The only reference I found to rules in the articles that I shared was someone talking about the huge amount of rules involved in a tabletop wargame compared to boardgame. Which is really funny because half of the topics in 40k General Discussion are about "rules bloat" or "army dlc".
Sounds like Hecaton just being Hecaton tbh.
I'm not even going to address the implication that I'm pro-female SM for sexual reasons. Nobody here has any idea who I am, let alone my sexuality. I think the comment says more about Hecaton than me.
Gert wrote: The only reference I found to rules in the articles that I shared was someone talking about the huge amount of rules involved in a tabletop wargame compared to boardgame.
Yes, and they were saying that women couldn't handle those rules.
No it doesn't. Here's what the article actually said:
Spoiler:
Afterwards, amateur players are staring down an intense rules crunch—understanding the core mechanics of the game, but also the specific nuances and eccentricities of the faction of your choice. "You've got to learn two to three pages of rules per unit," says Ostrander. But that still doesn't account for the person you're playing against, who might have a precise, expert-level counterpunch cued up for your strategy of choice. That dynamic is what makes wargaming fascinating, of course, but it can also be disempowering for a newcomer—especially if that newcomer already feels like an outsider due to their gender identity.
Where does it specifically say women hobbyists find it hard to understand the rules? Oh yeah it doesn't. The article talks about the difficulties of getting into wargaming for everyone and then later goes on to discuss how people who already suffer discrimination in wider society often find it hard to fit in to a wargaming community. Actually read the article next time before you make up utter nonsense.
Gert wrote: No it doesn't. Here's what the article actually said:
Spoiler:
Afterwards, amateur players are staring down an intense rules crunch—understanding the core mechanics of the game, but also the specific nuances and eccentricities of the faction of your choice. "You've got to learn two to three pages of rules per unit," says Ostrander. But that still doesn't account for the person you're playing against, who might have a precise, expert-level counterpunch cued up for your strategy of choice. That dynamic is what makes wargaming fascinating, of course, but it can also be disempowering for a newcomer—especially if that newcomer already feels like an outsider due to their gender identity.
Where does it specifically say women hobbyists find it hard to understand the rules? Oh yeah it doesn't. The article talks about the difficulties of getting into wargaming for everyone and then later goes on to discuss how people who already suffer discrimination in wider society often find it hard to fit in to a wargaming community. Actually read the article next time before you make up utter nonsense.
He didn't read, or at least understand, the study he linked earlier; of course he didn't understand the article.
macluvin wrote: Hecatron, I had to explain to my wife this isn’t some incel forum on account of some of the statements you have made. The gaslighting is real...
#thathappened
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gert wrote: Where does it specifically say women hobbyists find it hard to understand the rules? Oh yeah it doesn't. The article talks about the difficulties of getting into wargaming for everyone and then later goes on to discuss how people who already suffer discrimination in wider society often find it hard to fit in to a wargaming community. Actually read the article next time before you make up utter nonsense.
And women are uniquely "disempowered" by this in a way that men are not? Seems sexist to assume they're so weak. I know more trans women than cis women who play miniature wargames, and, well, if you think trans women are more welcomed into the hobby than cis women I've got a bridge to sell you.
He didn't read, or at least understand, the study he linked earlier; of course he didn't understand the article.
I understood it quite well. And it serves us better to pay attention to that than anecdotes.
When the citation in question supports your argument, absolutely, except you've not done that. You've now twice twisted articles far from their intended meaning either mistakenly or deliberately, and either way I ain't going to let anyone connected with this debate forget that for a second.
CEO Kasen wrote: When the citation in question supports your argument, absolutely, except you've not done that. You've now twice twisted articles far from their intended meaning either mistakenly or deliberately, and either way I ain't going to let anyone connected with this debate forget that for a second.
What, you're mad that I provided a study that showed that women were more person-oriented than men, on average?
DalekCheese wrote: Oh, and yeah, I have nothing important to say. After all, I’m just a part of a demographic that’s uninterested in the hobby.
If you read what I said you'd know that that's not what I meant. Take another look.
You asked for what women in the wargaming and hobby have to say, got it, then proceeded to tell them they are wrong and negate what they say. Seems like you are saying exactly that even after getting called out for it... so far every woman I know of that has consulted your material has demonstrated varying degrees of uncomfortable.
A reasonable person would have apologized for what they said and stated that they did not intend to offend, and demonstrated an interest in at least learning what they did wrong, if not correcting it. Or simply asking for clarification about what offended this person so. Like seriously dude. I’m not saying you need to go but your attitude should not have a place in this hobby. The preferable, and most beautiful thing, would be to step out of your comfort zone, evaluate yourself, LISTEN TO THE WOMEN instead of trying to shut them down, and improve yourself. Please take your disregard for women out of this hobby one way or another. Stop saying what women have to say, then proceeding to mansplain their dissenting opinion as wrong on account of it working against your interest in this discussion. It really is an atrocious and toxic behavior.
Automatically Appended Next Post: This also happened after we got an opinion from outside of the hobby that was a woman, and you said you wanted it from within. And there it was. And it was not to your liking and therefore invalid.
macluvin wrote: You asked for what women in the wargaming and hobby have to say, got it, then proceeded to tell them they are wrong and negate what they say.
The only women I've talked to in this thread got what *I* said wrong, and I commented on that.
macluvin wrote: Seems like you are saying exactly that even after getting called out for it... so far every woman I know of that has consulted your material has demonstrated varying degrees of uncomfortable.
Ok. Doesn't mean what I'm doing or saying is wrong.
macluvin wrote: A reasonable person would have apologized for what they said and stated that they did not intend to offend, and demonstrated an interest in at least learning what they did wrong, if not correcting it. Or simply asking for clarification about what offended this person so. Like seriously dude. I’m not saying you need to go but your attitude should not have a place in this hobby. The preferable, and most beautiful thing, would be to step out of your comfort zone, evaluate yourself, LISTEN TO THE WOMEN instead of trying to shut them down, and improve yourself. Please take your disregard for women out of this hobby one way or another. Stop saying what women have to say, then proceeding to mansplain their dissenting opinion as wrong on account of it working against your interest in this discussion. It really is an atrocious and toxic behavior.
Nah, sometimes when people get offended it's coming from a bad or wrong place.
This also happened after we got an opinion from outside of the hobby that was a woman, and you said you wanted it from within. And there it was. And it was not to your liking and therefore invalid.
I mean I know enough women in the hobby who have opinions to not be swayed by all the questionable gak your ilk brings up.
Gert wrote: No it doesn't. Here's what the article actually said:
Spoiler:
Afterwards, amateur players are staring down an intense rules crunch—understanding the core mechanics of the game, but also the specific nuances and eccentricities of the faction of your choice. "You've got to learn two to three pages of rules per unit," says Ostrander. But that still doesn't account for the person you're playing against, who might have a precise, expert-level counterpunch cued up for your strategy of choice. That dynamic is what makes wargaming fascinating, of course, but it can also be disempowering for a newcomer—especially if that newcomer already feels like an outsider due to their gender identity.
Where does it specifically say women hobbyists find it hard to understand the rules? Oh yeah it doesn't. The article talks about the difficulties of getting into wargaming for everyone and then later goes on to discuss how people who already suffer discrimination in wider society often find it hard to fit in to a wargaming community. Actually read the article next time before you make up utter nonsense.
For Hecaton to claim this says that women don’t understand complex rules is ludicrous. It’s show he is clearly either misunderstanding it or misrepresenting it. Absolutely stunning.
macluvin wrote: Hecatron, I had to explain to my wife this isn’t some incel forum on account of some of the statements you have made. The gaslighting is real...
#thathappened
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gert wrote: Where does it specifically say women hobbyists find it hard to understand the rules? Oh yeah it doesn't. The article talks about the difficulties of getting into wargaming for everyone and then later goes on to discuss how people who already suffer discrimination in wider society often find it hard to fit in to a wargaming community. Actually read the article next time before you make up utter nonsense.
And women are uniquely "disempowered" by this in a way that men are not? Seems sexist to assume they're so weak. I know more trans women than cis women who play miniature wargames, and, well, if you think trans women are more welcomed into the hobby than cis women I've got a bridge to sell you.
He didn't read, or at least understand, the study he linked earlier; of course he didn't understand the article.
I understood it quite well. And it serves us better to pay attention to that than anecdotes.
Then doubled down with this peach of messed up thinking. Being disempowered is nothing to do with being weak and again not what that quote is getting at at all!
Automatically Appended Next Post: And sometimes when people get offended it’s because you are being offensive.
some bloke wrote: What they actually said was "we made female marines, and no-one wanted to buy them, so we decided to justify why they are only men and sell people what they clearly want to buy".
It's worth noting that the guy who said that is not known for being truthful.
And once again, Games Workshop have never produced female space marines.
A better analogy would be if someone got abused for walking down the street in a little hat when there was an old dusty sign saying little hats are banned, then someone called out the abusers saying that little hats were ok, but then all the abusers pointed at the sign and said they were right because this old sign said “no little hats”, so everyone else took the old dusty 13 word sign down and the people in the little hats felt a bit better and the abusers had no defence for their crappy behaviour to those with little hats.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I don't know why I should be trying to appease people who would be toxic in the first place. The problem is with *them*, not with me.
Yes, I'm absolutely there to criticise the people being toxic, because they're the ones causing the problems, not the women or me for calling them out on their toxicity.
…
But a lore change happening still isn't an excuse to be toxic, and they're very much in the wrong for doing it. Feeling put out, but ultimately understanding that "hey, I guess real people matter more than some lore" is normal. Getting toxic over that is no-one's fault but their own, and I really shouldn't have to stop speaking the truth because some people would turn toxic over it. That's not my fault.
…
Potentially, but if they're being toxic to women *because some lore got changed*, can't you see how that's exactly the kind of people we don't want to be around women in the first place?
If we're trying to make a lasting change in the environment to make things better for women, then we need to be calling out and exposing those kinds of people who *would* get toxic at women because of a lore change.
…
Making the environment better for women would absolutely include calling out the people who used a lore change as an excuse to be toxic though.
I feel that this attitude is not actually going to help the problem?
Before we continue too far, the people I am concerned with appeasing are the ones who would feel put out by politics interfering with their hobby. These people would be fine if the lore progressed in a way which seemed in-keeping with 40k tradition and included female marines (Cawl dun it), and would be annoyed if it was instead given a token “women have always been marines” and a big explanation of all the political doesn’t-matter-a-toss-in-the-game reasons for changing their game. These are the people who aren’t educated on the problems that we’ve been discussing, and would have been happy for it to continue as-is, not because they don’t want female marines, but that they’ve never considered their absence an issue.
The people who outright support female marines are not an issue, and the people who outright oppose them can’t be helped. We’re talking about the vast majority of people in the hobby who don’t even care – it’s not an issue for them or their friends, and they’ve never even thought about it, and they don’t even know that there’s 60+ pages of discussions about it on dakka (and more elsewhere). These are the people we want to bring onto our side.
So, back to your comments!
You’ve mixed up “identifiying the problem” with “identifying the solution”. I have presented you with a group of people who could potentially oppose the change if it were made for outright political reasons, and you have decided that it is more important to make the political statement than to make the change actually improve anything.
Let’s say the change is made with a political statement about it and a hasty rewrite of the lore to shoehorn them in – my worst case scenario.
The people who don’t like how they changed it will be outspoken about this. Perhaps they aren’t sexist, but they constantly make comments and jokes about how the imperium is going PC, how the change was only made so they could have girl space marines. They aren’t saying “women can go away”, but the entire environment of GW stores could end up having a “women interfered with our stuff” vibe which could have been avoided just by not making the change outwardly political. That will put women off – if they keep hearing jokes and remarks about how marines were changed just for women to be there, it won’t seem welcoming.
So yes, you have successfully identified that the problem is with them, not you. What you haven’t done is offer any solution to that problem. And don’t say “we get rid of them”, because that will never happen – people are far too heavily invested (financially and emotionally) in 40k to just leave.
Calling them out relies entirely on them not being the majority. The more people fall in the “I don’t like this change” category, regardless of their reasons, the more difficult it is to expose the people who really need to be called out. If I said “I don’t like how they made the change, because it wasn’t about 40k, it was about politics, they just erased 40k history to make a political change” I don’t expect to be called out as a toxic sexist for it!
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
That's the thing, I'm not. I'm trying to expose and call out those people who *have* those exclusionary thoughts who haven't acted, and hide behind "well, it's just the lore!"
I'm not directing this at you, you've made this very clear that you are pro-women Astartes regardless. My point is towards the people who claim to only care about the lore, but use that as a mask to hide their exclusionary beliefs.
I think that the hole in your logic is the idea that the only reason someone can be opposed to a change involving genders is because of sexist views. I am the shining beacon of hope which illuminates that hole – as you said, I’m pro-woman Astartes, and yet I’m against making the change if it is done politically. I am the dinosaur bone that disproves a young earth, the overwhelming-scientific-evidence that disproves the flat earth.
If you make this change in a way specifically designed to bait people who have exclusionary views into the open, then you are doing this not only for purely political views, but with an actual goal of exposing women in the hobby to a worse environment, just so that you can point at the people who make it toxic and shout “Heretic!” in the hopes that enough others will join you and purge them?
I fail to see how this approach works with your original remarks about how female astartes are needed to combat the idea that women are somehow outside of the norm – that by seeing female models more, the people in GW stores will stop acting like women are from another planet.
You started this with aspirations of effectively re-educating those in the hobby who don’t even realise their way of thinking is exclusionary, and now you’re suggesting that we make the change in such a jarring way that these same people can be cast out and shunned.
You said that this was about making the environment better, but now it seems like a set of criteria for some sort of societal/political purge. Which I really, really cannot get behind.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
You're right! There doesn't *need* to be a point made about it other than it just *happening* - so it doesn't need a lore explanation either!
I don’t think you understand how it works to change things in 40k?
Without the lore they are just lumps of plastic. The lore is what ties it all together – without it GW would have fallen flat years ago. Most people are more invested in the lore than anything else, even if they don’t realise.
“it doesn’t need a lore explanation” is the exact situation we’re in now. There’s no current lore explaining marines genders either way, so if you think it doesn’t need a lore explanation, just go ahead and make female marines. It’s worked so well for everyone else without a lore explanation [/s]
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'm not advocating that GW make a big public statement. Far from it. I *don't* want GW to make a big statement on the matter, and would much rather that they literally just include women Space Marines without any kind of mess or hassle. No lore reason, no public comment, no flashing neon sign. They just exist now, and that's the end of the matter.
That's what I'm after. If people read into that as political, that was their choice to read into it that way, and if they want to be toxic about that, that's on them.
Ah, it seems I’ve misunderstood you when you’ve said about making a public statement about how it was wrong to exclude women and that they are making changes to amend it.
But again with the “no lore reason”? Why not? Why do you want to make this pill difficult to swallow when it could be so easy? I was being a little sarcastic when I suggested this was a political/societal purge, but now…
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Yes, I'm absolutely agreed, except on the lore front, because making a big deal about it in the lore feels exactly like what you describe with GW "shouting about it". There doesn't need to be any statements beyond "this is a thing".
The only problem there is that people know now that it isn’t a thing. They will wonder what changed, and if no in-lore explanation appears, then people will look elsewhere.
The majority of people would accept “Cawl dun it” as a reason for there being female marines now. If they just turn up one day, then people will ask “What? I thought that marines could only be men?”, and when no reasons appear in-game, they will assume the reason is elsewhere, and you get the political backlash.
The lore reasons don’t have to be sung about – I’m not looking for a single story (which would be a bit token) but for the next ‘dex to feature female marines throughout, perhaps with a small bit in the primaris creation lore which explains how Cawl made the process work on male and female candidates. It can be there if people go looking for it, rather than being splashed about everywhere. I agree that a subtle change without remark is best, but I also think it needs to have its in-game reasons!
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I think I wasn't quite clear - it's not that there *aren't* identifiers, but that the vast majority of those identifiers wouldn't be visible under a set of Mark X Tacticus power armour.
Ah, 100% agree with you there. Power armour is power armour, the people inside don’t change it! (except chaos, but then that’s different…)
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I don't see that it would add to this issue, because Space Marines aren't a sideline faction. They're the faction that is presented to *everyone* by virtue of being the flagship.
But will it seem like that is why they are being presented to her if the store offers her any army as long as it has female models?
It’s more an issue of the stores keepers than the change though, but worth considering!
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'm advocating for women Space Marines to just *exist*. No mess, no hassle, no lore explanation. As you said - it will become visible and obvious on its own.
The problem there is that they would stick out like a sore thumb.
Everything in 40k has lore reasons for being there. Do we want to make female marines the exception?
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
But why? Why does something need to be good because of lore reasons to be justifiable?
Because most people in the game don’t give a monkeys about the politics. Meanwhile, most people in the game care a lot about the lore. If you want people to accept something, you do it in a way which they are most likely to accept, regardless of whether they should accept it anyway.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
It's not implying that at all - having better representation isn't any more political than not having that representation there in the first place.
You’re not intentionally implying it, and I certainly don’t think you mean it!
Saying that the reason for something to change is because society told you to is basically saying that the only reason you made the change was to shut society up about it. It’s exactly like when a child comes over to you and says, “My mum says I have to apologise”. Are they really apologising? Are they really sorry?
If you make female marines a thing because it makes sense, and add to the lore to make them make sense in-universe, the ulterior motives of representation will still work out, but the change will already be running with the pack, as it were, not standing around wondering where it belongs in the running order as the rest of the game whips by.
I guess I just don’t understand the idea of making this change, whilst trying to make it seem unassuming and perfectly normal, but wanting to do so in a different way to every other change that has every happened?
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
The thing is, that's down to the people on how they respond. If they're going to be toxic over a lore change, what else would they be toxic over?
But you have been suggesting that we don’t even change the lore, that we just plonk female marines in and don’t offer any explanation.
These people aren’t being toxic over a lore change, they’re being toxic over a political change.
“Toxic” is a passive thing. It’s every joke they make about how it was done to make the imperium PC, every “I want >X<!” “oh, just stick it in and say that >your faction< didn’t represent >X<!”.
Frankly those sound much more toxic than saying “I want >X<”, “oh, just stick it in and say Cawl made >X< from old technology!”
Notice how the first jokes are about politics and real life, so can upset real people, and the second one is about 40k lore, and is a joke about how Cawl is making new things all the time.
I’d rather see people joking about Cawl dun it than joking about real issues like representation.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Personally, I'd want to see a third response:
"Oh, yeah. That's pretty cool."
No need for lore, and no need to ever say "oh, it was just to include more women". Let people read whatever they want to into it, justify it how they like, because they'll do that anyway. If people want to ascribe a political motive to it, they'll do so with or without the lore. Ultimately, just let it be.
But then you have to consider that, without a viable alternative, everyone who hears that it was political will believe it to be so.
You don’t offer them any counter arguments. If someone toxic says “they only added female marines to get women into the hobby”, what counter argument will the good guys have to shut them up and make them feel like their views are not valid? That’s the goal isn’t it – shut up the people who are against it? So what will the good guys say?
“Actually, no, they just did it for… no reason, I guess?”
Or
“Actually, Cawl did >blah blah< and then they attacked >bleh bleh< and now the imperium is getting stronger but has attracted more attention from chaos so there will be more fighting and >lore lore lore<
Which sounds like a stronger argument that it wasn’t done for politics?
Most of the rest of this thread now seems to be people suggesting that making the change won't change anything, which is another way of saying that not making the change won't change anything, which combine t osay "I don't care", so they aren't opposed or for the change.
I can agree to some extent that adding female marines to the game (lore + models) will not change much, but it could be the falling stones which start an avalanche, as it were. If female marines become popular, GW will make female options for all the other races it makes sense for, and then it will become an inclusive game naturally, which is the correct way to do it, rather than telling the players "It's an inclusive game now, deal with it". It will need time to gain momentum, but once people start seeing cool female marine conversions and dioramas, they will start accepting that they are a cool addition, and then it will start to take off properly.
Yes that was exactly my point that did go entirely over Hecaton's head.
No changes is "really" needed ever. We can always say that thing can stays as they are, by the motivation that they've worked (somehow) until now.
Caveman could easily said that they survived without fire for thousand of millennia, so do we really need it?
Penicillin did not exist when antique empire were prospering, so do we really need to inject mold in our veins?
Female have been forced outside of responsabilities roles for centuries, yet our society thrived anyway, why should we be inclusive now?
That was the reason why I referenced Pangloss, which is willingly unaware of possible other way to do things compared to what he knew.
But, I mean, that was read by Hecaton as a statement about the 40k setting as the best of possible worlds (which is a comprehensible misundersting if you're referring to it by wikipedia and online summaries).... I can't expect much from him after that honestly.
The original argument for or against change is essentially a matter of focus: do I focus on the problem I have to motivate a change, or do I focus on what's working to deny such change?
In order to avoid falling in this logical trap, the only way is to keep into consideration both aspect.
As said before, I think we all agree that there's at least one potential backfiring of the inclusion of female SM: we reinforce this idea that the Imperium is somehow "ok", while it shouldn't.
We discussed it, and I think the overwhelming majority here agrees that is a risk well outweighed by the pros.
I, for one, are pretty sure GW will bungle it and continue to idolize the Imperium because, as I said, satire if much more difficult to sell that power fantasies.
But it doesn't change that fact that we have only one true argument against this change, and isn't cutting it.
I would suggest those who oppose to female SM to dig deeper: maybe there's another risk orangery we haven't considered yet.
But again, of your arguments don't hold, it's better to find another one, rather than moving straight up to conspiracy thinking.
CEO Kasen wrote: When the citation in question supports your argument, absolutely, except you've not done that. You've now twice twisted articles far from their intended meaning either mistakenly or deliberately, and either way I ain't going to let anyone connected with this debate forget that for a second.
What, you're mad that I provided a study that showed that women were more person-oriented than men, on average?
If we were talking about model trains, or just collecting and painting miniatures, you might have something of a point, but if you think wargaming isn't an interpersonal hobby then your opponents across the table must be pretty damn miserable.
And women are uniquely "disempowered" by this in a way that men are not? Seems sexist to assume they're so weak. I know more trans women than cis women who play miniature wargames, and, well, if you think trans women are more welcomed into the hobby than cis women I've got a bridge to sell you.
Yeah, women are at a disadvantage when they're coming into a male dominated space. Sadly, kinda how it works in most places actually so its not sexist to assume that when by and large its true. I didn't actually call any women weak at all but hey you keep making disingenuous arguments there kiddo and see where it gets ya Also, way to put words in my mouth chief. Could you point to where I said trans-women are more accepted than cis-women? Or do you want to wind your neck in and stop making up nonsense because you have no arguments?
I understood it quite well. And it serves us better to pay attention to that than anecdotes.
Everything I disagree with is an Anecdote: A book by Hecaton.
macluvin wrote: Hecatron, I had to explain to my wife this isn’t some incel forum on account of some of the statements you have made. The gaslighting is real...
#thathappened
Congratulations - you've demonstrated exactly what we're all talking about with ignoring the perspectives of women.
Gert wrote: Where does it specifically say women hobbyists find it hard to understand the rules? Oh yeah it doesn't. The article talks about the difficulties of getting into wargaming for everyone and then later goes on to discuss how people who already suffer discrimination in wider society often find it hard to fit in to a wargaming community. Actually read the article next time before you make up utter nonsense.
And women are uniquely "disempowered" by this in a way that men are not? Seems sexist to assume they're so weak. I know more trans women than cis women who play miniature wargames, and, well, if you think trans women are more welcomed into the hobby than cis women I've got a bridge to sell you.
I'm sorry, I don't remember anywhere where Gert mentioned transfolk?
Sounds like you're making some pretty wild leaps of logic there.
He didn't read, or at least understand, the study he linked earlier; of course he didn't understand the article.
I understood it quite well. And it serves us better to pay attention to that than anecdotes.
Otherwise known as "any perspective I don't want to hear is an anecdote".
Hecaton wrote:
macluvin wrote: Seems like you are saying exactly that even after getting called out for it... so far every woman I know of that has consulted your material has demonstrated varying degrees of uncomfortable.
Ok. Doesn't mean what I'm doing or saying is wrong.
If you're making people uncomfortable by just speaking, have you considered that, when this whole topic is about making people feel comfortable, you're not in the "right" either?
macluvin wrote: This also happened after we got an opinion from outside of the hobby that was a woman, and you said you wanted it from within. And there it was. And it was not to your liking and therefore invalid.
I mean I know enough women in the hobby who have opinions to not be swayed by all the questionable gak your ilk brings up.
Hey... that sounds like an "anecdote"? But I thought you hated anecdotes!
some bloke wrote:It's all for Sgt_Smudge today!
It's like my birthday came early! I've chunked it into two sets of spoilers, and a separate section cut out in the middle, because I think we had something lost in translation in the first section of the discussion, so a lot of my comments in that are about how there is a bit of a misunderstanding there - I separate the section in the middle because I think it sums up my perspective more accurately than all the others, so is probably the most important thing to focus on, even if you choose to skip over the rest!
Spoiler:
Sgt_Smudge wrote:I don't know why I should be trying to appease people who would be toxic in the first place. The problem is with *them*, not with me.
Yes, I'm absolutely there to criticise the people being toxic, because they're the ones causing the problems, not the women or me for calling them out on their toxicity.
…
But a lore change happening still isn't an excuse to be toxic, and they're very much in the wrong for doing it. Feeling put out, but ultimately understanding that "hey, I guess real people matter more than some lore" is normal. Getting toxic over that is no-one's fault but their own, and I really shouldn't have to stop speaking the truth because some people would turn toxic over it. That's not my fault.
…
Potentially, but if they're being toxic to women *because some lore got changed*, can't you see how that's exactly the kind of people we don't want to be around women in the first place?
If we're trying to make a lasting change in the environment to make things better for women, then we need to be calling out and exposing those kinds of people who *would* get toxic at women because of a lore change.
…
Making the environment better for women would absolutely include calling out the people who used a lore change as an excuse to be toxic though.
I feel that this attitude is not actually going to help the problem?
Before we continue too far, the people I am concerned with appeasing are the ones who would feel put out by politics interfering with their hobby.
These are likely also the same people who would see including women Space Marines as "political" regardless of if a lore reason was given or not.
If someone's immediate reaction to women being introduced with no fanfare is "oh, that's that political SJW nonsense", they'll read into that belief regardless whatever GW tells them, because they've made it abundantly clear that including women is ""political"". And I can't fix that.
I'm sorry, but it's not the whole "politics interfering with the hobby" that's the problem really, it's that they'd simply see including women as "political", and that's frankly just grim.
These people would be fine if the lore progressed in a way which seemed in-keeping with 40k tradition and included female marines (Cawl dun it), and would be annoyed if it was instead given a token “women have always been marines” and a big explanation of all the political doesn’t-matter-a-toss-in-the-game reasons for changing their game.
They accepted "this has always been a thing for Marines" with Centurions, grav-guns, Stormravens, etc etc. The issue is that they regard women as "political", and that's the problem.
No amount of "lore says XYZ" will change the fact that they don't consider women to be simply natural, and must be "political". And that's the attitude that I want to address and call out.
The people who outright support female marines are not an issue, and the people who outright oppose them can’t be helped. We’re talking about the vast majority of people in the hobby who don’t even care – it’s not an issue for them or their friends, and they’ve never even thought about it, and they don’t even know that there’s 60+ pages of discussions about it on dakka (and more elsewhere). These are the people we want to bring onto our side.
Except they clearly *do* care - they care enough to ascribe "political" motivations for an unexplained introduction of women into the Space Marines. They aren't "neutral", and they will gladly support an unequal system over an inclusive one - and that's the issue.
I would *like* to hope that your estimate of how large the group is that would actually turn toxic is much larger than the actual number, I would *like* to believe that, while there might be some grumbling, people would just get on with their lives and accept women Space Marines as normal without any fanfare, but whoever *does* genuinely turn toxic over that was a time bomb waiting to happen, and as far as I'm concerned, They Will Not Be Missed.
You’ve mixed up “identifiying the problem” with “identifying the solution”. I have presented you with a group of people who could potentially oppose the change if it were made for outright political reasons, and you have decided that it is more important to make the political statement than to make the change actually improve anything.
Sure, but I'm not saying to telegraph it as "outright political". All I'm saying is that it doesn't need a lore explanation.
Let’s say the change is made with a political statement about it and a hasty rewrite of the lore to shoehorn them in – my worst case scenario.
The people who don’t like how they changed it will be outspoken about this. Perhaps they aren’t sexist, but they constantly make comments and jokes about how the imperium is going PC, how the change was only made so they could have girl space marines. They aren’t saying “women can go away”, but the entire environment of GW stores could end up having a “women interfered with our stuff” vibe which could have been avoided just by not making the change outwardly political. That will put women off – if they keep hearing jokes and remarks about how marines were changed just for women to be there, it won’t seem welcoming.
Right, but that's not the scenario I'm describing.
The scenario I'm describing is the rewrite of the lore to "shoehorn" women in (horrible choice of words, because simply featuring women isn't "shoehorning". Gender neutrality is the norm, not gender exclusivity), and that's it. No grand political statement, no big speech, no parade. Literally just a section of text featuring Space Marines with female pronouns, and some women-presenting heads. No extra attention drawn to it.
If the people you describe make comments about how "it's gone PC" or how "women interfered with our stuff" when no political statement has been issued, that is a sure fire sign that they weren't exactly making those comments in good faith. Simply including women isn't "going PC" or "there's an evil cabal of women interfering", but if they have those beliefs about no statement whatsoever, they would assuredly have that same reaction if the lore was updated to "allow" it, and argue that the lore being updated was "going PC" or "only made to have girl Space Marines", because "women interfered with out stuff".
Those kinds of people will *always* make those arguments. It's not worth trying to reach them, because they'll call anything "political", even a lore development.
So yes, you have successfully identified that the problem is with them, not you. What you haven’t done is offer any solution to that problem. And don’t say “we get rid of them”, because that will never happen – people are far too heavily invested (financially and emotionally) in 40k to just leave.
Calling them out relies entirely on them not being the majority. The more people fall in the “I don’t like this change” category, regardless of their reasons, the more difficult it is to expose the people who really need to be called out. If I said “I don’t like how they made the change, because it wasn’t about 40k, it was about politics, they just erased 40k history to make a political change” I don’t expect to be called out as a toxic sexist for it!
If the "majority" of people would turn toxic towards women simply because they were included in Space Marines without a lore justification, I don't think this is even a safe hobby for women at that point.
I don't know, maybe I was being optimistic, maybe a little naive, but I genuinely was under the illusion that *most* people wouldn't turn toxic and start being resentful towards women if suddenly little plastic dollies could now have women heads on them without any explanation or political commentary. If I'm wrong on that, and it turns out that people care enough about their little plastic toys needing some made up words to say they can now have women's heads, and if they don't get those made-up words, they'll be toxic towards women, maybe this isn't a safe space for women at all.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:That's the thing, I'm not. I'm trying to expose and call out those people who *have* those exclusionary thoughts who haven't acted, and hide behind "well, it's just the lore!"
I'm not directing this at you, you've made this very clear that you are pro-women Astartes regardless. My point is towards the people who claim to only care about the lore, but use that as a mask to hide their exclusionary beliefs.
I think that the hole in your logic is the idea that the only reason someone can be opposed to a change involving genders is because of sexist views. I am the shining beacon of hope which illuminates that hole – as you said, I’m pro-woman Astartes, and yet I’m against making the change if it is done politically. I am the dinosaur bone that disproves a young earth, the overwhelming-scientific-evidence that disproves the flat earth.
I have one question to ask: if, as I described, women Space Marines became a thing, with no lore "development", but also no big political statement from GW - you go to sleep, and the next day, women Space Marines are just there - would you be toxic towards women? Resentful? Would you immediately call the inclusion of women a "political" change, and blame women for it?
Or would you just shrug your shoulders, and move on, and enjoy 40k regardless?
What comes first to you: enjoying the hobby and it's inclusivity, or kicking up a fuss because the lore was changed and no-one told you?
If you make this change in a way specifically designed to bait people who have exclusionary views into the open, then you are doing this not only for purely political views, but with an actual goal of exposing women in the hobby to a worse environment, just so that you can point at the people who make it toxic and shout “Heretic!” in the hopes that enough others will join you and purge them?
Hopefully, there shouldn't *be* anyone to "bait", as you put it.
But if you're implying that there *are* people with exclusionary views, and they would *still* be sticking around, lurking, having those exclusionary views while I'm simultaneously saying to women "yeah, this is a safe space, you're totally welcome here!", then it's not really a safe space, is it? If there's people with exclusionary views sticking around, then I'm not really fixing the problem, I'm just sweeping the people with exclusionary views under the rug.
I fail to see how this approach works with your original remarks about how female astartes are needed to combat the idea that women are somehow outside of the norm – that by seeing female models more, the people in GW stores will stop acting like women are from another planet.
You started this with aspirations of effectively re-educating those in the hobby who don’t even realise their way of thinking is exclusionary, and now you’re suggesting that we make the change in such a jarring way that these same people can be cast out and shunned.
I can't "re-educate" people who would see literally just including women as this SJW political takeover of their hobby, because those same people would always hold those beliefs, lore or not.
I am not advocating for anything "jarring". I am not advocating for a big political speech. I am literally just saying that some Space Marines should be able to be women, and that be reflected. If that is "jarring", then why wouldn't Cawl suddenly being able to whip up new women recruits also be "jarring" to those people?
You said that this was about making the environment better, but now it seems like a set of criteria for some sort of societal/political purge. Which I really, really cannot get behind.
Quick question, how am I supposed to make the environment better without calling out the people who hold exclusionary views? What, do I just "live and let live", when *they're* the ones incapable of letting women "live and let live"?
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
You're right! There doesn't *need* to be a point made about it other than it just *happening* - so it doesn't need a lore explanation either!
I don’t think you understand how it works to change things in 40k?
You might be mistaken. GW have made it very clear that they can change things without the lore needing to back it up constantly.
Grav-guns? They exist now.
Centurions? They exist now.
Stormravens? They exist now.
Scions? They exist now.
Celestian Sacresants? They exist now.
Perpetuals? They exist now.
GW can just add things without needing the lore. I don't see why they can't do that with women Space Marines.
Without the lore they are just lumps of plastic. The lore is what ties it all together – without it GW would have fallen flat years ago. Most people are more invested in the lore than anything else, even if they don’t realise.
And if they're more invested in the lore than in letting women be a part of the hobby, is that not a pretty messed up set of priorities?
“it doesn’t need a lore explanation” is the exact situation we’re in now. There’s no current lore explaining marines genders either way, so if you think it doesn’t need a lore explanation, just go ahead and make female marines. It’s worked so well for everyone else without a lore explanation [/s]
Well, not quite true. There *are* lore explanations explaining Marines being all-male, but they're:
- Inconsistent
- Obscure and not put in the focus
- Thematically incongruous
- Utterly arbitrary
It's *because* there is "lore" explaining why women can't be Space Marines that people get ganged up on when they make women Space Marine conversions, and told it's "non-canon".
Sgt_Smudge wrote:I'm not advocating that GW make a big public statement. Far from it. I *don't* want GW to make a big statement on the matter, and would much rather that they literally just include women Space Marines without any kind of mess or hassle. No lore reason, no public comment, no flashing neon sign. They just exist now, and that's the end of the matter.
That's what I'm after. If people read into that as political, that was their choice to read into it that way, and if they want to be toxic about that, that's on them.
Ah, it seems I’ve misunderstood you when you’ve said about making a public statement about how it was wrong to exclude women and that they are making changes to amend it.
My apologies if I didn't make that clearer. I don't want flashing neon signs or billboards about how this a political decision. I just want it to Be, with as little fuss or attention drawn to the change as possible, simply just *featuring* women Astartes in stuff is enough to start changing attitudes.
But again with the “no lore reason”? Why not? Why do you want to make this pill difficult to swallow when it could be so easy? I was being a little sarcastic when I suggested this was a political/societal purge, but now…
No lore reason, because I feel that by admitting "we need to justify this with lore", it is still implying that the lore is more important than the representation of women. We should be making this change because it's a good thing to do, not because the lore lets us.
If I heard that things were being changed to accommodate for me, but only because someone made up some excuse in the lore, and if they hadn't made up that excuse, it wouldn't have happened, I'd still feel equally as devalued. It would still feel as if I wasn't important as a human, and that I was still considered less important than 13 little words.
Spoiler:
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Yes, I'm absolutely agreed, except on the lore front, because making a big deal about it in the lore feels exactly like what you describe with GW "shouting about it". There doesn't need to be any statements beyond "this is a thing".
The only problem there is that people know now that it isn’t a thing. They will wonder what changed, and if no in-lore explanation appears, then people will look elsewhere.
So, what - your solution is to essentially lie and tell them that "we're totally not being political, look, Cawl did it!"?
I don't think I like the idea of lying to hide my motivations.
I'd much rather let people just come up with their own reasons, and if they say "oh, it's political, guess this justifies me going out and being toxic towards women", that's more of an indictment on them, surely?
The majority of people would accept “Cawl dun it” as a reason for there being female marines now. If they just turn up one day, then people will ask “What? I thought that marines could only be men?”, and when no reasons appear in-game, they will assume the reason is elsewhere, and you get the political backlash.
