's a clamouring for representation in the Custodes too, I'll support that, but there simply isn't, not as far as I've seen.

You're painting the roses red, and pretending they always have been.

I'm not doing that at all. I'm saying we plant red roses where none existed before, but they don't need planting behind the bike shed where no-one will see them.

And I stand for both. Space Marines both have no "natural" reason to be male in the first place, because the lore is inherently "unnatural", and therefore have no reason not to include women. They also just happen to be the flagship, which furthers the reason why they, and not the other all-male faction, should be visibly gender-neutral.

Space marines have no "natural" reason to be gender neutral either.

Other than gender-neutral is a pretty fair thing to default to, no?

There must be a starting point of some kind, why is that not neutrality of gender?

In fact, there's more in-lore benefits to them being as similar to one another as possible rather than having as much variety as possible. Space marines are an unnatural creation, based off a human but transcended into science fiction. A natural spread of genetic variation is expected from a diverse breeding population. Space marines are neither. Theoretically, the most efficient way to produce ranks of super-soldiers is to modify them all to be the same size & shape, so the armour always fits, and to have the pigments/chemicals in their skin made universal so that they can combat harsh radiation etc. You don't want some of the marines to struggle because they're getting sunburn, whilst others complain that the armour doesn't fit properly, and so on. To properly fit their roles as humanities engineered solution to the horrors of the galaxy, marines should probably look more or less the same as one another.

As such, any arguments about whether it makes sense for them to represent the natural aspects of humanity are a little ungrounded.

This would only make sense if we had any indication that Space Marines were supposed to be of a homogenous size, shape, and design. The issue is that they're not.
Astartes don't get sunburn already, thanks to their enhancements, and we explicitly see different skin tones even within the same Chapter. Space Marines already have different enough physiques that we get explicit descriptions of Astartes who are described as much taller or broader or imposing than other Astartes (examples being Moloc, Abaddon, or Pausanias).

Unless we change how GW represent Space Marines (and making them more homogenous is rather counterproductive to the whole "player customisation" thing), Space Marines have plenty of different appearances - except female presenting ones.

The reason isn't "because they aren't", the reason is "because they won't ever be".

"And they dodge the question again! The crowd goes wild!"

That's not dodging the question. That's a reality check.
I'm not going to argue about a make-believe scenario about a make-believe world, because we're not in a make-believe world with a make-believe scenario, and that's not the topic I'm here to discuss. I'm not here to discuss if we should have Ork women, I'm here to discuss women Space Marines, and I need to consider all the relevant *real world context* for that - including how GW won't step away from Space Marines being their flagship.

I am asking you to defend your position that "The flagship product must be representative".

Because the flagship is the face of the hobby. And if the face of the hobby is showing only one type of *real world human face* and not another, then this presents to people that maybe only one type of *real world human face* is welcome.

So, you say "the flagship product must be representative". What if it were orks? they are masculine, very much the embodiment of boisterous lads with a testosterone overdose, and have no female representation at all. Does your reasoning stand up to this? Or is the fact that they are the flagship merely a bonus, meaning it will make the representation more obvious?

Orks aren't real. Women are.
That should be enough of a reason why this is a ridiculous line of logic.

Deadnight wrote:Threatened by some, and indeed, supported by others. There are some good projects out there that get positive feedback - ever come across thr tigers of veda?

To be fair, this touches on something of a somewhat unrelated issue. death threats, harassment etc seems par for the course for a lot of things in this community and hobby. I don't think it's female marines (or lack of them), per se. I would argue its cause is an undercurrent of entitled, narcissistic , poorly socialised, maladjusted [bleeps] and trolls in our community. In dome cases people being fair too close to their hobby and violently resistant to change. Any change. Combined with the anonymity of the internet.That's the problem there and I think it needs looked at as well.

Very true - and if I can remove as much ammunition and shreds of legitimacy from the people who want to make those kinds of threats, I want to try.

the_scotsman wrote:Yeah, I'll be transparent - a good bit of the reason I'm in favor of GW officially recognizing female marines is purely because I think anyone who would leave the hobby over it would be performing the same service that Clowns serve in human society - to make the space better, happier and more enjoyable for everyone by their leaving.

The reason they havent so far is, I would assume, whatever numbers or analysis they've done has indicated that it'd cost them more money than they'd gain from new customers, at least in the short term, and 40k is their big moneymaker property which is why theyre playing soooo much safer with it than they're playing with AOS.

Very much agreed on both counts - on both partially my motivations to make the place generally nicer, and on why I don't believe GW have - and why I also think that they're using AoS as a testbed for a lot of 40k ideas in the future.

I can only hope so, at least.

Fair points Gert.

I hadn't actually considered it from the pov of an 'isolated hobbyist' getting piled on and trolled in this manner. Take it from someone who had their brake cables cut in school, bank accounts and rape letters to girls i got on with forged in my name - i know all about this stuff, and how it can destroy people.

Yeah - fair. I'm on board with you.

On a personal note, most of my friends are lgbtq, I know the crap that gets sent their way. My way too by assiciation, since I'm far more comfortable with them than in 'alpha male', or even 'straight' circles (I know to those who are actually gay in real life, this is probably a bit patronising on my part. I always found Lgbtq circles safer and more welcoming in general). For what it's worth,those attacks disgust and infuriate me. And it's not just because of my own associated experiences.

I wasn't trying to disagree with what you were saying. I do think it touches on a vile vein in our community. Those that target 'the lesser', those that target 'the minority', even those that stray outside 'the orthodoxy' - my own personal hate.
I think this all needs to be addressed.

I'm glad we agree and I am very sorry for the experiences you've had (coming from a former edgy teen who probably said some things he shouldn't have at one time or another).

[Speak for yourself. Former WFB player here who moved over to AoS. Glad I did too. The game, setting and community is a damn site better than fantasy ever was.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Is it your intention to continually compare Female marines to a form of kink? No one here is advocating for cat people and there are zero Catfolk in existence to even argue that. We are talking about representing half the damned population of the planet in our toy soldiers game. Women want to be part of our hobby, I want women to be part of our hobby. People are making that goal MORE difficult with horrifically silly non-sequitur arguments like, "Why are there no CAT MARINES"?

It's like the Newtons law of BS. For every force desperately trying to push humanity into a better place, we have an equal and opposite number of people trying to push this boulder really hard back to the oldtown.

Firstly, if you think that "cat people" is exclusively a kinky thing then that's on you. To be honest, I find the idea that "marines are supposed to be the most customisable faction" laughable. You can paint them different colours. That's about it. I was trying to refute the idea that "marines are supposed to be customisable" is a sound reason for the change.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:I disagree with the conclusion you came to on this one. The first is still a "politically motivated" decision, as it is influenced so by the need to maintain the setting to support their business and model sales. By keeping the state of the setting in a stalemate, they can indefinitely drag out expansions, updates, sequels, side-stories, etc etc. It is done to continue their business model in the setting - and that is a politically motivated stance, by means of economics.

I don't agree really that any decision can ever be "entirely internal", because internal decisions are still guided by real people in the real world.

It is true that people are influenced by the outside world, because that is where people live. The original decision to make marines all male was directly influenced by the outside world - sales etc. We agree that this was a bad decision - and one which you repeatedly call arbitrary. I would argue that, within-lore it was arbitrary, and in real life it was not. They made the decision based on peoples opinions and not on the integrity of the game - they wanted female marines, then they made a societal decision to remove them, based on peoples opinions. Now you are stating, rightly, that there is no need for this, it's only 13 words, and so on. Thus we have an excellent example of a decision made for external reasons.

If they decide to do X because sales or cool ideas for stories or whatever, that is all about the internal workings of GW. As soon as they do something to reflect the societal views of the world around them, that is a societal decision. I hope that you can see the difference there. They decided to write "The lost waaagh!" fluff because it was a cool idea, there was no external influence deciding whether or not it was a good idea to write it.

Anthropomorphic cats don't exist in the real world. Women do.

Orks aren't real. Women are.

And neither are space marines. I'm afraid this argument is a non-starter.

But you hit on a great thing there - that apparently entirely fictional cat-people would have the same amount of resistance to them as including real life women. Why on earth is there so much pushback against including actual women then?