I don't know. I say this with all respect to you, I really do, and I know that you're pro-women Astartes, which is great - but I do think you're perhaps a little optimistic/naive about how many people would "accept" the Cawl was just able to make women Space Marines without calling that lore development itself "political".
What I see happening is that the same people you describe as looking for "political" motives, if there were no lore explanation, would call the lore explanation "political" as well, and we'd still be stuck with people who were crying politics at us.
The lore reasons don’t have to be sung about – I’m not looking for a single story (which would be a bit token) but for the next ‘dex to feature female marines throughout, perhaps with a small bit in the primaris creation lore which explains how Cawl made the process work on male and female candidates. It can be there if people go looking for it, rather than being splashed about everywhere. I agree that a subtle change without remark is best, but I also think it needs to have its in-game reasons!
I definitely agree that subtlety is the move to go here, but I fear that no explanation will ever be enough to stop those who would call adding women "political" from keeping on doing so. That's all.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'm advocating for women Space Marines to just *exist*. No mess, no hassle, no lore explanation. As you said - it will become visible and obvious on its own.
The problem there is that they would stick out like a sore thumb.
Everything in 40k has lore reasons for being there. Do we want to make female marines the exception?
I don't see why they would stick out like a sore thumb. T'au have women, with no explicit lore "reason". Eldar have women, with no "lore reason". Dark Eldar have women, with no "lore reason". Guardsmen have women, with no "lore reason". Genestealer Cults have women, with no "lore reason".* Women existing in 40k doesn't need a lore reason, because we don't need a lore reason for men existing.
I'm not sure how they'd stick out at all.
*well, Guardsmen especially should have more women represented, but regardless, they *have* women, and no lore reason other than "of course they have women".
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
But why? Why does something need to be good because of lore reasons to be justifiable?
Because most people in the game don’t give a monkeys about the politics. Meanwhile, most people in the game care a lot about the lore. If you want people to accept something, you do it in a way which they are most likely to accept, regardless of whether they should accept it anyway.
Again, you're talking about appeasement. If I have to appease people just to stop women getting threatened in the hobby, maybe I can't make the hobby a safe space in the first place?
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
It's not implying that at all - having better representation isn't any more political than not having that representation there in the first place.
You’re not intentionally implying it, and I certainly don’t think you mean it!
Saying that the reason for something to change is because society told you to is basically saying that the only reason you made the change was to shut society up about it. It’s exactly like when a child comes over to you and says, “My mum says I have to apologise”. Are they really apologising? Are they really sorry?
If you make female marines a thing because it makes sense, and add to the lore to make them make sense in-universe, the ulterior motives of representation will still work out, but the change will already be running with the pack, as it were, not standing around wondering where it belongs in the running order as the rest of the game whips by.
I guess I just don’t understand the idea of making this change, whilst trying to make it seem unassuming and perfectly normal, but wanting to do so in a different way to every other change that has every happened?
I think the problem is that the whole "Mum says I have to apologise" would and could also apply to the lore change too. What's to stop someone from seeing the lore change as just another "political" move?
If someone's going to be suspicious about "society" and "politics" interfering with their game, I think that they'd think the same about any inclusion of women whatsoever, no matter how well you explain the lore.
Again, it's not different to every other change that's happened - GW have done these sorts of things all the time. In fact, they especially did it with Imperial Knights about gender. When they first re-released Knights, they only ever used masculine pronouns, and had no women represented. I may also be misremembering, but I vaguely remember them saying that there just *weren't* women Knight pilots at all. And then, without any kind of retroactive lore change, we got some women Knights represented. Knights started having masculine and feminine pronouns, and even the Knight pilot in Dawn of War III was a woman. There wasn't any kind of "oh, the Knight houses suddenly started recruiting women because Celisarius Bawl said so!", it was just "yeah, they have women now".
Sgt_Smudge wrote:The thing is, that's down to the people on how they respond. If they're going to be toxic over a lore change, what else would they be toxic over?
But you have been suggesting that we don’t even change the lore, that we just plonk female marines in and don’t offer any explanation.
These people aren’t being toxic over a lore change, they’re being toxic over a political change.
Without any explanation, why is including women a "political" change? If they call it political, that's because they chose to call it political, and would likely have called any change "political".
I’d rather see people joking about Cawl dun it than joking about real issues like representation.
The thing is, they can totally still make those "Cawl dun it" jokes even without a lore reasons - if they want to. And likewise, the people who would "joke" about representation would likely continue to do so, even with that lore reason.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Personally, I'd want to see a third response:
"Oh, yeah. That's pretty cool."
No need for lore, and no need to ever say "oh, it was just to include more women". Let people read whatever they want to into it, justify it how they like, because they'll do that anyway. If people want to ascribe a political motive to it, they'll do so with or without the lore. Ultimately, just let it be.
But then you have to consider that, without a viable alternative, everyone who hears that it was political will believe it to be so.
Yes, absolutely. And likewise, even with a good lore justification, anyone who wants to hear it was political will believe it to be so as well.
You don’t offer them any counter arguments. If someone toxic says “they only added female marines to get women into the hobby”, what counter argument will the good guys have to shut them up and make them feel like their views are not valid? That’s the goal isn’t it – shut up the people who are against it? So what will the good guys say?
“Actually, no, they just did it for… no reason, I guess?”
Or
“Actually, Cawl did >blah blah< and then they attacked >bleh bleh< and now the imperium is getting stronger but has attracted more attention from chaos so there will be more fighting and >lore lore lore<
Which sounds like a stronger argument that it wasn’t done for politics?
Whichever reason people want to give for it. Let people choose for themselves what reason they think GW did it for, because that's what they were going to do anyway.
I mean, look at Primaris. GW gave a reason why Primaris are a thing, but many other people are pretty convinced that it was done for business reasons, to rebrand, to remarket, to get people to "buy all their models all over again" - whatever reason people choose to come up with.
Look at Riptides, Stormsurges and Supremacy Suits. GW gave a reason why Tau scientists were making them and why it diverged from the typical Tau system of "aircraft being used as Titan hunters", but many other people just see it as "GW wanted to sell us big shiny walkers and mech-suits".
No matter what GW choose to say or do, people will make up their own reasons behind it, be it "oh, I guess something happened in the lore", or "I guess they were always around" or "GW are after my money!" or "GW are all political and messing up my hobby".
I just don't want to lie about my intentions, I guess.
Most of the rest of this thread now seems to be people suggesting that making the change won't change anything, which is another way of saying that not making the change won't change anything, which combine t osay "I don't care", so they aren't opposed or for the change.
It's more a case of the change won't stop toxic thoughts. I'd be naive to think that I could change a mind of genuine hatred (and if someone would get actually toxic over the lore getting changed, then that's pretty genuine hatred buried there), but it's about disempowering those opinions and showing them for the bigotry that it is, at it's core.
We can't change everyone, but we can disempower and delegitimise them.
I can agree to some extent that adding female marines to the game (lore + models) will not change much, but it could be the falling stones which start an avalanche, as it were. If female marines become popular, GW will make female options for all the other races it makes sense for, and then it will become an inclusive game naturally, which is the correct way to do it, rather than telling the players "It's an inclusive game now, deal with it".
Again, you seem to think that I would be wanting GW to put up this big sign saying "we're inclusive, deal with it". I don't want that. I just want the lore to change, no mess, no fuss, just change it without fanfare, and as you say - let the stones fall.
It will need time to gain momentum, but once people start seeing cool female marine conversions and dioramas, they will start accepting that they are a cool addition, and then it will start to take off properly.
That's exactly what I want as well. I don't see why it needs a "lore" justification to do that.
Also, way to put words in my mouth chief. Could you point to where I said trans-women are more accepted than cis-women? Or do you want to wind your neck in and stop making up nonsense because you have no arguments?
My point is that if you're saying the acceptance of the space is what affects whether women are present or not, you'd have to acknowledge that wargaming is more accepting of trans women than cis women, which is ludicrous.
If we were talking about model trains, or just collecting and painting miniatures, you might have something of a point, but if you think wargaming isn't an interpersonal hobby then your opponents across the table must be pretty damn miserable.
It's *less* thing-oriented than model trains, but it's still up there. More thing-oriented than tabletop rpgs, for example.
Also, way to put words in my mouth chief. Could you point to where I said trans-women are more accepted than cis-women? Or do you want to wind your neck in and stop making up nonsense because you have no arguments?
My point is that if you're saying the acceptance of the space is what affects whether women are present or not, you'd have to acknowledge that wargaming is more accepting of trans women than cis women, which is ludicrous.
If we were talking about model trains, or just collecting and painting miniatures, you might have something of a point, but if you think wargaming isn't an interpersonal hobby then your opponents across the table must be pretty damn miserable.
It's *less* thing-oriented than model trains, but it's still up there. More thing-oriented than tabletop rpgs, for example.
And vastly more people-oriented than, for example, playing a non-multiplayer video game or reading a comic book.
Weird how those things have vastly higher participation by women. Maybe 'women are just not thing-oriented' is some kind of bs explanatio- no, no, that cant be it, Etsy isn't a thing that exists and is massively dominated by women making things, WOMEN HATE THINGS, I'M RIGHT, IT'S SOCIETY THAT'S WRONG!!!!!!!!!!
My point is that if you're saying the acceptance of the space is what affects whether women are present or not, you'd have to acknowledge that wargaming is more accepting of trans women than cis women, which is ludicrous.
How would that be the case? What are you actually saying here?
Let's take a look-see at the article again.
That dynamic is what makes wargaming fascinating, of course, but it can also be disempowering for a newcomer—especially if that newcomer already feels like an outsider due to their gender identity.
So what the article actually says is that all newcomers experience this sort of feeling of disempowerment but those who already struggle with societal pressures such as women/trans/non-binary/others will likely find it even more so.
So I ask again, where did I say that trans women were more accepted than cis women? Would you like to retract your nonsense statement?
Gert wrote: So I ask again, where did I say that trans women were more accepted than cis women? Would you like to retract your nonsense statement?
Have they retracted even one yet? I might be on confirmation bias but I'm just seeing some unapologetic olympic-level hole-digging performance on display.
If we were talking about model trains, or just collecting and painting miniatures, you might have something of a point, but if you think wargaming isn't an interpersonal hobby then your opponents across the table must be pretty damn miserable.
Just my $0.02.
In fairness though, in my experience at least, you see far stronger and more intimate social dynamics in rpgs and boardgames than ttgs as well as a stronger 'story' conponent. 'Banter' in an interpersonal isn't quite the same thing. Ive often found it to be superficial. Wargaming has in my opinion one of the weaker community spirits and community dynamics of all the main traditional gaming types. And yes, this comes with the caveat that there's a gradient, there are some extremely tight ttg groups out there, but on the whole, I think wargaming groups often fall short here. And I think it's part of the reason why this hobby struggles outside of its traditional demographic (ie us).
You can have 50 wargamers in a room, and 25 islands.
Remember aa well, it's not exactly uncommon to see posts and thoughts here where the 'idealised' game is regarded as one you can play against a perfect stranger with zero interaction, nor is it unusual to see someone scoff at the idea of investing in their community and getting to know the people in their group as more than just disposable npcs, often based on the notion that the core tenet of ttgs is that its adversarial, rather than collaborative or cooperative. I'd also argue this feeds into some of the other more negative aspects of our hobby.
Basically, I don't think it's wrong to say wargaming isnt the most social activity.
From my pov, this is also part of the culture change I'd like to see, and also something I think is necessary in the big picture sense to attract beyond just us 'traditional' nerd types.
Have been following most of this topic... altough I lost track on page 50 or so... just wanted to give my two cents as a veteran 40K player, which things this debate is quite significant.
First and foremost, making the hobby more inclusive towards women will be something very positive... also any harrasment (either online or face to face) against people arguing in favour of female Space marines is unaceptable.
Nevertheless, being all male is quite a significant part of the actual Space Marine identity. Its quite obvious that they are an all male military organization because of real world sexism (probably not intentional, just a way of marketing a power fantasy towards teenagers in the 80´s, this of course dosent make it more reasonable) rather than any in universe reason (not that 40K lore is particularly consistent on most issues anyways).
But it is quite clear that over the last three decades the Space Marines have been build in lore as a military brotherhood base arround medieval warrior monks (yes they are outliers like the space Wolves being "space vikings" but the religious inspiration of the the default SM is still quite obvious... just look at the indomitus box miniatures full of "crusader" inspiration). As time pass by it is more difficult to justify that "SM women were always in the background" because for instance the 30K novels are full os male space marines with their individual histories... the arrrival of primaris marines could have allowed to introduce female marines amongst other changes to the loyalist marines but this was a lost opportunity in this regard.
Of course, all the 40K setting is fictional and all the lore can be rebooted or change in a arbitrary manner. But this is a background forum and probably the background tradition should be taken into account.
Actually it is quite clear that in GW design philosophy for the 40K Imperium "non mixed" military organizations are quite common... since we have four of them: Space Marines, Battle Sisters, Sisters of Silences and Custodes.
Some people argue that since the Imperium is fictional it can only be opressive in fictional ways (IE: against Chaos corruption) while being completelly inclusive towards the actual variety of modern day human diversity.
But it is very clear that the Imperium of Man reproduces (in a satirical way) many of the real life opressions... it is a dogmatic theocracy, most of its inhabitants suffer under a political authoritarian regime that generates unberable social conditions and inequalities... its clearly exclusionary not only against extreme mutants but also against so called adhumans that are obviously viable human variants (IE Ogryns are tolerated as heavy duty workers just like European colonisers tolerated African slaves in the Americas). So it makes perfect sense in universe for the IOM to have some elements of sexism (like non mixed military organisations) even doe sexism is not a milestone of their identity (since there are women in the inquisition and other high ranking positions).
Im surprise that no one (altough I have might missed something) have argued on the reason that might justify in universe SM to be an only male organization... just like in historical societies male teenagers are demographically disposable and can be used for war, while female teenagers are a valuable asset that needs to be protected to guarantee the next generation... altough few in numbers (then again GW numbers in 40K are very inconsistent or illogical most of the time) only about 1/20 candidates became proper space marines, so it makes sort of sense to use male rather than females in the process (the IOM dosent seem to follow the cultural trends of an early XXI century post industrial society, but is rather a "natalist" Empire engaged in a never ending total war).
Regarding the solution to the issue... perhaps an official recognition of female SM could attract more women to the hobby or reduce harrasment, and both will be good... but if you are really going to go that way probably a "low profile" reboot wont be enough (potential women gamers wont notice and the hardcore sexist players will probably continue with their bigotry).
Regarding actual models, just introducing a few vaguely femenine heads in future kits will be clearly insuficient (just like with the Astra Militarum)... that sort of effort is basically "window dressing". If you really want the IOM in 40K to really embrace the gender inclusiveness early XXI century post industrial societies then the proper way would be to make a major reboot of the setting and fused together the SM and SOB as a mixed gender "super soldiers in power armor" military organisation.
Because if we are honest SM are as sexualized (in lore and in miniature design) as Sisters of Battle (luckily SOB are now less hipersexualized and a more flesh out faction than in their inception) and a simple head swap wont solve the issue).
But it is quite clear that over the last three decades the Space Marines have been build in lore as a military brotherhood base arround medieval warrior monks (yes they are outliers like the space Wolves being "space vikings" but the religious inspiration of the the default SM is still quite obvious... just look at the indomitus box miniatures full of "crusader" inspiration). As time pass by it is more difficult to justify that "SM women were always in the background" because for instance the 30K novels are full os male space marines with their individual histories... the arrrival of primaris marines could have allowed to introduce female marines amongst other changes to the loyalist marines but this was a lost opportunity in this regard.
Indomitus was the first time in a long time that any generic SM unit was given a "Grimdark" aesthetic. The core design element of SM isn't warrior monks either and hasn't been for a very long time, instead SM are focused on "Your Dudes" to the point where only Astra Militarum can come close but SM still edge them out due to the sheer amount of compatibility between the kits. It's been gone over quite a bit but I'll go over the points again:
Spoiler:
Monks are religious, it's their biggest thing. SM are specifically noted as being not into the Imperial Creed, and yes they have Chaplains but this rank is multi-faceted. Chaplains are responsible for the education of Aspirants, the protection of Chapter relics, the spiritual (this doesn't mean religious) wellbeing of the Chapter, and as judges when Chapter law is broken.
Monks specifically choose to become a member of an order (in most cases), this is not something that can be applied to SM as it is not a choice to become a SM.
Monks are also not male-only groups so this justification for male-only SM shouldn't be applied.
SM are often based out of a Fortress-Monastery but I've pointed out that simply living in a Monastery doesn't make you a Monk.
Monks live an ascetic lifestyle something else that cannot be applied to all SM.
I agree that female-SM shouldn't be a "oh they were there all along" deal because it's a rubbish cop-out.
Spoiler:
Of course, all the 40K setting is fictional and all the lore can be rebooted or change in a arbitrary manner. But this is a background forum and probably the background tradition should be taken into account.
Actually it is quite clear that in GW design philosophy for the 40K Imperium "nonmixed" military organizations are quite common... since we have four of them: Space Marines, Battle Sisters, Sisters of Silences and Custodes.
There isn't any explanation for why SoS are a female-only order and the only note of their founding was that it was done by the Emperor to be the "second talon" to the Custodes, who are male-only for more unknown in-universe reasons. SoB exist to skirt a law created to prevent the Ecclesiarchy from maintaining "men under arms". The very person who made this law worded it poorly to keep the SoB around so that the Ecclesiarchy was able to protect its interests. SM are male-only because of poorly written pseudoscience to justify what might have been poor model sales.
So that's a total of one faction with a legitimate explanation as to why they are single-sex. BTWSoB can even take male models in their army in the game.
Spoiler:
Some people argue that since the Imperium is fictional it can only be opressive in fictional ways (IE: against Chaos corruption) while being completelly inclusive towards the actual variety of modern day human diversity.
But it is very clear that the Imperium of Man reproduces (in a satirical way) many of the real life opressions... it is a dogmatic theocracy, most of its inhabitants suffer under a political authoritarian regime that generates unberable social conditions and inequalities... its clearly exclusionary not only against extreme mutants but also against so called adhumans that are obviously viable human variants (IE Ogryns are tolerated as heavy duty workers just like European colonisers tolerated African slaves in the Americas). So it makes perfect sense in universe for the IOM to have some elements of sexism (like non mixed military organisations) even doe sexism is not a milestone of their identity (since there are women in the inquisition and other high ranking positions).
Relying on real-world oppression (sex segregation, non-recognition of LGBTQ+ people) instead of fictional oppression (not worshiping the God-Emperor hard enough, being a Xenos) in a setting shows a poor qaulity of writing. Also, there are more military organisations within the Imperium that aren't segregated than are, here's a list:
Spoiler:
The Inquisition
The Astra Militarum and Tempestus Scions
The Adeptus Mechanicus
The Imperial Navy
The Knight Houses
The Officio Assassinorum
The Adeptus Astra Telepathica
Rogue Traders
The Collegia Titanica
The Adeptus Arbites
That's 9 to 3. I've not even included the civilian branches.
Spoiler:
Im surprise that no one (altough I have might missed something) have argued on the reason that might justify in universe SM to be an only male organization... just like in historical societies male teenagers are demographically disposable and can be used for war, while female teenagers are a valuable asset that needs to be protected to guarantee the next generation... altough few in numbers (then again GW numbers in 40K are very inconsistent or illogical most of the time) only about 1/20 candidates became proper space marines, so it makes sort of sense to use male rather than females in the process (the IOM dosent seem to follow the cultural trends of an early XXI century post industrial society, but is rather a "natalist" Empire engaged in a never ending total war).
Except this doesn't hold up when the Imperium considers every human life disposable in its eternal conflict and actively recruits both sexes into its multitudes of military organisations.
Spoiler:
Regarding the solution to the issue... perhaps an official recognition of female SM could attract more women to the hobby or reduce harrasment, and both will be good... but if you are really going to go that way probably a "low profile" reboot wont be enough (potential women gamers wont notice and the hardcore sexist players will probably continue with their bigotry).
The primary goal with regard to harassment is that it no longer has the "justification" (I use quotation marks because it isn't justified) of "but you're violating the lore". Take away the justification and all people are left with is plain old harassment which is very much illegal.
Spoiler:
Regarding actual models, just introducing a few vaguely femenine heads in future kits will be clearly insuficient (just like with the Astra Militarum)... that sort of effort is basically "window dressing". If you really want the IOM in 40K to really embrace the gender inclusiveness early XXI century post industrial societies then the proper way would be to make a major reboot of the setting and fused together the SM and SOB as a mixed gender "super soldiers in power armor" military organisation.
Except SM and SoB are fundamentally different and the only common features are that they are Imperial, wear Power Armour and use similar weaponry. SM are genetically engineered warriors and SoB are just religious fanatics with Boltguns and Flamers in Power Armour. SM are technically no longer human whereas SoB are still baseline mortals who are just buff.
Spoiler:
Because if we are honest SM are as sexualized (in lore and in miniature design) as Sisters of Battle (luckily SOB are now less hipersexualized and a more flesh out faction than in their inception) and a simple head swap wont solve the issue).
Not sure where the whole "SM are sexualised" thing is coming from. The only time I can recall where a SM is "sexualised" is when Mersadie Oliton is watching Garviel Loken train and admires his physique then immediately gets disgusted by the horrific smell a SM makes when they sweat.
Gert wrote: People lurk Fezz. They join the forum when they want to weigh in. Let's not jump to conclusions.
Yep, long time lurker of Dakka... and just wanted to give my point on this controversial issue.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The point is that you cannot give a "good" reason in universe for SM to be male only because in real life military organisations are male dominated only because societies are dominated by males (IE "Patriarchy") and obviously male domination requires that men have a tight grip on armed force (historically linked to political power). Women are obviously as capable as men regarding military issues and you have enough historical examples that shows that beyond any doubt.
I know that the IOM has women in different military roles... but why should the IOM (a dogmatic theocracy) be more coherent than the modern US military who still needs to fully integrate the women into combat roles?
If the God Emperor decided that SM would be his "Sons" thats enough in universe justification for them to be a male only organization. Its frankly a more solid excuse that the one for the SoB (a flimsy burocratic wording). Nevertheless, if the IOM was so against non mixed military organisations why would they accept the SoB as a women only organization? Both in universe and out of universe the SM are the template for SoB (they are "female space marines" with other name, but GW decided to make them as a separate non mixed organisation precisely because SM being the male teenager power fantasy is so important for their identity).
The hole "SM are super soldiers but SoB are only regular women with faith" only makes emphasis on the outside sexism (because 40K was/is a product targeted to a certain type of men, particularly teenagers) that created this two different factions (is a lore reflection of a marketing decision, not something that grows organically from the setting logic).
Regarding "sexualization" I ment that their armours and design are clearly not gender neutral (sorry if there was some sort of confusion, english is not my mother tongue). SM are hypermasculine, huge and muscular by design... and in reality an actual male will find the "boob plate" SoB power armor much more practical than the comically huge SM armor.
My point is, if you want SM to represent women you need to redesign them from the core (they would still be recognisable but nevertheless different) and probably if that sort of reboot was enforced the SoB wouldnt make much sense.
[spoiler]
Monks are religious, it's their biggest thing. SM are specifically noted as being not into the Imperial Creed, and yes they have Chaplains but this rank is multi-faceted. Chaplains are responsible for the education of Aspirants, the protection of Chapter relics, the spiritual (this doesn't mean religious) wellbeing of the Chapter, and as judges when Chapter law is broken.
Monks specifically choose to become a member of an order (in most cases), this is not something that can be applied to SM as it is not a choice to become a SM.
Monks are also not male-only groups so this justification for male-only SM shouldn't be applied.
SM are often based out of a Fortress-Monastery but I've pointed out that simply living in a Monastery doesn't make you a Monk.
Monks live an ascetic lifestyle something else that cannot be applied to all SM.
.
Hmm, i still can't quite agree that 'warrior monk' is no longer a core design element nor that this, and the touted 'blank canvas' identity are mutually exclusive. It might not be the only element, but I think it's a poor argument to dismiss it out of hand. It has not been set aside. 9th Ed rulebook p28 describes them as 'organised info chapters, each of which id a self-contained and largely self sufficient army with its own monastic culture, heraldry, traditions and tactics'.it also references their fortress monasteries. You don't get more up to date than this. This isn't old lore that is no longer relevant.
in fairness, the meaning of 'ascetic' is severe self discipline and refraining from indulgence? If anything is a defining characteristic of marines, its that.
Marines might not follow the imperial cult but thry have their rituals, beliefs and superstitions. The old daily rituals had multiple periods of prayer per day, and in any case, most marines view their, um, ammunition expenditure aa their prayers. This has not been superceded. In bill.kings Space wolf books, (and in fairness, I have issues with some of the elements in these!), Ragnar spent a hell of a lot of time praying to thr Emperor**In any case, I'd argue the exact duplication of the religiosity of Monks in real life isn't necessarily required for fictional space marines for them to fit into the visual queues.
** I also like to think curses of 'throne damned xenos, exclamations of 'god-emperor!', 'holy throne!' Etc count as 'prayers', if you squint gard enough, like our own frequent exclamations of 'oh my god!' Or 'Jesus christ!'.
I'd argue the notion people don't choose to become space marines is a very nitpicky and overly flawed in its presentation - in plenty recruiting worlds, people do aspire to join the marines/sky gods. There are typicslly a series of trials etc to weed out the weaker individuals before selection can begin properly. In some worlds, the whole culture has been geared towards this - like on Fenris. Aspirants may not be successful in joining the ranks (let's not say 'brotherhood' with respect to this topic) but it's fair to say not everyone who wants to become a monk can stick it out either. While chapters are described in the lore as outright kidnapping recruits, they seem to be the exception rather than the rule (charcharadons and their red tithes for example).
Also, in fairness, plenty orders of Monks in the real.world are gender segregated. Especially historically. Women join a nunnery, guys join a monastery. The 'common trope' is a bunch of people living apart from the rest of society, living frugal and ascetic lives and dedicating their life/sacrifice to God/other diety . Overall this monk design element can still support both all male 'traditional' marine design ethos, and the new design ethos you are proposing.
I personally don't think basing a design element on borrowed aspects of monastic life and their associated commonly understood imagery is bad, or is something that needs to be removed, devalued or cut out because you want to add females to marines and the Two are imcompatible. Using easily identifiable cultural references is sop for gw. Just because space marines might not adhere absolutely and exactly to every aspect of monastic culture in real life does not mean there is no link with the two.
Tl;dr - warrior monk is still a strong identifying image of the idea of a space marine chspter. And 'warrior monk' and 'astartes' are not something that is incompatible with the topic of the thread.
Deadnight wrote: Tl;dr - warrior monk is still a strong identifying image of the idea of a space marine chspter. And 'warrior monk' and 'astartes' are not something that is incompatible with the topic of the thread.
I feel like we're in agreement that the existence of women as Marines doesn't eliminate the warrior-monastery as a possibility.
It's been mentioned before in this thread (somewhere) that the existence of female space marines actually makes the creation of an all-male/male-identifying or otherwise gender-segregated chapter a more meaningful choice - perhaps because you're using a specific historical/cultural basis as an inspiration, perhaps because you're doing something Pride-related, but no matter what it makes Your Dudes even more of a thing than them all being male by default.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Again, you seem to think that I would be wanting GW to put up this big sign saying "we're inclusive, deal with it". I don't want that. I just want the lore to change, no mess, no fuss, just change it without fanfare, and as you say - let the stones fall. [snip] I don't see why it needs a "lore" justification to do that.
I guess to this point I've thought of the Primaris "Lore" justification as sort of an acceptable compromise?
Like, a lore-integrated change like "Primaris can be women" as essentially a tacit acknowledgement that 'yeah, it was the 80's when we made 40K, things were less equal, we've moved on since, so we can make these now.' It would also be the thing that would make me alright with Primaris as well, so it feels like killing n birds with n-1 stones. There's a satisfying click to it.
That said, thinking about it, there are downsides - this would not really allow for FSM-related chapter histories longer than Primaris have been around - and wouldn't allow for women CSM that weren't gendershifted by warp-buggery. Which I guess at least two of the Ruinous Powers would do.
Vatsetis wrote: Yep, long time lurker of Dakka... and just wanted to give my point on this controversial issue.
Hmm, i still can't quite agree that 'warrior monk' is no longer a core design element nor that this, and the touted 'blank canvas' identity are mutually exclusive. It might not be the only element, but I think it's a poor argument to dismiss it out of hand. It has not been set aside. 9th Ed rulebook p28 describes them as 'organised info chapters, each of which id a self-contained and largely self sufficient army with its own monastic culture, heraldry, traditions and tactics'.it also references their fortress monasteries. You don't get more up to date than this. This isn't old lore that is no longer relevant.
I think a lot of the issues that stem from this is GW just being rubbish with words. Monasticism is defined by its religious nature yet Space Marines are largely non-religious, which is a core part of their identity. The Black Templars are specifically disdained by many Chapters because of their rabid fanaticism. SM can be spiritual or have traditions and beliefs but they aren't tied to the Adeptus Ministorum like the rest of the Imperium. SM do live a solitary lifestyle compared to a normal human but they are still largely connected to the wider Imperium and many Chapters don't cut themselves off from the planets they protect (Salamanders, Ultramarines and Space Wolves are all good examples of this).
And as for Fortress Monasteries, living in a Monastery doesn't make you a Monk just like living in an old Fire Station doesn't make you a Firefighter.
Spoiler:
in fairness, the meaning of 'ascetic' is severe self discipline and refraining from indulgence? If anything is a defining characteristic of marines, its that.
The difference being that Monks practice asceticism to find enlightenment whereas SM are disciplined because they are warriors. Indulgence is a tricky one because what counts as an indulgence? The Blood Angels are known as great artists, the Wolves as great drinkers, the Salamanders as brilliant artisans. Indulgence isn't excess and most individual SM's are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want outside of battle.
Yes, Christian Monks made lots of very nice art but that was in line with their religious beliefs and not just for recreation. Yes, other Monks were noted for their brewing capabilities but IIRC the produce was to be sold to generate income for the order.
Spoiler:
Marines might not follow the imperial cult but thry have their rituals, beliefs and superstitions. The old daily rituals had multiple periods of prayer per day, and in any case, most marines view their, um, ammunition expenditure aa their prayers. This has not been superceded. In bill.kings Space wolf books, (and in fairness, I have issues with some of the elements in these!), Ragnar spent a hell of a lot of time praying to thr Emperor**In any case, I'd argue the exact duplication of the religiosity of Monks in real life isn't necessarily required for fictional space marines for them to fit into the visual queues.
Rituals, beliefs, and superstitions aren't explicitly religious though. I'm not tied to any religion but I will never say "Oh wow, work sure is quiet today" because I'm superstitious. There is also a difference between the modern religions with deities and prophets that may or may not exist that may or may not perform miracles, and the Emperor actually being a real being with God-like powers. He led the Great Crusade and is still "alive" on Terra.
Spoiler:
** I also like to think curses of 'throne damned xenos, exclamations of 'god-emperor!', 'holy throne!' Etc count as 'prayers', if you squint gard enough, like our own frequent exclamations of 'oh my god!' Or 'Jesus christ!'.
Absolutely agreed. Cursing is fun kids
Spoiler:
I'd argue the notion people don't choose to become space marines is a very nitpicky and overly flawed in its presentation - in plenty recruiting worlds, people do aspire to join the marines/sky gods. There are typicslly a series of trials etc to weed out the weaker individuals before selection can begin properly. In some worlds, the whole culture has been geared towards this - like on Fenris. Aspirants may not be successful in joining the ranks (let's not say 'brotherhood' with respect to this topic) but it's fair to say not everyone who wants to become a monk can stick it out either. While chapters are described in the lore as outright kidnapping recruits, they seem to be the exception rather than the rule (charcharadons and their red tithes for example).
It would depend on the Chapter for the taking of Aspirants. As you have said while a child living in a fief of the Wolves might aspire to join the Sky Warriors, the Carcharadons take what they want according to the Rites of Exile. So choice isn't a hard and fast rule for becoming a SM and even then is it really a choice when an 8-foot tall man in huge black armour with a skull helm says "You are coming with me".
Spoiler:
Also, in fairness, plenty orders of Monks in the real.world are gender segregated. Especially historically. Women join a nunnery, guys join a monastery. The 'common trope' is a bunch of people living apart from the rest of society, living frugal and ascetic lives and dedicating their life/sacrifice to God/other diety . Overall this monk design element can still support both all male 'traditional' marine design ethos, and the new design ethos you are proposing.
Again it's not a hard and fast rule though. If people want to have their all-male SM Chapters that's fine, they are "Your Dudes". If someone wants a mixed Chapter, that should be fine as well.
Spoiler:
I personally don't think basing a design element on borrowed aspects of monastic life and their associated commonly understood imagery is bad, or is something that needs to be removed, devalued or cut out because you want to add females to marines and the Two are imcompatible. Using easily identifiable cultural references is sop for gw. Just because space marines might not adhere absolutely and exactly to every aspect of monastic culture in real life does not mean there is no link with the two.
It's not necessarily bad but it's not a good point to make. SM don't fit with the styling of Monk because GW wants them to be the "Your Dude" faction which IMO they absolutely should be.
In the earlier editions, especially in artwork, I would agree that there is a huge influence of monastic culture on SM but that isn't the case now.
Spoiler:
Tl;dr - warrior monk is still a strong identifying image of the idea of a space marine chspter. And 'warrior monk' and 'astartes' are not something that is incompatible with the topic of the thread.
Warrior, yes. Monk, no. I agree that "Warrior Monk" and "Space Marine" are not incompatible with the idea of female-SM but the nature of the faction doesn't fit that description. You could certainly have Warrior Monk SM as "Your Dudes" but my Tribal Hunter SM aren't going to fit into that category.
And vastly more people-oriented than, for example, playing a non-multiplayer video game or reading a comic book.
Weird how those things have vastly higher participation by women. Maybe 'women are just not thing-oriented' is some kind of bs explanatio- no, no, that cant be it, Etsy isn't a thing that exists and is massively dominated by women making things, WOMEN HATE THINGS, I'M RIGHT, IT'S SOCIETY THAT'S WRONG!!!!!!!!!!
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Yell all you want, your opinion doesn't trump facts.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gert wrote: So I ask again, where did I say that trans women were more accepted than cis women? Would you like to retract your nonsense statement?
I didn't say you said that explicitly, but that that's the *implication* of your statement, and because it implies something that is ridiculous, your whole viewpoint is clearly ridiculous.
Relying on real-world oppression (sex segregation, non-recognition of LGBTQ+ people) instead of fictional oppression (not worshiping the God-Emperor hard enough, being a Xenos) in a setting shows a poor qaulity of writing.
My favorite thing in an internet argument is to respond to people's posts, and I make sure to quote them so their words that they actually said are right there but I'm a little scamp, so I respond as if they said something completely different.
I'll never not love the hair-trigger switch to "This Is Orwell's Nightmare!!!!" Like it does not, will not ever matter just how gently or softly you couch a statement, you can be like "I think it's lazy to rely on this narrative device too much" and someone will respond "OH????DASIST VERBOTEN, EH, MEIN FUHRER??? You want to BuRn every piece of media that portrays this *forbidden* concept now? You want to put creators to the wall? I see what you are, you mad authoritarian!!!"
Automatically Appended Next Post: Obviously all this gak is just random people's opinions, who have zero authoritative power to enact anything.
And my opinion is that including real-world racism, sexism, and forms of oppression is vastly more "shoving politics into warhammer 40,000" than admitting that 50% of the human population is female ever would be.
And my opinion is that including real-world racism, sexism, and forms of oppression is vastly more "shoving politics into warhammer 40,000" than admitting that 50% of the human population is female ever would be.
Sorry to talk to you instead of arguing with people
You’re talking about something very true. Theres a really strong sense of poverty porn, or the “bury your gays” trope.
This can also function as yet more intimidation, even when not intended. People don’t always need reminding that they’re in danger of getting beat up or betrayed or can’t be in boys’ club.
Yeah I think it’s very actively political when there’s a fantasy game and someone actively it in to the setting that sexism is everywhere and inescapable and your story always includes it you’ll never be able to focus just on your job or friendships, fictional sexists will always jump in your way.
You can also still have sexism in the fantasy game if you really want it, just make sure that they aren’t completely winning.
Like, this Navy captain is a huge misogynist who hates that there are women in the space marines, but he can’t do anything about it.
This Phyllis Schlafly character is in the Munitorum or the Sisters and she’s really angry that women are space marines, but she can’t do anything about it.
There’s your “realistically a feudal hierarchy would hate women” if you think you need it
I think a lot of the issues that stem from this is GW just being rubbish with words. Monasticism is defined by its religious nature yet Space Marines are largely non-religious, which is a core part of their identity. The Black Templars are specifically disdained by many Chapters because of their rabid fanaticism. SM can be spiritual or have traditions and beliefs but they aren't tied to the Adeptus Ministorum like the rest of the Imperium. SM do live a solitary lifestyle compared to a normal human but they are still largely connected to the wider Imperium and many Chapters don't cut themselves off from the planets they protect (Salamanders, Ultramarines and Space Wolves are all good examples of this).
And as for Fortress Monasteries, living in a Monastery doesn't make you a Monk just like living in an old Fire Station doesn't make you a Firefighter.
With respect, i think you are being too hyperliteral in your reading of the source material, and too eager to dismiss out of hand,moreso than GW is bad with words.
Monastic, has various meanings (quick google on dictionary.com) and they’re not all tied to ‘religious nature’:
of or relating to monasteries: eg a monastic library.
of, relating to, or characteristic of monks or nuns, their manner of life, or their religious obligations: eg monastic vows.(Note the 'or'. Religious obligations are not necessary to hold to this definition)
of, relating to, or characteristic of a secluded, dedicated, or austere manner of living.
In all three definitions, especially the third one, there is crossover between the typically portrayed 'high level imagery of the Astartes, and the monastic imagery they are often associated with – and again, I point out – its described specifically in the 9th ed. Rulebook, which is pretty damned canon and close to irrefutable (and admittedly, the ‘male aspirants only’ isn’t there). If your argument is that SMs and monasteries have no links because SMs are connected to the wider Imperium, and chapters don’t cut themselves off from planets, id like to point out that monasteries also don’t shut their doors to everyone either. They might close their doors at night, and lock themselves away from the lay folks but they would still have links with them. Monastic orders are quite varied. Often they were the centres for learning and pilgrimage, towns and villages often grew up around them, they were a focal point for defence (research the role/function of round towers etc) were strong economic powerhouses back in the day (the brewing aspect has been discussed before, but they also acted as travel houses and lodges for travellers) and most boasted extensive diplomatic links, often cross continental which connected them to people in every strata of society. The notion of individual monks living in stone beehive huts in the Skellig islands (where luke skywalker hid in the recent star war movies) is also true, but its only one of many interpretations of monastic life. And right now, im thinking specifically in terms of European monastic life – you’ll have a totally different take on far eastern monasteries (inventers of martial arts), buddhist monasteries don’t hold the buddha as a ‘diety’, (and technically, the buddha is living and breathing in the dalai llama according to their tenets) and have a lot of superficial similarities there with Space Marines and how they view the emperor and their Primarch.
In any case, the specific religiososity of marines is not necessary for the broad ‘monkish’ and ‘warrior monk’ imagery to fit. Marine ‘spirituality’ can be swapped out with monk religiosity and the imagery is essentially unchanged. And you’re correct – living in a monastery doesn’t make you a monk, but there are all the other ques and acknowledgements, and I think you are a bit guilty of dismissing them out of hand in order to make the other point about female marines. They’re not incompatible.
in fairness, the meaning of 'ascetic' is severe self discipline and refraining from indulgence? If anything is a defining characteristic of marines, its that.
The difference being that Monks practice asceticism to find enlightenment whereas SM are disciplined because they are warriors. Indulgence is a tricky one because what counts as an indulgence? The Blood Angels are known as great artists, the Wolves as great drinkers, the Salamanders as brilliant artisans. Indulgence isn't excess and most individual SM's are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want outside of battle.
Yes, Christian Monks made lots of very nice art but that was in line with their religious beliefs and not just for recreation. Yes, other Monks were noted for their brewing capabilities but IIRC the produce was to be sold to generate income for the order.
Thru practice asceticism for a variety of reasons, enlightenment being just one. Lack of indulgence is also related to austerity, disciple, self-discipline frugality and even personal poverty/limited or no personal possessions, all of which are a strong feature of both monks and marines, because Indulgence related to excess and that leads to Slannesh. Any Space Marine shirking their duties, being lazy, acting like a vainglorious peacock or wanting all the bling and all the moneys should swiftly get a bonk on the head from the Chaplains Crozius.
And monks aren’t disciplined then? Yeah, calling you on that my friend. The monastic way of life takes a huge amount of self-discipline and commitment. And with respect, its not just about ‘enlightenment’, its also about cleanimg and purifying one's soul and trying to come closer to 'God', however 'God' may be defined through one's individual practices or beliefs - one could argue 'communion with a primarch' would be a legitimate comparison. tI would argue Space Marines would probably find strong philosophical parallels and approaches between them and our monks in their pursuit of spiritual goals, and purifying their souls by the ascetic lifestyle which is a strong component of why monks 'monk'.
Lets also point out 'marines fight'. So do monks. monks fight. Unquestionably.They had to be warriors too, considering the times. Irish monks were known to throw down (I have no doubt more than one viking met their end by being bonked on the head by a crucifix or bible-brick wielding monk), shaolin monks invented martial arts, and im pretty sure there are strong parallels between crusading brethren of the knightly orders (our very own real life warrior monks) slaying infidels as a prayer to god, and marines purging xenos/mutants/heretics doing the same and please note this isn’t somehow exclusive to just space marines that are based on the ‘crusading templar’ stereotype. 'Prayers as actions' is a pretty strong component of monastic life as well .
Also – ‘SMs are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want outside of battle’. Calling you on that friend. That’s hokey. Space Marine daily rituals give them something like 15 minutes of ‘reflection time’. They’re not netflixing and chilling when they are not purging xenos. Marines absolutely do not have personal freedom to do whatever they want – duty to the chapter is the number one absolute requirement. When they’re not in battle, they’re training for it, or doing any of the humdrum activities required to allow them to battle.
I would point out as well that brewing traditions and drinking traditions are extremely strong in a lot of monastic orders and historically, monks are no strangers to heavy drinking. for example, the monks of St.Augustine abbey were noted to have drank 2 gallons of beer per day (9 litres). You’ll find this to be pretty standard, especially in a historical context. I also find it ludicrous to think that monks, who have invented and perfected so many aspects of the brewing process for wines and beers wouldn't do it partially out of their own love for the product and wouldn't hold back a few kegs for their own use. Any time I see Friar Tuck in the Robin hood movies and cartoons- the guy is a cheerfully drunken sot. ‘Drunken monk’ is a stereotype for a reason. Hell, the shaolin monks even have a whole fighting style based around being sloshed – drunker master! I would further argue that the parallels and similarities between monks making nice art 'for the glory of God' and the likes of the blood angels and salamanders making their guns and armour look pretty 'for the honour of the chapters' are far stronger than you are casually dismissing- , almost like they are in line with a Chapters spiritual and cultural beliefs, (rather than 'recreation') and synonymous with monks doing their thing 'for the glory of god'. I personally see no difference between a monk working on a beautiful tapestry, or illustrating something like the book of kells, a Blood Angel making his (or her!) armour more ornate and beautiful or a Salamander doing something similar with his/(or her!) flamer.
[spoiler]Rituals, beliefs, and superstitions aren't explicitly religious though. I'm not tied to any religion but I will never say "Oh wow, work sure is quiet today" because I'm superstitious. There is also a difference between the modern religions with deities and prophets that may or may not exist that may or may not perform miracles, and the Emperor actually being a real being with God-like powers. He led the Great Crusade and is still "alive" on Terra.
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I think you’re reaching Gert. See above definitions. They still hold. the specific religiososity of marines is not necessary for the broad ‘monkish’ and ‘warrior monk’ imagery to fit well. What 'God' means is a nebulous term.
The argument that ‘gods are not real in the real world’ therefore Space Marines are not monks is stretching credulity. Its as ridiculous as dismissing the links between the two because space marines have space ships and our monks don't .
It would depend on the Chapter for the taking of Aspirants. As you have said while a child living in a fief of the Wolves might aspire to join the Sky Warriors, the Carcharadons take what they want according to the Rites of Exile. So choice isn't a hard and fast rule for becoming a SM and even then is it really a choice when an 8-foot tall man in huge black armour with a skull helm says "You are coming with me".
It would, indeed. The latter though, is often presented as an exception to the rules. Choice isn’t technically a hard and fast rule, (but lets not go down the road of one exception disproves the whole concept. That kind of hyper literal argument quickly verges on the absurd, and opens you to slannesh and tzeentch simultaneously) but it is often presented as the ‘typical’ approach for most chapters outside of the ones we would refer to as [insert suitably colourful swear words] marines. The fact that so many chapters have recruiting practices and traditions and that in the lore it is typically presented that so many aspirants, for various cultural reasons aspire to join them, I think we can regard this as something of a ‘norm’. Which again, was related to the point you made that people don’t choose to join the Space Marines. They do. They absolutely do. The fact that most don’t succeed and fail the trials doesn’t disprove this either. They want to join.
Again it's not a hard and fast rule though. If people want to have their all-male SM Chapters that's fine, they are "Your Dudes". If someone wants a mixed Chapter, that should be fine as well.
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Im not saying it is. Im saying this doesn’t disallow either.
It's not necessarily bad but it's not a good point to make. SM don't fit with the styling of Monk because GW wants them to be the "Your Dude" faction which IMO they absolutely should be.
In the earlier editions, especially in artwork, I would agree that there is a huge influence of monastic culture on SM but that isn't the case now.
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I disagree. It’s not zero/sum. I think you are too quick to assume it has to be one or the other and one has to be dismissed out of hand regardless to support the other point about female marines. And with respect, you too readily dismiss it out of hand. Space Marines do fit with a lot of the stylings of monks and commonly regarded monk/monastic trappings to a far stronger degree than you present or want to admit, the fact that ‘monastic’ is still a term used to describe them even up to and including the most recent publications lends weight to this. And I argue again that these are no incompatible with the personal creativity associated with making them ‘your dudes’ – I think trying to push this notion that ‘the warrior monk thing is done and gone and isn’t a SM thing any more’ is not value-adding, and its effort spent foolishly and it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Nor is it needed for your other points to stand.
I also think you’re putting the cart before the horse friend. In my opinion, Space Marines are not specifically a ‘your dude’ faction. GW pushes the entire hobby as a ‘your dude’ approach. Space Marines are pushed as the flagship faction, the most recognisable faction and arguably the most beginner friendly faction so I can understand why they are associated with the idea, as there is a strong intersection. I do not disagree that hobby creativity is encouraged and that its easier to do with marines due to the sheer variety of kits, but I still feel its incidental to their other aspects. Had sisters of battle been the popular faction rather than marines, they would be pushed as the beginner faction and face of 40k and the 'your dudes' notion would be pushed on to them instead.
There are certain core features of Space Marines that are tied very strongly to their identity – organised by chapters, monastic, bolters, power armour, angels of death etc etc, and beyond that, absolutely it’s a blank canvas for ‘your dudes’.
I also don’t think its fair to say that it was true historically, but it’s not true now. The monastic element is just as strong as it was and its presentation is in the most recent publications. What I will say though is that the source material and individual identities have been expanded on in various chapters (especially the named/famous ones) so that now while its still often the baseline, and the broad imagery is still held to, its oftnenot the only influence. This is not the same thing as saying its been replaced, is no longer an element or that it no longer holds or has been replaced or lost or ‘isn’t the case now’.
What’s more true and accurate is that there is no ‘one influence’ on the chapters.
Space Wolves, for example are the ‘viking’ faction but I see a lot of nods towards a ‘cartoon jock’ culture in their depiction as well as the frequent ‘wolf’ references. The various tropes associated with monks and monasteries are no incompatible with these.
Dark Angels have a very strong monk aesthetic to them, with the habits and all, and that is still as true now as it was then, but I would also argue these days they also have strong ‘knightly’ and ‘lgbtq’ influences - I personally regard the latter as having been brilliantly conceived and cleverly integrated into the DA identity. The latter two do not distract from the former.
Andykp wrote: I was enjoying catching up on this thread after a night shift, Vatsetis brought a nice measured style to the debate, then Hecaton turned up like a drunk uncle at a wedding and it went down hill again. Thank you Vatsetis for your contribution.
Thanks pal.
To be clear, Im not advocating that 40K and the IOM should focus on sexism or LGTBphobia... Im just saying that having the SM being an all male brotherhood dosent contradict the general tone of the setting.
Even doe I clearly think the actual lore endorse that SM are a brotherhood, and this is a more or less important feature of the faction identity... I really thing people that like to have FSM should not worry about their official lore, if you want to give "your dudes" a female identity and/or look go ahead and dont bother with a "canonical" lore that no one pretends to endorse on the tabletop (and if they do they are just snobs)... exactly like if for some reason you wanted your SoB to be men/mixed gender...
Those harrasing people on the FSM issue arent "lore guardians" they are misoginist, and their acts are already illegal no matter what is the official lore... and they would very probably continue with their abuse if GW made a discrete statement "officially allowing" FSM... most probably they will use that sort of statement to be more aggresive and blame the "woke crowd" of spoiling the hobby.
Point is, haters gonna hate, dont base your policies arround what the worst antisocial elements of the fandom do or might do.
Lots of good points being made again, but most of my reply is once again directed to Sgt_Smudge, with an easy summary underneath which can be built from to stop these posts from growing beyond control at the bottom!
Spoiler:
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Except they clearly *do* care - they care enough to ascribe "political" motivations for an unexplained introduction of women into the Space Marines. They aren't "neutral", and they will gladly support an unequal system over an inclusive one - and that's the issue.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
The scenario I'm describing is the rewrite of the lore to "shoehorn" women in (horrible choice of words, because simply featuring women isn't "shoehorning". Gender neutrality is the norm, not gender exclusivity), and that's it. No grand political statement, no big speech, no parade. Literally just a section of text featuring Space Marines with female pronouns, and some women-presenting heads. No extra attention drawn to it.
It is worth noting that if GW included marines with fish heads, and offered absolutely no explanation of why there are suddenly marines with fish heads in the lore except for a few token “fish-marine” pronouns in there, people would not be accepting that fish-marines are a thing.
I feel like your grasp on how people accept change is being clouded by the fact that this involves women and sexist connotations.
I know you’ll say “fish people don’t exist, and women do”, but that’s irrelevant to 40k. Chaos spawn, orks, eldar, tyranids etc. don’t exist in the real world, but they are in 40k, because 40k is fictional. Fiction is not restricted to only adding to the real world – it can also remove things as well, because it isn’t real.
So back to the psychological debate we are having – whether or not how the introduction is made will affect its reception – try to take the sexism, representation, morals, and all that out of it and focus solely on the way it will affect people who aren’t affected by the problems we are trying to solve. Do we agree on that – that this should be treated just like any other change in 40k, and that we want it to be as well received as possible?
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
If the "majority" of people would turn toxic towards women simply because they were included in Space Marines without a lore justification, I don't think this is even a safe hobby for women at that point.
I don't know, maybe I was being optimistic, maybe a little naive, but I genuinely was under the illusion that *most* people wouldn't turn toxic and start being resentful towards women if suddenly little plastic dollies could now have women heads on them without any explanation or political commentary. If I'm wrong on that, and it turns out that people care enough about their little plastic toys needing some made up words to say they can now have women's heads, and if they don't get those made-up words, they'll be toxic towards women, maybe this isn't a safe space for women at all.
I feel that I was perhaps wording it slightly wrong when I said that they would turn toxic – apologies.
I was alluding to the idea that they would make the environment more toxic, rather than being outwardly toxic directly to women. They would make jokes about the change, and suggest – rightly, if no lore explanation justifies their appearance – that they were added solely for political reasons. Have you met the British public, and heard their views on politics? We are at our core a cynical bunch, who will take the mickey out of anything if given the ammunition.
Personally, I feel like women would feel more comfortable amongst a group of people joking about how Cawl can do anything and how any change they want they should just ask Cawl to do it, than a bunch of people who are joking about how space marines have been changed to become more PC by adding women. A woman could easily feel like this vein of joking implies that marines were better before women were added, even if they were only a criticism of how the change were implemented and not a criticism of the change itself.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I have one question to ask: if, as I described, women Space Marines became a thing, with no lore "development", but also no big political statement from GW - you go to sleep, and the next day, women Space Marines are just there - would you be toxic towards women? Resentful? Would you immediately call the inclusion of women a "political" change, and blame women for it?
Or would you just shrug your shoulders, and move on, and enjoy 40k regardless?
What comes first to you: enjoying the hobby and it's inclusivity, or kicking up a fuss because the lore was changed and no-one told you?
If that happened, I would ask someone in the store why there were female marines now.
What answer would you want people to give?
We’ve already discussed before how taking away people’s “but the lore says no” will ostracise them and their extreme views if they choose to keep them up. Why don’t you feel it important to say “but the lore says yes”?
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Hopefully, there shouldn't *be* anyone to "bait", as you put it.
But if you're implying that there *are* people with exclusionary views, and they would *still* be sticking around, lurking, having those exclusionary views while I'm simultaneously saying to women "yeah, this is a safe space, you're totally welcome here!", then it's not really a safe space, is it? If there's people with exclusionary views sticking around, then I'm not really fixing the problem, I'm just sweeping the people with exclusionary views under the rug.
You’ve changed tack here.
Originally the concept was to remove the viewpoint. To get rid of the idea that women should be playing sisters of battle because everyone else is either men or aliens. You said yourself that if people in the hobby see female models as normal, they will see women as normal too.
Now you’re suggesting that these same people, who have grown up in a hobby dominated by men and male models, who aren’t personally sexist but have inadvertently been spending their time in a sexist-by-apathy environment (nobody bothered to change it), and who we might find are somewhat skewed in their subconscious beliefs by this (which we have established as a part of the issue, otherwise adding female models wouldn’t help) should all leave because they resent change to their game – not because of the content, but the application. You’ve moved from re-education to purging. I think that’s a bit of an extreme jump.
Let’s just say the change is made, and there are some people who aren’t happy about it. Do you really think that they will just go away?
Now let’s say the change is done badly and there are more people unhappy about it. Some say “the change was political, raar!” and others say “The change was unnecessary, marines should be men, raar!”. These two groups will be joined by the common message of “The change was bad, raar!”, and will find vindication in their views from one another.
We know that the only way people will either fade away or change their views is if they face opposition on them. So why make it so easy for them to find support in the concept that change = bad?
I guarantee you that if they just made female marine models without saying a thing about them anywhere, everyone would ask where female marines came from, and when no lore reason arises, they will look elsewhere. The first place people look for the reason things exist in 40k is in the lore, not in the business meeting notes and political standpoints of the company. Cynics will always find a way to be cynical, but their views will only stand up if there is no opposition to squash them.
Look at it this way – we are expecting 3 types of people to come out of this change – we can disregard the numbers of them for now, as we’re just going back and forth on that one!
The people are for, against, and don’t know how they feel.
The goal is for the people who are for the change to get as many people who haven’t made opinions about it onto their side.
The people who are against it are armed with “This is only political, it’s politics interfering with the hobby, the only reason they added it was for politics and not for the game, space marines have always been male and they’ve only put this in to avoid offending snowflakes” as their argument.
What are the people who are for it armed with for their argument? “Actually it’s a good change”. That’s it. They can’t say “actually Cawl did >loads of stuff here<”, so it’s not political, it’s just the progression of the 40k storyline!” if there’s nothing justifying their existence.
Take any other thing in 40k. Anything. Why are there thousand sons? It’s not to pander to the Egyptian crowd, it’s because >all the lore about T-Sons here<. “Awesome, that’s so cool!” replies the inquisitive newcomer! Why are there chaos spawn? >loads of lore goes here< “Ew, that’s gross!” says the newcomer. Why were heldrakes added? >insert daemon engine lore in here<. Why were primaris marines added? >Insert primaris lore here<. Why were Custodes added? >Insert Custodes lore here<. Knights? Lore. Chaos knights? Lore. Ork buggies? Lore. Death Guard as their own codex? Lore.
Female marines? >complete absence of lore<. Oh, must have been for another reason then.
For all that women are a real thing in real life, woman space marines aren’t a thing right now, and if that is changed without changing the lore, then they will stick out like a sore thumb.
You can say “they should have been there from the start”, but the fact of the matter is that they weren’t, and that is the reality we are having to deal with here. People are used to a universe where marines are all male, and changing that without comment will leave people feeling confused about why.
It comes down to that – people will want to know why, regardless of how we implement this. If we say nothing, they will assume their own things. And we already know how well “make up your own lore” has gone for people making female marines, so they can’t go saying “Cawl dun it”, and they will know enough about the lore to say “it wasn’t always like this”, so they will find the only other option – politics has interfered with the game.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
You might be mistaken. GW have made it very clear that they can change things without the lore needing to back it up constantly.
Grav-guns? They exist now.
Centurions? They exist now.
Stormravens? They exist now.
Scions? They exist now.
Celestian Sacresants? They exist now.
Perpetuals? They exist now.
GW can just add things without needing the lore. I don't see why they can't do that with women Space Marines.
And every one of those things is lacking any explanation in the lore? There’s nothing about them in the books, is there? No write-up of what a grav-gun does, no entire-page-of-fluff about every codex entry in the codex?
These things were added and their lore was added at the same time. Perpetuals is entirely a lore thing, they don’t exist on the tabletop! If they didn’t have lore, they wouldn’t exist My point is that it’s not just a permissive ruleset, it’s a permissive lore. If it’s not written into the lore, then it doesn’t feel like it’s part of the actual 40k universe. If I made fish-marines, they will exist on the tabletop, and will have rules as marines, but as there’s nothing saying fish marines exist then it’s not canonical.
The whole issue people have had is dingbats using “the lore says” as a reason to be highly unpleasant to people making female marines. “female marines aren’t canon” is their argument. Things only become canon by being written into the lore. So if you don’t write female marines into the lore, they aren’t canon, and these idiots still have their ammo to continue being dingbats.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
And if they're more invested in the lore than in letting women be a part of the hobby, is that not a pretty messed up set of priorities?
Yes. But a lot of people won’t see how female marines will let women be a part of the hobby. When I joined this thread, I didn’t see how making female marines would let women be a part of the hobby.
So anyone with that mindset will not understand why the little bits of plastic make a damn difference, and will only see them changing the game without changing the lore, and so will feel like the game developers priorities are out of alignment, because they are game developers not politicians. They want the game designers to make the game better. They want every release to be about improving the game, furthering the lore, finding out what happens next and what cool new models they can play. When I pick up a new codex with new models, the first thing I do is skip to the new models pages and read about them to find out all about these cool new things. If there’s nothing to read about, there’s nothing to defend their existence in 40k except external reasons.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Well, not quite true. There *are* lore explanations explaining Marines being all-male, but they're:
- Inconsistent
- Obscure and not put in the focus
- Thematically incongruous
- Utterly arbitrary
It's *because* there is "lore" explaining why women can't be Space Marines that people get ganged up on when they make women Space Marine conversions, and told it's "non-canon".
So why do you seem so opposed to writing in something in the lore which directly and unavoidably removes that ammunition?
If GW start making female marines without lore justification then people will say they are being inconsistent with their own lore and start looking for other reasons why it’s been changed. Most people could be easily appeased and brought on-side by writing about the change in the lore.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
No lore reason, because I feel that by admitting "we need to justify this with lore", it is still implying that the lore is more important than the representation of women. We should be making this change because it's a good thing to do, not because the lore lets us.
If I heard that things were being changed to accommodate for me, but only because someone made up some excuse in the lore, and if they hadn't made up that excuse, it wouldn't have happened, I'd still feel equally as devalued. It would still feel as if I wasn't important as a human, and that I was still considered less important than 13 little words.
I find it odd that you seem to view the game and the lore as two entirely separate entities!
Every change in 40k needs to be justified in the lore. And every change has been – some done better and some done worse, but every model on the tabletop has lore backing up its ability to represent the factions in the lore.
Space Marines (or Astartes) are a fictional concept – the models only exist to represent them. If you want to change the models, then you need to change the lore so that the models you are making continue to represent the fictional concept of marines.
The lore says “Marines are a brotherhood of super-soldiers who are divided into monastic-inspired groups and fight in power armour using chain swords and bolters”, but it says it in a lot more words.
This whole thing is about Representation. The issue is perhaps (and I’m just realising this) that there is a step missing in your representation reasoning?
The models represent the fictional race of whatever. The lore says they are humanoid, the models have to be humanoid or they won’t represent the lore any more.
The models not being representative isn’t the issue, it’s the lore not being representative. The lore says “they’s all men and they’s big” and the models are all men and the yare big, so the models are perfectly representing the lore. Nobody can say “space marine models don’t look like space marines”, can they? They used to say they were too short, but primaris has fixed that!
So if you change the models and not the lore, then the models no longer represent the lore and you will get people saying “I’m not using female models as they aren’t in the lore”, which is obviously a bad result!
So you need to change the lore to say “Space marines are people and they are big and fight in power armour and have chainswords and bolters”, and then have the models represent big people with chainswords and bolters, some of which are women, and it all fits together.
Nobody is saying “You have to justify adding women space marines in the lore because they are women!”. They are saying “You have to justify model changes in the lore because the two have to match”.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
So, what - your solution is to essentially lie and tell them that "we're totally not being political, look, Cawl did it!"?
I don't think I like the idea of lying to hide my motivations.
I'd much rather let people just come up with their own reasons, and if they say "oh, it's political, guess this justifies me going out and being toxic towards women", that's more of an indictment on them, surely?
Is it lying about the motivations to give explanations in the lore as to why female marines are now a thing?
As I’ve said above, the lore and the models have to match. If GW decided to release animal-headed marines without a word of why they did so in the lore, people would be confused about their existence. People making monkey-marines might get flak from others because there is no reason for monkey marines to exist in the lore. Lots of people would direct hatred towards the monkey-marine models, for not matching the world they are supposed to represent.
If there were suddenly female marine models without lore explanation, people would ask why. If there was a lore explanation, the answer wouldn’t be “’cos politics”.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I don't know. I say this with all respect to you, I really do, and I know that you're pro-women Astartes, which is great - but I do think you're perhaps a little optimistic/naive about how many people would "accept" the Cawl was just able to make women Space Marines without calling that lore development itself "political".
What I see happening is that the same people you describe as looking for "political" motives, if there were no lore explanation, would call the lore explanation "political" as well, and we'd still be stuck with people who were crying politics at us.
I appreciate your disclaimer, I know how hard it can be to not sound like an arse on the internet! I also have respect for you in your views, which I truly hope comes across!
I don’t care overmuch about the people who will find politics no matter what – they are a minority. The vast majority of people will only care about what the lore says. But if the lore says nothing, they will look for their answers elsewhere.
Look at primaris – people got shirty about that, saying it was a money grab and so on, but most people now say it’s a thing Cawl did and yadda yadda. There will be an initial grumble from the community as any change happens, but when it settles down and people ask “where did female marines come from”, there needs to be an answer which doesn’t make it sound like a token gesture.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I don't see why they would stick out like a sore thumb. T'au have women, with no explicit lore "reason". Eldar have women, with no "lore reason". Dark Eldar have women, with no "lore reason". Guardsmen have women, with no "lore reason". Genestealer Cults have women, with no "lore reason".* Women existing in 40k doesn't need a lore reason, because we don't need a lore reason for men existing.
I'm not sure how they'd stick out at all.
*well, Guardsmen especially should have more women represented, but regardless, they *have* women, and no lore reason other than "of course they have women".
But right now space marines don’t have women, and they have a lore reason why. Without contradicting it, we’ve already seen people pull 20+yr old lore out and say “this says no!”
Obviously natural populations like guard and tau and GSC will have women, it goes without saying. But Space Marines are made, not born, and they currently are all male for lore reasons, and everyone knows they are all male.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Yes, absolutely. And likewise, even with a good lore justification, anyone who wants to hear it was political will believe it to be so as well.
Anyone who wants to hear political reasons will, yes. But what about the vast amount of people who just want a reason? Any reason? Some justification for a change being made to their game, with no ulterior motives behind their curiosity? What happens when the only reason they hear is “because politics”?
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Whichever reason people want to give for it. Let people choose for themselves what reason they think GW did it for, because that's what they were going to do anyway.
I mean, look at Primaris. GW gave a reason why Primaris are a thing, but many other people are pretty convinced that it was done for business reasons, to rebrand, to remarket, to get people to "buy all their models all over again" - whatever reason people choose to come up with.
Look at Riptides, Stormsurges and Supremacy Suits. GW gave a reason why Tau scientists were making them and why it diverged from the typical Tau system of "aircraft being used as Titan hunters", but many other people just see it as "GW wanted to sell us big shiny walkers and mech-suits".
No matter what GW choose to say or do, people will make up their own reasons behind it, be it "oh, I guess something happened in the lore", or "I guess they were always around" or "GW are after my money!" or "GW are all political and messing up my hobby".
I just don't want to lie about my intentions, I guess.
Not everyone goes looking for reasons with bias behind them.
Look at Primaris. When they turned up, everyone whinged about them. Now they’re just normal. They had lore to back up their existence, and a lot of people got excited about the lore and bought the models. Lots of people said “they’re just a money grab”, but now more lore has come out explaining their place in 40k, those people are generally barely acknowledged or just told to shut up about it already by the people who are too busy enjoying the lore to look for deeper motives behind it.
Riptides and such were generally more criticised for being overpowered in the rules to sell more models (hence the term “Triptide”) than they were considered a money grab. Most people just thought they were cool models.
People who are inclined to complain about it will complain, I agree, but if they have no opposition, then that will become how people think of the change.
You have suggested implementing it without any comment. How is adding comments about how Cawl dun it lying about your intentions, when you have suggested not saying anything anyway?
Here’s the summary, so you don’t have to reply to the same points over and over in your reply (unless you want to!):
• It’s not “Justification in the lore” in the sense that the change has to be justified, it’s changing the lore so that the models we want to add continue to properly represent the space marine faction in the lore. It’s not that the lore is more important than the people, it’s that any change in 40k needs to be accounted for both in the models and the lore. If the lore said “marines have 2 heads” then marine models would need to have 2 heads as well. If the models had 2 heads, then the lore would need to say “marines have 2 heads”. If one says 1 head and the other says 2 heads then the models no longer represent marines. It’s the same thing with female representation – AM lore says there are women, and so the models need to have women as well. SM lore says there are no women, so the models have no women. You can’t change one without changing the other. If the lore doesn’t match the models, it will be an issue for a lot of people, regardless of what the content of the change is.
• If there is no other reason forthcoming, then the people who only want a reason and haven’t already made up their minds (which I think would be the majority) will only get the answer “it’s political”, and as far as I can see this is the only thing in 40k which would have been added for purely political reasons, so it will stick out. The ones whose minds are made up cannot be helped, we should forget about them. I am concerned with what I believe to be the vast majority, which is the people who like the game as a combination of cool models and a huge, sprawling backstory, and want to see the two continue to marry up as smoothly as possible.
• If women constantly hear about how female marines were only added for political reasons, there’s nothing there to get them interested in their representation within the game, which is bad. If they instead hear cool stories about the benefits of more recruits and so on, they will feel like not only were women added to marines, but that they kicked ass when they did so and are continuing to do so. I feel like option 2 will make women feel more interested in 40k, and make people who aren’t inherently dingbats more welcoming to them.
I totally agree with the idea of changing it without fuss or fanfare, but feel like a few pronouns in the fluff just isn’t going to do well enough at making people believe that this is a change that’s integrated into the very storyline of 40k, and not just a sticker slapped on the box saying “may contain women”.
Reading through this thread has been valuable (ands has added some real fethwits to my block list). It does seem that the consensus feels that female marines would be of great benefit to 40K, and would support GW if they were to make it so.
I don't read general consensus at all, though there is certainly a strong advocacy block in lock step, but many see the change as coming from an external desire to modify the game for sociopolitical reasons with disregard to what exists already, rather than coming from within the game seeking logical improvements that build on the existing story in a way that respects the cultural capital that people have invested themselves in for a long time. Of course, I haven't blocked anyone either.
If the goal is to dismantle perceptions of all male spaces for sociopoloticL reasons, adoption of female marines by GW seems logical. If the goal is helping improve accessibility of the hobby to women, it's not clear that models are really the problem, and it sounds like some people have somen really toxic local stores/communities with people who need some work models won't help.
grahamdbailey wrote: Reading through this thread has been valuable (ands has added some real fethwits to my block list). It does seem that the consensus feels that female marines would be of great benefit to 40K, and would support GW if they were to make it so.
Think the sample size is too small to draw any conclusions but the very fact that we have this thread is a sign that the consensus is moving towards what you state, 3 years ago I started a thread like this and it was shut down after being reported to the mods dozens of times in a few hours, and reported by the anti FSM side. So this is progress.
With respect, i think you are being too hyperliteral in your reading of the source material, and too eager to dismiss out of hand,moreso than GW is bad with words.
We're discussing ideas central to SM identity and aesthetics. I'm not being hyperliteral, I'm analysing the description people are ascribing to SM which I view to be flawed. I'm taking all the aspects and breaking them down.
Spoiler:
Monastic, has various meanings (quick google on dictionary.com) and they’re not all tied to ‘religious nature’:
of or relating to monasteries: eg a monastic library.
of, relating to, or characteristic of monks or nuns, their manner of life, or their religious obligations: eg monastic vows.(Note the 'or'. Religious obligations are not necessary to hold to this definition)
of, relating to, or characteristic of a secluded, dedicated, or austere manner of living.
In all three definitions, especially the third one, there is crossover between the typically portrayed 'high level imagery of the Astartes, and the monastic imagery they are often associated with – and again, I point out – its described specifically in the 9th ed. Rulebook, which is pretty damned canon and close to irrefutable (and admittedly, the ‘male aspirants only’ isn’t there). If your argument is that SMs and monasteries have no links because SMs are connected to the wider Imperium, and chapters don’t cut themselves off from planets, id like to point out that monasteries also don’t shut their doors to everyone either. They might close their doors at night, and lock themselves away from the lay folks but they would still have links with them. Monastic orders are quite varied. Often they were the centres for learning and pilgrimage, towns and villages often grew up around them, they were a focal point for defence (research the role/function of round towers etc) were strong economic powerhouses back in the day (the brewing aspect has been discussed before, but they also acted as travel houses and lodges for travellers) and most boasted extensive diplomatic links, often cross continental which connected them to people in every strata of society. The notion of individual monks living in stone beehive huts in the Skellig islands (where luke skywalker hid in the recent star war movies) is also true, but its only one of many interpretations of monastic life. And right now, im thinking specifically in terms of European monastic life – you’ll have a totally different take on far eastern monasteries (inventers of martial arts), buddhist monasteries don’t hold the buddha as a ‘diety’, (and technically, the buddha is living and breathing in the dalai llama according to their tenets) and have a lot of superficial similarities there with Space Marines and how they view the emperor and their Primarch.
To use the Codex as a point here's a couple of quotes that support the "Your Dudes" argument:
Spoiler:
Codex: SM 9th Edition Pg.3 (Paraphrased to get rid of extra fluff) - "Whether you are a hobby veteran, or a neophyte brand new to the Warhammer hobby, you will find something in the Space Marines range that fires your imagination and fills you with inspiration."
"For any hobbyist, this is an incredible opportunity to make their army their own, experimenting with their favourite colours or delving into their imagination to invent epic origin stories and tales of victories for their own warriors."
I also want to point out that the Codex says there are over a thousand SM Chapters yet makes a point to say how badly recorded these Chapters are, already giving players a free pass for their custom Chapters. Then of course we have the Ultima founding where players could create their own Primaris Chapters. There are 60 examples of SM Chapters given in the SM Codex as well some of which are brand new additions that have been "around" for years.
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In any case, the specific religiososity of marines is not necessary for the broad ‘monkish’ and ‘warrior monk’ imagery to fit. Marine ‘spirituality’ can be swapped out with monk religiosity and the imagery is essentially unchanged. And you’re correct – living in a monastery doesn’t make you a monk, but there are all the other ques and acknowledgements, and I think you are a bit guilty of dismissing them out of hand in order to make the other point about female marines. They’re not incompatible.
I've not dismissed them I've discussed them and found them lacking.
Spoiler:
Thru practice asceticism for a variety of reasons, enlightenment being just one. Lack of indulgence is also related to austerity, disciple, self-discipline frugality and even personal poverty/limited or no personal possessions, all of which are a strong feature of both monks and marines, because Indulgence related to excess and that leads to Slannesh. Any Space Marine shirking their duties, being lazy, acting like a vainglorious peacock or wanting all the bling and all the moneys should swiftly get a bonk on the head from the Chaplains Crozius.
Indulgence doesn't always lead to excess. I don't think we can ascribe the self-poverty or lack of personal possessions to SM as a whole either. I'd also like to point out that shirking duties and being lazy at my work would get me a disciplinary, it's hardly a concept unique to Monks. Personal glory and fancy armour is like a core of SM heroes so that definitely doesn't apply.
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And monks aren’t disciplined then? Yeah, calling you on that my friend. The monastic way of life takes a huge amount of self-discipline and commitment. And with respect, its not just about ‘enlightenment’, its also about cleanimg and purifying one's soul and trying to come closer to 'God', however 'God' may be defined through one's individual practices or beliefs - one could argue 'communion with a primarch' would be a legitimate comparison. tI would argue Space Marines would probably find strong philosophical parallels and approaches between them and our monks in their pursuit of spiritual goals, and purifying their souls by the ascetic lifestyle which is a strong component of why monks 'monk'.
Lets also point out 'marines fight'. So do monks. monks fight. Unquestionably.They had to be warriors too, considering the times. Irish monks were known to throw down (I have no doubt more than one viking met their end by being bonked on the head by a crucifix or bible-brick wielding monk), shaolin monks invented martial arts, and im pretty sure there are strong parallels between crusading brethren of the knightly orders (our very own real life warrior monks) slaying infidels as a prayer to god, and marines purging xenos/mutants/heretics doing the same and please note this isn’t somehow exclusive to just space marines that are based on the ‘crusading templar’ stereotype. 'Prayers as actions' is a pretty strong component of monastic life as well .