Probably because the fluff of this fictional universe is as clear on the inclusion of cat-people as it is about women in the space marine legions. Nowhere does it explicitly refute them, and nowhere does it explicitly state they are possible. I agree that we need to change that about female marines, but I was trying to point out that doing something outside of canon and then trying to claim it is canon will get the same response from people who take it too seriously, regardless of the societal influences.

Just because you disagree with one of my other reasons is no reason to shoot the idea down, no?

Oh, I'm not shooting the idea down. I'm merely suggesting that you've got your motivations in the wrong order, and that these things matter for the integrity of the entire excercise.

And I would agree. But I'm not going to pretend that them being the flagship isn't also a major reason why they should be made gender neutral.

And sure, I can play pretend and ignore the context of the situation, but that feels like a very intellectually dishonest argument when I'm trying to be as watertight as I can with my reasons and logic, because there's plenty of users here who would be eager to misquote me and misrepresent my argument. If I'm going to make a strong case, I need to rely on the strength of my point without playing with hypotheticals.
I hope that makes my aversion to these hypotheticals clear.

I have bolded the bit which I find wrong.

Them being the flagship and being in a position to be made representative is a hugely beneficial thing, but it is, at heart, coincidence. Marines ended up the flagship for reasons other than because they can be made representative. They would exist in the lore, exactly as they are, even if they were not the flagship. The fact that your argument that "they are the flagship and thus must be changed because they are the flagship" doesn't hold water with any other races with existing (albeit outdated) fluff explaining why they aren't representative means that your hypothesis "Flagship faction must be representative" is disproven. The hypothesis "Astartes must be representative" holds water, but being the flagship is entirely coincidental, and a very good thing for making this more visual.

Women don't need to be present in *every* faction though, in the same way men don't *need* to be, in order to be "representative".

Representation needs to be present with visibility, but when Custodes aren't exactly a "visible" faction in the same way Space Marines are, they are much less crucial in needing to be representative. Sure, if there's a clamouring for representation in the Custodes too, I'll support that, but there simply isn't, not as far as I've seen.

I don't suggest that they are in every faction, but I do suggest that they be present in every faction in which it makes sense to have them. The popularity or visibility shouldn't affect this decision - if it does, then it is the very definition of a token gesture. "Look, we have female models, look at these marines" is no help if the women coming through the door don't want to play marines.

That's not dodging the question. That's a reality check.
I'm not going to argue about a make-believe scenario about a make-believe world, because we're not in a make-believe world with a make-believe scenario, and that's not the topic I'm here to discuss. I'm not here to discuss if we should have Ork women, I'm here to discuss women Space Marines, and I need to consider all the relevant *real world context* for that - including how GW won't step away from Space Marines being their flagship.

You're not going to argue about a make believe scenario in a make believe world, instead we shall argue about why there is a make believe scenario in this make believe world in which only men can be space marines?

And yes, regardless of what you do instead of answering the question, not answering the question is dodging the question. I know that orks aren't the flagship - I'm not under a rock. I am simply curious as to what you would be saying if they were. If you think the orks need to be changed, or if you think that other factions should be changed and the advertising divided between them. It's becoming increasingly unlikely I'll get an answer on this, it seems. Though the whole point of asking wasn't to get an answer, but to make you think about the question.



Ultimately this boils down to the fact that, if we take the "Flagship faction" part out of it, we agree pretty much entirely. I am simply suggesting that them being a flagship faction should be considered a multiplier for the effect, and not a reason for doing so. It is convenient and coincidental that marines happen to be both changeable and the flagship. If the flagship weren't marines and was instead a faction which is deeply rooted in a single-sex representation (EG orks) then we wouldn't be discussing changing them - and thus we can rule "because they are the flagship" out as a reason for doing it. "Because they are the flagship" is a reason for thinking that it would have a large effect. But it is not a good reason to do it outright. Fortunately space marines present us with plenty of other reasons to do it, so we can still agree to do so!

Except you can do way more than just paint them different colours. A Space Wolf miniature is visibly different from a Dark Angel. Take a look at Thunderwulfen's Soul Haunters and compare them to basic GW Primaris for a brilliant example of how creative a hobbyist can be with SM.


In your opinion, the motivations are in the wrong order. And just to go back to something I said earlier, why does it matter what order the motivations are in? We agree that the end result is a net positive, so why are you arguing about it?



It's not a coincidence that SM are the flagship faction though is it. Heroic super-soldiers sell well especially when they come in many different flavours as Astartes do. The argument for changing the flagship isn't just "they need to change because they are the flagship" either. It's "the flagship needs to change because it is only in its current state because of a business decision made 20-30 years ago when the culture around the game was very different to today and now people are using the flagship as an excuse to be exclusionary and hateful".


Except there's evidence that says women hobbyists do want to play SM and when they make female SM to better represent themselves they get harassed and threatened. It's not tokenism when there are people actually asking for it.



But it's not just about the setting of 40k is it? It's about the setting having an influence on real people. There's no point in answering a question that completely ignores the premise of the discussion because it doesn't matter. You wouldn't go into a discussion on the causes of WW1 and say "but what if Franz Ferdinand didn't get shot?" because then you're not talking about the causes of WW1 anymore, you're talking about alternative history that could be literally anything at all.



Again, it's not just because SM are the flagship faction. It's multiple reasons that stem from them being the flagship faction.

some bloke wrote:To be honest, I find the idea that "marines are supposed to be the most customisable faction" laughable. You can paint them different colours. That's about it.

Tell me, is a colour swap the only difference between a Space Wolf and an Ultramarine? Could I use the Space Wolves sprue in it's entirety, paint them Ultramarines, and still look exactly the same? Of course not.

You also miss out on the legacies and cultures that these Chapters have, and are encouraged to have by GW. Unlike many other Imperial factions, Space Marines are explicitly shown and showcased as being incredibly different and varied within their Chapter cultures, in stark contrast to many of the other factions GW show.

It is true that people are influenced by the outside world, because that is where people live. The original decision to make marines all male was directly influenced by the outside world - sales etc. We agree that this was a bad decision - and one which you repeatedly call arbitrary. I would argue that, within-lore it was arbitrary, and in real life it was not.

I'd argue that it was - perhaps not arbitrary, per se, but GW definitely made a choice between continuing to create women, or leaving them by the wayside. They chose the latter - it wasn't a forgone conclusion.

If they decide to do X because sales or cool ideas for stories or whatever, that is all about the internal workings of GW. As soon as they do something to reflect the societal views of the world around them, that is a societal decision. I hope that you can see the difference there.

I don't see the difference, because sales and what are considered "cool ideas" are determined by the societal views of the people in the world around us all.

Anthropomorphic cats don't exist in the real world. Women do.

Orks aren't real. Women are.

And neither are space marines. I'm afraid this argument is a non-starter.

Space Marines are a human faction. Transhuman, perhaps, but drawn from humans, based off of humans in reality.

If Space Marines were less human, I'd agree - but they're not. They're a visibly human faction, and so still retain that representation of humanity.

But you hit on a great thing there - that apparently entirely fictional cat-people would have the same amount of resistance to them as including real life women. Why on earth is there so much pushback against including actual women then?

Probably because the fluff of this fictional universe is as clear on the inclusion of cat-people as it is about women in the space marine legions.

Sure - and why are women just as excluded as fictional cat-people?

That's my point - real world humans were excluded arbitrarily, so comparing them to an entirely fictional creation is fruitless.

I was trying to point out that doing something outside of canon and then trying to claim it is canon will get the same response from people who take it too seriously, regardless of the societal influences.

And trying to compare something entirely fictitious to *real human beings* isn't a very strong argument, especially when we're asking why real human beings weren't represented.

Perhaps the problem here is with the people who have such a negative reaction to women being included, and consider it such a faux pas alongside adding in an entirely made-up creation.

Just because you disagree with one of my other reasons is no reason to shoot the idea down, no?

Oh, I'm not shooting the idea down. I'm merely suggesting that you've got your motivations in the wrong order, and that these things matter for the integrity of the entire excercise.

Integrity?