*Sigh*. I didn't say Monks aren't disciplined rather the reasons for their discipline are different to SM. A SM has to be disciplined because they are soldiers, they need to be able to focus in battle. As for the whole "Monks fight", that was not their entire purpose for existing, unlike SM. There is also a distinct difference between fighting for self-defence (against Vikings and martial arts are only supposed to be used in self-defence) and actively seeking combat as SM do.
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Also – ‘SMs are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want outside of battle’. Calling you on that friend. That’s hokey. Space Marine daily rituals give them something like 15 minutes of ‘reflection time’. They’re not netflixing and chilling when they are not purging xenos. Marines absolutely do not have personal freedom to do whatever they want – duty to the chapter is the number one absolute requirement. When they’re not in battle, they’re training for it, or doing any of the humdrum activities required to allow them to battle.
The downside is I actually can't find anything at all in the current Codex that details SM rituals/practices beyond that they do rituals/practices. The price we pay for 90 pages of datasheets I guess.
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I would point out as well that brewing traditions and drinking traditions are extremely strong in a lot of monastic orders and historically, for example, the monks of St.Augustine abbey drank 2 gallons of beer per day (9 litres). You’ll find this to be pretty standard. Any time I see Friar Tuck in the Robin hood movies and cartoons- the guy is a cheerfully drunken sot. ‘Drunken monk’ is a stereotype for a reason. Hell, the shaolin monks even have a whole fighting style based around being sloshed – drunker master! I would further argue that the parallels and similarities between monks making nice art 'for the glory of God' and the likes of the blood angels and salamanders making their guns and armour look pretty 'for the honour of the chapters' are far stronger than you are casually dismissing, almost like they are in line with a Chapters spiritual and cultural beliefs and synonymous with monks doing their thing 'for the glory of god'. I personally see no difference between a monk working on a beautiful tapestry, or illustrating something like the book of kells, and a Blood Angel making his (or her!) armour more ornate and beautiful or a Salamander doing something similar with his/(or her!) flamer.
I see the similarities but neither of those things is explicitly linked to Monks. Many British soldiers bring their Warhammer with them on tour for example. At the same time, I would argue that there are multiple institutions that have "honour". Losing the regimental colours of an Army regiment would be seen as a great dishonor for example.
Spoiler:
I think you’re reaching Gert. See above definitions. They still hold. the specific religiososity of marines is not necessary for the broad ‘monkish’ and ‘warrior monk’ imagery to fit well. What 'God' means is a nebulous term.
The argument that ‘gods are not real in the real world’ therefore Space Marines are not monks is stretching credulity. Its as ridiculous as dismissing the links between the two because space marines have space ships and our monks don't .
Again, SM aren't religious but the core identity of being a Monk is religion.
I didn't say that X God of X religion isn't real, it's a theological debate as to which religion is the "true" religion. There are no other religions in Imperial society, there are only variations on how you worship the one God-Emperor, which as a rule SM don't do.
Spoiler:
It would, indeed. The latter though, is often presented as an exception to the rules. Choice isn’t technically a hard and fast rule, (but lets not go down the road of one exception disproves the whole concept. That kind of hyper literal argument quickly verges on the absurd, and opens you to slannesh and tzeentch simultaneously) but it is often presented as the ‘typical’ approach for most chapters outside of the ones we would refer to as [insert suitably colourful swear words] marines. The fact that so many chapters have recruiting practices and traditions and that in the lore it is typically presented that so many aspirants, for various cultural reasons aspire to join them, I think we can regard this as something of a ‘norm’. Which again, was related to the point you made that people don’t choose to join the Space Marines. They do. They absolutely do. The fact that most don’t succeed and fail the trials doesn’t disprove this either. They want to join.
If you're indoctrinated your entire life to believe the SM and the AM are glorious warrior heroes of the Imperium without any of the horrors that go along with it, is it really a true choice? At the same time, if you're a Hive scab who will most likely end up dead by the time you reach the end of your teenage years or an agri-farmer with no way of leaving your homeworld, the lure of tales of adventure and excitement would be too good to pass up. But that's still not a choice. A Monk can also leave the order, SM can't just decide not to be a SM.
Spoiler:
I disagree. It’s not zero/sum. I think you are too quick to assume it has to be one or the other and one has to be dismissed out of hand regardless to support the other point about female marines. And with respect, you too readily dismiss it out of hand. Space Marines do fit with a lot of the stylings of monks and commonly regarded monk/monastic trappings to a far stronger degree than you present or want to admit, the fact that ‘monastic’ is still a term used to describe them even up to and including the most recent publications lends weight to this. And I argue again that these are no incompatible with the personal creativity associated with making them ‘your dudes’ – I think trying to push this notion that ‘the warrior monk thing is done and gone and isn’t a SM thing any more’ is not value-adding, and its effort spent foolishly and it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Nor is it needed for your other points to stand.
If it's not immediately obvious that SM are supposed to be warrior Monks then IMO it can't be a core part of their identity. The use of "monastic" doesn't make them Monks and there are far more examples of "Your Dudes" background creation than "SM are warrior Monks".
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I also think you’re putting the cart before the horse friend. In my opinion, Space Marines are not specifically a ‘your dude’ faction. GW pushes the entire hobby as a ‘your dude’ approach. Space Marines are pushed as the flagship faction, the most recognisable faction and arguably the most beginner friendly faction so I can understand why they are associated with the idea, as there is a strong intersection. If they are a ‘your dude’ faction, and I do not disagree that hobby creativity is encouraged and that its easier to do with marines due to the sheer variety of kits, but I still feel its incidental to their other aspects. There are certain core features of Space Marines that are tied very strongly to their identity – organised by chapters, monastic, angels of death etc etc, and beyond that, absolutely it’s a blank canvas for ‘your dudes’.
Of course, GW pushes the hobby as a whole as a creative exercise. But no other faction comes as close to SM in terms of customisability and free reign in the background. AM comes close but loses out because GW tends to use Cadians for basically everything, not promoting the idea of variation in the regiments of the AM.
The variation in justGW's Chapters has already been noted quite a bit previously and I'm not just talking about the ones with rules supplements.
I'd also like to point out that you gave multiple definitions of "monastic", not all of which are related to the specific nature of Monks being religious. You can be monastic and ascetic without being a Monk.
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I also don’t think its fair to say that it was true historically, but it’s not true now. The monastic element is just as strong as it was and its presentation is in the most recent publications. What I will say though is that the source material and individual identities have been expanded on in various chapters (especially the named/famous ones) so that now while its still often the baseline, and the broad imagery is still held to, its oftnenot the only influence. This is not the same thing as saying its been replaced, is no longer an element or that it no longer holds or has been replaced or lost or ‘isn’t the case now’.
Again, monastic doesn't equal Monk. There is a significant difference since Monks are exclusively a religious order, SM are explicitly not.
Spoiler:
What’s more true and accurate is that there is no ‘one influence’ on the chapters.
Space Wolves, for example are the ‘viking’ faction but I see a lot of nods towards a ‘cartoon jock’ culture in their depiction as well as the frequent ‘wolf’ references. The various tropes associated with monks and monasteries are no incompatible with these.
Dark Angels have a very strong monk aesthetic to them, with the habits and all, and that is still as true now as it was then, but I would also argue these days they also have strong ‘knightly’ and ‘lgbtq’ influences - I personally regard the latter as having been brilliantly conceived and cleverly integrated into the DA identity. The latter two do not distract from the former.
Firstly, the only LGBTQ+ influence Dark Angels have is that the Primarch is a distorted version of the name of a gay poet who wrote a poem called "Dark Angel". That's about as much influence as the TV show "Dark Angel".
If there is no "one influence" on Chapters, how are they not the "Your Dudes" faction? If there is so much freedom to create then how can they not fit that description? SM share as much similarities with Monks as university student does.
RegularGuy wrote: I don't read general consensus at all, though there is certainly a strong advocacy block in lock step, but many see the change as coming from an external desire to modify the game for sociopolitical reasons with disregard to what exists already, rather than coming from within the game seeking logical improvements that build on the existing story in a way that respects the cultural capital that people have invested themselves in for a long time. Of course, I haven't blocked anyone either.
If the goal is to dismantle perceptions of all male spaces for sociopoloticL reasons, adoption of female marines by GW seems logical. If the goal is helping improve accessibility of the hobby to women, it's not clear that models are really the problem, and it sounds like some people have somen really toxic local stores/communities with people who need some work models won't help.
You can have an objective with more than one goal and more than one benefit and I think we have shown those benefits. The positives for me are that the thread has survived and that we have had a few people come in and say they have changed their minds to varying degrees but all positive. I haven’t blocked anyone either.
The oldest trick in the book is to misrepresent your opposition, so if they fight your arguments they're admitting your false premises, and if they don't it seems they can't do that.
Lose-lose situation.
So, RegularGuy post is simply false.
I (for one) advocate for female space marine because make sense from a fictional world perspective (ref: any linguistic theory about counterfactual, that provide a modelling for fictional worlds), from a scientific point of view (ref: the discussions and issue of cross-gender athletes), it's a good modelling opportunity (ref: the modelling project shared in the thread), can improve the lore (ref: my mention of the Emperor as sexist is in line with the bad light in which the Imperium should be, kua all the conflict between old and new marine) and have a byproduct of making sexist behavior less common (thing that I think is pretty self evident).
Argument against: the Imperium is a bad place and not being sexist is a detriment the the background; adding female will betray the original inspiration (just so you know: "warrior monks" do not exist in Western history - the Templars were not monks, so the inspiration is from East cultur a where men/female distinction do no apply) and that the change is good but done for bad reason (this I don't think deserve an answer to be honest) and, the one that I think has more weight, if the change is based on Primaris (as we almost all agree would be the less contested change) Chaos SM are excluded.
So, I'm sorry RegularGuy, but your summary of the people opposed to your idea is superficial (in the best case scenario) or straight false and misleading.
Andykp wrote: I was enjoying catching up on this thread after a night shift, Vatsetis brought a nice measured style to the debate, then Hecaton turned up like a drunk uncle at a wedding and it went down hill again. Thank you Vatsetis for your contribution.
Thanks pal.
To be clear, Im not advocating that 40K and the IOM should focus on sexism or LGTBphobia... Im just saying that having the SM being an all male brotherhood dosent contradict the general tone of the setting.
Even doe I clearly think the actual lore endorse that SM are a brotherhood, and this is a more or less important feature of the faction identity... I really thing people that like to have FSM should not worry about their official lore, if you want to give "your dudes" a female identity and/or look go ahead and dont bother with a "canonical" lore that no one pretends to endorse on the tabletop (and if they do they are just snobs)... exactly like if for some reason you wanted your SoB to be men/mixed gender...
Those harrasing people on the FSM issue arent "lore guardians" they are misoginist, and their acts are already illegal no matter what is the official lore... and they would very probably continue with their abuse if GW made a discrete statement "officially allowing" FSM... most probably they will use that sort of statement to be more aggresive and blame the "woke crowd" of spoiling the hobby.
Point is, haters gonna hate, dont base your policies arround what the worst antisocial elements of the fandom do or might do.
This is our point though, the “lore” gives those haters legitimacy, gives them the confidence to be vocal in their hatred. You see it every time someone posts a female marine they have created. As soon as GW make female marines official and allowed all they are left with to complain about is that they do not like female marines. The problem will be theirs not the “woke SJWL whiteknighting” by making their FSM. It shifts the culpability from the victim of the abuse to the perpetrator.
And again, the “lore” in question isn’t in print anywhere. Hasn’t been for years and has only ever been sporadically at best. Anyone in the hobby or new to it would have to go on a deep dive of old background to find out that there can’t actually be female marines.
And don’t worry yiu are not coming across as a hater at all, that’s why its refreshing to have you join in.
If the goal is to dismantle perceptions of all male spaces for sociopoloticL reasons, adoption of female marines by GW seems logical. .
God, the people who are just DESPERATE to be oppressed will never get old for me. It's just like sweet sweet poetry every time I see someone respond to some minor request for greater inclusivity with the "First they came for the" poem (Skipping the first line of course)
Just want to add something: the "you can do whatever you want anyway" it's not a legitimate position, because otherwise we can't discuss about anything.
We have the Cursed Founding, I can create a Chapter that due to a genetic defect transform all candidates in female.
But do you get that this would be exactly what you lament (i.e. "tokenism")?
P.S: of course that's also offensive because it implies that female are a mistake. But here I want to highlight that you can always do whatever you want, but legitimacy is something else.
And my opinion is that including real-world racism, sexism, and forms of oppression is vastly more "shoving politics into warhammer 40,000" than admitting that 50% of the human population is female ever would be.
Yeah I think it’s very actively political when there’s a fantasy game and someone actively it in to the setting that sexism is everywhere and inescapable and your story always includes it you’ll never be able to focus just on your job or friendships, fictional sexists will always jump in your way.
Because it is. Directly. People will hide behind "Ohhh but this is a medieval fantasy setting based on the medieval era so obviously there has to be sexism and rape everywhere and gay people have to be punished by death, on camera obvs..." but 99.999% of medieval fantasy seems A-OK with including such ahistorical elements as:
-The only humans are white people, there's no incredibly powerful asian and middle eastern empires like there were in the medieval period
-Everyone is super hot, loads of scantily clad heavily made up bewbacious behbs running around everywhere that's fine
-Magic spells, demons, dragons, monsters, inhuman races = fine, human women existing = ahistorical and unrealistic even when the existence of, for example, magic powers and enchanted artifacts that allow a human to effortlessly kill any other human would act as an immediate and huge counterbalance to the underlying biological cause of a phenomenon like sexism and the presence of wildly inhuman intelligent races would almost certainly make intra-species divisions seem vastly less important.
If including characters of particular races, genders, orientations etc is inherently "political" but including actual, political issues is considered "apolitical" then it becomes pretty clear that "avoiding politics" is not the real motivating goal of the person in question.
If there is no "one influence" on Chapters, how are they not the "Your Dudes" faction? If there is so much freedom to create then how can they not fit that description? SM share as much similarities with Monks as university student does.
Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly. I'm not saying they can't be 'your dudes'ed. Theyre as much 'your dudes' in principle as any other factions in the game. Theyre easier to 'your dudes' due to the sheer amount of kits and I think it's sold on them stronger since theyre presented as 'everyone's first army' but i think its a feature more of the hobby in general than something specifically and uniquely tied to astartes. We are always encouraged to create our own heroes and villains and back stories , craftworlds, gangs of comoragh etc .
Firstly, the only LGBTQ+ influence Dark Angels have is that the Primarch is a distorted version of the name of a gay poet who wrote a poem called "Dark Angel". That's about as much influence as the TV show "Dark Angel".
Spoiler:
Dark Angels have far stronger LGBTQ links than you realise friend. Its actually when you think about it though it does go to a very dark place.
You’ve spotted the obvious one. Lionel Johnson was a poet whose famous poem ‘dark angel’ was about his own homosexuality. Now look a bit deeper.
A lot of the original references are very crass, and quite objectionable humour (and I don’t mean 80’s ‘Police Academy’ dated humour objectionable, I mean objectionable to the point of bigotry). The more recent references are more subtle, and I think, cleverly done.
The DA models are often associated with wearing habits, and associated with the watchers in the dark and have a very strong monastic ‘look’ to them. When we were younger, I doubt I was the only one who heard the rather crass schoolboy humour about Dark Angels all being cross dressers or liking their altar boys a bit too much – and to be fair, I always took this as more of a satire against catholic clergy than anything else. Unfortunately, the dress wearing 'insult humour’ does point towards a rather negative and offensive slur that was, and is often directed against and at the expense of the gay community, though I’ll be hopeful and say id like to think this was unintentional. That said, on the topic of me saying ‘I see a lot of lgbtq references in the Dark Angels’, I think its fair and honest to mention this too, but also to point out I find it dated and objectionable in the extreme.
The other references are thankfully far less malicious, if somewhat edging towards darkness.
The Dark Angels Fortress Monastery. The Rock. Brings to mind obvious comparisons with Alcatraz. There are a lot of dark, sinister imagery and notoriety associated with the Rock, which I think is perfect for capturing the mood of the dark angels. But ‘The Rock’ has a double meaning and refers to something else. I've heard ‘The Rock’ was also the name of a gay bar down the road from GWHQ. Subtle, but again, if you see it, and are aware of it, its undeniably an LGBTQ reference.
Now beyond that, and the conversation takes a dark turn. The Dark Angels refer to themselves as the ‘Unforgiven’. There is a great, almost palpable pall of shame surrounding the chapter, hints of sins committed, irredeemable acts performed and hidden away lest they come to light to others. The Dark Angels really only hang around with and show solidarity with other ‘unforgiven’, and stay apart from wider society. They do everything they can to protect themselves and stop their secret getting out, as they fear it’ll destroy them. As for wider society, the common trope you see is that there is something… off, something fishy about the Dark Angels. Sure, on the surface, they’re legit and seem to be OK, but no one quite trusts them. Everyone thinks there is something suspicious going on, and they’re really wary about them.
What’s truly sad, is if you take what I just wrote and say it to someone in the LGBTQ community, even today in our more enlightened (or at least less unenlightened, at least in places…) times, its still an experience that will resonate with far too many people – too many gay people struggle internally and externally with coming to terms with this, there is so much ‘loaded baggage’ and ‘shame’ associated with this (and it shouldn’t be!) and society still isn’t good enough – nowhere close! Gay people still need to hide who they are from too many people for their own protection. Now imagine you’re gay in the 80s, or 90s, in post industrial Thatcherite England, and maybe you’re out, or maybe in the closet, and hopefully you're safe, but lets face it, you’re in the middle of Thatcher’s Section 28 which did everything it could to devalue, delegitimise and make gay people invisible, and every week you’re probably losing another friend to the AIDS crisis and no one cares, no one even listens and everyone thinks you’re some irredeemable villain – , and you repeat the lines I wrote above to anyone that lived through those days. You’ll reduce grown men to tears. It will resonate that strongly. That’s how hard hitting and powerful this imagery is, at least to me. It’s a statement. It’s a really powerful commentary. It makes me reflect on all of our peers that have suffered through this. This topic is quite important to me. Even writing this and putting my thoughts to paper on this is upsetting me more than a little bit.To me, GW took the ‘experience’ so many people i care about suffered through during that time and now, and gave it a form and cleverly tied it into their game. Its far cleverer and reflective and tragically poignant than ‘viking space marines’ though far darker. Though arguably I think it needs to be dark since the topic is so serious and unsolved.and so much more still needs to be done.
I think it may have started with elements of satirical, crass humour, but I think the writers are aware, and have been very careful and subtle in crafting this since them. And for me, its actually one of the better, and more powerful imageries and commentaries they’ve put into their game
If we want to dig a little bit deeper in the tangent, there's at least another 2 relevant point:
1) the pretty clear bromance of love/hate between Luther and The Lion (much less parent/child that from other Primarchs, O think it's more a blueprint of Jane/Tarzan).
2) Lion is often used as reference in gay subcultures (Gay Lion mean closet gay - which is incredibly appropriate for Dark Angel).
Also, as Dark Angel player, I'm perfectly fine with the Dark Angel being the "in-the-closet" faction and I'm even fine with them being (into an hypothetical future where female space marine are possible) the backward-looking donkey-caves that will continue to exclude women anyway.
But I'm also fine with them being welcoming towards diversity. On the end, everyone in the Chapter is damned anyway whatever they do, so they don't need to rely on real world analogies to motivate anything.
The fact that I collect them doesn't mean I ignore they are, as everyone on the Imperium, total donkey-caves.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I'm gonna have to step in and say no to all the DA are Gay! talk. As a Gay man, it's SUPER cringy and WAY off the topic of should Women be Astartes.
Completely agree with Fezzik on this one (though I suspect I'm on their block list so they won't see it!)
Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly. I'm not saying they can't be 'your dudes'ed. Theyre as much 'your dudes' in principle as any other factions in the game. Theyre easier to 'your dudes' due to the sheer amount of kits and I think it's sold on them stronger since theyre presented as 'everyone's first army' but i think its a feature more of the hobby in general than something specifically and uniquely tied to astartes. We are always encouraged to create our own heroes and villains and back stories , craftworlds, gangs of comoragh etc .
Very brief tangent.
If I want to create an "Elite Tactical Commandos" Astartes army, I can base it around
-firstborn Scout units, who have troops, a dedicated unique transport, 5 different wargear arrangements, a unique named HQ with a model and a fast biker unit
-Primaris Phobos units, which have troops, elites, HQs, and a dedicated dreadnought variant
-Deathwatch, which have the unique Kill Team arrangement as well as a unique troop kit with cool unique weaponry
Every single unit in my army can be completely unique to someone playing the exact same army who wants to go for a 'knightly honorable melee combatants' theme, and I'm almost certainly using a different supplement book for a ton of my rules.
If I want to create an "Elite Tactical Commandos" Tau army, I can
...........
....well, there's a subfaction that uses 'camo fields' but it's not the same one that has 'darkstrider' as a named HQ, who is kind of a commando looking guy. So I can just, build a normal tau army, use Darkstrider as an HQ, and I guess...use more infantry and less suits. I am basically guaranteed to have a similar list and similar playstyle to someone else building a tau army.
Just out of curiosity... what would a female Astartes really look like? I think there'd be some variation in the face to reflect their humble human origins... but really... we take that human and perform all sorts of surgeries, therapies, pump them full of chemicals and enhancements.
The end result, in my mind, would be something very genderless. Even assuming it genderless could be a mistake, as it is barely even human and probably overcame that biological barrier many, many operations before. Gender normally has meaning for procreating, something which Astartes can not do. And why burden them with the organs to have to worry about that when their only mission is to destroy the enemies of mankind? That's space wasted on other things... like extra air reservoirs or places to store blood in the event of excessive leakage.
I'm not saying the female candidate would lose anatomy that marks her has a female human, though there is probably an easily-made argument to assume that any gendered candidate would have such superfluous attachments removed as they have no function. But as her body's anatomy shifts, her body loses fatty tissues and it is all replaced with muscle and mass... really... what do we think she'd look like after 3 feet and 600 pounds of "enhancements".
The goal is the ultimate killing machine, a paragon of humanity's physical capabilities. It should be a simple thing, especially for one as clever as Cawl, to take any candidate and craft the desired outcome: a killing machine that has overcome the "human condition", willing to fight the battles mere mortals could not fight so that we can all go along existing in a setting that is dead set on making them not.
But that argument I guess incorporates a medium between both camps. The boy's only club still gets their massive blocks of barely-human flesh wrapped in layers of ceramite and titanium. The "yay girls" club gets included. And all it takes is a compromise on the end result of an Astartes being not bound by our feeble comprehensions of gender, and that the tool was never designed to consider it. The Astartes has no gender so it shouldn't be burdened by the complications of having one. The next question would be... even if they have their relic anatomy... would they even know what to do with it, or even be motivated to try due to the futility of their inert pieces. I'm sure some would, but I'd think that'd be the exception and not the rule, and probably be design to keep them focused on killing in the name of...
My thoughts, back to your regularly scheduled arguing.
As someone who is still actively looking for Stealth Suit in clear resin for a modelling project, I disagree. If there's one single thing on which GW rarely drop the ball is the variety of option in codexes...
A Tau Elite Tactical Command army would probably be something like:
- As many stealth suit as possible
- Kroot as infiltrator commando behind enemy lines
- some (surveillance) drones
- possibly an aircraft for rapid redeployment or surveillance
- a few skimmer/hoverbike (those are FW models I suppose)?
So it's pretty different from a standard Tau forces with Mecha or infantry.
It will also be extremely unplayable, but that's another can of worms....
If I want to create an "Elite Tactical Commandos" Astartes army, I can base it around
[stuff] .
You know, reading your post the first thought in my head when it came to tau and 'tactical commandos' was easy! stealthsuits and pathfinders and emp fire warriors.
Then I thought about what you said towards the end - there's no real difference between my pathfinders and stealthsuits and someone else's pathfinders and stealthsuits (bar the fact I still have my g1 stealthsuits, not the g2 'krootox stuffed into a suit' guff) and really, while tau are cool, and my first army, they don't have the variety of marines, especially from a lore pov.
I think I see where you and gert are coming from a bit clearer- thanks for a very obvious explanation. I still think the monastic and warrior monk theme is a bit stronger in astartes still than other folks here, but I'll absolutely take on board your point on 'your dudes' now that it's a bit clearer and fold it in to the rest of my views. Thank you.
________
On a different topic, has anyone ever read any of the 'scarecrow' novels by Matthew Reilly? One of his characters is a perfect fit for a female marine, even if she's small at 6 foot 2, shaved head, swears like a trooper and only weighs 200lbs (all muscle) - shed have to get the astartestosterone treatment and marinified. Her call sign is mother, and its not referring to her matronly nature, its short for mother[expletive]. If I get to do anything with female marines ever, its to make a 40k version of her.
Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly. I'm not saying they can't be 'your dudes'ed. Theyre as much 'your dudes' in principle as any other factions in the game. Theyre easier to 'your dudes' due to the sheer amount of kits and I think it's sold on them stronger since theyre presented as 'everyone's first army' but i think its a feature more of the hobby in general than something specifically and uniquely tied to astartes. We are always encouraged to create our own heroes and villains and back stories , craftworlds, gangs of comoragh etc .
It is a feature of the hobby but SM presents the idea much better than any other faction in the game. I asked my friend over our game today what they thought the core design philosophy of SM was excluding the whole buff super-soldier with big gun part, and they didn't actually know what to say. That's the kind of thing I mean when I say SM are the "Your Dudes" faction, nothing but the super-soldier motif ties them together. SoB are defined by their religious zealotry and an unhealthy obsession with fire, T'au are defined by futuristic-looking weapons and battlesuits, Orks are big green brutes that love a good scrap. You can have SoB that prefers lightning attacks, T'au that use loads of tanks, and Orks that are feral but in the end, SoB are still religious zealots, T'au are still futuristic and Orks are green brutes that love a good scrap.
It's not the same for SM.
Spoiler:
Dark Angels have far stronger LGBTQ links than you realise friend. Its actually when you think about it though it does go to a very dark place.
You’ve spotted the obvious one. Lionel Johnson was a poet whose famous poem ‘dark angel’ was about his own homosexuality. Now look a bit deeper.
A lot of the original references are very crass, and quite objectionable humour (and I don’t mean 80’s ‘Police Academy’ dated humour objectionable, I mean objectionable to the point of bigotry). The more recent references are more subtle, and I think, cleverly done.
The DA models are often associated with wearing habits, and associated with the watchers in the dark and have a very strong monastic ‘look’ to them. When we were younger, I doubt I was the only one who heard the rather crass schoolboy humour about Dark Angels all being cross dressers or liking their altar boys a bit too much – and to be fair, I always took this as more of a satire against catholic clergy than anything else. Unfortunately, the dress wearing 'insult humour’ does point towards a rather negative and offensive slur that was, and is often directed against and at the expense of the gay community, though I’ll be hopeful and say id like to think this was unintentional. That said, on the topic of me saying ‘I see a lot of lgbtq references in the Dark Angels’, I think its fair and honest to mention this too, but also to point out I find it dated and objectionable in the extreme.
The other references are thankfully far less malicious, if somewhat edging towards darkness.
The Dark Angels Fortress Monastery. The Rock. Brings to mind obvious comparisons with Alcatraz. There are a lot of dark, sinister imagery and notoriety associated with the Rock, which I think is perfect for capturing the mood of the dark angels. But ‘The Rock’ has a double meaning and refers to something else. I've heard ‘The Rock’ was also the name of a gay bar down the road from GWHQ. Subtle, but again, if you see it, and are aware of it, its undeniably an LGBTQ reference.
Now beyond that, and the conversation takes a dark turn. The Dark Angels refer to themselves as the ‘Unforgiven’. There is a great, almost palpable pall of shame surrounding the chapter, hints of sins committed, irredeemable acts performed and hidden away lest they come to light to others. The Dark Angels really only hang around with and show solidarity with other ‘unforgiven’, and stay apart from wider society. They do everything they can to protect themselves and stop their secret getting out, as they fear it’ll destroy them. As for wider society, the common trope you see is that there is something… off, something fishy about the Dark Angels. Sure, on the surface, they’re legit and seem to be OK, but no one quite trusts them. Everyone thinks there is something suspicious going on, and they’re really wary about them.
What’s truly sad, is if you take what I just wrote and say it to someone in the LGBTQ community, even today in our more enlightened (or at least less unenlightened, at least in places…) times, its still an experience that will resonate with far too many people – too many gay people struggle internally and externally with coming to terms with this, there is so much ‘loaded baggage’ and ‘shame’ associated with this (and it shouldn’t be!) and society still isn’t good enough – nowhere close! Gay people still need to hide who they are from too many people for their own protection. Now imagine you’re gay in the 80s, or 90s, in post industrial Thatcherite England, and maybe you’re out, or maybe in the closet, and hopefully you're safe, but lets face it, you’re in the middle of Thatcher’s Section 28 which did everything it could to devalue, delegitimise and make gay people invisible, and every week you’re probably losing another friend to the AIDS crisis and no one cares, no one even listens and everyone thinks you’re some irredeemable villain – , and you repeat the lines I wrote above to anyone that lived through those days. You’ll reduce grown men to tears. It will resonate that strongly. That’s how hard hitting and powerful this imagery is, at least to me. It’s a statement. It’s a really powerful commentary. It makes me reflect on all of our peers that have suffered through this. This topic is quite important to me. Even writing this and putting my thoughts to paper on this is upsetting me more than a little bit.To me, GW took the ‘experience’ so many people i care about suffered through during that time and now, and gave it a form and cleverly tied it into their game. Its far cleverer and reflective and tragically poignant than ‘viking space marines’ though far darker. Though arguably I think it needs to be dark since the topic is so serious and unsolved.and so much more still needs to be done.
I think it may have started with elements of satirical, crass humour, but I think the writers are aware, and have been very careful and subtle in crafting this since them. And for me, its actually one of the better, and more powerful imageries and commentaries they’ve put into their game
All of this so many levels of "No". I think you've read far to much into this and are taking things way out of context.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Purifying Tempest wrote: Just out of curiosity... what would a female Astartes really look like? I think there'd be some variation in the face to reflect their humble human origins... but really... we take that human and perform all sorts of surgeries, therapies, pump them full of chemicals and enhancements.
Put the female Stormcast heads or the plastic SoB heads on a Primaris.
Purifying Tempest wrote: Just out of curiosity... what would a female Astartes really look like? I think there'd be some variation in the face to reflect their humble human origins... but really... we take that human and perform all sorts of surgeries, therapies, pump them full of chemicals and enhancements.
The end result, in my mind, would be something very genderless. Even assuming it genderless could be a mistake, as it is barely even human and probably overcame that biological barrier many, many operations before. Gender normally has meaning for procreating, something which Astartes can not do. And why burden them with the organs to have to worry about that when their only mission is to destroy the enemies of mankind? That's space wasted on other things... like extra air reservoirs or places to store blood in the event of excessive leakage.
I'm not saying the female candidate would lose anatomy that marks her has a female human, though there is probably an easily-made argument to assume that any gendered candidate would have such superfluous attachments removed as they have no function. But as her body's anatomy shifts, her body loses fatty tissues and it is all replaced with muscle and mass... really... what do we think she'd look like after 3 feet and 600 pounds of "enhancements".
The goal is the ultimate killing machine, a paragon of humanity's physical capabilities. It should be a simple thing, especially for one as clever as Cawl, to take any candidate and craft the desired outcome: a killing machine that has overcome the "human condition", willing to fight the battles mere mortals could not fight so that we can all go along existing in a setting that is dead set on making them not.
But that argument I guess incorporates a medium between both camps. The boy's only club still gets their massive blocks of barely-human flesh wrapped in layers of ceramite and titanium. The "yay girls" club gets included. And all it takes is a compromise on the end result of an Astartes being not bound by our feeble comprehensions of gender, and that the tool was never designed to consider it. The Astartes has no gender so it shouldn't be burdened by the complications of having one. The next question would be... even if they have their relic anatomy... would they even know what to do with it, or even be motivated to try due to the futility of their inert pieces. I'm sure some would, but I'd think that'd be the exception and not the rule, and probably be design to keep them focused on killing in the name of...
My thoughts, back to your regularly scheduled arguing.
As others have said, female head on a marine. That’s what they look like. What’s under the armour is not relevant. It’s not explained for male marines why would FSM be any different. Same with their sex drive and reproductive abilities. Not discussed for male ones why would we need to for female ones?
Dark Angels have far stronger LGBTQ links than you realise friend. Its actually when you think about it though it does go to a very dark place.
You’ve spotted the obvious one. Lionel Johnson was a poet whose famous poem ‘dark angel’ was about his own homosexuality. Now look a bit deeper.
A lot of the original references are very crass, and quite objectionable humour (and I don’t mean 80’s ‘Police Academy’ dated humour objectionable, I mean objectionable to the point of bigotry). The more recent references are more subtle, and I think, cleverly done.
The DA models are often associated with wearing habits, and associated with the watchers in the dark and have a very strong monastic ‘look’ to them. When we were younger, I doubt I was the only one who heard the rather crass schoolboy humour about Dark Angels all being cross dressers or liking their altar boys a bit too much – and to be fair, I always took this as more of a satire against catholic clergy than anything else. Unfortunately, the dress wearing 'insult humour’ does point towards a rather negative and offensive slur that was, and is often directed against and at the expense of the gay community, though I’ll be hopeful and say id like to think this was unintentional. That said, on the topic of me saying ‘I see a lot of lgbtq references in the Dark Angels’, I think its fair and honest to mention this too, but also to point out I find it dated and objectionable in the extreme.
The other references are thankfully far less malicious, if somewhat edging towards darkness.
The Dark Angels Fortress Monastery. The Rock. Brings to mind obvious comparisons with Alcatraz. There are a lot of dark, sinister imagery and notoriety associated with the Rock, which I think is perfect for capturing the mood of the dark angels. But ‘The Rock’ has a double meaning and refers to something else. I've heard ‘The Rock’ was also the name of a gay bar down the road from GWHQ. Subtle, but again, if you see it, and are aware of it, its undeniably an LGBTQ reference.
Now beyond that, and the conversation takes a dark turn. The Dark Angels refer to themselves as the ‘Unforgiven’. There is a great, almost palpable pall of shame surrounding the chapter, hints of sins committed, irredeemable acts performed and hidden away lest they come to light to others. The Dark Angels really only hang around with and show solidarity with other ‘unforgiven’, and stay apart from wider society. They do everything they can to protect themselves and stop their secret getting out, as they fear it’ll destroy them. As for wider society, the common trope you see is that there is something… off, something fishy about the Dark Angels. Sure, on the surface, they’re legit and seem to be OK, but no one quite trusts them. Everyone thinks there is something suspicious going on, and they’re really wary about them.
What’s truly sad, is if you take what I just wrote and say it to someone in the LGBTQ community, even today in our more enlightened (or at least less unenlightened, at least in places…) times, its still an experience that will resonate with far too many people – too many gay people struggle internally and externally with coming to terms with this, there is so much ‘loaded baggage’ and ‘shame’ associated with this (and it shouldn’t be!) and society still isn’t good enough – nowhere close! Gay people still need to hide who they are from too many people for their own protection. Now imagine you’re gay in the 80s, or 90s, in post industrial Thatcherite England, and maybe you’re out, or maybe in the closet, and hopefully you're safe, but lets face it, you’re in the middle of Thatcher’s Section 28 which did everything it could to devalue, delegitimise and make gay people invisible, and every week you’re probably losing another friend to the AIDS crisis and no one cares, no one even listens and everyone thinks you’re some irredeemable villain – , and you repeat the lines I wrote above to anyone that lived through those days. You’ll reduce grown men to tears. It will resonate that strongly. That’s how hard hitting and powerful this imagery is, at least to me. It’s a statement. It’s a really powerful commentary. It makes me reflect on all of our peers that have suffered through this. This topic is quite important to me. Even writing this and putting my thoughts to paper on this is upsetting me more than a little bit.To me, GW took the ‘experience’ so many people i care about suffered through during that time and now, and gave it a form and cleverly tied it into their game. Its far cleverer and reflective and tragically poignant than ‘viking space marines’ though far darker. Though arguably I think it needs to be dark since the topic is so serious and unsolved.and so much more still needs to be done.
I think it may have started with elements of satirical, crass humour, but I think the writers are aware, and have been very careful and subtle in crafting this since them. And for me, its actually one of the better, and more powerful imageries and commentaries they’ve put into their game
All of this so many levels of "No". I think you've read far to much into this and are taking things way out of context.
Definitely no, since the comment on 'original references' makes no sense. DA were (when they were first fleshed out) the Native American themed chapter. No 'Rock,' no 'Catholic clergy' themes, none of that applied.
As others have said, female head on a marine. That’s what they look like. What’s under the armour is not relevant. It’s not explained for male marines why would FSM be any different. Same with their sex drive and reproductive abilities. Not discussed for male ones why would we need to for female ones?
If FSM are indistinguisible from MSM except for the hairstyle whats really the point?
No body is going to notice the change to a couple of heads in future sprues (the recent AM sprue could be described as a perfect example of "window dressing"). It will do very little towards representation.
Look at the excelent Mantic Walking Dead Range to see how different genders, etnicities, ages and body types can be represented in a 28mm miniature. Thats significant... Stating that the individual in a massive armor, beneath the helmet allegedlly was a female teenager before ascending into the status of post sexual transhuman killing machine isnt.
And is not like its actually dificult to use stormcast, sob, or 3rd party female heads of the current marine models... If you really thing that the IOM is gender inclusive and that marines are an empty canvas to fill then you are completelly entitled to present your marines as female or mix ones.
If this debate is just to gain an "official" seal to use against lawless misoginist its sterile.
Potential rapist dont refrain from rapping just because rapping is illegal... They refrain because those laws are effectivelly enforced, because women are empowered and dont toletare any tipe of sexual abuse and because society as a whole dosent toletare such practices. (Some can be said of most crimes).
As others have said, female head on a marine. That’s what they look like. What’s under the armour is not relevant. It’s not explained for male marines why would FSM be any different. Same with their sex drive and reproductive abilities. Not discussed for male ones why would we need to for female ones?
If FSM are indistinguisible from MSM except for the hairstyle whats really the point?
No body is going to notice the change to a couple of heads in future sprues (the recent AM sprue could be described as a perfect example of "window dressing"). It will do very little towards representation.
Look at the excelent Mantic Walking Dead Range to see how different genders, etnicities, ages and body types can be represented in a 28mm miniature. Thats significant... Stating that the individual in a massive armor, beneath the helmet allegedlly was a female teenager before ascending into the status of post sexual transhuman killing machine isnt.
And is not like its actually dificult to use stormcast, sob, or 3rd party female heads of the current marine models... If you really thing that the IOM is gender inclusive and that marines are an empty canvas to fill then you are completelly entitled to present your marines as female or mix ones.
If this debate is just to gain an "official" seal to use against lawless misoginist its sterile.
Potential rapist dont refrain from rapping just because rapping is illegal... They refrain because those laws are effectivelly enforced, because women are empowered and dont toletare any tipe of sexual abuse and because society as a whole dosent toletare such practices. (Some can be said of most crimes).
I’m all in favour of the moves GW are making their heads appear more ethnically diverse and gender diverse. It’s something they are already doing. But I strongly disagree that a few female heads on marines sprue s will make no difference. Just look at this thread. 60+ pages of discussing if females could be marines. People care about this, on both sides. It wouldn’t just be a few heads, it would be pronouns in text and named characters in time.
So the next time someone posts a picture of a marine model with a female head no one will be able to say to them that it’s wrong or lore breaking, because it won’t be. Those complaints will have no basis so will be easily dismissed. Even without further explanation or fan fair it will send a clear message to the community that female space marines are ok and part of the setting.
I think your comparison to rapists is crass and disappointing. The two are not even similar and the is no comparison to draw here, I’d suggest yiu move on form it before you dig yourself a whole you can’t get out of.
Purifying Tempest wrote: Just out of curiosity... what would a female Astartes really look like? I think there'd be some variation in the face to reflect their humble human origins... but really... we take that human and perform all sorts of surgeries, therapies, pump them full of chemicals and enhancements.
The end result, in my mind, would be something very genderless. Even assuming it genderless could be a mistake, as it is barely even human and probably overcame that biological barrier many, many operations before. Gender normally has meaning for procreating, something which Astartes can not do. And why burden them with the organs to have to worry about that when their only mission is to destroy the enemies of mankind? That's space wasted on other things... like extra air reservoirs or places to store blood in the event of excessive leakage.
I'm not saying the female candidate would lose anatomy that marks her has a female human, though there is probably an easily-made argument to assume that any gendered candidate would have such superfluous attachments removed as they have no function. But as her body's anatomy shifts, her body loses fatty tissues and it is all replaced with muscle and mass... really... what do we think she'd look like after 3 feet and 600 pounds of "enhancements".
The goal is the ultimate killing machine, a paragon of humanity's physical capabilities. It should be a simple thing, especially for one as clever as Cawl, to take any candidate and craft the desired outcome: a killing machine that has overcome the "human condition", willing to fight the battles mere mortals could not fight so that we can all go along existing in a setting that is dead set on making them not.
But that argument I guess incorporates a medium between both camps. The boy's only club still gets their massive blocks of barely-human flesh wrapped in layers of ceramite and titanium. The "yay girls" club gets included. And all it takes is a compromise on the end result of an Astartes being not bound by our feeble comprehensions of gender, and that the tool was never designed to consider it. The Astartes has no gender so it shouldn't be burdened by the complications of having one. The next question would be... even if they have their relic anatomy... would they even know what to do with it, or even be motivated to try due to the futility of their inert pieces. I'm sure some would, but I'd think that'd be the exception and not the rule, and probably be design to keep them focused on killing in the name of...
My thoughts, back to your regularly scheduled arguing.
This is probably most likely. When we look at women who have worked hard to build their body to maximum strength potential, we often find that they tend to be perceived as more masculine with the greater musculature and reduced fat. Hormones from implants to increase size, aggression and strength particularly before puberty would likely have a similar masculinizing effect as contemporary transition therapy for girls to transition to men. This would be I think a fair and non lore breaking end state as opposed to having female marines that aren't aggressive 7ft super strong giants. But here's where I expect we run into trouble for female marine advocacy.
I'm assuming female space marine advocates don't consider the look that the women who work hard to achieve strength surpassing most men have as ideal for more women to identify with and regard as representation. I could be wrong. Also, I'm sure realiatism in the esult of transhuman therapy will be waved away since it's fantasy anyway.
But then the question might be, how masculine or feminine is the target look for advocates of female space marines. Are sisters repentia about right (even lacking transhuman phisiology)? Bigger and more muscular that that? Less so? If all but their head is covered in armor, are sister's heads appropriate?
RegularGuy wrote: I don't read general consensus at all, though there is certainly a strong advocacy block in lock step, but many see the change as coming from an external desire to modify the game for sociopolitical reasons with disregard to what exists already, rather than coming from within the game seeking logical improvements that build on the existing story in a way that respects the cultural capital that people have invested themselves in for a long time. Of course, I haven't blocked anyone either.
So, I actually disagree with this; I read general consensus without a perfect lockstep. Whenever the people with bad arguments like Argive or Hecaton show up, yes, there's a fair amount of solidarity that those arguments are bad; but when they shut up for a while you'll note that there's a lot of interesting discussion on the subtle variations or the merits of various forms of implementation - e.g. Some Bloke and Sgt. Smudge's conversations.
I'll also note that if you're still on the 40K background forums on Dakka, you're probably invested in the... 'cultural capital' of 40K in some way shape or form, and there's a lot of people that want to see it improved. It would certainly not be 'disrespected,' not in any way that GW hasn't substantially done already.
If the goal is helping improve accessibility of the hobby to women, it's not clear that models are really the problem, and it sounds like some people have somen really toxic local stores/communities with people who need some work models won't help.
I've said this before in the thread - it's not a magic bullet. It will not solve everything by itself, it will not magically make the hobby space a perfectly 50-50 gender split, change the attitudes of all, and make unicorns real overnight, and I don't think anyone is claiming otherwise. But it would do good. It empowers women gamers, disempowers those bigoted and toxic individuals or communities, pushes them to either change attitudes or go elsewhere, and will make public spaces that bit more welcoming.
Frequently, I've seen advocacy against positive steps just because they don't solve everything, and that will result in nothing getting done.
I'm assuming female space marine advocates don't consider the look that the women who work hard to achieve strength surpassing most men have as ideal for more women to identify with and regard as representation. I could be wrong. Also, I'm sure realiatism in the esult of transhuman therapy will be waved away since it's fantasy anyway.
You assume quite incorrectly! They absolutely may look ridiculously muscled and not at all traditionally 'feminine.' They might just be men in all but a couple of organs, or they may not be - because Space Marines are that sort of customizable blank slate you can figuratively paint that stuff onto, which makes the lack of female representation all that more dissonant.
But then the question might be, how masculine or feminine is the target look for advocates of female space marines. Are sisters repentia about right (even lacking transhuman phisiology)? Bigger and more muscular that that? Less so? If all but their head is covered in armor, are sister's heads appropriate?
'Target look' is the wrong question; it doesn't matter. There is no 'target look.' It's not that there's a specific body type that 'needs' to be introduced, but so that the most otherwise customizable force in the game lets people make decisions about how to represent them. Frankly I consider it unlikely to substantially alter the appearance of the power armor itself in most official models, but that's fine. There's a lot of power in a pronoun.
But then the question might be, how masculine or feminine is the target look for advocates of female space marines. Are sisters repentia about right (even lacking transhuman phisiology)? Bigger and more muscular that that? Less so? If all but their head is covered in armor, are sister's heads appropriate?
'Target look' is the wrong question; it doesn't matter. There is no 'target look.' It's not that there's a specific body type that 'needs' to be introduced, but so that the most otherwise customizable force in the game lets people make decisions about how to represent them. Frankly I consider it unlikely to substantially alter the appearance of the power armor itself in most official models, but that's fine. There's a lot of power in a pronoun.
I think I'm sympathetic to that perspective, and I've been of the opinion that one of the turn offs for a lot of people who object is the presumption that the intent is to make female marines focused on "representation" of early 21st century women at the expense of representing futuristic 7ft tall super violent transhumans. And maybe that's a misconception on the part of a lot of nay sayers. And perhaps their perception that 21st century women would also be turned off by giant hyperagressive transhuman warriors that adequately represent what a space marine is also unfounded. Mind you, as others have pointed out, GW can be kind of soft in representing what monsters male marines are supposed to be in the first place.
Dark Angels have far stronger LGBTQ links than you realise friend. Its actually when you think about it though it does go to a very dark place.
You’ve spotted the obvious one. Lionel Johnson was a poet whose famous poem ‘dark angel’ was about his own homosexuality. Now look a bit deeper.
A lot of the original references are very crass, and quite objectionable humour (and I don’t mean 80’s ‘Police Academy’ dated humour objectionable, I mean objectionable to the point of bigotry). The more recent references are more subtle, and I think, cleverly done.
The DA models are often associated with wearing habits, and associated with the watchers in the dark and have a very strong monastic ‘look’ to them. When we were younger, I doubt I was the only one who heard the rather crass schoolboy humour about Dark Angels all being cross dressers or liking their altar boys a bit too much – and to be fair, I always took this as more of a satire against catholic clergy than anything else. Unfortunately, the dress wearing 'insult humour’ does point towards a rather negative and offensive slur that was, and is often directed against and at the expense of the gay community, though I’ll be hopeful and say id like to think this was unintentional. That said, on the topic of me saying ‘I see a lot of lgbtq references in the Dark Angels’, I think its fair and honest to mention this too, but also to point out I find it dated and objectionable in the extreme.
The other references are thankfully far less malicious, if somewhat edging towards darkness.
The Dark Angels Fortress Monastery. The Rock. Brings to mind obvious comparisons with Alcatraz. There are a lot of dark, sinister imagery and notoriety associated with the Rock, which I think is perfect for capturing the mood of the dark angels. But ‘The Rock’ has a double meaning and refers to something else. I've heard ‘The Rock’ was also the name of a gay bar down the road from GWHQ. Subtle, but again, if you see it, and are aware of it, its undeniably an LGBTQ reference.
Now beyond that, and the conversation takes a dark turn. The Dark Angels refer to themselves as the ‘Unforgiven’. There is a great, almost palpable pall of shame surrounding the chapter, hints of sins committed, irredeemable acts performed and hidden away lest they come to light to others. The Dark Angels really only hang around with and show solidarity with other ‘unforgiven’, and stay apart from wider society. They do everything they can to protect themselves and stop their secret getting out, as they fear it’ll destroy them. As for wider society, the common trope you see is that there is something… off, something fishy about the Dark Angels. Sure, on the surface, they’re legit and seem to be OK, but no one quite trusts them. Everyone thinks there is something suspicious going on, and they’re really wary about them.
What’s truly sad, is if you take what I just wrote and say it to someone in the LGBTQ community, even today in our more enlightened (or at least less unenlightened, at least in places…) times, its still an experience that will resonate with far too many people – too many gay people struggle internally and externally with coming to terms with this, there is so much ‘loaded baggage’ and ‘shame’ associated with this (and it shouldn’t be!) and society still isn’t good enough – nowhere close! Gay people still need to hide who they are from too many people for their own protection. Now imagine you’re gay in the 80s, or 90s, in post industrial Thatcherite England, and maybe you’re out, or maybe in the closet, and hopefully you're safe, but lets face it, you’re in the middle of Thatcher’s Section 28 which did everything it could to devalue, delegitimise and make gay people invisible, and every week you’re probably losing another friend to the AIDS crisis and no one cares, no one even listens and everyone thinks you’re some irredeemable villain – , and you repeat the lines I wrote above to anyone that lived through those days. You’ll reduce grown men to tears. It will resonate that strongly. That’s how hard hitting and powerful this imagery is, at least to me. It’s a statement. It’s a really powerful commentary. It makes me reflect on all of our peers that have suffered through this. This topic is quite important to me. Even writing this and putting my thoughts to paper on this is upsetting me more than a little bit.To me, GW took the ‘experience’ so many people i care about suffered through during that time and now, and gave it a form and cleverly tied it into their game. Its far cleverer and reflective and tragically poignant than ‘viking space marines’ though far darker. Though arguably I think it needs to be dark since the topic is so serious and unsolved.and so much more still needs to be done.
I think it may have started with elements of satirical, crass humour, but I think the writers are aware, and have been very careful and subtle in crafting this since them. And for me, its actually one of the better, and more powerful imageries and commentaries they’ve put into their game
All of this so many levels of "No". I think you've read far to much into this and are taking things way out of context.
Definitely no, since the comment on 'original references' makes no sense. DA were (when they were first fleshed out) the Native American themed chapter. No 'Rock,' no 'Catholic clergy' themes, none of that applied.
The bits about Lionel Johnson, the dark angel and the Rock bar are not untrue. And it's kind of a thing that used to be low-key cool but *wince* every time people use the Dark Angels secret as "is actual chaos" gag. Because, yeah, by this stage art is mirroring life's prejudices.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gogsnik wrote: Since there hasn't been too much of it, here's some women hobbyists talking about female space marines.
N.B. Link is two years old, from a(n internet-)famous reactionary. She also claims the women in power armour as an artefact of the '90s rather than the '80s, claims Terminator armour as not-really power armour that doesn't require the black carapace based on a reference to an unavailable source that I would be fascinated to find.
Bonus no-points for linking to the stance that femme marines only became a thing "ever since a fat nerd was lonely" though.
Dark Angels have far stronger LGBTQ links than you realise friend. Its actually when you think about it though it does go to a very dark place.
You’ve spotted the obvious one. Lionel Johnson was a poet whose famous poem ‘dark angel’ was about his own homosexuality. Now look a bit deeper.
A lot of the original references are very crass, and quite objectionable humour (and I don’t mean 80’s ‘Police Academy’ dated humour objectionable, I mean objectionable to the point of bigotry). The more recent references are more subtle, and I think, cleverly done.
The DA models are often associated with wearing habits, and associated with the watchers in the dark and have a very strong monastic ‘look’ to them. When we were younger, I doubt I was the only one who heard the rather crass schoolboy humour about Dark Angels all being cross dressers or liking their altar boys a bit too much – and to be fair, I always took this as more of a satire against catholic clergy than anything else. Unfortunately, the dress wearing 'insult humour’ does point towards a rather negative and offensive slur that was, and is often directed against and at the expense of the gay community, though I’ll be hopeful and say id like to think this was unintentional. That said, on the topic of me saying ‘I see a lot of lgbtq references in the Dark Angels’, I think its fair and honest to mention this too, but also to point out I find it dated and objectionable in the extreme.
The other references are thankfully far less malicious, if somewhat edging towards darkness.
The Dark Angels Fortress Monastery. The Rock. Brings to mind obvious comparisons with Alcatraz. There are a lot of dark, sinister imagery and notoriety associated with the Rock, which I think is perfect for capturing the mood of the dark angels. But ‘The Rock’ has a double meaning and refers to something else. I've heard ‘The Rock’ was also the name of a gay bar down the road from GWHQ. Subtle, but again, if you see it, and are aware of it, its undeniably an LGBTQ reference.
Now beyond that, and the conversation takes a dark turn. The Dark Angels refer to themselves as the ‘Unforgiven’. There is a great, almost palpable pall of shame surrounding the chapter, hints of sins committed, irredeemable acts performed and hidden away lest they come to light to others. The Dark Angels really only hang around with and show solidarity with other ‘unforgiven’, and stay apart from wider society. They do everything they can to protect themselves and stop their secret getting out, as they fear it’ll destroy them. As for wider society, the common trope you see is that there is something… off, something fishy about the Dark Angels. Sure, on the surface, they’re legit and seem to be OK, but no one quite trusts them. Everyone thinks there is something suspicious going on, and they’re really wary about them.
What’s truly sad, is if you take what I just wrote and say it to someone in the LGBTQ community, even today in our more enlightened (or at least less unenlightened, at least in places…) times, its still an experience that will resonate with far too many people – too many gay people struggle internally and externally with coming to terms with this, there is so much ‘loaded baggage’ and ‘shame’ associated with this (and it shouldn’t be!) and society still isn’t good enough – nowhere close! Gay people still need to hide who they are from too many people for their own protection. Now imagine you’re gay in the 80s, or 90s, in post industrial Thatcherite England, and maybe you’re out, or maybe in the closet, and hopefully you're safe, but lets face it, you’re in the middle of Thatcher’s Section 28 which did everything it could to devalue, delegitimise and make gay people invisible, and every week you’re probably losing another friend to the AIDS crisis and no one cares, no one even listens and everyone thinks you’re some irredeemable villain – , and you repeat the lines I wrote above to anyone that lived through those days. You’ll reduce grown men to tears. It will resonate that strongly. That’s how hard hitting and powerful this imagery is, at least to me. It’s a statement. It’s a really powerful commentary. It makes me reflect on all of our peers that have suffered through this. This topic is quite important to me. Even writing this and putting my thoughts to paper on this is upsetting me more than a little bit.To me, GW took the ‘experience’ so many people i care about suffered through during that time and now, and gave it a form and cleverly tied it into their game. Its far cleverer and reflective and tragically poignant than ‘viking space marines’ though far darker. Though arguably I think it needs to be dark since the topic is so serious and unsolved.and so much more still needs to be done.
I think it may have started with elements of satirical, crass humour, but I think the writers are aware, and have been very careful and subtle in crafting this since them. And for me, its actually one of the better, and more powerful imageries and commentaries they’ve put into their game
All of this so many levels of "No". I think you've read far to much into this and are taking things way out of context.
Definitely no, since the comment on 'original references' makes no sense. DA were (when they were first fleshed out) the Native American themed chapter. No 'Rock,' no 'Catholic clergy' themes, none of that applied.
The bits about Lionel Johnson, the dark angel and the Rock bar are not untrue.
They are, because they aren't part of the original background for the Chapter. Primarchs took several years to surface and even longer for them all to be named. The Rock wasn't a thing. The whole Deathwing short story and origin had the 'Native American'-themed terminators coming back to their homeworld to free it from genestealers and then re-establish their 'traditional ways' after the stealers forced them to industrialize.
Johnson is obviously a reference to the poem, but that was attached later on.
And? The female space marine discussion never progresses, it's the same talking points ad nauseum. It's also a topic that is only brought up by a small number of people, so it might come as a shock that for most hobbyists it's a non issue.
from a(n internet-)famous reactionary.
Ah, so women's voices only count if they're the right kind of voices, okay. And the other two women?
Terminator armour as not-really power armour that doesn't require the black carapace
Terminator armour is a militarised version of exo-armour mostly used in bulk chemical haulers and other highly dangerous environments. A wearer (including space marines) need additional surgery to be able to connect to the armour properly hence why Inquisitors can use it even though they aren't space marines.
In any case what exactly is the purpose of your nitpicking?
Is that a stance you're standing standing by?
It's the opinion of those women, I only provided the source so people can listen to women talking about female space marines; whether you agree with those women or have any interest in what they have to say is up to you.
In a discussion about how women feel about something, we need to consider any that may choose to make their voices heard. Anyone involved in the stem fields will tell you that all data must be considered, even bad data. Establishing what constitutes bad data happens after trends have been established. I say this as someone that does not agree with what those particular women in that video said, but it must be considered. Otherwise you commit the cardinal sin of sampling bias.
That being said, we've only examined the trends of those who have made their voices heard in this thread, and that is an atrociously tiny sample size. What we have is a well developed hypothesis based on a fundamental understanding of basic sociology and psychology, and how it most probably applies to wargaming and 40k. This should be remembered that there is a possibility that anyone in this discussion is at least partially wrong when describing the issue we defined, and when we try to define the trends in how women feel about this subject, which at the end of the day are the opinions that should matter most. We also have different wargaming groups to study and compare trends in; 40k, AoS, and other wargaming tabletop gaming systems. These trends are the most clear and definitive contribution to understanding these issues. What would contribute even better is a poll directed at the entire community to better understand what the actual trends from female wargamers (and honestly others as well; it would be interesting to see the trends of males, and the rest of the gender spectrum), but also that we have had some on this very thread also make their voices heard.
I think your comparison to rapists is crass and disappointing. The two are not even similar and the is no comparison to draw here, I’d suggest yiu move on form it before you dig yourself a whole you can’t get out of.
Well perhaps there is a misunderstanding. But I was referring to the death threads and harrasment (that people insist are important for this isdue) ... A tipe of misoginist attitude thats in the same line and culture than rapping. If you find
In the real world misoginist do all sort of illegal stuff because they fill culturally endorse. A simple head sprue aint going to stop any of those misoginist to follow on their bad criminal behaviour.
Lets take primaris... There was a huge amount of backclash against then, eventually they have been accepted but only because GW made a real effort on the primaris model line and lore.
A simple head sprue and some pronouns here and there wont do much... Well SM will tecnically be gender inclusive as TAU which is really not very meaningfull... My point if FSM are this great step towards representation, why do the minimum possible effort (basically making GW make official what gamers can already do inside the "your dudes" paradigm).
I don’t think any of us have said all women in the hobby would support this. That would be crazy. Even a poll of dakka members is not very representative, would be lovely to hear from more women on the issue, for either side. Not had chance to listen to the whole post yet but will.
In regards to the two years old aspect of it, it is significant because the debate has moved on, sisters of battle are out and the stormcast and guard range are more representative. Two years ago this thread would have closed ages ago because of abuse. I wonder if these gamers would still feel the same or maybe more strongly about it now? The clip being 2 years old doesn’t make it irrelevant at all but it’s worth discussing. Like I say, the three women featured might think it’s even less needed now.
It’s a shame their aren’t more female voices in the thread, but then again there could be a reason for that? Maybe there aren’t enough women around? I wonder if we could make some changes to redress that.? …..
I think your comparison to rapists is crass and disappointing. The two are not even similar and the is no comparison to draw here, I’d suggest yiu move on form it before you dig yourself a whole you can’t get out of.
Well perhaps there is a misunderstanding. But I was referring to the death threads and harrasment (that people insist are important for this isdue) ... A tipe of misoginist attitude thats in the same line and culture than rapping. If you find
In the real world misoginist do all sort of illegal stuff because they fill culturally endorse. A simple head sprue aint going to stop any of those misoginist to follow on their bad criminal behaviour.
Lets take primaris... There was a huge amount of backclash against then, eventually they have been accepted but only because GW made a real effort on the primaris model line and lore.
A simple head sprue and some pronouns here and there wont do much... Well SM will tecnically be gender inclusive as TAU which is really not very meaningfull... My point if FSM are this great step towards representation, why do the minimum possible effort (basically making GW make official what gamers can already do inside the "your dudes" paradigm).
In what way could people getting death threats and abuse not be important? (Answer that and I’ll come back to the rest)
Automatically Appended Next Post: Saying a head sprue and some pronouns won’t do much, they are scary enough to the haters that they will make death threats and rant for hours to try and stop it. I think it would be more powerful than you think. That’s why there’s 63 pages of talk about it. If it won’t make any difference then why not allow it, why are yiu arguing against it?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also you say it’s the minimum effort, I’m saying it’s all that’s needed. Sexualised female marines with boobplate armour and sexy poses would be a step backwards. Some pronouns and a head sprue and eventually a named character or two would be the MOST effective way to deliver this change. It’s not a cop out, it’s exactly what’s needed.
One thing which has come up repeatedly in this thread is the debate over whether women want female marines for representation (big shock - some do, some don't, it's almost like people have their own views which aren't influenced by their gender!), whether just adding female pronouns and heads would be good representation, and all those sorts of things.
The one thing these arguments have in common is how one person says "I don't think there is a political reason to do this" and the reply is "there is no reason for the lore not to change". Alternatively, someone says "these are the political reasons why we should do this" and the reply is "These are the lore reasons why we shouldn't".
There are two entirely separate debates going on on whether or not it should happen (plus mine & Smudge's (plus other, welcome replies) about how it should happen) and they seem to be crossing over, which makes the arguments largely irrelevant to one another!
On the one hand, you have the political argument. Those for the change are saying (and please correct me or add to this if I've gotten anything wrong!):
• Adding female marines will improve representation and make women seem less like outsiders to those who play the game, meaning they will not respond like they're seeing a unicorn when they see a woman in a GW store. This will make women feel more welcome, and make the stores feel friendlier towards them.
• Adding female marines will stop buttnuggets from acting hostile (I still find this flabbergasting that this actually happens) and making death threats to people who make female marine models. No need to elaborate on the benefits here.
• The flagship faction should be representative of everyone so that everyone feels like they are welcome and nobody feels like they are excluded, which will bring more people into the hobby, which is good.
And those against the change (Politically) are saying:
• Politics has no business in 40k, it's fictional and doesn't need to represent 21st century humans because that's not what the models need to represent.
• Changing space marines will not have any effect as it would merely be a headswap and pronoun additions, which will barely be visible
• The game has been this way for years and shouldn't be changed for outside reasons
Then we have the lore arguments:
For the change (Lore)
• The old lore is so antiquated that there is nothing left of it except the legacy that marines are male - nothing explicitly says they are any more, except the lack of female marines.
• The decision was Arbitrary in the first place.
• It is easy to either retcon the lore to have female marines from the start, or to add to the lore to have female marines since primaris, and have the universe still make perfect sense and continuity (or as close as GW ever gets).
Against the change (Lore)
• The old lore is still valid as it has never been overwritten, and marines are clearly still all male.
• An arbitrary decision is still a decision, and it would have been arbitrary to have included women, so either decision is just as arbitrary as the other.
• Space marines are based on warrior monks and monks were all male so they should be too.
And then we have the arguments which generally provoke bigger responses, which are the result of these two incompatible arguments clashing:
• Real people are more important than the lore, so not changing the lore implies that the lore is more important than people getting death threats
• 13 words written 20 years ago shouldn't be maintained if they exclude people for political reasons.
• The change should be made without worrying about the lore, because the lore shouldn't have to change to make the game representative.
This last group of arguments (and there are certainly more of them in this thread) are basically unarguable - because one side is arguing about a fictional story and the other side is arguing about real world representation and bullying.
As such, it may be prevalent for people in this thread to try and separate their arguments into the politics and the lore, without letting the two get muddled!
The political argument is on whether or not the change would improve anything and whether it should be a driving force behind the change
The lore argument is whether or not Space Marines are compatible with female models, as the models have to represent the faction, which is in the lore, and the faction will need to represent the people, therefore the lore needs to represent the people first, and then the models need to represent it. (though it would all be done at once, most likely...).
Gert wrote:It is a feature of the hobby but SM presents the idea much better than any other faction in the game. I asked my friend over our game today what they thought the core design philosophy of SM was excluding the whole buff super-soldier with big gun part, and they didn't actually know what to say. That's the kind of thing I mean when I say SM are the "Your Dudes" faction, nothing but the super-soldier motif ties them together. SoB are defined by their religious zealotry and an unhealthy obsession with fire, T'au are defined by futuristic-looking weapons and battlesuits, Orks are big green brutes that love a good scrap. You can have SoB that prefers lightning attacks, T'au that use loads of tanks, and Orks that are feral but in the end, SoB are still religious zealots, T'au are still futuristic and Orks are green brutes that love a good scrap.
It's not the same for SM.
I have to say, saying "if you take the defining feature of >faction< out, they have no defining feature, therefore they are customizable!" is a bit of a strange argument.
If you take "Religeous Zealots" from SoB, "Futuristic looking" from T'au and "Green and love a scrap" from Orks, they are just as undefined as Space Marines are without "Buff Super-Soldiers with big guns".
As a challenge on this viewpoint - please can you try to offer me a space marine army type which, visually and lore-wise, isn't "Buff Super-Soldiers with Big Guns"? White scars are buff super soldiers with big guns on bikes, dark angels are buff super soldiers with big guns in robes, iron hands are buff super soldiers with big guns with robot bits, and so on. Just like feral orks are feral green brutes that love a scrap, speed freeks are green brutes that love a scrap and going fast, bad moons are green brutes who love a good scrap and shiny guns, and so on.
Space marines will always be defined as "Buff super-soldiers with big guns", and I have to be honest, GW's comments about it being customisable:
space marine codex wrote:"For any hobbyist, this is an incredible opportunity to make their army their own, experimenting with their favourite colours or delving into their imagination to invent epic origin stories and tales of victories for their own warriors."
Is saying "paint them different colours and make up their backstory!". Space marines will never appeal to you if you don't like buff super-soldiers with big guns, so we cannot discount it as a valid part of what space marines are!
I know I'm drifting a little, but I do feel that the "Space marines exist to be customised" argument is more about GW's marketing team strategy and not about what space marines actually are. There are many other armies which are far, far more suited to being customised. If anything, the fact that the marketing team is putting effort into telling people they can customise space marines is evidence that they do not lend themselves readily to it. No-one needs to tell you that Orks can be converted, because it is visually an obvious part of the hobby. A custom chapter, visually, is "space marines in >colour<" until the owner tells you all the cool backstory about them!
Vehicles aside, every marine unit is "Buff super soldiers with a different piece of equipment". super soldiers with sniper rifles and camo cloaks, super soldiers with jet packs and swords, super soldiers with long range melta guns. It boils down to the fact that, space wolves aside, every marine looks more or less the same. So all that you can do to make them "Your Dudes" is paint them different colours and then make up their origin story. That tells me that people felt that space marines weren't their dudes, and GW's response was (rightly) not to reduce the strictness of space marine attire and equipment, as this is part of their aesthetic, but to plug how much fun you can have trying to paint them yellow, and then make a background about how they come from a planet wracked with acid storms and that's why the yellow is all patchy and horrible looking.
master oogway wrote:no matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Vatsetis wrote:If FSM are indistinguisible from MSM except for the hairstyle whats really the point?
No body is going to notice the change to a couple of heads in future sprues (the recent AM sprue could be described as a perfect example of "window dressing". It will do very little towards representation.
Because it doesn't have to be a big change to be a change.
The main people who have been problematic in the stories we've heard have done so because of the lore, not because of the models. Space marine models don't have to be obviously mixed gender, because space marines are all about power armour and kickass guns that blow stuff up. With a helmet on, they shouldn't be identifiable as any more than "human".
The lore needs to change to disarm the people saying "female marines can't happen and you are a terrible person for making female marines". They wouldn't have made that argument if someone made an IG army with women in it before the models were available, because the lore didn't say no female guard.
Then, the models need to represent the lore. They don't need a flashing sign saying "behold, female marines!". They just need female heads. Because female marines shouldn't exist to be obviously female, they should exist to be obviously marines.
As for your last bit, I'm not even going there, and neither should you have.
Gert wrote:Not sure why people are focussing on muscles considering SM models don't have any. Has 0 bearing on what a face looks like.
Excepting those women who do it purely through hard work, most female body builders have characteristically masculine jaw lines. A thick muscular neck is also seen as more masculine than feminine. Assuming the sort of side effects for muscle-growth hormones remains fairly similar in 40k times (and they'd have no reason to avoid them, as marines aren't there to be looked at, they're there to be fled from) Then it's a fair assumption that marine-ing would have some effect on the facial appearance of the marines.
RegularGuy wrote:I think I'm sympathetic to that perspective, and I've been of the opinion that one of the turn offs for a lot of people who object is the presumption that the intent is to make female marines focused on "representation" of early 21st century women at the expense of representing futuristic 7ft tall super violent transhumans. And maybe that's a misconception on the part of a lot of nay sayers. And perhaps their perception that 21st century women would also be turned off by giant hyperagressive transhuman warriors that adequately represent what a space marine is also unfounded. Mind you, as others have pointed out, GW can be kind of soft in representing what monsters male marines are supposed to be in the first place.
I think that this is certainly a good point regarding the aesthetic of space marines. It would seem somewhat odd to see "normal" female heads on space marines, seeing as their male heads are clearly build like a breezeblock had a child with a potato. I would much rather have them subtly feminine but obviously still space marines, IE not really human any more.
As for the continuing discussion on whether it should happen or not:
That video has the viewpoint of some people on the subject, and that shouldn't be discounted at all. People actively saying "I don't think we need it" are just as valid as people saying "I think we need it". Silencing naysayers isn't democracy, after all!
What it boils down to, on thje argument that a headswap won't help, is that we don't actually know how much it would help, because it hasn't happened. But what we know won't help is not doing anything. That has happened, and here we are, with environments which women feel like they cannot enter because it's an all-boys club. The death threats are a matter for local law enforcement / vigilante justice, not for the game to worry about. That's a problem with the people, not the game.
So, disregarding what you think it wouldn't do, what would it do that you object to? Female heads and lore, what will it do that you don't like?
In what way could people getting death threats and abuse not be important? (Answer that and I’ll come back to the rest)
Automatically Appended Next Post: Saying a head sprue and some pronouns won’t do much, they are scary enough to the haters that they will make death threats and rant for hours to try and stop it. I think it would be more powerful than you think. That’s why there’s 63 pages of talk about it. If it won’t make any difference then why not allow it, why are yiu arguing against it?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also you say it’s the minimum effort, I’m saying it’s all that’s needed. Sexualised female marines with boobplate armour and sexy poses would be a step backwards. Some pronouns and a head sprue and eventually a named character or two would be the MOST effective way to deliver this change. It’s not a cop out, it’s exactly what’s needed.
Well for some strange reason you are interpreting my words completelly wrong.
Stopping deaths threads and harrasment IS IMPORTANT, I ve said so in all my posts.
I simply dont think a head sprue and an official recognition by GW that FSM are canon will be enough.
For instance, the recent AM sprue seem basically as window dressing effort for me.
This is just a personal opinion. Obviously Im not against this sort of changes... I wish they would reduce harrasment and attract a more diverse fan base, but I really doubt they would.
So, disregarding what you think it wouldn't do, what would it do that you object to? Female heads and lore, what will it do that you don't like?
First of all that's an excellent post.
Now I would phrase the last question to be less personal by removing the "you don't like", and orient it toward a question of what any negative impacts might be.
Answering it in the "you" context, I can say it wouldn't affect me personally.
I think if female marines were implemented with due regard to the most plausible outcome of transhuman modification in terms of subdued feminine features and amplified masculine features likely to result from the modifications required for a Space Marine, and it didn’t manifest in the lore of an “anything you can do I can do better” or “we are space women hear us roar” conflict, I think almost no one would really object except people who are habituated to objecting.
In general I think at most, if female marines were implemented as something not really representative of what a space marine is there are people who would consider it a form of pandering and patronizing. In effect, it would be considered GW being lazy and throwing out something that checks the box “female” to appease a vocal and pressuring segment of the population without really weaving it into the lore and game in a way that the majority of the fan base would find well done and faithful to the game. If I have a personal reaction, it might be along there to a varying degree.
As to the women who were in the video either, It would be interesting to see what their opinions would be on the above two points.
How many people would pack up their models and go home? I can’t think that many would do so over that, but a larger poll would be interesting. Honestly I think the larger concern is just the general animus that arises around the issue particularly in the politics dimension. There are people I’ve read who would pose their concern thus: “We’ve been happy to invite everyone to the table to enjoy the game, then those people demand the game be changed and say the game is horrible without the change, then the changes are made and we are bullied for not liking the change and liking what we enjoyed before, then we are not welcome any more”. I realize there are those who would be dismissive and mocking about that concern I think I can see where their sensitivity arises from. As a kid who was bullied and enjoyed games like D&D and warhammer to escape from the people calling you names for being different, I do see where that feeling and dread may have a deep seated origin. I don’t think such concerns should automatically be conflated with people being exclusionary or toxic, because I’ll wager if you went and surveyed those folks, you’ll probably find many of them actually welcoming and accommodating if they’re not being name called or told them they are wrong for enjoying the hobby as the received it.
I don’t really see though that this would be an actual pervasive problem except within a small selection of game stores or local populations, and I’m going to guess there would be a large enough population of people who were not likely to be toxic about it so that being “excluded” in this way is unlikely. I suppose it depends on whether or not a culture of exclusion of “anyone who ever voiced anything skeptical toward GW adoption of female space marines” actually developed. Perhaps the fear is heightened for people in the general cancel culture of the day, where drastic personal impacts can be realized for the slightest perceptions of offence.
I don’t think it would hurt GW sales, though there may be complaint of the cost of models rising to take advantage of the addition of new sprues, but is GW going to GW.
I’d be interested in any other potential impacts folks could foresee.
So, disregarding what you think it wouldn't do, what would it do that you object to? Female heads and lore, what will it do that you don't like?
First of all that's an excellent post.