My motivations are centred on real human beings here. I honestly couldn't care less about the lore, because the lore matters less than real human beings. I think the idea that wanting representation in the most visible place *because it's the most visible place* is the best motivation to have, as opposed to being detached from representing real human beings.

Yeah, integrity and good motivation - I think I have plenty of that, thank you very much.

And I would agree. But I'm not going to pretend that them being the flagship isn't also a major reason why they should be made gender neutral.

And sure, I can play pretend and ignore the context of the situation, but that feels like a very intellectually dishonest argument when I'm trying to be as watertight as I can with my reasons and logic, because there's plenty of users here who would be eager to misquote me and misrepresent my argument. If I'm going to make a strong case, I need to rely on the strength of my point without playing with hypotheticals.
I hope that makes my aversion to these hypotheticals clear.

I have bolded the bit which I find wrong.

Them being the flagship and being in a position to be made representative is a hugely beneficial thing, but it is, at heart, coincidence. Marines ended up the flagship for reasons other than because they can be made representative. They would exist in the lore, exactly as they are, even if they were not the flagship.

Co-incidence or not, they *are* the flagship, and them being a human-presenting faction in that position of marketing and public presentation, they should absolutely be representative.

If Custodes were the flagship, I'd be saying the same thing, but I'm not saying it about Orks, because Orks aren't human-presenting.

The fact that your argument that "they are the flagship and thus must be changed because they are the flagship" doesn't hold water with any other races with existing (albeit outdated) fluff explaining why they aren't representative means that your hypothesis "Flagship faction must be representative" is disproven. The hypothesis "Astartes must be representative" holds water, but being the flagship is entirely coincidental, and a very good thing for making this more visual.

No, it entirely holds water with other races - the problem is that the races you're naming aren't representative in the first place. Orks aren't human. Tau aren't human. Eldar aren't human.

But a human faction in the flagship position? Yeah - they definitely *should* be representative.

Women don't need to be present in *every* faction though, in the same way men don't *need* to be, in order to be "representative".

Representation needs to be present with visibility, but when Custodes aren't exactly a "visible" faction in the same way Space Marines are, they are much less crucial in needing to be representative. Sure, if there's a clamouring for representation in the Custodes too, I'll support that, but there simply isn't, not as far as I've seen.

I don't suggest that they are in every faction, but I do suggest that they be present in every faction in which it makes sense to have them.

The problem is that "makes sense to have them" is entirely arbitrary. If Space Marines were redesigned, an actually strong case could be made for them not to have women, in the same way it makes sense for the Custodes not to.

But we're not talking about redesigning factions, and I'm emphasising that Space Marines be focused on *because of their prominence*.

"Making sense to have them" is still putting the lore ahead of real human beings. I'm not going to do that.

The popularity or visibility shouldn't affect this decision - if it does, then it is the very definition of a token gesture. "Look, we have female models, look at these marines" is no help if the women coming through the door don't want to play marines.

But when Marines are the face of the hobby, and the first impression many people will have coming in, it's important that that impression is as inclusive as possible. Sure, they might come in and not want to play Space Marines, but they're feeling safer to come in in the first place.

It's not tokenistic, it's representative.

You're not going to argue about a make believe scenario in a make believe world, instead we shall argue about why there is a make believe scenario in this make believe world in which only men can be space marines?

That's what I've been doing, yes - and I've been asking why this whole time, because it's entirely ridiculous that there needs to be a make-believe scenario in this made-up world that requires only men to be Astartes.

And yes, regardless of what you do instead of answering the question, not answering the question is dodging the question.

I'm answering the question by pointing out that it's based on a bad premise.

I know that orks aren't the flagship - I'm not under a rock. I am simply curious as to what you would be saying if they were.

Because Orks aren't representative of people, or the flagship, this doesn't really compare to Space Marines.

If you think the orks need to be changed, or if you think that other factions should be changed and the advertising divided between them. It's becoming increasingly unlikely I'll get an answer on this, it seems. Though the whole point of asking wasn't to get an answer, but to make you think about the question.

Now, if you *really* want what I think you're getting at, let's make Custodes the flagship faction, and Space Marines the side-faction.

I would want Custodes and Space Marines changing to be inclusive - because Custodes would be the flagship, and therefore need to be representative (or not representing anything), and because Space Marines would still be defined on their customisation.

Ultimately this boils down to the fact that, if we take the "Flagship faction" part out of it, we agree pretty much entirely. I am simply suggesting that them being a flagship faction should be considered a multiplier for the effect, and not a reason for doing so.

And I disagree, because being in the privileged position of being the flagship means that *if* any representation exists in the faction, it must be fair and equal representation.

It is convenient and coincidental that marines happen to be both changeable and the flagship. If the flagship weren't marines and was instead a faction which is deeply rooted in a single-sex representation (EG orks) then we wouldn't be discussing changing them - and thus we can rule "because they are the flagship" out as a reason for doing it. "Because they are the flagship" is a reason for thinking that it would have a large effect. But it is not a good reason to do it outright. Fortunately space marines present us with plenty of other reasons to do it, so we can still agree to do so!

As I've said, Orks don't work because they're not human or human-presenting.

To switch to Custodes, and my stance on the flagship being representative would remain the same.

 Gert wrote:

Except you can do way more than just paint them different colours. A Space Wolf miniature is visibly different from a Dark Angel. Take a look at Thunderwulfen's Soul Haunters and compare them to basic GW Primaris for a brilliant example of how creative a hobbyist can be with SM.

That's fine, but I've seen way more variety and creativity in the Ork conversions I've seen over the years. It's mostly armor color that differentiates between Astartes chapters.

Hecaton wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Except you can do way more than just paint them different colours. A Space Wolf miniature is visibly different from a Dark Angel. Take a look at Thunderwulfen's Soul Haunters and compare them to basic GW Primaris for a brilliant example of how creative a hobbyist can be with SM.

That's fine, but I've seen way more variety and creativity in the Ork conversions I've seen over the years.

No-one's saying that Orks can't be creative and varied. Hell, you're pretty free to be as creative and varied as you like (well, except if you want to include women!) for any faction.

However, there's very clearly one faction that GW promote customisation and player creativity in the most - can you tell what it is yet?

It's mostly armor color that differentiates between Astartes chapters.

And trinkets, and trappings, and heritage, and culture, and radically different methods of waging war, and religious orthodoxy, and so on, so forth.

Oh, that's a lot more than colours.

Just a point for the inclusion of female marines being “political”.

GW have gone out of their way the last few years to make the range more ethnically diverse. Adding heads with more diverse features and a range of paints designed to paint more skin tones than just Caucasian. Increasing the number of models painted with dark skin in the publications. That’s all political, but no one has complained about it.

It seems people are happier being sexist than racist?. Maybe it’s the cynic in me but seems the most logical conclusion as to why some politics is ok in the hobby but not gender politics.

I think the difference might lay in the fact that women already exist in 40k, and have probably existing in larger numbers vis-a-vis sisters and representation in other factions for a long time, and ethnic diversity was clearly a blind spot born from the limitations of the world the game grew up in.

That level of representation being acheived for females (alibet not without sexist depictions also from it's heritage), not everyone views the existence of a fraternal faction (even a popular or flag ship faction) in the universe where sororitas and mixed gender forces like guard exist as problematic. Nor does it neccessarily seem obvious to everyone that marines as a fraternal concept MUST be dismantled in order for women to enjoy the game or find representation.

I get that there's vocal persons here who hold that as a very deep conviction, but there also seem to be a lot of people who haven't reached that same world view, including a population of current women who enjoy the game even without GW producing female marines or fiction.

Gert wrote:A Space Wolf miniature is visibly different from a Dark Angel.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Tell me, is a colour swap the only difference between a Space Wolf and an Ultramarine?

Lore aside, these are different armies. You need a different book to run them. Plus, I don't consider "you can buy a different model!" to be the same as "They are so customisable!"

Considering that the main reason why people turn unpleasant about female marines is because, within the setting, female marines don't exist (regardless of whether or not females exist in real life), I would consider the baseline for a faction to be advertised as customisable to be how much you can customise them whilst keeping within the lore. A space marine rhino can have smoke launchers put in different positions, or some decals or battle damage added to the outside. You can cover it in purity seals if you like, but ultimately it will always look like a rhino. However, if you gave me every vehicle kit in the game, I could make you 3-4 dozen different ork vehicles, none of which would look the same, and all of which would fall within the scope of the lore (except perhaps necron vehicles as they have their whole phasing out thing). If you made a rhino powered by space marines running in giant wheels, it would look cool, but it would not be canon. Do the same for orks, and it's perfectly reasonable (though with orks instead of marines, of course).