Now I would phrase the last question to be less personal by removing the "you don't like", and orient it toward a question of what any negative impacts might be.
Answering it in the "you" context, I can say it wouldn't affect me personally.
I think if female marines were implemented with due regard to the most plausible outcome of transhuman modification in terms of subdued feminine features and amplified masculine features likely to result from the modifications required for a Space Marine, and it didn’t manifest in the lore of an “anything you can do I can do better” or “we are space women hear us roar” conflict, I think almost no one would really object except people who are habituated to objecting.
In general I think at most, if female marines were implemented as something not really representative of what a space marine is there are people who would consider it a form of pandering and patronizing. In effect, it would be considered GW being lazy and throwing out something that checks the box “female” to appease a vocal and pressuring segment of the population without really weaving it into the lore and game in a way that the majority of the fan base would find well done and faithful to the game. If I have a personal reaction, it might be along there to a varying degree.
As to the women who were in the video either, It would be interesting to see what their opinions would be on the above two points.
How many people would pack up their models and go home? I can’t think that many would do so over that, but a larger poll would be interesting. Honestly I think the larger concern is just the general animus that arises around the issue particularly in the politics dimension. There are people I’ve read who would pose their concern thus: “We’ve been happy to invite everyone to the table to enjoy the game, then those people demand the game be changed and say the game is horrible without the change, then the changes are made and we are bullied for not liking the change and liking what we enjoyed before, then we are not welcome any more”. I realize there are those who would be dismissive and mocking about that concern I think I can see where their sensitivity arises from. As a kid who was bullied and enjoyed games like D&D and warhammer to escape from the people calling you names for being different, I do see where that feeling and dread may have a deep seated origin. I don’t think such concerns should automatically be conflated with people being exclusionary or toxic, because I’ll wager if you went and surveyed those folks, you’ll probably find many of them actually welcoming and accommodating if they’re not being name called or told them they are wrong for enjoying the hobby as the received it.
I don’t really see though that this would be an actual pervasive problem except within a small selection of game stores or local populations, and I’m going to guess there would be a large enough population of people who were not likely to be toxic about it so that being “excluded” in this way is unlikely. I suppose it depends on whether or not a culture of exclusion of “anyone who ever voiced anything skeptical toward GW adoption of female space marines” actually developed. Perhaps the fear is heightened for people in the general cancel culture of the day, where drastic personal impacts can be realized for the slightest perceptions of offence.
I don’t think it would hurt GW sales, though there may be complaint of the cost of models rising to take advantage of the addition of new sprues, but is GW going to GW.
I’d be interested in any other potential impacts folks could foresee.
So I get from your post that the only negative impacts would be if it was badly implemented. That is surely true of any change but hopefully wouldn’t be the case now and there is a window of opportunity to make these changes at a time when it wouldn’t be too jarring, lots of changes going on already.
If issue with people not liking the changes that we suggest is that they cannot say how they would be bad for them or the game. It is always “the lore” or politics, neither of which stand up to any scrutiny and have been done to death here. If it’s just that they want their marines to be all male then adding female OPTIONS doesn’t stop them doing an all male chapter or army. I am ok with that and wouldn’t send any death threats about it.
Will it help the hobby generally, it might. Will it harm the hobby? No not at all.
The whole things reminds me of (I think) an insurance advert they retired a little while back-
“You’ve got nothing to lose, and perhaps a lot to gain.”
I think your comparison to rapists is crass and disappointing. The two are not even similar and the is no comparison to draw here, I’d suggest yiu move on form it before you dig yourself a whole you can’t get out of.
Well perhaps there is a misunderstanding. But I was referring to the death threads and harrasment (that people insist are important for this isdue) ... A tipe of misoginist attitude thats in the same line and culture than rapping. If you find
In the real world misoginist do all sort of illegal stuff because they fill culturally endorse. A simple head sprue aint going to stop any of those misoginist to follow on their bad criminal behaviour.
Lets take primaris... There was a huge amount of backclash against then, eventually they have been accepted but only because GW made a real effort on the primaris model line and lore.
A simple head sprue and some pronouns here and there wont do much... Well SM will tecnically be gender inclusive as TAU which is really not very meaningfull... My point if FSM are this great step towards representation, why do the minimum possible effort (basically making GW make official what gamers can already do inside the "your dudes" paradigm).
I would say you’ve demonstrated a remarkable misunderstanding of the spectrum of psychology involved in rape; I recommend you consult some sort of criminal psychology reference. The phrase no means no evolved as a response to the fact that a lot of rapists have nonconsensual sex because they feel entitled to it; this is also why rape trends with the wealthy and famous. Logically speaking, someone like Kobe Bryant looks at a women declining his sexual advances like “she doesn’t mean that. I’m rich and famous, I’m the best she can hope for.” Or entitlement from other rape culture like “she was asking for it, look at what she was wearing.” These people were logically incapable of understanding what they were doing was wrong because they believed themselves superior, or that the other person could not possibly want to turn them down.No means no was a phrase designed to neuter that justification and delegitimize rape culture. There are other reasons rape may happen but it does all go back to control and projection of power.
I would argue that female space marines would be our no means no for people that use the lore to legitimize their harassment and abuse.
Potential rapist dont refrain from rapping just because rapping is illegal... They refrain because those laws are effectivelly enforced, because women are empowered and dont toletare any tipe of sexual abuse and because society as a whole dosent toletare such practices. (Some can be said of most crimes).
I believe you appear to have just described how....any law works, my friend. Literally all laws. But let me ask this.
If an activity, whether legal or illegal, is not present within the culture of a society, will you see it exist? Let's take the example of rap music.
Let us say that rap is not known in North Korea. There is no law that specifically forbids rapping, but potential rap artists (or 'rappists') would never know about rap, because no rap music is played and no rap videos are shown on state-controlled television.
And now let's take the united states, generally considered the cultural center of rap, and consider a scenario where a new government makes rapping illegal and punishable by a fine.
Undoubtedly, there would still be far more rappists in the USA than there would be in North Korea regardless of its legality or illegality.
Now let's talk about Games Workshop. How many Sisters of Battle players are there now, as opposed to five years ago? Looking at tournament numbers from early in 8th edition versus now, it seems the number of sisters of battle players have increased massively. But why is this? Games Workshop sold sisters of battle miniatures and produced rules for them prior to their recent releases, and surely a potential SoB player would play SoB regardless of how easy or difficult the company producing the game made it for them. And if the lack of plastic was an issue, wouldn't that potential SoBist simply take female stormcast models and kitbash their arms with space marine arms holding boltguns to create them?
I think Scotsman is generally one of the most intelligence persons on this forum, but I totally got lost in that analogy. If making female SM is illegal, there would be more in the US? There are currently zero female SMs in the meta, despite their "illegality". Please accept my apology if my ignorance is getting in the way.
RegularGuy wrote: As a kid who was bullied and enjoyed games like D&D and warhammer to escape from the people calling you names for being different, I do see where that feeling and dread may have a deep seated origin.
I completely understand and relate. What I don't get is how there could be an origin like that which doesn't lead you to want to seek out and band together with basically anybody with a similar experience for any reason at all. It's absolutely wild to me any time I encounter a nerdy person or space that's gakky about women, or black people or trans people or whatever - like, how TF do you jive getting treated badly for being different and then want to turn around and do it to someone else instead of going 'feth yea come on down, make your girl space marines, make your trans tyranids, make your anime tau, let's party feth the people who hate on people for doing what they like.'
It's bonkers, I can't comprehend it. Especially over something like this. What does "there are no female space marines" ADD to the richness of 40k? When Age of Sigmar comes out with the two new characters and one is a dude with a beard helmet and one is a lady with angel wings, do you actually look at those and go 'blech, I sure am glad space marine characters don't look so varied and distinct.'
Automatically Appended Next Post:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I think Scotsman is generally one of the most intelligence persons on this forum, but I totally got lost in that analogy. If making female SM is illegal, there would be more in the US? There are currently zero female SMs in the meta, despite their "illegality". Please accept my apology if my ignorance is getting in the way.
Legality and illegality of an activity have little effect on its popularity within a given culture, particularly when it comes to harmless activities people use for leisure. What matters is how much people are actually exposed to the idea of doing a thing.
Sisters of Battle existed prior to 8th ed's end with basically zero exposure and model support.
Add exposure and model support, and suddenly there are 10x as many Sisters players.
The main purpose of GW making female marines canonical would be to portray marines as a gender-integrated force, with gender-integrated models, and to introduce the fact that women exist to the largest, most highly supported miniature range in the game.
Is there any citable evidence of an increase in sisters play outside of tournaments (They were/are still a top competing faction, so that alone could be a factor) but it would be great if we cited that, simply because it would strengthen the argument that Inclusivity leads to a uptick in membership in this hobby.
Full disclosure: I think you are likely right, but I checked google for "Battle sisters lead to increase of players on 40k" or similar searches and couldn't find anything.
RegularGuy wrote: As a kid who was bullied and enjoyed games like D&D and warhammer to escape from the people calling you names for being different, I do see where that feeling and dread may have a deep seated origin.
I completely understand and relate. What I don't get is how there could be an origin like that which doesn't lead you to want to seek out and band together with basically anybody with a similar experience for any reason at all. It's absolutely wild to me any time I encounter a nerdy person or space that's gakky about women, or black people or trans people or whatever - like, how TF do you jive getting treated badly for being different and then want to turn around and do it to someone else instead of going 'feth yea come on down, make your girl space marines, make your trans tyranids, make your anime tau, let's party feth the people who hate on people for doing what they like.'
Well lets look at that at a couple of slices. Firstly, let's remember that some people who are bullied particularly in older times might have been more diverse on the neuronormative scale, and with that may come some differences in social processing. So it might not be uncommon to find some portion of the population that feels much greater stress at thoughts and circumstances of significant change. This is probably only a small number of people, but let's consider them. We value them I hope, and we should recognize and accommodate the challenge. If change is necessary, we would be alienating them and practically bully them if we call them names, deride them, or dismiss them for voicing discomfort or objection to change. In my opinion there's a few voices here that fall in that category and that's the sort of thing I'm really returning to this thread to point out. We do not do well if we act like the monsters we want to see less of. What to do then? Well, as others in this thread do, work with them to listen and understand their feelings. Help to provide friendly feedback helping them understand that change can be ok or even good. To the extent that some posters refrain from the former and work toward the latter is a credit to dakka.
One doesn't have to be on the spectrum to have similar feelings either, and the same advice applies I think.
Now I also think it important to recognize that saying "the game is pretty good as is, I enjoy it as is, I don' t see the need/logic for change" is not in itself active exclusion, nor bullying, etc but we see it conflated as such from time to time in this thread. Often I suspect you'd find such persons happy to invite and include anyone in the game the way they enjoy it now. It's only when someone says "nice game, let's change it to something else" that it seems to trip a negative reaction. Once again, it comes to how people propose change, react to change, and respond to resistance or insistence to change.
I honestly feel it's more about how we talk to each other and treat each other in general rather than the specific proposition of change. And that's really what I hope people spend more time thinking about. It sometimes seems like a greater and greater challenge in the modern world of social media, but that's a whole different subject for a different forum.
Adding female SM doesn't change the game, it changes one aspect of SM. You're still able to roll your dice and have your SM, it just gives people the option to have female SM. The ideas of the setting aren't changed because women can be SM now. The Imperium is still dying from a thousand cuts.
RegularGuy wrote: As a kid who was bullied and enjoyed games like D&D and warhammer to escape from the people calling you names for being different, I do see where that feeling and dread may have a deep seated origin.
I completely understand and relate. What I don't get is how there could be an origin like that which doesn't lead you to want to seek out and band together with basically anybody with a similar experience for any reason at all. It's absolutely wild to me any time I encounter a nerdy person or space that's gakky about women, or black people or trans people or whatever - like, how TF do you jive getting treated badly for being different and then want to turn around and do it to someone else instead of going 'feth yea come on down, make your girl space marines, make your trans tyranids, make your anime tau, let's party feth the people who hate on people for doing what they like.'
Well lets look at that at a couple of slices. Firstly, let's remember that some people who are bullied particularly in older times might have been more diverse on the neuronormative scale, and with that may come some differences in social processing. So it might not be uncommon to find some portion of the population that feels much greater stress at thoughts and circumstances of significant change. This is probably only a small number of people, but let's consider them. We value them I hope, and we should recognize and accommodate the challenge. If change is necessary, we would be alienating them and practically bully them if we call them names, deride them, or dismiss them for voicing discomfort or objection to change. In my opinion there's a few voices here that fall in that category and that's the sort of thing I'm really returning to this thread to point out. We do not do well if we act like the monsters we want to see less of. What to do then? Well, as others in this thread do, work with them to listen and understand their feelings. Help to provide friendly feedback helping them understand that change can be ok or even good. To the extent that some posters refrain from the former and work toward the latter is a credit to dakka.
One doesn't have to be on the spectrum to have similar feelings either, and the same advice applies I think.
Now I also think it important to recognize that saying "the game is pretty good as is, I enjoy it as is, I don' t see the need/logic for change" is not in itself active exclusion, nor bullying, etc but we see it conflated as such from time to time in this thread. Often I suspect you'd find such persons happy to invite and include anyone in the game the way they enjoy it now. It's only when someone says "nice game, let's change it to something else" that it seems to trip a negative reaction. Once again, it comes to how people propose change, react to change, and respond to resistance or insistence to change.
I honestly feel it's more about how we talk to each other and treat each other in general rather than the specific proposition of change. And that's really what I hope people spend more time thinking about. It sometimes seems like a greater and greater challenge in the modern world of social media, but that's a whole different subject for a different forum.
Was adding female heads to the tau kit a frightening change to 40k when previously there was only one (known) female tau soldier?
What about adding female GSC? Prior to their addition, posters in similar threads to this one stated that, obviously, logically, female humans inducted into genestealer cults would be locked in a room somewhere being used as breeding stock.
Do you consider the addition of just women to marines to be a sea change that youd characterize as 'nice game, lets change it to something else' or is it just the addition of female heads, an addition that...I assume, I guess, would have absolutely zero impact on the actual game as opposed to say the addition of some new marine unit armed with different guns, which is an approximately bimonthly occurrence.
RegularGuy wrote: As a kid who was bullied and enjoyed games like D&D and warhammer to escape from the people calling you names for being different, I do see where that feeling and dread may have a deep seated origin.
I completely understand and relate. What I don't get is how there could be an origin like that which doesn't lead you to want to seek out and band together with basically anybody with a similar experience for any reason at all. It's absolutely wild to me any time I encounter a nerdy person or space that's gakky about women, or black people or trans people or whatever - like, how TF do you jive getting treated badly for being different and then want to turn around and do it to someone else instead of going 'feth yea come on down, make your girl space marines, make your trans tyranids, make your anime tau, let's party feth the people who hate on people for doing what they like.'
Well lets look at that at a couple of slices. Firstly, let's remember that some people who are bullied particularly in older times might have been more diverse on the neuronormative scale, and with that may come some differences in social processing.
Nope. Not going to take a silent pass on the premise that neurodivergent people are to blame for bigotry and misogyny in the hobby.
They don't need to be the scapegoat for this crap.
If that wasn't your intent, I really suggest apologizing and trying again.
^ Seconded.
Also, being bullied doesn't give someone a free pass for them to be exclusionary. In fact, if they should know better than anyone the signs of exclusionary behaviour.
Scotsman, I notice you keep tring to personalize the discussion as "You, You, You".
It doesn't bother my either way if GW decides to make the update. I'm trying to provide a perspective of what I suspect gives rise and rationale to why people take issue, a path to understanding and looking for ways to reach out and bring people along rather than simply dismiss and deride.
Voss, you have taken it completely wrongly. You added an assertion of claims of bigotry and misogyny, I make no such claim. Perhaps re-read without bringing so much assumption of ill will or negativity on my part? Why do you suggest that people who might be a bit predesposed to being uncofmortable to change are neccessarily bigoted or msogynists? The very point is to stop asserting and assuming these negative labels when it comes to every person who has a doubt or may have some discomfort with changes and reach out to them rather than attack them. Realize they may be pre-disposed to reaction and look for ways to help them.
And Gert,
If someone says they don't think gw adopting female marines is neccessary, or that they are not a fan, that really isn't exclusionary, it's an opinion. Again, do you really assert that every person who may not be a fan of the idea is a gate keeping exclusionist? Or that the ONLY way that women can like and engage with 40k is for GW to adopt female space marines?
There seems to be a habit of always asuming and asserting the worst or the extreme, and I don't think its helpful or healthy for progress in the community
And Gert,
If someone says they don't think gw adopting female marines is neccessary, or that they are not a fan, that really isn't exclusionary, it's an opinion. Again, do you really assert that every person who may not be a fan of the idea is a gate keeping exclusionist? Or that the ONLY way that women can like and engage with 40k is for GW to adopt female space marines?
There seems to be a habit of always asuming and asserting the worst or the extreme, and I don't think its helpful or healthy for progress in the community
The opinion isn't objectively exclusionary but the reasons behind the opinion are what matters. Let's look at some of the reasons we've seen in this thread:
1 - "I just don't want them." This isn't a valid reason. Anyone who says "just cos" is hiding their reasons and if you can't defend your opinion with actual discussion then your opinion doesn't matter.
2 - "It would ruin the setting". How? Justify how adding female SM would ruin the setting. So far the reasons have been "but the lore" or "it would ruin the grimdark". These are unsatisfactory as one puts fiction above the feelings and experiences of real people, and the other is subjective and can easily be argued against with "how is adding an option for women to be in the brainwashed fascist super-soldier army less grimdark? A disregard for any human life without prejudice is as dark as you can get".
3 - "I don't want politics in my hobby". This person views the existence of women and their representation in media to be political. They cannot be reasoned with.
4 - "I think we should actively exclude women because this is a boy's hobby". This person should be hit with a rulebook and thrown out the door.
5 - "Women are biologically less likely to want to Warhammer anyway". This person is talking utter nonsense.
6 - "Pro female-SM people want it for sexual reasons". Get out.
7 - "The design time would write it badly". Mk. Welcome to Warhammer 40k please take a number.
I don't think the only way women can interact with the hobby is through female SM but shoehorning them into religious zealots, a faction comprised mostly of models from the dark ages, or sexual deviants as factions that have represented female models isn't fair when men have representation in every other faction in the game as well as those factions.
It's not assuming the worst when experience shows time and time again that the worst is what to expect.
RegularGuy wrote: Scotsman, I notice you keep tring to personalize the discussion as "You, You, You".
It doesn't bother my either way if GW decides to make the update. I'm trying to provide a perspective of what I suspect gives rise and rationale to why people take issue, a path to understanding and looking for ways to reach out and bring people along rather than simply dismiss and deride.
Voss, you have taken it completely wrongly. You added an assertion of claims of bigotry and misogyny, I make no such claim. Perhaps re-read without bringing so much assumption of ill will or negativity on my part? Why do you suggest that people who might be a bit predesposed to being uncofmortable to change are neccessarily bigoted or msogynists? The very point is to stop asserting and assuming these negative labels when it comes to every person who has a doubt or may have some discomfort with changes and reach out to them rather than attack them. Realize they may be pre-disposed to reaction and look for ways to help them.
I've always been of the opinion that misogyny is a verb rather than a noun. I care about outcomes - if someone expresses misogyny as a response to being uncomfortable to change or expresses the same thing because they just HATE every woman they ever see, to me that's identical and I really don't actually believe the second person honestly exists in any kind of quantity that it matters. People do gakky things for usually simple, dumb reasons.
I talk about 'you' because I was under the impression I was having a conversation with an individual, rather than a gestalt entity observing and commenting on the probable mental state of hypothetical people acting out. My apologies, I'll talk about my own opinions and refer only to the hypothetical possible group of potentially concerned people.
Voss, you have taken it completely wrongly. You added an assertion of claims of bigotry and misogyny, I make no such claim. Perhaps re-read without bringing so much assumption of ill will or negativity on my part? Why do you suggest that people who might be a bit predesposed to being uncofmortable to change are neccessarily bigoted or msogynists? The very point is to stop asserting and assuming these negative labels when it comes to every person who has a doubt or may have some discomfort with changes and reach out to them rather than attack them. Realize they may be pre-disposed to reaction and look for ways to help them.
Because this is a discussion about bigotry and misogyny, that's been established for page after page of posts, no matter when you've joined the discussion. They're unapologetically negative things, so trying to pass them off as the fault of another mistreated group is a crappy thing to do.
There isn't any point in trying to dress it up and hide it, whether or not you want to 'make such a claim.' We aren't talking about people 'being uncomfortable.' We're talking about people who are already _attackers_, not people who need 'help.'
And doubling down is definitely not apologizing and trying again. When you're coming across to people as offensive, maybe take a step back and reconsider your approach?
RegularGuy wrote: Scotsman, I notice you keep tring to personalize the discussion as "You, You, You".
It doesn't bother my either way if GW decides to make the update. I'm trying to provide a perspective of what I suspect gives rise and rationale to why people take issue, a path to understanding and looking for ways to reach out and bring people along rather than simply dismiss and deride.
Voss, you have taken it completely wrongly. You added an assertion of claims of bigotry and misogyny, I make no such claim. Perhaps re-read without bringing so much assumption of ill will or negativity on my part? Why do you suggest that people who might be a bit predesposed to being uncofmortable to change are neccessarily bigoted or msogynists? The very point is to stop asserting and assuming these negative labels when it comes to every person who has a doubt or may have some discomfort with changes and reach out to them rather than attack them. Realize they may be pre-disposed to reaction and look for ways to help them.
And Gert,
If someone says they don't think gw adopting female marines is neccessary, or that they are not a fan, that really isn't exclusionary, it's an opinion. Again, do you really assert that every person who may not be a fan of the idea is a gate keeping exclusionist? Or that the ONLY way that women can like and engage with 40k is for GW to adopt female space marines?
There seems to be a habit of always asuming and asserting the worst or the extreme, and I don't think its helpful or healthy for progress in the community
I think you need to review the basic definition of Gaslighting. Because you keep pulling this, "I'm not making accusations, I am just stating an opinion" as if that is somehow worth anything. Then you start accusing others of being hostile, when you espouse things like people who were bullied display a deviancy.
How about instead of accusing indifividuals of being unwilling to hear ideas, you don't flood the thread with gak ideas?
Well gentlemen, you certainly have your littanies of faith. As was my first impression, this isn't about building progressive consensus in the community through sharing and understanding, it is more representative of a struggle session where the only thing that matters is foregone conclusions, predefined roles and identities. All who are not in lock step with the dogma are all manor of evil, and any thoughts or experiences outside the dogmas are dogma are invalid by definition.
Female space marines I don't view as any real problem in the big picture. It is this exclusionary and toxic approach to demonize or marginalize any persons who don't show they are faithfully in line with the assertions above I object to and have objected to all along. And it is on that basis I find sympathy for people subjected to it.
RegularGuy wrote: Well gentlemen, you certainly have your littanies of faith. As was my first impression, this isn't about building progressive consensus in the community through sharing and understanding, it is more representative of a struggle session where the only thing that matters is foregone conclusions, predefined roles and identities. All who are not in lock step with the dogma are all manor of evil, and any thoughts or experiences outside the dogmas are dogma are invalid by definition.
Sorry you feel that way. If that were true I'd be exalting in this intellectual surrender rather than lamenting it; but clearly, although you've stated your position rather more articulately than a lot of people, you've made up your mind just as firmly as the tyrannical forces you wish to imagine.
RegularGuy wrote: Well gentlemen, you certainly have your littanies of faith. As was my first impression, this isn't about building progressive consensus in the community through sharing and understanding, it is more representative of a struggle session where the only thing that matters is foregone conclusions, predefined roles and identities. All who are not in lock step with the dogma are all manor of evil, and any thoughts or experiences outside the dogmas are dogma are invalid by definition.
Sorry you feel that way. If that were true I'd be exalting in this intellectual surrender rather than lamenting it; but clearly, although you've stated your position rather more articulately than a lot of people, you've made up your mind just as firmly as the tyrannical forces you wish to imagine.
Perhaps. I was enjoying a lot of the discussion that didn't involve the misrepresentation and demonization. I think there's some great folks in this thread who've been instrumental in bringing out great points on the subject of Female Space Marines. I think there really is a way to help address the reluctance that some people feel on the topic, but I do believe that progress is inhibited by the stridency exhibited by some posters. I understand their passion, but I'm of the opinion there's a bit of a Nietzschean beast that emerges with it. And I do admit I fail to see the profit of engaging with that aspect. And it's dissapointing when it derails and submerges something interesting coming along.
Andykp wrote: I was enjoying catching up on this thread after a night shift, Vatsetis brought a nice measured style to the debate, then Hecaton turned up like a drunk uncle at a wedding and it went down hill again. Thank you Vatsetis for your contribution.
Again, no coherent criticism, just insults and attempted shaming.
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grahamdbailey wrote: Reading through this thread has been valuable (ands has added some real fethwits to my block list). It does seem that the consensus feels that female marines would be of great benefit to 40K, and would support GW if they were to make it so.
It's not really a consensus at all. Most people who find the idea boring or otherwise unworkable aren't in this thread, you've just got a few people in an echo chamber about it. I think the game has a lot to lose by changing that.
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Cybtroll wrote: I (for one) advocate for female space marine because make sense from a fictional world perspective (ref: any linguistic theory about counterfactual, that provide a modelling for fictional worlds)
This smells like bs. What the heck do you mean?
Cybtroll wrote: from a scientific point of view (ref: the discussions and issue of cross-gender athletes)
Nah. There's plenty of reasons why it *could* not work on female humans.
Cybtroll wrote: it's a good modelling opportunity (ref: the modelling project shared in the thread), can improve the lore (ref: my mention of the Emperor as sexist is in line with the bad light in which the Imperium should be, kua all the conflict between old and new marine) and have a byproduct of making sexist behavior less common (thing that I think is pretty self evident).
"Improve the lore" is entirely subjective, and from my perspective, the Imperium being senselessly evil and inefficient is *the point*, it's a dystopia. And the modeling opportunity was already there if you wanted to do it.
Cybtroll wrote: Argument against: the Imperium is a bad place and not being sexist is a detriment the the background; adding female will betray the original inspiration (just so you know: "warrior monks" do not exist in Western history - the Templars were not monks, so the inspiration is from East cultur a where men/female distinction do no apply) and that the change is good but done for bad reason (this I don't think deserve an answer to be honest) and, the one that I think has more weight, if the change is based on Primaris (as we almost all agree would be the less contested change) Chaos SM are excluded.
The Templars were very much monks for parts of their history. They swore the oaths of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Cybtroll wrote: So, I'm sorry RegularGuy, but your summary of the people opposed to your idea is superficial (in the best case scenario) or straight false and misleading.
It's more accurate than yours, which has botched both history and biology.
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macluvin wrote: I would argue that female space marines would be our no means no for people that use the lore to legitimize their harassment and abuse.
And I think that's a ridiculous idea, and you know that's a ridiculous idea, but you're trying to pull a "think of all the women being harassed!" kind of argument, to get what *you* (not the women being harassed) want.
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RegularGuy wrote: I'm of the opinion there's a bit of a Nietzschean beast that emerges with it.
RegularGuy wrote: Well gentlemen, you certainly have your littanies of faith. As was my first impression, this isn't about building progressive consensus in the community through sharing and understanding, it is more representative of a struggle session where the only thing that matters is foregone conclusions, predefined roles and identities. All who are not in lock step with the dogma are all manor of evil, and any thoughts or experiences outside the dogmas are dogma are invalid by definition.
Sorry you feel that way. If that were true I'd be exalting in this intellectual surrender rather than lamenting it; but clearly, although you've stated your position rather more articulately than a lot of people, you've made up your mind just as firmly as the tyrannical forces you wish to imagine.
Perhaps. I was enjoying a lot of the discussion that didn't involve the misrepresentation and demonization. I think there's some great folks in this thread who've been instrumental in bringing out great points on the subject of Female Space Marines. I think there really is a way to help address the reluctance that some people feel on the topic, but I do believe that progress is inhibited by the stridency exhibited by some posters. I understand their passion, but I'm of the opinion there's a bit of a Nietzschean beast that emerges with it. And I do admit I fail to see the profit of engaging with that aspect. And it's dissapointing when it derails and submerges something interesting coming along.
You are coming at this from a principled standpoint and I respect that, they are not, that was your mistake believing this was not a political cause to them, this is why I stated its about power over the platform for them not inclusion, diversity etc. I was proven completely and unequivocally correct in my original assessment.
for what its worth you argument did convince me a little.
I have to say (once again) that people are getting the political and fictional justifications and objections muddled, and this has led to a degree of implication that "if you're against the change, you're sexist".
It was (rightly) pointed out that some people are not well suited to accepting change due to neurodivergence. To them change is bad, regardless of whether it has morals or the greater good behind it - if it's not the same as it was yesterday, it's scary and they don't like it. This doesn't make them a sexist - it just happens that the change we're discussing involves gender representation.
@Gert:
Gert wrote:3 - "I don't want politics in my hobby". This person views the existence of women and their representation in media to be political. They cannot be reasoned with.
You've repeatedly asserted this and I feel that you are skirting around the truth of it.
Including women and their representation in the game is not a political thing - there are factions which have it in the lore, and they need the models to back that up. Adding those models is not political, and nobody will say "they said there were female guard, and now they've added female guard models, OMG it's politics interfering with the game".
But Space Marines are, at present, all male. It will require a change to add female representation. And if the only reason for that change is "to add female representation", then that is Political (or "Societal", to be more accurate). It's something outside of the game interfering with what one of the factions are, in order to impose their standards onto the game.
So no, having women represented in the game is not Societal. Changing one of the factions just so that women can be represented in it absolutely is.
I really don't like how almost everything has been twisted, by implication or outright assertation, to "If you don't like the change, you're sexist and should be ignored". This level of disregard for opposition is actually a very interesting analogy for the very behaviour we are trying to repair. Anyone who reads this, and has a view on why space marines shouldn't be changed, may well be dissuaded from offering their opinions because they don't want to be confronted on it and called a sexist.
Just like how a woman who walks past a GW might not want to go in for fear of being judged because of her gender, and not because of her interest in the hobby.
RegularGuy wrote: Perhaps. I was enjoying a lot of the discussion that didn't involve the misrepresentation and demonization. I think there's some great folks in this thread who've been instrumental in bringing out great points on the subject of Female Space Marines. I think there really is a way to help address the reluctance that some people feel on the topic, but I do believe that progress is inhibited by the stridency exhibited by some posters. I understand their passion, but I'm of the opinion there's a bit of a Nietzschean beast that emerges with it. And I do admit I fail to see the profit of engaging with that aspect. And it's dissapointing when it derails and submerges something interesting coming along.
I actually agree that this Reluctance is important to address, because I find this reluctance baffling on the face of the argument alone, and yet, clearly, that reluctance can't simply be wished away with mere facts or rhetoric. People imagining oppression in the face of sensible statements - over topics far more dangerous and that should have been far less controversial even than the gender of plastic space soldiers - have done a lot of damage recently; hundreds of thousands of highly preventable deaths in my country alone, for example, because basic gak like 'get masks, get vaccinated, stay 6 feet away if you can' got declared 'political' and suddenly there had to be opposition to what should have been straightforward and uncontroversial, even among some otherwise intelligent individuals.
While nowhere near the same scope as The Pandemic, (And I'm not bolding that for you, but just so it'll be slightly harder for other parties to take this out of context) this whole Women as Marines thing should have been a similarly total no brainer. It should have ended on page one with "Yes." It should have ended years before this thread started with GW stepping up to the plate, as the AoS Stormcast prove that monogendering an intended flagship army is not a mistake they would repeat today. And yet this discussion has gone 64 pages of back and forth with wildly varying levels of intellectual discourse, from the reasonably articulate to the utterly asinine. And there have been a lot of studies and analysis on why this sort of thing happens by people who understand the topic far better than myself, and no easy way to answer it.
I understand that a lot of that is people on opposite sides of the political spectrum growing increasingly frustrated with their opposition; with the after-effects of trolling mixing with Poe's Law having untold echoes, polarizing and radicalizing people; I still see those effects on Dakka, where people accuse each other of 'disingenuousness' with premature swiftness over topics far more trivial than this one, with such dismissals of opposing opinions being commonplace. And it's not something there's an easy answer to - if clever or thoughtful answers were all that we needed to change the minds of the most strident opposition, Scotsman would have ended this thread personally. If patient explanation is all that was needed, Smudge would have eventually simply gone unchallenged. He might still. And I don't have the wit of the former nor the patience of the latter.
All I can do is offer a reassurance that I consider it extremely unlikely that anyone in a given social group who considers a move to women as Space Marines distasteful for reasons that are not themselves repugnant or toxic (There aren't a ton of these, but I'll give that "Not trusting GW not to somehow feth it up" is probably the best one) are unlikely to be ostracized from gaming groups that knew them for years.
Well, to be honest, people are judged sexist not because they don't want female space marine, but because they advocate against it with sexist arguments.
There are a lot of poster here that are against the change and are not considered sexist by none. And it's funny that those who seems convinced of being particularly eloquent don't realize that if what you're saying is sexist, you may not be it personally, but that doesn't change what you've said.
Takes Hecaton and its cheap shots at depicting other as "Freudian". Maybe there is really a sexual obsession here that is reflected on the othera, maybe there is not: but that's what's written anyway.
So, to try to negate the need for change "because it's politically motivated", and you immediately lose any ground to criticize the same in other people's posts because put yourself in exactly the same position that you denounce as wrong.
There's a lot we can manage: but internal inconsistency brokes everything, always.
The current status of the lore itself (which is unteinable today as much as saying that genetic depends on astrology) plus the opportunities to progress and enrich the lore including female space marine are more than enough to warrant the change by themselves.
And that's enough for me: being more inclusive is icing on the cake.
Yes, in a perfect world no game would be exclusionary since the beginning, and this chang will be universally agreed upon
But I'll settle for a right decision taken from minor and fictional considerations rather than stagnation.
Motivation are personal, so they do not exist really outside everyone's head. Fact does.
I would say you’ve demonstrated a remarkable misunderstanding of the spectrum of psychology involved in rape; I recommend you consult some sort of criminal psychology reference. The phrase no means no evolved as a response to the fact that a lot of rapists have nonconsensual sex because they feel entitled to it; this is also why rape trends with the wealthy and famous. Logically speaking, someone like Kobe Bryant looks at a women declining his sexual advances like “she doesn’t mean that. I’m rich and famous, I’m the best she can hope for.” Or entitlement from other rape culture like “she was asking for it, look at what she was wearing.” These people were logically incapable of understanding what they were doing was wrong because they believed themselves superior, or that the other person could not possibly want to turn them down.No means no was a phrase designed to neuter that justification and delegitimize rape culture. There are other reasons rape may happen but it does all go back to control and projection of power.
I would argue that female space marines would be our no means no for people that use the lore to legitimize their harassment and abuse.
You are completelly misunderstanding my POV and reference to rape... I 100% support your description on rape culture and the meaning of "no means no". But "no means no" is precisely something usefull because is used by empowered women against rape culture precisely because rape being a crime is not by itself something that prevents raping and rape culture.
I find very distresfull that some poster put me in a camp where Im not.
Im simply arguing that IMHO I dont think that a simple "official recognition" by GW of the fact that female SM are "in the lore" would in fact refrain the misoginist members of tehe community to attack those playing/showing FSM... because I think that needs a deeper commitment by the company and the community.
I really hope I was wrong and the only thing needed to transform a toxic "boys only club" into an inclusive space was a head sprue with female heads for the marines.
From the very brief check it seems like:
Hecaton is calling the pro-female SM side sexually obsessed while using the word "Freudian". Fun fact, the first thing you lean in Psychology is that Freud was doing hard drugs for most of his life and all of his theories are laughed at and disproven. Saying that I'm pro-female SM because of an Oedipal complex is pathetic.
Seems like RegularGuy is back to calling the pro-female SM side religious zealouts again because they can't exist outside of 40k metaphors. Fun.
Presumably Formosa said something about this all being cringe?
For all of this bluster about the pro female-SM side throwing insults and arguing in bad faith, it really does seem that the anti female-SM side does it a lot more.
Potential rapist dont refrain from rapping just because rapping is illegal... They refrain because those laws are effectivelly enforced, because women are empowered and dont toletare any tipe of sexual abuse and because society as a whole dosent toletare such practices. (Some can be said of most crimes).
I believe you appear to have just described how....any law works, my friend. Literally all laws. But let me ask this.
If an activity, whether legal or illegal, is not present within the culture of a society, will you see it exist? Let's take the example of rap music.
Let us say that rap is not known in North Korea. There is no law that specifically forbids rapping, but potential rap artists (or 'rappists') would never know about rap, because no rap music is played and no rap videos are shown on state-controlled television.
And now let's take the united states, generally considered the cultural center of rap, and consider a scenario where a new government makes rapping illegal and punishable by a fine.
Undoubtedly, there would still be far more rappists in the USA than there would be in North Korea regardless of its legality or illegality.
Now let's talk about Games Workshop. How many Sisters of Battle players are there now, as opposed to five years ago? Looking at tournament numbers from early in 8th edition versus now, it seems the number of sisters of battle players have increased massively. But why is this? Games Workshop sold sisters of battle miniatures and produced rules for them prior to their recent releases, and surely a potential SoB player would play SoB regardless of how easy or difficult the company producing the game made it for them. And if the lack of plastic was an issue, wouldn't that potential SoBist simply take female stormcast models and kitbash their arms with space marine arms holding boltguns to create them?