So yes, you can buy different models for your marine army from different armies which also happen to be marines, but that doesn't make them customisable. Heck, they even have the lore saying "if it wasn't written forever ago, you cannot make it!" for all their technology. That is basically GW saying "If we don't make the kit, and if you don't assemble it exactly how we say, then it's not canon". Their fliers look cool as anything when they have legs, but they aren't canon. GW's lore makes space marines one of the least customisable factions.


As for saying "space wolves are different from normal marines", death guard are different from chaos marines. But they are two different armies which are based on the same thing, so I wouldn't say "chaos space marines are so customisable, because you can buy a different army instead and they look different!"

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Integrity?

My motivations are centred on real human beings here. I honestly couldn't care less about the lore, because the lore matters less than real human beings. I think the idea that wanting representation in the most visible place *because it's the most visible place* is the best motivation to have, as opposed to being detached from representing real human beings.

Yeah, integrity and good motivation - I think I have plenty of that, thank you very much.

So this is the very definition of Societics interfering with something. Your whole reason for doing this isn't because it would improve the game, but because it would improve other things. I was referring to integrity of the excersise, not your reasoning. You say that your goal is to improve the viewpoints of people who are so deeply entrenched in the lore that they will not allow female marines and act sexist because of it, driving women away. I agree that this needs to be addressed.

So we have the person who is so obsessed by the lore that it means gurlz go home. You have two approaches here:

Your approach - you take that lore and you replace it with alternative lore which includes women. When questioned "why has this changed", you reply (in whatever way you like), "Because society doesn't accept the way in which marines were not representative, so we waded in and changed it for you. The change has nothing to do with the game, and is only about the real world."

How do you suppose that person, who was so attached to the lore, wil ltake this? Will they see women coming through the door and think anything other than "those women made them change the lore that I loved, and I resent them for that"?

Before you say "and that person can sod off", I agree with you - but they won't. They will stay there, and their toxic vibes will make the women who come through the door wonder what they did wrong.

Now, alternatively you say to this person, having changed their lore and they ask "why?" - "Cawl did a bunch of cool stuff and when he did so he managed to make space marining work on women, which has doubled their recruitment, and then he led an awesome battle to reclaim >insert some planet here< with an army which was a mixture of male & female marines, and won because they had enough marines now, and now Cawl is doing more cool stuff in the background".

The net result on marines is the same - they become representative, and they will attract a wider audience. But when those women walk through the door, they will be met by people who have read a load of cool lore justifying the change in-universe, and have accepted and raved about how cool this latest development in the 40k storyline is. They might even have been influenced by the idea that adding women to marines made them better, so think adding women to GW stores will make them better too.


It's about the mindset of people. I think that if you wade in and say "these have to change because societal reasons" then you will get backlash. If you wade in and say "These have changed because al lthis stuff happened in the lore" then you won't get that backlash.


We want the same thing - I just think your reasoning for it will cause more harm than good.

Out of curiosity, has anyone reached out to GW in recent times and gotten a response on this issue?

some bloke wrote:

sgt smudge wrote: My motivations are centred on real human beings here.

Your whole reason for doing this isn't because it would improve the game, but because it would improve other things.

He said “real human beings.” This is a game with player characters. A person decides their many characters’ faction and wargear, pose arm and paint models, probably give some of them names. They’re player characters and real people make them. That’s the main activity of the game, playing the several dozen player characters that are an army. It’s real people playing their characters, not a culture war. You seem more preoccupied with social engineering than smudge does, imo.

As for an background explanation, that’s worse than no explanation. In 40k, even an officer of the space marines or an inquisitor doesn’t know what’s happening with galactic politics, doesn’t know what’s going on in the next sector, and has a totally confused idea of what was going on even 300 years earlier, like tapestries that show Israelites wearing medieval plate armor, or movies with medieval knights eating tomatoes. Maintaining that concept, especially with the appearance of women in marine chapter, is way more important than explaining it.

 some bloke wrote:

It's about the mindset of people. I think that if you wade in and say "these have to change because societal reasons" then you will get backlash. If you wade in and say "These have changed because al lthis stuff happened in the lore" then you won't get that backlash.


We want the same thing - I just think your reasoning for it will cause more harm than good.

So this really shouldn't be overlooked. Building and taking the fiction exciting places because it's a good story artfully executed will natrually bring people along. The momen it smacks of a "you will like this because you are supposed to like this or you are bad person" you will naturally generate an opposition that might be fun for some to use in culture war purse swinging, but in reality hampers progress. Similarly, trying to advance a cause within a scene that seems inauthentic and not something that really builds within the soul and core of the existing body of work will lead to rejection.

Think about how seamlessly James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver (and no small part of it was Signorney speaking up on behalf of her character) wove a believable and admired strong but distinctly feminine character into the movie Alien. People loved it because it was well executed.

It's one thing to want to see progress, but to do it well requires an artfull hand, effort, and a consciousness of being an integrating force meeting people where they are, rather than confrontation and demonization for people not immediately jiving with your vision of improvement.

personally I'd rather GW develop females in factions that have them before they include a token head for a marine that upon close close inspection is apparently female.

the inclusion of sisters of battle in the 9th edition trailer was a promising sign. as well as piety and pain.

RegularGuy wrote:I think the difference might lay in the fact that women already exist in 40k, and have probably existing in larger numbers vis-a-vis sisters and representation in other factions for a long time, and ethnic diversity was clearly a blind spot born from the limitations of the world the game grew up in.

The problem is that while women *exist*, they are not represented, and certainly not visibly.

Sisters are probably the only thing close to actually decent representation, short of the single models released for the Imperial Guard, but when all your women are centralised in one faction, that's still exclusivity, not inclusivity.

Women were represented in 40k on paper and fringe armies alone for the longest time before plastic Sisters, but even Sisters are contributing to that "you're still relegated to this faction, you're not part of the flagship" feeling.

So, no, I'm not quite all on board with "women were already represented", because they weren't - as I keep saying, representation is nothing without visibility.

That level of representation being acheived for females (alibet not without sexist depictions also from it's heritage)

It hasn't been achieved, because women are either relegated to single models in side-factions, or to a main "all-women" faction. That's not inclusivity.

not everyone views the existence of a fraternal faction (even a popular or flag ship faction) in the universe where sororitas and mixed gender forces like guard exist as problematic. Nor does it neccessarily seem obvious to everyone that marines as a fraternal concept MUST be dismantled in order for women to enjoy the game or find representation.

I'm not saying a fraternal faction can't exist.

I'm saying Marines ain't it.

Why do Space Marines need to be the token fraternal faction, and not the Custodes, who fit that design niche better?

I get that there's vocal persons here who hold that as a very deep conviction, but there also seem to be a lot of people who haven't reached that same world view, including a population of current women who enjoy the game even without GW producing female marines or fiction.

Sure - but I have to ask, why are those same people who don't hold such a deep conviction opposed to the idea? Even if they were indifferent, why do they actively want to refuse women Space Marines?

No-one would be forcing them to change their models - this is purely there so people who *do* care about representation, and getting cool women Astartes, can get that. Even if you don't personally see it as an issue for you, why are you trying to prevent other people who *do* care?

some bloke wrote:

Gert wrote:A Space Wolf miniature is visibly different from a Dark Angel.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Tell me, is a colour swap the only difference between a Space Wolf and an Ultramarine?

Lore aside, these are different armies.

That's an entirely different topic, but I'm of the belief that they're not different armies, and that Space Marines should (as I believe they actually been!) folded into one single book.

Fundamentally, they're both Space Marines. But sure - I can say this about Raven Guard and Iron Hands, and the point will still be the same.

You need a different book to run them.

Not any more, surely? They both use the Space Marine Codex as a baseline. If you want the fancy stuff, you can buy supplements, but the core Codex is shared, yes?

Plus, I don't consider "you can buy a different model!" to be the same as "They are so customisable!"

If I buy two Intercessors, and convert one using the Ultramarine bits, and the other using Space Wolf bits, they're not "different models". They're the same models, with different customisation.

Considering that the main reason why people turn unpleasant about female marines is because, within the setting, female marines don't exist (regardless of whether or not females exist in real life), I would consider the baseline for a faction to be advertised as customisable to be how much you can customise them whilst keeping within the lore.

By why does Space Marine lore let them be customised to become basically any culture, colour, creed, or combat style you like, but women is where the line is drawn? Why is the lore that way?

Why should I care what the lore says, when the lore is needlessly exclusive, and ultimately arbitrary?

A space marine rhino can have smoke launchers put in different positions, or some decals or battle damage added to the outside. You can cover it in purity seals if you like, but ultimately it will always look like a rhino. However, if you gave me every vehicle kit in the game, I could make you 3-4 dozen different ork vehicles, none of which would look the same, and all of which would fall within the scope of the lore (except perhaps necron vehicles as they have their whole phasing out thing).

And yet, when you look at which faction GW showcase to be customisable, which faction has the greatest amount of spinoffs and homebrews and "OC-do-not-steal" community creations, it's not Orks.

Yes, Orks have the greatest diversity *in lore*, second perhaps only to the Imperial Guard. But I'm not talking purely about lore. I'm talking about *practice*. I'm talking about the real world, including GW's models and marketing. And GW's models and marketing would indicate that the faction they see as most customisable is the Space Marines.

So yes, you can buy different models for your marine army from different armies which also happen to be marines, but that doesn't make them customisable. Heck, they even have the lore saying "if it wasn't written forever ago, you cannot make it!" for all their technology. That is basically GW saying "If we don't make the kit, and if you don't assemble it exactly how we say, then it's not canon". Their fliers look cool as anything when they have legs, but they aren't canon. GW's lore makes space marines one of the least customisable factions.

And yet, in terms of player reception and GW's own marketing for them, Space Marines are the apex of player expression. Seriously, just look at how many custom Chapters there are. Look at the wealth of paint programs that let you make your own Space Marines. Look at the sheer variety of cultures and traditions that people have expressed and represented in their Space Marines.

There was the example of the Fighting Tigers of Veda mentioned earlier - an excellent example of Space Marines being more than just this European warrior fraternity, but taking some massive inspiration from Indian culture and design, to great effect. I can't see that with Orks.

You mention GW saying "if we don't make the kit, you can't make it" - and yet, which faction has the most kits? Also, your issues on kitbashing being disallowed would apply for basically every Imperial faction - just saying. But ultimately, this is a side-issue - because customisation is more than modelling or paint schemes - it's in personality, culture, player expression. And Orks are much to tied to their own Orkish culture to be "most customisable". What makes Orks so iconic and attractive to many players is their own distinct culture and idiosyncracies - their obsession with dakka, teef, and red 'uns going faster. Space Marines, on the other hand, are more defined by what they *can* be - and that's largely a choice of player freedoms. Want Sneaky Marines? We've got that. Want Roman Marines? We've got that. Want Viking/Werewolf Marines? Got that. Want Celtic Marines? Got that. Want Vampire Marines? Got that too.

Want Women Marines? Why not too?

As for saying "space wolves are different from normal marines", death guard are different from chaos marines. But they are two different armies which are based on the same thing, so I wouldn't say "chaos space marines are so customisable, because you can buy a different army instead and they look different!"

Death Guard are much more different than Space Wolves are to the Ultramarines, from every perspective. Bad comparison.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Integrity?

My motivations are centred on real human beings here. I honestly couldn't care less about the lore, because the lore matters less than real human beings. I think the idea that wanting representation in the most visible place *because it's the most visible place* is the best motivation to have, as opposed to being detached from representing real human beings.

Yeah, integrity and good motivation - I think I have plenty of that, thank you very much.

So this is the very definition of Societics interfering with something. Your whole reason for doing this isn't because it would improve the game, but because it would improve other things.

Define "improving the game", because I think these would improve the game very much.

I was referring to integrity of the excersise, not your reasoning.

And my exercise very much has integrity, thank you. I'd be losing integrity if I didn't make my case clear on this matter.

You say that your goal is to improve the viewpoints of people who are so deeply entrenched in the lore that they will not allow female marines and act sexist because of it, driving women away.

Not necessarily to "improve", but to delegitimise - and that was only one of my goals. I had many more.

I agree that this needs to be addressed.

So we have the person who is so obsessed by the lore that it means gurlz go home. You have two approaches here:

Your approach - you take that lore and you replace it with alternative lore which includes women. When questioned "why has this changed", you reply (in whatever way you like), "Because society doesn't accept the way in which marines were not representative, so we waded in and changed it for you. The change has nothing to do with the game, and is only about the real world."

Well, no, because it's very much *is* to do with the game - the game being something in the real world, and entirely a construct of people in the real world.

This isn't a "because society doesn't accept how Marines weren't representative", it was "Marines weren't representative, and that was stupid, what society says be damned".

How do you suppose that person, who was so attached to the lore, wil ltake this? Will they see women coming through the door and think anything other than "those women made them change the lore that I loved, and I resent them for that"?

I frankly don't care what they think, so long as if they start to become toxic to other people, they're shown the door.

Before you say "and that person can sod off", I agree with you - but they won't. They will stay there, and their toxic vibes will make the women who come through the door wonder what they did wrong.

Actually, if anything, they're likely not to. They'll rage and fester, yes, but without that feeling of legitimacy and hopefully everyone else actually calling them out on their toxicity, they won't stick around. For an example, look to AoS - that's not full of people who stuck around after and fester with toxic vibes. Yes, those people exist still, but they fled the space - and the AoS player base looks healthier for it.

Now, alternatively you say to this person, having changed their lore and they ask "why?" - "Cawl did a bunch of cool stuff and when he did so he managed to make space marining work on women, which has doubled their recruitment, and then he led an awesome battle to reclaim >insert some planet here< with an army which was a mixture of male & female marines, and won because they had enough marines now, and now Cawl is doing more cool stuff in the background".

Except (and I know this argument, because I used to make it) the person adverse to women Space Marines would say "why would Cawl care about making women Space Marines?" or "but the lore says Space Marines can't be women, so Cawl's just breaking the lore", which ultimately leads to "why did you change the lore - oh, I bet you changed it for societal reasons, didn't you".

I keep telling you - the lore does not have a mind of it's own. It cannot be self-determinate, it cannot have it's own natural conclusions or developments. Every new development, from the biggest retcon, to the smallest skirmish, is artificially added from the real world, from outside sources. And much as you throw up the smokescreen of "no, it's totally an internal lore decision that Cawl suddenly worked out how to make women Space Marines", it's not internal at all. It's not internal, because you - the hypothetical some bloke working at GW - wrote that in. You, for whatever reason, made it so that Cawl would learn how to make women Astartes. Cawl could not have done that on their own, because Cawl is a fictional character, and cannot exist. You used Cawl as a surrogate to push for something that you - the hypothetical some bloke working at GW - wanted.

You can smokescreen it by saying "it's just what happened in the lore!", but as I've been saying, the lore is invented by real people, and every change or status quo maintained in the lore is done according to the real world desires and objectives of those real world people.

The net result on marines is the same - they become representative, and they will attract a wider audience. But when those women walk through the door, they will be met by people who have read a load of cool lore justifying the change in-universe, and have accepted and raved about how cool this latest development in the 40k storyline is. They might even have been influenced by the idea that adding women to marines made them better, so think adding women to GW stores will make them better too.

Or they'll be met by those same people who feel disgruntled because of a lore change that we all know was made for external reasons, no matter how much you say that it was only the lore developing.

It's about the mindset of people. I think that if you wade in and say "these have to change because societal reasons" then you will get backlash. If you wade in and say "These have changed because al lthis stuff happened in the lore" then you won't get that backlash.

I'm sorry, but that's simply not the case.