Yes, there are more SoB players precisely because GW has make a sizeable effort to reinforce that faction (a complete new range of figures and rules and lore to support them, and much more marketing space).
If you want FSM to be something significant for the community thats precisely the tipe of effort you need. A simple head sprue and low profile lore change MIGHT have very little impact.
You underestimate the power of a headswap. A simple and effective way to show character on a model.
Adding the option might not change much right now but in 5 years how many people will have started 40k with SM? How many are going to use the female heads to give their units variety or even to make characters based on themselves? Nobody is pretending that female-SM are going to bring world peace but if even one person stops getting death threats and harassing messages because they made a female-SM then it's worth it.
Gert wrote: ^ Seconded.
Also, being bullied doesn't give someone a free pass for them to be exclusionary. In fact, if they should know better than anyone the signs of exclusionary behaviour.
No one "gets a free pass" to be exclusionary. But it is actually quite a common trend that those that are excluded in some way (or fill excluded) do indeed exclude others... for instance if you suffer child abuse there is a higher chance that you will reproduce that sort of conduct when adult. Unfortunatly suffering exclusion or violence dosent make you automatically a better or nicer person.
Yes but there have been numerous instances in this thread where people have said "what about the people who hate women because they were bullied" as a reason for not including female-SM.
Gert wrote: You underestimate the power of a headswap. A simple and effective way to show character on a model.
Adding the option might not change much right now but in 5 years how many people will have started 40k with SM? How many are going to use the female heads to give their units variety or even to make characters based on themselves? Nobody is pretending that female-SM are going to bring world peace but if even one person stops getting death threats and harassing messages because they made a female-SM then it's worth it.
I suppose it would.
You use a rethorical question that can only be answered in one manner unless you want to appear as endorsing harrassment and death threads.
I was never arguing on that level, why do I need to apologise and clarify my position over this point time and time again???
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Gert wrote: Yes but there have been numerous instances in this thread where people have said "what about the people who hate women because they were bullied" as a reason for not including female-SM.
Giving context about terrorism is not supporting terrorism.
One thing, which I am somewhat surprised hasn't come up regarding the psychological aspect of change in a GW, is how GW has historically been a refuge for people who were otherwise bullied.
I'll avoid making this unreadable and use plain terms, and I hope that this doesn't cause anyone offence - it regards nobody in particular, but definitely represents a major portion of the people you find in GW stores.
People who have been bullied and ostracised from society for being geeks and nerds have made of GW their fortress, where nobody can come in and bully them for being geeky because everyone in there is geeky too and will back them up - to go into a GW and be non-geeky is to be the outsider.
These walls that the geeks have built around their fortress exist to keep the people that aren't interested in geeky things out. By suggesting a change which involves people from outside being allowed in, these people may automatically assume that the people who are coming in aren't interested in the hobby, they are only coming in because they have been invited, and they will not want them to come in.
This is probably a hefty subconcious reason for resistance against change in anything. They don't want them to not come in because they're girls, they don't want them to come in because they are outsiders.
It's a bad thing, and it's not welcoming for anyone, but it's not sexist for including girls in the "we don't want them coming into our sanctuary" blanket of resistance.
Honestly, I remember the first time I went into a GW, and if it hadn't been for the staff (who aren't the problem) I would have been inclined to have walked out again. Every new person who goes in there is suspiciously eyed from afar as an offworlder, as everyone tries to gauge what they are doing in their sanctuary - do you belong here, offworlder, or are you lost?
Let's be honest, GW stores can be very judgemental places without any influence of gender and what-have-you.
Thats not what that post says. The point was that adding the headswap option increases visibility and over time that visibility will increase even more.
For a numbers example let's say 50 kids start 40k at their local GW and 30 pick up SM. Of those 30, right now, there would probably be no girls. But those 30 boys are now seeing women represented in their SM alongside men which begins to help normalise the idea that men and women should be equal. 2 years later another 50 kids start 40k, 30 more pick SM but by this point there have been female-SM for two years both in marketing and in models. Hopefully at the same time other factions have been getting their due with updates and background accurate mixed forces. Let's say 5 of those 30 kids are girls who having seen things that look like them, have started SM.
You get the idea.
Giving context about terrorism is not supporting terrorism.
Excusing a person's exclusionary behaviour because they themselves were once excluded is supporting the exclusionary behaviour.
If Warhammer is supposed to be a safe place for people who are bullied/excluded, why is there such constant justification when the Warhammer community excludes or bullies someone? I also want to make clear, excluding someone because they are being hateful is a good thing. It's not double standards, it's ensuring the hobby space is still a safe place.
Gert wrote: Thats not what that post says. The point was that adding the headswap option increases visibility and over time that visibility will increase even more.
For a numbers example let's say 50 kids start 40k at their local GW and 30 pick up SM. Of those 30, right now, there would probably be no girls. But those 30 boys are now seeing women represented in their SM alongside men which begins to help normalise the idea that men and women should be equal. 2 years later another 50 kids start 40k, 30 more pick SM but by this point there have been female-SM for two years both in marketing and in models. Hopefully at the same time other factions have been getting their due with updates and background accurate mixed forces. Let's say 5 of those 30 kids are girls who having seen things that look like them, have started SM.
You get the idea.
Oh yes, and that's a very eloquent way of putting it!
I think the main point of my last post was about the fact that people can be against a change without being against a societal aspect of it, so shouldn't be called sexist just for being opposed!
Mostly it was just a sudden thought I had come up and thought it worth sharing!
Oh yes, and that's a very eloquent way of putting it!
I think the main point of my last post was about the fact that people can be against a change without being against a societal aspect of it, so shouldn't be called sexist just for being opposed!
Mostly it was just a sudden thought I had come up and thought it worth sharing!
I think that exactly what "regular guy" was trying to argue before being thrown into the dungeon of justifing exclusionary behaviour.
Not really, RegularGuy has been making poor arguments for a while now and then calling people religious zealots if they disagree.
And just so we're 100% clear on this, you can be against female-SM, I've just yet to see a reason that isn't reliant on "muh lore" or sexism. I also don't believe someone who says "I just don't want it" because if you can't justify your beliefs then I don't want to hear them. You are allowed to have your hobby space free of political discussion but inclusivity and representation shouldn't be part of this. We've discussed how the hobby should be a space for everyone to enjoy so why are people setting up barriers to entry?
Well Gert, I think it was an interesting discussion to start getting into understanding of potential barriers people have to female space maraines and looking at how people can be met where they are instead of demonizing them. For example, many seem to have a firm doubt that lack of female marines by GW represents a very significant barrier.
I don't have any problem with anyone having a disagrement. I do think things are getting out of hand when instead of trying to understand what someone is saying and evolve the discussion simply assert ill will and bad character and make declarations of ill intent, and meaning. Items which people hold in doubt or have argument with are asserted as indisputable truth.
In many ways it does seem to have the pattern of religious zealotry, which is why I draw the parallel.
Gert wrote: Not really, RegularGuy has been making poor arguments for a while now and then calling people religious zealots if they disagree.
And just so we're 100% clear on this, you can be against female-SM, I've just yet to see a reason that isn't reliant on "muh lore" or sexism. I also don't believe someone who says "I just don't want it" because if you can't justify your beliefs then I don't want to hear them. You are allowed to have your hobby space free of political discussion but inclusivity and representation shouldn't be part of this. We've discussed how the hobby should be a space for everyone to enjoy so why are people setting up barriers to entry?
There does seem to have been some descent into trivial name-calling in this thread at times (from both sides), and such comparisons can cloud what are otherwise good points. There certainly have been cases of comments suggesting that any disagreement, whatever it is founded on, is sexist because the issue concerns representation, and then that's been thrown back as religious zealotry and so on. I try to focus on reading past this thing - just because someone says something in an untactful manner should not detract from any truth of it!
Regarding the "but muh lore", I say (once again) that 40kis the lore. The models only represent the lore, they don't represent the people playing. and GW capitalise on the fact that people want models representing their lore to make money, and manipulate it however they see fit because, you know, money!
So to change a model, you have to change the lore that the model is representing. The lore has to represent women in order for the models to represent women.
There is no political argument for not including female space marines. Seriously, not one. The only reasons why people would want to not have female marines are:
1: they want the lore to change, or I think it doesn't make sense 2: they're sexist and want it to remain all boys (not acceptable)
Once you accept that the models don't represent the players, they represent the combination of the lore and the players, then you realise that the lore has to change in order to change anything about the models.
Then, it becomes clear why every argument you're seeing is "But muh lore!". The reason is because yes, it is about the lore. Pretty much exclusively. Models are a side effect of the lore, representation is a side effect of the models, IE representation (or lack thereof) is a side effect of the lore.
Case in point: Space marine models do not represent women. This isn't because they, the imperium, or GW are sexist, it's because space marine models represent space marines in the lore, and in the lore they are (currently) all male, for reasons entirely within the lore, because the lore is a self sustaining entity. It doesn't care about what is going on in 21st century real life, it pertains only to what is going on in M41.
So what you are faced with, at that point, is the simple fact that you have to justify within the lore that it is important to represent the values of 21st century gender equality in the 41st millennium when there are important things like space bugs, space elves, space orks, space robots and hell monsters to be dealing with instead.
It is to be expected that people who are capable of detaching the universe of 40k from any modern day issues will see it as an unnecessary thing to include women in space marines for 21st century problems, rather than for M41 problems.
I still say we should change the lore, using fictional issues/breakthroughs from M41 to justify it, and add female marines in. But others may not feel like it's necessary, and belittling their argument as "but muh lore" suggests that it is considered trivial that 40k continue to work the way it always has done, because of the subject matter at hand. Representation is needed, but it is not necessary to disregard what 40k is to achieve it - 40k is more than capable of achieving it without the external influence of politics.
Because people are attached to the lore in which they have develop their hobby for a long time?
Because they consider the only male nature of space marines a relevant part of the setting?
Because they doubt that having GW officially endorse FSM will have any significant impact on the inclusiveness of the community and therefore is not worth it?
After all we are only speaking about hypothesis and preferences; since we are not part of GW Staff or have any real leverage towards the company policy making.
I really have no issues with FSM, I wish their inclusion helped the hobby to be less male dominated... but after actively participating in this debate Im much more skeptical about it.
I see a lot of effort in trying to win an internet fight that is unwinnable, a lot of name calling and blaming and a very naive approach toward the solution.
I play Infinity and TWD... models and lore are 10 times more gender inclusive than 40K... I can make my force exclusively of female models in both systems if I want to without compromising gameplay... nevertheless female gamers are very few in both communities.
You cannot reduce a complex topic into a yes or no issue.
40k is more than capable of achieving it without the external influence of politics
This is the bit I disagree with because 40k does not adapt and change naturally, it can only be influenced by external forces such as the drive for inclusivity or the request for greater profits.
Why is GW adding female head options to Cadians now and not 10 years ago? Why did it take so long for SoB to get a revamp when in that same timeframe Knights, GSC, Scions, Admech, and even Assassins got completely new ranges?
GW didn't add the new Cadian parts or revamp SoB because it would look cool, it was done because 40k severely lacks representation and by getting women interested in the hobby GW could make money. That's the cold hard truth, profit is all that matters to the higher-ups/investors and they will push whatever gets them bigger dividends and bonuses.
@Vatsetis
Spoiler:
Vatsetis wrote: Answering to Gert last post...
Because people are attached to the lore in which they have develop their hobby for a long time?
Cool, I'm attached to the idea of people being safe and welcomed in the hobby. Why does their need to preserve a fictional setting overrule real people?
Because they consider the only male nature of space marines a relevant part of the setting?
But why is it relevant? Why does the flagship faction of 40khave to be male-only? You can still make a male-only SM army if there's an option for female SM, there's plenty of reasons that this could be a thing. Maybe the Chapter hasn't needed a huge influx of new recruits, maybe they distrust the workings of Cawl (however I would also expect to not see Primaris units in this army), maybe they have a backward tradition but the player makes it clear that this Chapter is shunned by the wider Imperium.
Because they doubt that having GW officially endorse FSM will have any significant impact on the inclusiveness of the community and therefore is not worth it?
After all we are only speaking about hypothesis and preferences; since we are not part of GW Staff or have any real leverage towards the company policy making.
You can't know until you try.
I really have no issues with FSM, I wish their inclusion helped the hobby to be less male dominated... but after actively participating in this debate Im much more skeptical about it.
I see a lot of effort in trying to win an internet fight that is unwinnable, a lot of name calling and blaming and a very naive approach toward the solution.
You are also coming into this discussion a month after it began. You missed the posts that have been removed because of the disgusting content they contained and the people defending those posts. You're seeing the pro-female-SM side saying the same things over and over because we have to keep repeating ourselves day after day to someone who's decided to jump in without actually reading what's already been said.
I play Infinity and TWD... models and lore are 10 times more gender inclusive than 40K... I can make my force exclusively of female models in both systems if I want to without compromising gameplay... nevertheless female gamers are very few in both communities.
Infinity is nowhere near as popular or as prevalent in the public eye as Warhammer. It also doesn't have the problem of a legacy and image that the hobby is filled with sweaty nerds who leer at women who come into GW stores. How long were comics and superheroes seen as a boys thing? When the comic companies started adding more diverse casts, they were decried as wokist Marxists bending to the will of feminazis and gays, but then these same comic companies started making more money and communities started becoming more diverse. That's the end goal here, a 40k community that doesn't react to a picture of a black Space Marine with vitriol and disgust or a woman character who doesn't immediately have to rely on a man as a "Mary Sue".
You cannot reduce a complex topic into a yes or no issue.
It's not as complex as people make it out to be. You either want female SM, don't want female SM, or don't really care. Most hobbyists will fall into "don't really care" but the ones that fall into "don't want" overwhelmingly also exhibit exclusionary or harmful behaviors and it's these people that need to be removed from the hobby.
40k is more than capable of achieving it without the external influence of politics
This is the bit I disagree with because 40k does not adapt and change naturally, it can only be influenced by external forces such as the drive for inclusivity or the request for greater profits.
Why is GW adding female head options to Cadians now and not 10 years ago? Why did it take so long for SoB to get a revamp when in that same timeframe Knights, GSC, Scions, Admech, and even Assassins got completely new ranges?
GW didn't add the new Cadian parts or revamp SoB because it would look cool, it was done because 40k severely lacks representation and by getting women interested in the hobby GW could make money. That's the cold hard truth, profit is all that matters to the higher-ups/investors and they will push whatever gets them bigger dividends and bonuses.
I agree. But profits aren't politics. Just look at every corporation who supports LGBTQ+, until it's not in the press any more. Their political values aren't linked to their desire for profits.
Why are they adding them now, and not 10 years ago? Because the arrow of time only points in one direction.
So yes, I 100% agree with you that the game (being the lore and the models which represent it) are absolutely 100% driven by profit. Because GW is a business.
But that doesn't stop them from weaving some pretty good stories to represent with their models. The lore makes sense, barring a few issues, which they even have lore to explain (EG the imperium is detached so some think one thing and others think different things - every time you see two contradictory pieces of lore, it's because an imperial scribe got something wrong!)
The inclusion of female models in the ranges and the push of SoB is probably a 50/50 split of motivations. One half is that the company want money and thus want to make new ranges to sell more models. The other half is that they don't want to be seen as sexist or exclusionary by only having male models.
Now that we've agreed on that one, can anyone with a sisters of battle codex post up some lore which indicates either of these motivations?
Do you see how they manage to divorce the two things using the lore? How they say "alright everyone, we need a new model to sell!" and the brainstorming starts - "what about a new space marine unit?" "brilliant jenkins, truly excellent! Get the writing team working on a reason for the new unit to exist and then we'll get the sculpters to start making the new guns for them to hold! Then we'll worry about what rules we need to make to make them powerful enough to sell like hot cakes, before we nerf them with a compulsory book full of FAQ's!" >polite rounds of applause from the brown-nosers round the table with thin morals and thick wallets<.
The key part there is "get it written so that the models have a reason to exist". And before the deluge of "women exist they shouldn't need a reason" comes in, this is about the game, not real life. As soon as the decision was made "we want to add these to the game", things jump sideways from the real world, with profit expectations, business models and societal expectations, and it goes into the world of fiction, the 40k lore, where they need to find a place for this new thing to sit without it contradicting anything else.
They might just say "all those records saying there were no female marines were from scribes who could hardly tell the difference, and the secrets are so closely guarded most people still think all marines are male, even though they aren't", and that's fine. But the idea that the lore doesn't have to justify it because society justifies it is ludicrous. The lore does not need concern itself with society - that's the business planners jobs in GW. GW =/= the lore, the lore =/= real life.
Gert Ive been reading this thread from minute one.
The fact that you compare GW40K with Marvel comics (perhaps the holders of the biggest IP at the moment and living on the tracks of disney blockbusters) and not with Infinity (another miniture tabletop wargame) shows a lack of proportion in your POV.
I have just made a thread in which I hope everyone will post their preferred method for how to implement this change, if it were to be changed.
There will be an option on the poll for not changing it, as no views should be discounted!
I hope that when I get this poll together, it will help us all to see how people view the merits and approaches of changing the lore - did Cawl do it, has it always been there, do female marines just look almost identical to men, that sort of thing!
I agree. But profits aren't politics. Just look at every corporation who supports LGBTQ+, until it's not in the press any more. Their political values aren't linked to their desire for profits.
Correct but these people aren't stupid, they'll have the experience to know what is and isn't going to make them money. If tomorrow the GW board decided that the best way to increase profits was to add female SM and the head of the design team said no because they want to keep SM as all-male, the head of the design team would be replaced.
Why are they adding them now, and not 10 years ago? Because the arrow of time only points in one direction.
Don't be smarmy you know exactly what I mean. The Cadian kit was released in 2003, repackaged in 2008, and got a new sprue added in 2021. It took nearly 20 years for GW to include options for female heads in the basic troop box for an army widely known to be a mixed sex force.
So yes, I 100% agree with you that the game (being the lore and the models which represent it) are absolutely 100% driven by profit. Because GW is a business.
But that doesn't stop them from weaving some pretty good stories to represent with their models. The lore makes sense, barring a few issues, which they even have lore to explain (EG the imperium is detached so some think one thing and others think different things - every time you see two contradictory pieces of lore, it's because an imperial scribe got something wrong!)
The lore has 0 influence on why things are added to the model range. The lore justifies additions to the range, not the other way round.
The inclusion of female models in the ranges and the push of SoB is probably a 50/50 split of motivations. One half is that the company want money and thus want to make new ranges to sell more models. The other half is that they don't want to be seen as sexist or exclusionary by only having male models.
Those aren't separate motivations they're the same motivation, make money. Companies that have narrow target customer bases make less money so making the product appeal to a broader base nets more profit.
Now that we've agreed on that one, can anyone with a sisters of battle codex post up some lore which indicates either of these motivations?
We haven't agreed. The entire existence of a revamped SoB range shows they want to make more money by expanding into markets (women) that were previously uninvested in. "Oh, but they didn't justify the range revamp in the lore", of course they didn't they justified it everywhere bloody else.
Do you see how they manage to divorce the two things using the lore? How they say "alright everyone, we need a new model to sell!" and the brainstorming starts - "what about a new space marine unit?" "brilliant jenkins, truly excellent! Get the writing team working on a reason for the new unit to exist and then we'll get the sculpters to start making the new guns for them to hold! Then we'll worry about what rules we need to make to make them powerful enough to sell like hot cakes, before we nerf them with a compulsory book full of FAQ's!" >polite rounds of applause from the brown-nosers round the table with thin morals and thick wallets<.
The key part there is "get it written so that the models have a reason to exist". And before the deluge of "women exist they shouldn't need a reason" comes in, this is about the game, not real life. As soon as the decision was made "we want to add these to the game", things jump sideways from the real world, with profit expectations, business models and societal expectations, and it goes into the world of fiction, the 40k lore, where they need to find a place for this new thing to sit without it contradicting anything else.
Yeah, that's not how it works. GW doesn't add units to the game, they add models to the range. The game and background are secondary concerns, which is why people get so mad at additions to the range.
They might just say "all those records saying there were no female marines were from scribes who could hardly tell the difference, and the secrets are so closely guarded most people still think all marines are male, even though they aren't", and that's fine. But the idea that the lore doesn't have to justify it because society justifies it is ludicrous. The lore does not need concern itself with society - that's the business planners jobs in GW. GW =/= the lore, the lore =/= real life.
They'll justify the addition of female SM however they want and people will still call it politics. Models come first, everything else is secondary.
@Vatsetis
Spoiler:
Vatsetis wrote: Gert Ive been reading this thread from minute one.
The fact that you compare GW40K with Marvel comics (perhaps the holders of the biggest IP at the moment and living on the tracks of disney blockbusters) and not with Infinity (another miniture tabletop wargame) shows a lack of proportion in your POV.
Infinity is one product.
GW has:
Warhammer 40k, which consists of the 40k game, 40k Kill Team, Blackstone Fortress, The Horus Heresy game, Adeptus Titanicus, Aeronautica Imperialis, and Necromunda.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar, which consists of the AoS game, Warcry, Warhammer Underworlds, Warhammer Quests Silver Tower, Shadows over Hammerhal and Cursed City (sort of).
Warhammer Fantasy, which consists of Blood Bowl and The Old World.
They are also the license holders for Middle Earth with which they make the MESBG.
Their own publishing company, Black Library which publishes books set in all of GW's own IP settings.
A listening department that allows other companies to make video games, comics (including Marvel BTW), and numerous RPGs.
So yes, I do compare GW with a company like Marvel with its multitude of properties compared to Corvus Belli which for the longest time seems only to have had the Infinity product.
some bloke wrote: I have just made a thread in which I hope everyone will post their preferred method for how to implement this change, if it were to be changed.
There will be an option on the poll for not changing it, as no views should be discounted!
I hope that when I get this poll together, it will help us all to see how people view the merits and approaches of changing the lore - did Cawl do it, has it always been there, do female marines just look almost identical to men, that sort of thing!
Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago?
The main thing that scares me is the absolute detachment from reality that some people seem to have. In life human males are stronger than human females. It is not just muscle mass. Men are built by biology to fight and hunt. There is a reason why sports are divided by sex. There is a reason why armies throughout history have been mostly male. And it is not because of "i hate girls".
Now 40k is a fictional universe, we all know this. So not all the rules of reality apply. But 40k, like most science fiction works when we have basis of comparison in our real world. There are very good reasons in game why space marines are male only. And once more, it isn't about "i hate girls". Well, for some it is I would guess. To paint everyone of that view point as the same as the he-man woman haters squad is just as bad as any bigotry. It only shows how small your perception really is.
But I do have a question that pro female marine fans have never answered on this forum. WHY do you want female space marines? There is a faction of female warriors already in the game. And while GW has historically not been kind to that faction, things are changing. Inclusion for inclusions sake is not a real reason. Is it about forcing your morality on others for a fleeting feeling of power? Is it to signal your morality? is it to take things from others you find to be less than yourself? I seriously cannot think of a decent reason to do this and find at times the above examples to be true. But my observations are biased. So if you would kindly illuminate your reasons so I can adjust my views accordingly.
I would be 100% ok with sisters of battle being just as powerful as the marines in lore. And that is perhaps what people should be pushing for.
On a side note, before I am called a number of names and my intentions are called out to be nefarious, I shall give you a tiny bit of personal history. I have a wife and a mother that I love more than any man. I in no way think that females are worth less than males. Perhaps there are good reasons why people do not want female marines. Just as I assume there are good reasons for people to want them.
Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago? The main thing that scares me is the absolute detachment from reality that some people seem to have. In life human males are stronger than human females. It is not just muscle mass. Men are built by biology to fight and hunt. There is a reason why sports are divided by sex. There is a reason why armies throughout history have been mostly male. And it is not because of "i hate girls".
Space Marines aren't human so "biology" doesn't apply and the majority of the Imperium's military organisations are mixed so there goes that argument.
Now 40k is a fictional universe, we all know this. So not all the rules of reality apply. But 40k, like most science fiction works when we have basis of comparison in our real world. There are very good reasons in game why space marines are male only. And once more, it isn't about "i hate girls". Well, for some it is I would guess. To paint everyone of that view point as the same as the he-man woman haters squad is just as bad as any bigotry. It only shows how small your perception really is.
Didn't say all people, just the majority of anti female-SM arguments come from sexist reasons like "women are weaker than men". As for your very good reasons, what would they be exactly? Biology? It's the future and genetic manipulation is common. Tradition? Only one of the segregated armies has any real explanation as to why it is segregated (SoB).
But I do have a question that pro female marine fans have never answered on this forum. WHY do you want female space marines? There is a faction of female warriors already in the game. And while GW has historically not been kind to that faction, things are changing. Inclusion for inclusions sake is not a real reason. Is it about forcing your morality on others for a fleeting feeling of power? Is it to signal your morality? is it to take things from others you find to be less than yourself? I seriously cannot think of a decent reason to do this and find at times the above examples to be true. But my observations are biased.
If you don't think there's been answers to that question, you haven't been reading the thread chief. Here's a few: Adding female SM to the range would hopefully reduce toxic behaviour towards those who already make their SM female. It would look cool. The Imperium isn't a sexist place, so why are SM not allowed to be female? Cawl made the Primaris changes so why can't he also find a way to make female SM?
SoB aren't equal to SM in any way regarding market presence, hell it took nearly 30 years to update the bloody model line. And are you seriously going to stand there and say that women should be happy that the only faction in the game that represents them is characterised by its religious zealotry and being dumped on by the writers for about 30 years? It's not inclusion for inclusions sake, it's inclusion because there is a serious problem of sexism and harassment of women in this hobby. Normalising the presence of women within the hobby by putting them in the flagship faction would hopefully help to reduce this issue. The only people in this hobby that I consider less than myself are the scumbags who send death threats to hobbyists for making female SM.
I would be 100% ok with sisters of battle being just as powerful as the marines in lore. And that is perhaps what people should be pushing for.
SoB aren't and should not be SM. They are fine as they are as a distinct faction.
On a side note, before I am called a number of names and my intentions are called out to be nefarious, I shall give you a tiny bit of personal history. I have a wife and a mother that I love more than any man. I in no way think that females are worth less than males. Perhaps there are good reasons why people do not want female marines. Just as I assume there are good reasons for people to want them.
When someone comes up with a reason that doesn't put a fictional setting above real people, isn't sexist nonsense, and isn't just "I don't want politics", then I'll agree that there are good reasons for not adding female SM.
Table wrote:Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago?
The main thing that scares me is the absolute detachment from reality that some people seem to have. In life human males are stronger than human females. It is not just muscle mass. Men are built by biology to fight and hunt. There is a reason why sports are divided by sex. There is a reason why armies throughout history have been mostly male. And it is not because of "i hate girls".
This bit has been discussed much earlier in the thread (I won't expect you to read the entire thing, unless you have a spare day!). In fact I brought up the topic and evidence of sexual dimorphism, and was told that I was a sexist by someone who now has me on their block list (or is just stoically ignoring my every post since) for pointing it out.
That said, space marines are far beyond the natural tendencies towards being stronger and heavier. The difference between male or female starter stock in the finished marine might be ±2% of their strength. And besides, the level of made-up-science involved in making marines can easily overcome such things.
Furthermore, that is the difference in adults. Marines are started pre-puberty, IIRC, so the difference between a 10 year old boy and a 10 year old girl is significantly less. If marine-ing replaces puberty, you can expect them to develop into basically the same creature.
Table wrote:But I do have a question that pro female marine fans have never answered on this forum. WHY do you want female space marines? There is a faction of female warriors already in the game. And while GW has historically not been kind to that faction, things are changing. Inclusion for inclusions sake is not a real reason. Is it about forcing your morality on others for a fleeting feeling of power? Is it to signal your morality? is it to take things from others you find to be less than yourself? I seriously cannot think of a decent reason to do this and find at times the above examples to be true. But my observations are biased. So if you would kindly illuminate your reasons so I can adjust my views accordingly.
You have highlighted the way in which we have political vs lore in the entire argument. Every argument for female marines hinges on its effects on the real world and representation, coupled with the fact that there's no good reason why not (such as if it were orks, who have a good reason why they are all the same). Then every argument against it is entirely on the lore side of things, because there is no political reason not to do it, no financial reason not to do it (it'll sell more models), but lots of potential reasons not to do it based on the lore.
The problem there is that, at the moment, all we have that tells us marines are male is some old lore that was neither repeated or overwritten, and the legacy that all the models are male and all the pronouns are male. That's the only ammunition that currently exists for not doing it from a lore point of view.
People are making up lore which would fit, such as it requiring a Y chromosome or a males bone density, or females being seen as less disposable, or only male candidates passing the tests, but these are all made up at this point, and as such have just as strong an anchor in the lore as saying Cawl made female marines, or that marines are actually all female but look male from the process and were misinterpreted by the imperial record keepers as all being male. It's all made up, non-canon lore from people writing it to suit their own arguments, and as such holds as much validity as me saying all marines are actually made from goldfish but the imperium wants people to think that marines are human so hasn't revealed this fact.
As it is, the arguments for are:
Better representation to combat real-world issues
There's nothing holding it back except the thinnest strand of lore
There's so many ways to explain their existence in the lore that it would be easy to do.
The arguments against are:
There's this thinnest strand of lore that holds it back
As for sisters of battle being changed to be space marines with heels, that's a no from me. They shouldn't change a unique faction to be another homogenous blend of power armour, your imagination, and your favourite colour. Sisters of battle have their own thing going on and they should keep doing it, because they don't have to be the same as marines to be as good as them. 100% for sisters, as an army/faction, to be as powerful as marines. 100% not ok with the idea of 1 sister = 1 marine.
Vatsetis wrote: Gert Ive been reading this thread from minute one.
The fact that you compare GW40K with Marvel comics (perhaps the holders of the biggest IP at the moment and living on the tracks of disney blockbusters) and not with Infinity (another miniture tabletop wargame) shows a lack of proportion in your POV.
Infinity is one product.
GW has:
Warhammer 40k, which consists of the 40k game, 40k Kill Team, Blackstone Fortress, The Horus Heresy game, Adeptus Titanicus, Aeronautica Imperialis, and Necromunda.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar, which consists of the AoS game, Warcry, Warhammer Underworlds, Warhammer Quests Silver Tower, Shadows over Hammerhal and Cursed City (sort of).
Warhammer Fantasy, which consists of Blood Bowl and The Old World.
They are also the license holders for Middle Earth with which they make the MESBG.
Their own publishing company, Black Library which publishes books set in all of GW's own IP settings.
A listening department that allows other companies to make video games, comics (including Marvel BTW), and numerous RPGs.
So yes, I do compare GW with a company like Marvel with its multitude of properties compared to Corvus Belli which for the longest time seems only to have had the Infinity product.
We must have get derail at some point... I thought this thread was about the impact of FSM in the 40K gamming/modelling community (if not, why such a fuss arround the head sprue for FSM?)... as you have shown this is only a relatively small part of GW activity.
40k gamming/modelling is not something mainstream as reading comics... even an important part of those subject to GW influence arent part of this community... its a time and money demanding hobby for a minority.
40K community gamming and modelling is significantly bigger than the infinity one, but both have huge similarities, and even played by the same or similar people in the same places... therefore the comparison is relevant.
If I say, "making a sci fi tabletop community inclusive is harder that including females heads and females charecters in the lore, look at infinity" the answer is not to dismish it saying that GW is a big company that licenses video games and the such... thats moving the goal post in a very arbitrary manner.
Actually to reject the POV of a fellow poster that gives input of a smaller community about the issue being debated (gender representation in tabletop models) is very elitist and, may I say, exclusionary.
Vatsetis wrote: Gert Ive been reading this thread from minute one.
The fact that you compare GW40K with Marvel comics (perhaps the holders of the biggest IP at the moment and living on the tracks of disney blockbusters) and not with Infinity (another miniture tabletop wargame) shows a lack of proportion in your POV.
Infinity is one product.
GW has:
Warhammer 40k, which consists of the 40k game, 40k Kill Team, Blackstone Fortress, The Horus Heresy game, Adeptus Titanicus, Aeronautica Imperialis, and Necromunda.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar, which consists of the AoS game, Warcry, Warhammer Underworlds, Warhammer Quests Silver Tower, Shadows over Hammerhal and Cursed City (sort of).
Warhammer Fantasy, which consists of Blood Bowl and The Old World.
They are also the license holders for Middle Earth with which they make the MESBG.
Their own publishing company, Black Library which publishes books set in all of GW's own IP settings.
A listening department that allows other companies to make video games, comics (including Marvel BTW), and numerous RPGs.
So yes, I do compare GW with a company like Marvel with its multitude of properties compared to Corvus Belli which for the longest time seems only to have had the Infinity product.
We must have get derail at some point... I thought this thread was about the impact of FSM in the 40K gamming/modelling community (if not, why such a fuss arround the head sprue for FSM?)... as you have shown this is only a relatively small part of GW activity.
40k gamming/modelling is not something mainstream as reading comics... even an important part of those subject to GW influence arent part of this community... its a time and money demanding hobby for a minority.
40K community gamming and modelling is significantly bigger than the infinity one, but both have huge similarities, and even played by the same or similar people in the same places... therefore the comparison is relevant.
If I say, "making a sci fi tabletop community inclusive is harder that including females heads and females charecters in the lore, look at infinity" the answer is not to dismish it saying that GW is a big company that licenses video games and the such... thats moving the goal post in a very arbitrary manner.
Actually to reject the POV of a fellow poster that gives input of a smaller community about the issue being debated (gender representation in tabletop models) is very elitist and, may I say, exclusionary.
Whilst I appreciate your point of view on this, GW is vastly more visible in reality (as opposed to by virtual means, like the internet) and as such has to face the fact that they have limited display and advertising space in their windows. Infinity doesn't have its own store, and most places you find it have so much more in their windows than infinity (or even than just wargames). Add to this the fact that GW has pushed space marines so much that every store front needs a space marine army in it so people see space marines, recognize space marines, and associate them with GW that it is almost impossible to find a GW store without a space marine army in the window.
That means that, whilst infinity can plug every model online and people will spend the time looking through them if they are interested, from the safety of their own home, and build up their ideas of whether it's right for them from there, people walking past GW stores will see, every time, an army of buff power-armour wearing dudes being presented as the ambassadors of the hobby. If that doesn't get them through the door, then they are already walking away.
So yes, infinity is representative, but it is also vastly less well known and out-there than GW's. GW can afford stores in prime locations, whereas local hobby stores tend to be down back roads where the buildings are cheaper.
Comparing infinity to GW is like comparing GW to marvel, they're both that much beyond the other.
some bloke wrote: I have just made a thread in which I hope everyone will post their preferred method for how to implement this change, if it were to be changed.
There will be an option on the poll for not changing it, as no views should be discounted!
I hope that when I get this poll together, it will help us all to see how people view the merits and approaches of changing the lore - did Cawl do it, has it always been there, do female marines just look almost identical to men, that sort of thing!
Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago?
The main thing that scares me is the absolute detachment from reality that some people seem to have. In life human males are stronger than human females. It is not just muscle mass. Men are built by biology to fight and hunt. There is a reason why sports are divided by sex. There is a reason why armies throughout history have been mostly male. And it is not because of "i hate girls".
Now 40k is a fictional universe, we all know this. So not all the rules of reality apply. But 40k, like most science fiction works when we have basis of comparison in our real world. There are very good reasons in game why space marines are male only. And once more, it isn't about "i hate girls". Well, for some it is I would guess. To paint everyone of that view point as the same as the he-man woman haters squad is just as bad as any bigotry. It only shows how small your perception really is.
But I do have a question that pro female marine fans have never answered on this forum. WHY do you want female space marines? There is a faction of female warriors already in the game. And while GW has historically not been kind to that faction, things are changing. Inclusion for inclusions sake is not a real reason. Is it about forcing your morality on others for a fleeting feeling of power? Is it to signal your morality? is it to take things from others you find to be less than yourself? I seriously cannot think of a decent reason to do this and find at times the above examples to be true. But my observations are biased. So if you would kindly illuminate your reasons so I can adjust my views accordingly.
I would be 100% ok with sisters of battle being just as powerful as the marines in lore. And that is perhaps what people should be pushing for.
On a side note, before I am called a number of names and my intentions are called out to be nefarious, I shall give you a tiny bit of personal history. I have a wife and a mother that I love more than any man. I in no way think that females are worth less than males. Perhaps there are good reasons why people do not want female marines. Just as I assume there are good reasons for people to want them.
Now, you can insult me.
From my POV, historically women have been excluded from the military not because they are not fit for combat duty but rather for a demographic reason... on ancient times young men were expandable and could be "wasted" in battle, young women were a valuable asset for the community that have to be protected to guarantee the next generation of offspring. Actually a lot of tribal/traditional warfare was fighting to kidnap fertile women. This eventually created a need to "protect" women and help the rise of patriarchy. Sorry for the broad historical simplification but I hope my point is understood.
The reason to promote FSM is to create a more inclusive atmosphere in the 40K gamming community, by ussing the flagship faction as a beacon for representation. I have my doubts that this would be as effective as other posters are argueing but It seems to be the central reason.