When this topic inevitably comes up, before anyone can even say "I want this because women would be cool" or "I want this because it could be a new development in the lore", you have people calling the whole thing political. You have people shooting down the simple appearance of women a political act. We've seen it in this thread, I've seen it in other threads, and I will likely continue to see it.
To those people, they know, just as I understand, that changes to the lore don't happen in a vacuum. To them, even moving the setting forward to include women Space Marines is a problem, because they don't want women where they weren't before. You can't justify it with lore, because the lore to these people is not something to be touched - to be moved forward, to be adapted, to be tinkered or modified. You can say all you like how "but it makes sense in the lore, Cawl developed how to do this!" - but the response will be "Cawl shouldn't have been able to do that", or "Cawl shouldn't exist", because that's exactly part of the Primaris backlash. GW moved the setting forward with Primaris, didn't invalidate anyone's previous history or backstory doing so, but still got massive amounts of flack for doing so.

This is not a blanket statement, but for some people, when they say they don't want the lore influenced by the real world, they mean they don't want the lore to change at all, and that no matter how many "in lore" reasons you can give for why women Space Marines should now exist, they will still shoot those ideas down as "political" - just for including women.

Where I differ from you is that I'm being realistic about my goals, intentions, and methods. I know the lore is a construct, so I'm not going to pretend that I'm following it to push forward the concerns that I want to see addressed.

We want the same thing - I just think your reasoning for it will cause more harm than good.

Our reasoning will not matter to these folks. No matter what reason you say you have, it won't change the fact that they don't want women in their Space Marines. If you come up with a lore reason, they'll call the lore stupid. If you throw away the lore, they'll lose legitimacy entirely.

RegularGuy wrote:So this really shouldn't be overlooked. Building and taking the fiction exciting places because it's a good story artfully executed will natrually bring people along.

I'm going to very briefly put on my cap of someone who might be opposed to women Space Marines for a moment here, and ask "why is the fiction being built towards adding women?", or "why would adding women make a better story?"

Now, to me, adding women *would* make a better story because it wouldn't be exclusive to the sake of it any more. But evidently, the people who do oppose women Space Marines don't exactly care about that exclusivity, and seek to maintain it.

The momen it smacks of a "you will like this because you are supposed to like this or you are bad person" you will naturally generate an opposition that might be fun for some to use in culture war purse swinging, but in reality hampers progress.

No-one is saying "you must like this" about women Space Marines. We're just saying "why can't we have this - why do you need to fight back so hard against women Space Marines being a thing?"

I don't see why there's a need for opposition on this.

Think about how seamlessly James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver (and no small part of it was Signorney speaking up on behalf of her character) wove a believable and admired strong but distinctly feminine character into the movie Alien. People loved it because it was well executed.

And there's plenty of things that are similarly inoffensive, yet are widely cried out as being "SJW propaganda" or "woke" for no other reason than simply including women or being female centric.

Look, I admire your naivety perhaps, that all it takes is a well executed story, but that doesn't change that many perfectly serviceable stories are mired down by people choosing to see it as a political attack on them.

It's one thing to want to see progress, but to do it well requires an artfull hand, effort, and a consciousness of being an integrating force meeting people where they are, rather than confrontation and demonization for people not immediately jiving with your vision of improvement.

The problem is that, as I've outlined, but why does literally just including women in the Space Marines *need* an artful hand and effort? Why does it need to be anything more than "they're here now".

The fact that we apparently need to even justify why women exist, instead of just women existing in the first place, is the thing I'm talking about here. I shouldn't need to make a female-led story well executed just so that people won't cry about it being "woke politics", because those same people won't cry about "woke politics" if I make a badly executed male-led story. The fact is that by bringing this up, you're admitting to a double standard between male and female-centric representation here.

I shouldn't need to have to artfully justify women Space Marines, because there should be no need to justify women existing in the first place. Why do I need to justify that? Surely it should be a case of justifying their *exclusion*, not inclusion. Is inclusivity and equality not the point we should be starting this from?

I mean I'm pretty sure most people here aren't demonising anyone for disagreeing. We're mostly just pointing out hypocrisy and mean behaviour. Peeps keep saying the pro-female SM folks are starting a "culture war" but the only people who view it as such are the ones that want to maintain the status quo or who are being deliberately exclusionary (these two groups are not that same thing). Declaring a "culture war" is a reactionary, usually right wing, tactic to make people afraid of the "other side" coming to take away your way of life. People aren't saying nuke 40k and start again with all mixed forces, they're saying just add them in since there's easy lore precedent and it would help solve a real world problem.
As for the whole "it's political to add X into 40k", everything is political. Your objection to it is political. The "no politics" argument is bunk because literally everything anyone does is motivated by the society that they live in and can be framed as politics by literally anyone.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:If I buy two Intercessors, and convert one using the Ultramarine bits, and the other using Space Wolf bits, they're not "different models". They're the same models, with different customisation.

Death Guard are much more different than Space Wolves are to the Ultramarines, from every perspective. Bad comparison.

You mention GW saying "if we don't make the kit, you can't make it" - and yet, which faction has the most kits?

Regarding customisation, I will grant you that space marines have the largest variety of interchangeable kits (orks aside, who can use it all and then some provided they paint it blue). However, I would argue that chaos space marines are more customisable than regular marines, as everything you can to to marines you can do to chaos, and then there's all the chaosy stuff like horns and mutations and marks. But I'm arguing a different point entirely here, as this isn't a discussion about whether space marines are the most customisable faction!

Regarding this:

Well, no, because it's very much *is* to do with the game - the game being something in the real world, and entirely a construct of people in the real world.

This isn't a "because society doesn't accept how Marines weren't representative", it was "Marines weren't representative, and that was stupid, what society says be damned".


I frankly don't care what they think, so long as if they start to become toxic to other people, they're shown the door.


Actually, if anything, they're likely not to. They'll rage and fester, yes, but without that feeling of legitimacy and hopefully everyone else actually calling them out on their toxicity, they won't stick around. For an example, look to AoS - that's not full of people who stuck around after and fester with toxic vibes. Yes, those people exist still, but they fled the space - and the AoS player base looks healthier for it.


Except (and I know this argument, because I used to make it) the person adverse to women Space Marines would say "why would Cawl care about making women Space Marines?" or "but the lore says Space Marines can't be women, so Cawl's just breaking the lore", which ultimately leads to "why did you change the lore - oh, I bet you changed it for societal reasons, didn't you".

Are you suggesting that people will react the same regardless of whether a change is made because their game has been considered offensive and thus must be changed, vs the game doing what it has been doing already (lore changing & developing) and the result being the same?

Do you not see that you will get a far higher backlash from anyone who feels like they are being told what to do? And that this will not be lacking a feel of legitimacy because most people will say "I hate how they changed the game just to be more PC". Most people won't even be aginst the female marines, they'll be against it being done for political/societal reasons - you'll make people who don't mind female marines resentful about how it was done. If you changed it in the same way the game has been changed in the past, most people wouldn't even think that space marines were being changed to be more representative. If Cawl came up with a way to make female marines, they'd just think GW wanted to sell some new models and that this another damned space marine release.

Ultimately, if you justify the female marines in the game by progressing the lore, it will feel organic and a logical step in the imperiums efforts, whereas if you just say "nah there's been female marines the whole time you just never saw them" and an out-of-lore "we added these because they never shouldn't have been there", then that will see a lot of people thinking it's real life interfering with their game.

The choice is whether you want to see a load of threads saying "OMG why did they add girls to space marines, that's so rubbish they're only doing it because someone complained why can't girls just leave these things alone, damn karens!" or whether you see a load of threads saying "Why are space marines getting even more releases! When will they do xenos! Where's my eldar codex!"

Which of those seems like it made a more inclusive culture to women?

 RegularGuy wrote:
I think the difference might lay in the fact that women already exist in 40k, and have probably existing in larger numbers vis-a-vis sisters and representation in other factions for a long time, and ethnic diversity was clearly a blind spot born from the limitations of the world the game grew up in.

That level of representation being acheived for females (alibet not without sexist depictions also from it's heritage), not everyone views the existence of a fraternal faction (even a popular or flag ship faction) in the universe where sororitas and mixed gender forces like guard exist as problematic. Nor does it neccessarily seem obvious to everyone that marines as a fraternal concept MUST be dismantled in order for women to enjoy the game or find representation.

I get that there's vocal persons here who hold that as a very deep conviction, but there also seem to be a lot of people who haven't reached that same world view, including a population of current women who enjoy the game even without GW producing female marines or fiction.

Yet you don’t see people getting the abuse for painting a marine to have black skin, but put a female head on it and you are fair game. In the 1st edition literature that is lauded by those who hold the lore so highly regarding female marines you won’t find a black marine anywhere. All white. Now they and other black models are common place in GW publications. That’s politics in 40K, that is being done to increase representation and redress and imbalance from the past, in the hope that that representation will increase player numbers from BAME back grounds. Let’s say marines of some flavour make up 50% of 40K armies (conservative guess), them being a fraternity (low risk way of saying no girls allowed) is surely a problem for a company that wants to increase representation of gender diversity. I believe we have addressed the “fraternity” issue in depth a few pages ago and it doesn’t wash with me. I can get my head round it for the custodes because they are a small fringe faction, it doesn’t exclude people from the majority of the armies like the marines do.


The sexists who don’t want female marines cling to this outdated and unpublished bit of lore to defend their actions and shout about keeping politics out of the game. When I talk about threats and abuse for making female marines, I have been on the receiving end myself on ore than one occasion, on the board in the past and on FB groups when I have posted pics of my female marines.

I don’t see any female 40K players coming out claiming that female Marines would be a problem for them? Maintaining the status quo in order to protect a small group of women who tolerate the misogyny in the community doesn’t make sense or remotely outweigh the need for change.

 RegularGuy wrote:
I think the difference might lay in the fact that women already exist in 40k, and have probably existing in larger numbers vis-a-vis sisters and representation in other factions for a long time, and ethnic diversity was clearly a blind spot born from the limitations of the world the game grew up in.

That level of representation being acheived for females (alibet not without sexist depictions also from it's heritage), not everyone views the existence of a fraternal faction (even a popular or flag ship faction) in the universe where sororitas and mixed gender forces like guard exist as problematic. Nor does it neccessarily seem obvious to everyone that marines as a fraternal concept MUST be dismantled in order for women to enjoy the game or find representation.

I get that there's vocal persons here who hold that as a very deep conviction, but there also seem to be a lot of people who haven't reached that same world view, including a population of current women who enjoy the game even without GW producing female marines or fiction.

Maybe if guard were actually presented as a gender-mixed faction this would be true, but the addition of a single sprue with four heads into a single kit has not yet in my experience presented basically every existing guard collection from being 100% dudesmen.

some bloke wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:If I buy two Intercessors, and convert one using the Ultramarine bits, and the other using Space Wolf bits, they're not "different models". They're the same models, with different customisation.

Death Guard are much more different than Space Wolves are to the Ultramarines, from every perspective. Bad comparison.

You mention GW saying "if we don't make the kit, you can't make it" - and yet, which faction has the most kits?

Regarding customisation, I will grant you that space marines have the largest variety of interchangeable kits (orks aside, who can use it all and then some provided they paint it blue). However, I would argue that chaos space marines are more customisable than regular marines, as everything you can to to marines you can do to chaos, and then there's all the chaosy stuff like horns and mutations and marks. But I'm arguing a different point entirely here, as this isn't a discussion about whether space marines are the most customisable faction!

I would still disagree with Chaos - loyalists are showcased with a much wider array of aesthetic designs, and styles, whereas CSM are more often than not shoved into the "spikey" category. Loyalists can be spikey, smooth, ornate, tacticool, etc etc, but Chaos Marines are most often just spikey or gritty. Unfortunately, it yet again comes to Space Marines getting a lot of kits, and a lot of representation with different aesthetic styles.

But, yes, this is a different discussion.

Regarding this:

Well, no, because it's very much *is* to do with the game - the game being something in the real world, and entirely a construct of people in the real world.

This isn't a "because society doesn't accept how Marines weren't representative", it was "Marines weren't representative, and that was stupid, what society says be damned".


I frankly don't care what they think, so long as if they start to become toxic to other people, they're shown the door.


Actually, if anything, they're likely not to. They'll rage and fester, yes, but without that feeling of legitimacy and hopefully everyone else actually calling them out on their toxicity, they won't stick around. For an example, look to AoS - that's not full of people who stuck around after and fester with toxic vibes. Yes, those people exist still, but they fled the space - and the AoS player base looks healthier for it.


Except (and I know this argument, because I used to make it) the person adverse to women Space Marines would say "why would Cawl care about making women Space Marines?" or "but the lore says Space Marines can't be women, so Cawl's just breaking the lore", which ultimately leads to "why did you change the lore - oh, I bet you changed it for societal reasons, didn't you".

Are you suggesting that people will react the same regardless of whether a change is made because their game has been considered offensive and thus must be changed, vs the game doing what it has been doing already (lore changing & developing) and the result being the same?

Yes, I believe the reaction will be the same.

If a change is made that people don't like, they won't suddenly accept it because some made up words said so. And for a considerable amount of anti-women Astartes folks, I believe that any modification to what Space Marines are *right now* (or arguably, from whenever they decided what Space Marines were to them), lore-development or retcon alike, they would see it as a political change, because they see including women as a political act.

Do you not see that you will get a far higher backlash from anyone who feels like they are being told what to do?

As I said, I don't care about their backlash, because they'd be lashing back irrespectively.

The people who would be satisfied with a lore development, and wouldn't complain about women Space Marines being added in via an advancing story, are likely also people who could be persuaded to see the necessity of women Space Marines from a representative point of view.

I can't bargain with people who oppose the inclusion of women Astartes full stop.

And that this will not be lacking a feel of legitimacy because most people will say "I hate how they changed the game just to be more PC".

And they'd say exactly the same, irrespective of how you integrated women Space Marines. It's not the methods that these folks don't like, it's *including them at all*.

Most people won't even be aginst the female marines, they'll be against it being done for political/societal reasons - you'll make people who don't mind female marines resentful about how it was done. If you changed it in the same way the game has been changed in the past, most people wouldn't even think that space marines were being changed to be more representative. If Cawl came up with a way to make female marines, they'd just think GW wanted to sell some new models and that this another damned space marine release.

Again, I have to disagree, considering the responses that I've seen in this thread, other threads, and will likely see in others.

People will think that Space Marines are getting women only for political reasons regardless of what you tell them, because that's what they've told themselves. As Gert says - this a common tactic, wherein people will resist any change to their sphere of influence by claiming that it's just a political move to make them change. It doesn't matter how you spin in, they *will* call it politically motivated, because, at the end of the day, to an extent, it is. The lore can't develop on it's own. There must have been an external force that made it so.

The reason I maintain that this is not a political decision, or a political topic, is because everything, including neutrality or status quo, is political in those lens, and so it becomes an utterly meaningless distinction.

So, I'm sorry, but I think you are incorrect with stating that people would be fine with women Space Marines, but are against it being done for political reasons - because these people would see any form of women Space Marines as political.

Ultimately, if you justify the female marines in the game by progressing the lore, it will feel organic and a logical step in the imperiums efforts, whereas if you just say "nah there's been female marines the whole time you just never saw them" and an out-of-lore "we added these because they never shouldn't have been there", then that will see a lot of people thinking it's real life interfering with their game.

But the lore isn't organic. Sure, we can make the lore sound organic, but we all know that it's not - that's just smoothing over the gaps of a decision that was made in the real world.

With just a shred of thought, it is clear that no decision in the lore is truly "organic" - it's all down to external decisions made in the real world, and the detractors of women Space Marines know that.

The choice is whether you want to see a load of threads saying "OMG why did they add girls to space marines, that's so rubbish they're only doing it because someone complained why can't girls just leave these things alone, damn karens!" or whether you see a load of threads saying "Why are space marines getting even more releases! When will they do xenos! Where's my eldar codex!"

You'd be seeing the former regardless, I'm afraid.

Just look at the amount of vitriol directed towards Primaris.

Which of those seems like it made a more inclusive culture to women?

Well, considering that the first one will happen regardless, I'd want to make sure that I make the stance to be as inclusive and representative as possible, without trying to hide behind "well, I'm just following the lore!"

I'm not going to make the lore my excuse, because the lore doesn't have weight. I'm after representation because it's the fair thing to do, not because I can bend the lore to make it that way. And that visible action from GW, if they were to reject the "sanctity" of their own lore, and outright say "yep, we messed up, we're just making women's inclusion completely normal, as it always should have been", feels far more genuine and sincere than "heyyyy, so we've let women join in now, but boy, we had to really make up these fictional reasons why we could ignore our previous fiction reasons!!". That kind of response would indicate to me that GW still cared more about their lore and fictional words than they did about me, as a real human being.

There is such a thing as overdoing a model, for example, a CSM army that is inspired by samurai but is still very clearly a CSM army is going to be much harder to do than a samurai-inspired SM Chapter. You have to make sure you put enough effort into showing they are samurai but need to put equal if not more effort into showing they're CSM. CSM kits have much more detailing than Loyalist SM so any conversions have to take that into account and from personal experience, it is much harder to convert a model when the majority of it is sculpted detail.


Pretty much yeah. Centurions, Primaris, writer X doing the codex for faction Y in past editions. 40k hobbyists will get mad at literally anything at any time for any reason.


Taking any stance on anything is political, that's just life. And anyone who says "they ruined 40k by making it PC", IMO doesn't have an opinion worth listening to. It is the buzzwordiest of buzzwords that has naff all meaning.


The only way the game can be interfered with is with real life, anyone who says otherwise is either in denial or has a peanut brain. The Primaris could be seen as the logical step in the evolution of SM but people still got mad about them.


So? Those threads will happen regardless because the Internet is the home of over-exaggeration and hyperbole. And I'd also like to point out that every single thing GW has released that "changed the lore" has been accepted by the majority. There isn't nearly as much whining about "waaaah Primaris ruined 40k" as there was when they were released.

As I said, I don't care about their backlash, because they'd be lashing back irrespectively.

That... is a weird way to go about it.

do you not see that by doing a change in a way that will make people push back and then saying "I don't care what they think" is a very good way to turn a good thing into a bad thing?

if you introduce female marines and just outright say "this is being done because it's not PC to have all-male space marines" then you will get a huge amount of people who don't care either way about female marines getting annoyed about it because it's politics interfering with 40k. Do you not see that?

And where will they direct this ire of theirs? Will it be to the shop colleagues? no, they are just there to sell them plastic crack. Instead they'll pick a convenient scapegoat to direct their unhappiness about being forced to do something for PC reasons, and that will be the people they assume were complaining about it to make them change it - female gamers.

Your approach to this is setting it up to fail spectacularly. You'll go from a select few idiots who take it too seriously and poison the environment for female gamers to a huge amount of people who are resentful that their game, which has had the lore to make the things they are using make sense, suddenly got changed without any lore explanation so there could be female marine models, with a big announcement saying "we don't care what you think, there's women there now, deal with it".


I have no problem with people who are actually sexist being made to shut up or get out. But if this change were made without any respect to the game, then it will make people who would otherwise have accepted the change happily feel resentful about it. That will not improve things at all. If anything you'll tempt more women in with the female marines, but into an environment which is more resentful against women than it was before.

 some bloke wrote:

Do you not see that you will get a far higher backlash from anyone who feels like they are being told what to do? And that this will not be lacking a feel of legitimacy because most people will say "I hate how they changed the game just to be more PC". Most people won't even be aginst the female marines, they'll be against it being done for political/societal reasons - you'll make people who don't mind female marines resentful about how it was done. I

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Lets say GW did absolutely everything possible to please their existing playerbase in the next couple of months - like, let's assume the absolute crazy impossible, like they do huge release waves for Eldar, Imperial Guard and Tyranids, then they release Word Bearers and Emperor's Children as spinoff 'dexes with their own miniature ranges ala thousand sons, and after all that, they put out new marine kits with female miniatures included and they come up with the BEST POSSIBLE in-universe explanation for why female marines get added.

Do you really, actually, in this universe that exists right now containing the people that exist within it believe that 99.9% of people who have a problem with female marines would not simply say "I hate how they changed the game to be more PC" regardless of any justification or in-lore reasoning by games workshop?

Because you seem to be presenting some kind of fantasy scenario where GW just drops a kit for marines with female heads and doesn't explain it in-universe at all.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 some bloke wrote:

Do you not see that you will get a far higher backlash from anyone who feels like they are being told what to do? And that this will not be lacking a feel of legitimacy because most people will say "I hate how they changed the game just to be more PC". Most people won't even be aginst the female marines, they'll be against it being done for political/societal reasons - you'll make people who don't mind female marines resentful about how it was done. I

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Lets say GW did absolutely everything possible to please their existing playerbase in the next couple of months - like, let's assume the absolute crazy impossible, like they do huge release waves for Eldar, Imperial Guard and Tyranids, then they release Word Bearers and Emperor's Children as spinoff 'dexes with their own miniature ranges ala thousand sons, and after all that, they put out new marine kits with female miniatures included and they come up with the BEST POSSIBLE in-universe explanation for why female marines get added.

Do you really, actually, in this universe that exists right now containing the people that exist within it believe that 99.9% of people who have a problem with female marines would not simply say "I hate how they changed the game to be more PC" regardless of any justification or in-lore reasoning by games workshop?

Because you seem to be presenting some kind of fantasy scenario where GW just drops a kit for marines with female heads and doesn't explain it in-universe at all.

I think that perhaps I'm not being clear on this.

There are two factors to consider here, two aspects of the people:

1: Whether or not they are opposed to female marines
2: Whether or not they are opposed to 40k being changed for external political reasons (all that jazz about "every decision a writer makes is political" aside, which I find somewhat wrong - reasons later)

Let's say option 1 is divided into "opposed" and "accepting", as A and B.
on 2 is split into "opposed" and "accepting", as 1 and 2.

Your possible people are:

A1: opposed to female marines and opposed to political changes
A2: Opposed to female marines and not to political changes
B1: Accepting female marines but opposed to political changes
B2: accepting of both female marines and political changes.

We can safely assume, as you said, that both A1 and A2 will be opposed to female marines because that is their stance. We can't change that, as what we're trying to do is fundamentally against their beliefs.

So we are left with B1 and B2 - both accepting of female marines, but one group is opposed to political changes in 40k.


We can assume that any people upset or angry about the change will make the environment bad for female games.

Currently (pre-change), A1 and A2 probably do this anyway. Some won't but chances are anyone who makes it unwelcoming for women is also someone who's opposed to female marines "'cos they're gurlz".

B1 and B2 aren't making things toxic, in all likelihood.


Now we make the change.

if we make the change politically, and say "this is happening because politics are interfering with 40k (however you slice it), then you now have groups A1, A2, and B1 all opposed to the change and only group B2 happy with it. Hostility towards women increases (or appears to), as there's 3 of 4 groups against the change to include women.

If we make the change in line with most of the other changes - add to the lore, give reasons, write cool stories about it, make it seem integral to how the imperium is now, and so on - then you'll find A1 and A2 are still against it, "cos they're gurlz" but B1 and B2 are for it, because they don't feel like it's politics stepping in and just changing things for PC reasons.


So I'm not saying that doing it via respectful lore additions will stop the sexists from being sexist, but I am saying that doing it via "we're in the right so you lot shut up and accept it or get out, there are women marines now, deal with it" will make people who aren't sexist adverse to the change - not for it's content, but its execution. You'll have all the people who are against changing things for PC reasons angry about it, who wouldn't have been if it had been done respectfully.

I hope that this has clarified rather than being like some bizarre algebra problem. (Why am I holding 15 watermelons on a train heading east at 15mph?!?)




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Reasons later, as promised, about why "every decision people make is for political reasons" is wrong to me:

I ask those who say this (Looking at you Gert), please tell me what the political reason for adding primaris marines was? What ideals of society were they trying to uphold, what wrongs were they trying to right?

In effect, fill in the blank:

"Adding primaris marines to 40k in order to ____ is the same as adding female marines to 40k in order to improve representation"

And then make sure it's not the same reason as:

"Adding primaris marines to 40k in order to ____ is the same as adding female marines to 40k in order to make more sales, make the faction cooler, or progress the lore.

I don't think there is an answer, because I don't think that primaris marines weren't added for political reasons.