We must have get derail at some point... I thought this thread was about the impact of FSM in the 40K gamming/modelling community (if not, why such a fuss arround the head sprue for FSM?)... as you have shown this is only a relatively small part of GW activity.
You brought Infinity into the discussion and said that despite having better representation in the model range, there are still few women players. I countered by saying Infinity is a poor comparison to make since it is objectively a much more niche hobby than 40k and that the way that GW operates is more like a comic company like Marvel or DC. You then said:
The fact that you compare GW40K with Marvel comics (perhaps the holders of the biggest IP at the moment and living on the tracks of disney blockbusters) and not with Infinity (another miniture tabletop wargame) shows a lack of proportion in your POV.
So I quantified why I compared GW to Marvel by listing the large amount of property they own and distribute.
Back to the point, 40k lacks representation of women in its models/novels/marketing, and as such a woman or girl is less likely to join the hobby. Adding female options to the flagship faction that is featured in 90% of marketing, 50% of the model line and probably another 50% of the novels would hopefully see an increase in women/girl hobbyists which in turn would hopefully see the community become less insular while also removing the harmful "leering sweaty nerd" stereotype the hobby suffers from.
40k gamming/modelling is not something mainstream as reading comics... even an important part of those subject to GW influence arent part of this community... its a time and money demanding hobby for a minority.
It isn't as mainstream as comics but 40k is more mainstream than Infinity is. Most UK cities will have a Warhammer or Games Workshop store, some even have multiple and on top of that most independent stockists also sell Warhammer. In all of the indy stores I've been in I can't recall seeing Infinity products or marketing in any of them.
40K community gamming and modelling is significantly bigger than the infinity one, but both have huge similarities, and even played by the same or similar people in the same places... therefore the comparison is relevant.
But Infinity still doesn't have the presence in society that 40k does. It doesn't matter if some 40k players also do Infinity because that's not what's being discussed.
If I say, "making a sci fi tabletop community inclusive is harder that including females heads and females charecters in the lore, look at infinity" the answer is not to dismish it saying that GW is a big company that licenses video games and the such... thats moving the goal post in a very arbitrary manner.
What you said was that despite Infinity having better diversity the proportion of women hobbyists is still low. I don't see this as a fair point because the proportion of Infinity hobbyists to 40k hobbyists is likely lower still. You're comparing two very different situations and calling them the same.
A person interested in TTWG is going to find a place that sells Warhammer before they find Infinity and especially kids are going to wander into a Warhammer or GW shop before getting into Infinity.
Actually to reject the POV of a fellow poster that gives input of a smaller community about the issue being debated (gender representation in tabletop models) is very elitist and, may I say, exclusionary.
You made a point and I disagreed with that point and provided a counterargument. Just because you don't like the counterargument doesn't make me elitist or exclusionary.
Comparing infinity to GW is like comparing GW to marvel, they're both that much beyond the other.
My comparison was not on a cuantitative scale but rather in a qualitative one.
Yes whatever GW those will have a much, much bigger public impact than anything related to Infinity /Corvus Belli.
Potentially any move they make towards representation might attract many more women into the hobby.
But thats is an hypothesis regarding a future measure that might or might not happend
Commeting what is actually happening of Scifi tabletop community today regarding gender integration seems sensible for me. Im not arguing "if didnt work for Infinity it wont work for 40K" Im just givin another piece of information for consideration on the debate.
From my POV, historically women have been excluded from the military not because they are not fit for combat duty but rather for a demographic reason... on ancient times young men were expandable and could be "wasted" in battle, young women were a valuable asset for the community that have to be protected to guarantee the next generation of offspring. Actually a lot of tribal/traditional warfare was fighting to kidnap fertile women. This eventually created a need to "protect" women and help the rise of patriarchy. Sorry for the broad historical simplification but I hope my point is understood.
This point doesn't apply to 40k though. The Imperium is callous with human life and all that matters is the continuation of the species as a whole. Humanity numbers in the trillions in 40k, 10 less women on a Hive World isn't going to be noticed or cared about. 10 more Space Marines is important.
The reason to promote FSM is to create a more inclusive atmosphere in the 40K gamming community, by ussing the flagship faction as a beacon for representation. I have my doubts that this would be as effective as other posters are argueing but It seems to be the central reason.
Except for the bit where this tactic works. Movies like Star Wars, Captain Marvel, and Wonder Woman give girls a character they can relate to and shows that it's not just men who can be strong/brave/tough/etc. Of course, I'm not saying that people should aspire to be Space Marines, fascists are bad but the point is that if people can see themselves represented in a story then they'll get involved.
Actually to reject the POV of a fellow poster that gives input of a smaller community about the issue being debated (gender representation in tabletop models) is very elitist and, may I say, exclusionary.
You made a point and I disagreed with that point and provided a counterargument. Just because you don't like the counterargument doesn't make me elitist or exclusionary.
As someone that plays both 40K as well as many other Tabletop miniature games; I find the attitude of a good proportion of 40k fans to be very elitist and exclusionary because they play "the biggest game" which in their mindset makes it the best and the only one that really matter (and why many dont play or bother about other similar games to 40k which they might actually enjoy better). Its like the cockiness of the fan of the big football team. Some of your words remain me of this.
You have derail my arguments, I tried to introduce new information into an already stagnated topic but it wasnt even taken into account based on something completelly tangent regarding to my point.
Size is not the only argument.
If the information that can be debated is restricted in this manner, there can be no real debate.
From my POV, historically women have been excluded from the military not because they are not fit for combat duty but rather for a demographic reason... on ancient times young men were expandable and could be "wasted" in battle, young women were a valuable asset for the community that have to be protected to guarantee the next generation of offspring. Actually a lot of tribal/traditional warfare was fighting to kidnap fertile women. This eventually created a need to "protect" women and help the rise of patriarchy. Sorry for the broad historical simplification but I hope my point is understood.
This point doesn't apply to 40k though. The Imperium is callous with human life and all that matters is the continuation of the species as a whole. Humanity numbers in the trillions in 40k, 10 less women on a Hive World isn't going to be noticed or cared about. 10 more Space Marines is important.
The reason to promote FSM is to create a more inclusive atmosphere in the 40K gamming community, by ussing the flagship faction as a beacon for representation. I have my doubts that this would be as effective as other posters are argueing but It seems to be the central reason.
Except for the bit where this tactic works. Movies like Star Wars, Captain Marvel, and Wonder Woman give girls a character they can relate to and shows that it's not just men who can be strong/brave/tough/etc. Of course, I'm not saying that people should aspire to be Space Marines, fascists are bad but the point is that if people can see themselves represented in a story then they'll get involved.
Please stop framing my words in a context in which they dont make sense. A fellow poster was talking about "being dettached" from reality so I give some historical context, I wasnt speaking about the 40K imperium of man in that instance.
If its unaceptable to use Infinity as a reference point for speaking about 40K, its not acceptable to use huge blockbuster movies as a referencee for 40K. This type of double standards dont seem to be ethical.
I just want to add a point about "biology" because it always get me, and I think I finally found a way to express that:
WOMEN ARE STRONGER THAN MAN.
At least for all that is important to become (note carefully: not to be) a Space Marine. Henceforth, their exclusion actively damage the setting making it more implausible than what will be if the opposite would be true.
To specify better: man are bigger and stronger than women? Irrelevant: Marine are posthuman bulkhead and we have clear example (Blood Angel) of weaklings being perfectly fine after the transformation. So it is definitely clear that it doesn't matter how physically you have before.
But then, what about the transformation process itself?
It is a bombardment of hormones and therapies that can kill any candidate, right?
Guess what gender is more resilient to changes, already used to experience hormonal imbalances and biologically suited to the teally extreme changes required to give birth?
Spoiler alert: not men, for sure.
So, if you think men are better candidates to be Space Marine, maybe you may aspire to be the Emperor... but you aren't cut to be the Emperor's Genetist for sure.
So now that we have gone full circle 20+ times, we are back to the financials of GW and world view politics. This is the definition of insanity. I hate to be binary, but there is an entire side of this debate that are too scared to come out and say they do not want Female Space Marines Period. They have to quantify it with all sorts of irrelevant jargon, or flat out call the other side zealots or some such bunk. Have the courage to at least state your convictions.
I'll start:
I want female Space marines because I feel it would foster a more welcoming atmosphere for females or non binary gender queer persons, and make the environment LESS welcoming for people who are against it.
More plainly: I want to exclude people from the hobby that don't support gender based inclusivity.
Vatsetis wrote: As someone that plays both 40K as well as many other Tabletop miniature games; I find the attitude of a good proportion of 40k fans to be very elitist and exclusionary because they play "the biggest game" which in their mindset makes it the best and the only one that really matter (and why many dont play or bother about other similar games to 40k which they might actually enjoy better). Its like the cockiness of the fan of the big football team. Some of your words remain me of this.
Ok, not sure why that's relevant. This is a discussion where we discuss things and you called me elitist and exclusionary because I disagreed with your point. Next time lead with what you've said above instead of what you actually did.
You have derail my arguments, I tried to introduce new information into an already stagnated topic but it wasnt even taken into account based on something completelly tangent regarding to my point.
You introduced new information and I disagreed that the information you provided was relevant or valid to the discussion. At that point, it was on you to discuss further why you thought your point was relevant but all you did was call me exclusionary.
Size is not the only argument.
It is when we're talking about representation in media. Infinity is a niche hobby that most people aren't going to have as their first TTWG, 40k on the other hand is not and has a much wider market reach.
A small miniatures company is not comparable to a large company with 10 times the production capacity/capital/market and media presence.
If the information that can be debated is restricted in this manner, there can be no real debate.
I'm not restricting you from posting, I'm disagreeing with what you have said and I laid out my reasoning behind it.
Please stop framing my words in a context in which they dont make sense. A fellow poster was talking about "being dettached" from reality so I give some historical context, I wasnt speaking about the 40K imperium of man in that instance.
Table was calling pro-female SM people "detached from reality" and then proceeded to list a bunch of things that don't apply to Space Marines. You're post brought in more points that aren't relevant to Space Marines or 40k. You've misread what Table has posted.
If its unaceptable to use Infinity as a reference point for speaking about 40K, its not acceptable to use huge blockbuster movies as a referencee for 40K. This type of double standards dont seem to be ethical.
Using something like Marvel or Star Wars as a comparison on how representation matters makes sense to me because it's exactly the kind of change 40k would be making. It would be moving away from a focus on male models (men superheroes like Batman or Superman) and presenting a more diverse range (Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel).
If Infinity always had a diverse model range but that didn't bring people into the game then it's not inclusivity that's the issue, it's that Infinity is a small fish in a big pond dominated by the games and models made by GW and it couldn't compete.
Table wrote: Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago? The main thing that scares me is the absolute detachment from reality that some people seem to have. In life human males are stronger than human females. It is not just muscle mass. Men are built by biology to fight and hunt. There is a reason why sports are divided by sex. There is a reason why armies throughout history have been mostly male. And it is not because of "i hate girls".
Now 40k is a fictional universe, we all know this. So not all the rules of reality apply. But 40k, like most science fiction works when we have basis of comparison in our real world. There are very good reasons in game why space marines are male only. And once more, it isn't about "i hate girls". Well, for some it is I would guess. To paint everyone of that view point as the same as the he-man woman haters squad is just as bad as any bigotry. It only shows how small your perception really is.
But I do have a question that pro female marine fans have never answered on this forum. WHY do you want female space marines? There is a faction of female warriors already in the game. And while GW has historically not been kind to that faction, things are changing. Inclusion for inclusions sake is not a real reason. Is it about forcing your morality on others for a fleeting feeling of power? Is it to signal your morality? is it to take things from others you find to be less than yourself? I seriously cannot think of a decent reason to do this and find at times the above examples to be true. But my observations are biased. So if you would kindly illuminate your reasons so I can adjust my views accordingly.
I would be 100% ok with sisters of battle being just as powerful as the marines in lore. And that is perhaps what people should be pushing for.
On a side note, before I am called a number of names and my intentions are called out to be nefarious, I shall give you a tiny bit of personal history. I have a wife and a mother that I love more than any man. I in no way think that females are worth less than males. Perhaps there are good reasons why people do not want female marines. Just as I assume there are good reasons for people to want them.
You're an American right? As an American, we are taught certain principles throughout our life, whether it be by our parents, our teachers, our mentors, our friends, or other close acquaintances. Those principles are very simple, ranging from judicial ones, to more individual ones. Freedom to express, freedom to defend yourself, and your loved ones. Right to be judged as an equal amongst peers. Then ones that are not clearly defined by our code of law, but taught to every youth on this cherished land as far as I know; such as: if you value your freedoms, it would be wise to respect those same freedoms in all other individuals, regardless of origin, of faith, of upbringing. Part of that is respect, part of it is preservation of dignity, for yourself, and for others. The ones who are found in evidence based court to have violated that dignity, and our code of law, have actively forfeited those rights.
Then there are some rights that are not in the American front consciousness yet. But have been nodded at, and theorized in some of the most hallowed documents in human history. The pursuit of happiness, and freedom of choice. Freedom of Choice.
As a freedom loving individual, if you ever say to me you can choose between having one option, or more, I will always choose to have more options. Only recently in the past years, through personal growth, have I come to realize how valuable the pursuit of happiness, and freedom of choice have become to me as an individual, how much I value those freedoms in those I love, and due to events over the past decade; how fragile those freedoms can be for us Americans.
If you give me an option, and say to me: "You can either not have a gun, or you can have a gun and not need to use it." I will always choose the more option.
If you say to me: "You can have one megacorporation and have your stuff delivered super-fast, or you can have a ton of small companies that fight each other and inadvertently promote fairness." I will always choose the more option.
If you say to me: "You cannot have abortions and same-sex marriage, or you can have both, and you need not practice either." I will always choose the more option.
Regardless of personal interest in having female space marines, if you give me an option, and say to me: "We can just have male space marines, or we can have both male and female space marines, and you can just make your army however you like to." I will always choose the more option.
For me, personal preference has a little to do with it. I took up 40K as a hobby when Space Marines were all male. I still have all male space marines. My vostroyans, death korps, and tau have always been all male. I'll most likely keep most of them all male. But on moral principle, if you say to me, you can either have one freedom, or more freedoms. I will always choose more.
From my POV, historically women have been excluded from the military not because they are not fit for combat duty but rather for a demographic reason... on ancient times young men were expandable and could be "wasted" in battle, young women were a valuable asset for the community that have to be protected to guarantee the next generation of offspring. Actually a lot of tribal/traditional warfare was fighting to kidnap fertile women. This eventually created a need to "protect" women and help the rise of patriarchy. Sorry for the broad historical simplification but I hope my point is understood.
My wife as a herdsman would affirm the cold logic of that view. Hens are kept for laying eggs, most roosters are called "fryers". Heffers are kept for dairy, most bull calves are for meat.
It would not be surprising to find planets and space marine chapters in the IOM that obserive the same cold logic and prioritize putting men as tithes and combatants.
Nevertheless, women do appear in the guard and in Sisters of Battle, so it's clearly not a firm universal rule in the IOM.
Actually to reject the POV of a fellow poster that gives input of a smaller community about the issue being debated (gender representation in tabletop models) is very elitist and, may I say, exclusionary.
You made a point and I disagreed with that point and provided a counterargument. Just because you don't like the counterargument doesn't make me elitist or exclusionary.
As someone that plays both 40K as well as many other Tabletop miniature games; I find the attitude of a good proportion of 40k fans to be very elitist and exclusionary because they play "the biggest game" which in their mindset makes it the best and the only one that really matter (and why many dont play or bother about other similar games to 40k which they might actually enjoy better). Its like the cockiness of the fan of the big football team. Some of your words remain me of this.
You have derail my arguments, I tried to introduce new information into an already stagnated topic but it wasnt even taken into account based on something completelly tangent regarding to my point.
Size is not the only argument.
If the information that can be debated is restricted in this manner, there can be no real debate.
From my POV, historically women have been excluded from the military not because they are not fit for combat duty but rather for a demographic reason... on ancient times young men were expandable and could be "wasted" in battle, young women were a valuable asset for the community that have to be protected to guarantee the next generation of offspring. Actually a lot of tribal/traditional warfare was fighting to kidnap fertile women. This eventually created a need to "protect" women and help the rise of patriarchy. Sorry for the broad historical simplification but I hope my point is understood.
This point doesn't apply to 40k though. The Imperium is callous with human life and all that matters is the continuation of the species as a whole. Humanity numbers in the trillions in 40k, 10 less women on a Hive World isn't going to be noticed or cared about. 10 more Space Marines is important.
The reason to promote FSM is to create a more inclusive atmosphere in the 40K gamming community, by ussing the flagship faction as a beacon for representation. I have my doubts that this would be as effective as other posters are argueing but It seems to be the central reason.
Except for the bit where this tactic works. Movies like Star Wars, Captain Marvel, and Wonder Woman give girls a character they can relate to and shows that it's not just men who can be strong/brave/tough/etc. Of course, I'm not saying that people should aspire to be Space Marines, fascists are bad but the point is that if people can see themselves represented in a story then they'll get involved.
Please stop framing my words in a context in which they dont make sense. A fellow poster was talking about "being dettached" from reality so I give some historical context, I wasnt speaking about the 40K imperium of man in that instance.
If its unaceptable to use Infinity as a reference point for speaking about 40K, its not acceptable to use huge blockbuster movies as a referencee for 40K. This type of double standards dont seem to be ethical.
Every time someone disagrees with you they are not misquoting or representing you.
Infinity having more inclusion but being less popular or successful, those two thing may well not be connected. Inclusion in of its self does not guarantee success. The failure of infinity was down to many things, but not it’s diversity of representation. 40K in the other hand is the market leader and Already hugely successful, increase representation would not harm it and cause it to fail because infinity didn’t do well with women characters in it.
The comparison to marvel has its flaws as well but is an example of a market leader increasing diversity and doing well. They key here is to how it is handled by GW. There is a thread for that so won’t go into it here. You comparison is not so much apples vs oranges, it’s apples vs a smaller less tasty fruit that most people haven’t tried.
some bloke wrote: I have just made a thread in which I hope everyone will post their preferred method for how to implement this change, if it were to be changed.
There will be an option on the poll for not changing it, as no views should be discounted!
I hope that when I get this poll together, it will help us all to see how people view the merits and approaches of changing the lore - did Cawl do it, has it always been there, do female marines just look almost identical to men, that sort of thing!
Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago?
The main thing that scares me is the absolute detachment from reality that some people seem to have. In life human males are stronger than human females. It is not just muscle mass. Men are built by biology to fight and hunt. There is a reason why sports are divided by sex. There is a reason why armies throughout history have been mostly male. And it is not because of "i hate girls".
Now 40k is a fictional universe, we all know this. So not all the rules of reality apply. But 40k, like most science fiction works when we have basis of comparison in our real world. There are very good reasons in game why space marines are male only. And once more, it isn't about "i hate girls". Well, for some it is I would guess. To paint everyone of that view point as the same as the he-man woman haters squad is just as bad as any bigotry. It only shows how small your perception really is.
But I do have a question that pro female marine fans have never answered on this forum. WHY do you want female space marines? There is a faction of female warriors already in the game. And while GW has historically not been kind to that faction, things are changing. Inclusion for inclusions sake is not a real reason. Is it about forcing your morality on others for a fleeting feeling of power? Is it to signal your morality? is it to take things from others you find to be less than yourself? I seriously cannot think of a decent reason to do this and find at times the above examples to be true. But my observations are biased. So if you would kindly illuminate your reasons so I can adjust my views accordingly.
I would be 100% ok with sisters of battle being just as powerful as the marines in lore. And that is perhaps what people should be pushing for.
On a side note, before I am called a number of names and my intentions are called out to be nefarious, I shall give you a tiny bit of personal history. I have a wife and a mother that I love more than any man. I in no way think that females are worth less than males. Perhaps there are good reasons why people do not want female marines. Just as I assume there are good reasons for people to want them.
Now, you can insult me.
Of course it’s political, every pro female marine person on here as acknowledged it will be for improve inclusivity and representation. Our collective argument is mainly that that is a good thing. I have no issue with politics in games. 40K has the same current politics in it already. New kits have more female options and ethnically diverse heads in them already as drive from GW to include representation. FSM is the next step.
If you are anti politics in 40K then are you against them releasing ethnically diverse heads and paints? Or should 40K stay all white like it was in the 90s? (No insult just a question)
1) for me personally I like highly varied miniatures. The more ways a marine is allowed to look, the more freedom I have as a modeler. Thats why I include female marines in my armies
2) I think excluding women, or anyone, from participating in a good old fashioned power fantasy is a gakky thing to do.
Let me use First Person Shooter video games as an analogy for a sec.
The core assumptions of the fps genre, in my experience tend to be
1) the protagonist is someone who never tires regardless of how long they move and fight
2) the protagonist is someone who can be shot by one or more bullets fired from a gun and can continue to fight at the same level of effectiveness
3) the protagonist is unaffected by fear or any other emotion and fights exactly the same while under fire as while not
Now, a few FPS games eschew these tropes, but there is no reality where an FPS makes these three assumptions and anyone raises a "realism" based objection.
In my eyes it's extremely, extremely hard to not view a "realism" based objection to the invincible, omnicapable, untiring, fearless protagonist being a woman rather than a man as coming from anywhere but a place of sexism.
I think these kinds of power fantasies are fantastic in our frustrating modern world, and I think telling women "well....you can participate, but weve separated out your designated faction over here, and you've got to be OK with way fewer customization options and your ladies are less than 1/2 as powerful as the male power fantasy factions" is lame. The justification for that doesn't have to come from sexism, but I DEFINITELY think it very often does.
From my POV, historically women have been excluded from the military not because they are not fit for combat duty but rather for a demographic reason... on ancient times young men were expandable and could be "wasted" in battle, young women were a valuable asset for the community that have to be protected to guarantee the next generation of offspring. Actually a lot of tribal/traditional warfare was fighting to kidnap fertile women. This eventually created a need to "protect" women and help the rise of patriarchy. Sorry for the broad historical simplification but I hope my point is understood.
My wife as a herdsman would affirm the cold logic of that view. Hens are kept for laying eggs, most roosters are called "fryers". Heffers are kept for dairy, most bull calves are for meat.
It would not be surprising to find planets and space marine chapters in the IOM that obserive the same cold logic and prioritize putting men as tithes and combatants.
Nevertheless, women do appear in the guard and in Sisters of Battle, so it's clearly not a firm universal rule in the IOM.
Sure. And more recently, warfare has very very often been decided from extreme ranges where the combatants cannot see one another at all, but in 40k that aspect is not incorporated despite its vastly superior realism, simply because it is not a fun concept to create a wargame around. Indeed, maintenance of supply lines and ammunition has been historically absolutely CRUCIAL to the outcome of warfare. But 40k basically only focuses on "the fun parts"
So id reject the idea that itd be more historical for women in 40k to be excluded from the battlefield for reasons of needing to be baby factories because that does not sound fun.
Grimskul wrote: I feel part of the problem is that realistically that assuming they would want women for some reason to become SM, the majority of SM trials forced on aspirants would mean that women who were chosen would be weeded out incredibly early on just given the biological advantages a man has over a woman physically. Think about US Navy Seals, they're open to women to join but so far no one has joined or made it past the initial training to make the cut. Now imagine that, but 10x worse and grueling, with additional possibility of you not being able to cope with the marine implants. The likelihood of women becoming marines, even with this change, would be so low that their representation would be incredibly rare and thus basically pointless besides as a token attempt at representation.
I'd much prefer they show more female representation in the guard than marines, because not only is it more realistic there, but the model range is already in desperate need of a reboot and it doesn't require significant retconning to make it happen.
This doesn't really apply to Space Marines. According to a bit of over-the-top grimdark fluff, Space Marine aspirants in most Codex-compliant Chapters begin their training as preteens. If little boys can successfully pass Space Marine initiations then that means that either Space Marine initiations aren't as though as some stories make them up to be or that the "little boys" they recruit are hulking mutant monstrosities rather than regular children. Given the fact that 40k fluff is deliberately written from an "unreliable narrator" point of view (and thus the stories about Space Marine training may represent propaganda) and that many Space Marine chapters recruit from planets that are deadly and irradiated hell-holes, both could be true.
Either way, there is no objection to female Space Marines to be found here since if the initiations can be passed by preteens (either because they are really easy or because the "preteens" are mutant freaks much stronger than regular children) they could be passed by women/girls as well.
That said, I personally don't want to see female Space Marines. It is a major lore chance that I feel is not necessary since there are plenty of other places GW can increase female representation. Female Space Marines would also clash thematically with the Sisters of Battle (since, you know it takes away their shtick of being the female counterpart to the male Space Marines). It might work if we also get male Sisters of Battle (removing the gender theme from both factions entirely), but to be honest if we need more power-armored women in 40K, then personally I'd much rather see female Custodes than female Space Marines.
I've skimmed this thread and have had some thoughts gnawing at the back of my head, so here goes:
1. Is there actually a lore-reason for all male space marines or is it just assumed? I went through the part concerning space marines in the old RT rule book and the Angels of death codex from 2nd ed, and can't find that explicitly stated anywhere that all marines are male, in some parts it says "men" but it is definitely possible to interpret this as "people in general". But I'm kind of out of the loop so I might have missed a later explicit explanation.
2. From my point of view, being male is not a core essence of being a marine. For me the essence of "marinehood" is a) being psycho-indoctrinated (which I read as being basically inured to fear and ptsd and shell shock and unquestionably loyal) b) being genetically and biologically modified to the point of being superhuman (not in the comic book sense) c) being a psychotic and merciless killer that hate all your enemies and d) wearing power armour and using bolt weapons. All this is achievable by either gender. In this way marines are extremely effective as a gender equal faction.
3. This is beside the point regarding the topic at hand, but reading this thread has more than anything made me think about space marines in general and how they're presented. There is a strange duality to the presentation of the Marine, it is botht hero and monster. I remember reading some of the early HH-books and thinking that the marines are presented as too human, the protagonists could be put into any random sci-fi romp as the human lead character without any difficulty.
I think the 40k marines are victims of their own popularity which to me makes it feel a bit problematic to discuss them as the "flagship faction" and face of the game and company. Since the beginning they've been the ultimate warriors of the human race, yet barely human themselves. Superhuman psychotic killers with little regard to human life fighting in the countless wars for what is basically the most evil of all human societies, they are not nice people, not even by 40k standards. Sadly I doubt GW or most of the fanbase share my view of marines, but going through the material I got available I cannot actually fathom how Space Marines became the most popular faction and think that this in itself is maybe cause for some reflection. I reject the idea of space marines as the protagonists.
4. I'm firmly in the camp that the existence of female marines should be "retconned" in as always having been there. Doesn't take much effort just write some short stories with marines with female names etc etc. In terms of models I think it would be stupid to differentiate the body between female and male marines. I could see heads for those that like their marines bare headed. But for me on a personal level if I played marines I would not use them if they were too "pretty" just as I dislike the idea of normal looking male marines.
The only lore reason for SM being male-only is a section of a passage from background written about 20 years ago in a non-core book for 40k. It's not been featured in Codexes since then and the only reference to SM being all-male in the 9th Edition Codex is where it refers to SM being the "gene-sons" of the Primarchs.
Stepped away for a wee bit, so in the interest of brevity, I'm not commenting on everything I missed. Sorry if I miss any particularly juicy bits there, feel free to direct them at me if I missed it. Suffice to say that I'm happy to let scotsman's views stand as my own. I will make comment on some of the things immediately after I last posted, but I understand that these may have been moved on from.
Vatsetis wrote:Nevertheless, being all male is quite a significant part of the actual Space Marine identity. Its quite obvious that they are an all male military organization because of real world sexism (probably not intentional, just a way of marketing a power fantasy towards teenagers in the 80´s, this of course dosent make it more reasonable) rather than any in universe reason (not that 40K lore is particularly consistent on most issues anyways).
But it is quite clear that over the last three decades the Space Marines have been build in lore as a military brotherhood base arround medieval warrior monks (yes they are outliers like the space Wolves being "space vikings" but the religious inspiration of the the default SM is still quite obvious... just look at the indomitus box miniatures full of "crusader" inspiration). As time pass by it is more difficult to justify that "SM women were always in the background" because for instance the 30K novels are full os male space marines with their individual histories... the arrrival of primaris marines could have allowed to introduce female marines amongst other changes to the loyalist marines but this was a lost opportunity in this regard.
I have to disagree. Space Marines being male stands in counterpoint to their identity as a highly customisable and blank-slate faction. Their religious legacy is more than a little muddled, not to mention how being "monkly" doesn't even mean gender exclusivity (see monks in other cultures). The simple truth is that Space Marines have too many different cultural identities to be able to pin down and point to any of them, beyond simply just "super soldier warriors in space". Sure, you can point to Indomitus as "crusader knights aesthetic", but then I'll just point to Shadowspear at the more high-tech spec-ops style, or the Dark Imperium wave of very blank and unadorned Astartes. It's almost like Space Marines are a super flexible and customisable faction, and can't be ascribed to any single design aspect.
But, as you say yourself, they're only all-male because of real world sexism. So why are we continuing to support a system that only exists because of those reasons.
Of course, all the 40K setting is fictional and all the lore can be rebooted or change in a arbitrary manner. But this is a background forum and probably the background tradition should be taken into account.
Background tradition only matters if we can justify why it needs to be kept. I'm not in the habit of accepting things "because it's always been that way" - if it's such a good/iconic thing, then we should be able to defend it's inclusion beyond "because that's what the lore says". Give me stylistic reasons, give me design choices, give me things beyond "it is, so it is".
Actually it is quite clear that in GW design philosophy for the 40K Imperium "non mixed" military organizations are quite common... since we have four of them: Space Marines, Battle Sisters, Sisters of Silences and Custodes.
Again, you say "quite common", yet those factions are probably the rarest in the whole Imperium. In a properly represented Imperium, the vast majority of military forces in the Imperium are mixed gender, such as the PDF, the Astra Militarum, Scions, Inquisition, Assassinorum, AdMech, Knights, hell, even the Ecclesiarchy isn't even truly "all female", due to the existence of Arco-Flagellants and Preachers.
So, that's not even true in the first place. The Imperium is overwhelmingly gender-neutral.
Some people argue that since the Imperium is fictional it can only be opressive in fictional ways (IE: against Chaos corruption) while being completelly inclusive towards the actual variety of modern day human diversity. But it is very clear that the Imperium of Man reproduces (in a satirical way) many of the real life opressions... it is a dogmatic theocracy, most of its inhabitants suffer under a political authoritarian regime that generates unberable social conditions and inequalities... its clearly exclusionary not only against extreme mutants but also against so called adhumans that are obviously viable human variants (IE Ogryns are tolerated as heavy duty workers just like European colonisers tolerated African slaves in the Americas). So it makes perfect sense in universe for the IOM to have some elements of sexism (like non mixed military organisations) even doe sexism is not a milestone of their identity (since there are women in the inquisition and other high ranking positions).
Except that the Imperium isn't institutionally sexist in the lore you claim to be arguing from. You're advocating to change the lore to justify further all-male Astartes, not defend it from what we currently see.
Yes, the Imperium is exclusionary, but we never see it against any real world peoples in an institutional manner. Race is ignored. We've found no evidence that "normal mutations" are discriminated against. And gender is largely ignored from an institutional perspective. So I'm sorry, but the lore doesn't paint the Imperium as sexist. Awful, yes. Xenophobic? Yes. But sexist? Not quite.
Im surprise that no one (altough I have might missed something) have argued on the reason that might justify in universe SM to be an only male organization... just like in historical societies male teenagers are demographically disposable and can be used for war, while female teenagers are a valuable asset that needs to be protected to guarantee the next generation... altough few in numbers (then again GW numbers in 40K are very inconsistent or illogical most of the time) only about 1/20 candidates became proper space marines, so it makes sort of sense to use male rather than females in the process (the IOM dosent seem to follow the cultural trends of an early XXI century post industrial society, but is rather a "natalist" Empire engaged in a never ending total war).
Sure, but at that point you're inventing reasons why Space Marines need to be all male - not defending why they currently are, or should be.
And again, for all those reasons you invent for why Space Marines can't have women, why then shouldn't be Astra Militarum be all-male? Why are the Militarum gender-neutral, but the Astartes aren't?
Regarding the solution to the issue... perhaps an official recognition of female SM could attract more women to the hobby or reduce harrasment, and both will be good... but if you are really going to go that way probably a "low profile" reboot wont be enough (potential women gamers wont notice and the hardcore sexist players will probably continue with their bigotry).
When I describe low profile, I mean "marketing material featuring Space Marines also features visibly women Astartes" - that should be pretty good at sending a different message.
Regarding actual models, just introducing a few vaguely femenine heads in future kits will be clearly insuficient (just like with the Astra Militarum)... that sort of effort is basically "window dressing". If you really want the IOM in 40K to really embrace the gender inclusiveness early XXI century post industrial societies then the proper way would be to make a major reboot of the setting and fused together the SM and SOB as a mixed gender "super soldiers in power armor" military organisation.
Why? Why does adding women need to be a major reboot? Is Space Marines being male *that* critical to the setting as a whole, because I don't think so at all.
And again, I think reducing Sister to just "women power armour faction" is a massive disservice to them, and outlines just further why Sisters of Battle are not an adequate form of representation for women, because they're just "the women power armour faction", according to you, instead of their own identity (which they very much are).
Because if we are honest SM are as sexualized (in lore and in miniature design) as Sisters of Battle (luckily SOB are now less hipersexualized and a more flesh out faction than in their inception) and a simple head swap wont solve the issue).
They're really not sexualised at all. What's sexualised about Space Marine design? Sanguinary Guard are a specifically styled single unit from a single sub-type of Space Marines. Other than having male heads, Space Marines aren't exactly a gendered construct. And with just a helmeted head, a Space Marine could be anyone.
EDITED: Deadnight, quite rightly, called me out on a pretty badly worded and phrased section here, both publicly below, and privately. I used his points as a springboard to reject the "warrior monks = all male" argument I have so often seen, without clarifying that Deadnight himself didn't hold those views. What I wrote unfairly projected those arguments that I was rejecting on to him, and that is entirely inaccurate and improper, as Deadnight does not hold those beliefs. As a result, I am going to clarify those comments below in this edit, but the originals can be seen in Deadnight's quote tags below, so that I both don't misrepresent Deadnight, and that I am not misrepresenting my own error.
Deadnight wrote:Hmm, i still can't quite agree that 'warrior monk' is no longer a core design element nor that this, and the touted 'blank canvas' identity are mutually exclusive. It might not be the only element, but I think it's a poor argument to dismiss it out of hand. It has not been set aside. 9th Ed rulebook p28 describes them as 'organised info chapters, each of which id a self-contained and largely self sufficient army with its own monastic culture, heraldry, traditions and tactics'.it also references their fortress monasteries. You don't get more up to date than this. This isn't old lore that is no longer relevant.
As we have both already said, considering how many different traditions Space Marines can draw from, we shouldn't limit the definition of "monk" to only the Christian version - this would mean that Space Marines could still feasibly occupy both the role of "warrior monk" and still include women Astartes, as said later. "Monk" doesn't have to mean "all-male" when that is just as varied as monks being secluded, or ascetic, or peaceful, as Deadnight has illustrated by showcasing the variety of styles of monk.
Also, in fairness, plenty orders of Monks in the real.world are gender segregated. Especially historically. Women join a nunnery, guys join a monastery. The 'common trope' is a bunch of people living apart from the rest of society, living frugal and ascetic lives and dedicating their life/sacrifice to God/other diety . Overall this monk design element can still support both all male 'traditional' marine design ethos, and the new design ethos you are proposing.
In Christian cultures, yes, monks are segregated. But in Asian cultures, the same cannot be said - which is why it is important that we all here recognise that the "warrior monk" design does not necessarily preclude including women, as Deadnight also states.
I personally don't think basing a design element on borrowed aspects of monastic life and their associated commonly understood imagery is bad, or is something that needs to be removed, devalued or cut out because you want to add females to marines and the Two are imcompatible. Using easily identifiable cultural references is sop for gw. Just because space marines might not adhere absolutely and exactly to every aspect of monastic culture in real life does not mean there is no link with the two.
Again, to springboard off of this, and direct outwards to when "warrior monk" is used by others as a reason for why women Astartes can't be a thing, when the only common thread that many people take from "monk" is "they're all male" (which is reductive of Asian monk orders), I have to wonder why that's the thing they choose to keep and focus on, and not other aspects, like their asceticism.
Directing the question outwards to people using "warrior monk" to defend all-male Astartes: why do Space Marines need to follow the gender aspect of monks when the other bits are happily ignored?
Curvaceous wrote:People don’t always need reminding that they’re in danger of getting beat up or betrayed or can’t be in boys’ club.
And similarly pretending that there isn't a problem at all is what leads for people to feel like their concerns about being excluded aren't being heard.
Introducing women Space Marines shouldn't contribute to what you describe, because that should go a way into removing the "boys club", instead of "reminding people it exists".
My response to some bloke, spoilered as usual!
Spoiler:
some bloke wrote:It is worth noting that if GW included marines with fish heads, and offered absolutely no explanation of why there are suddenly marines with fish heads in the lore except for a few token “fish-marine” pronouns in there, people would not be accepting that fish-marines are a thing.
People with fish heads are fictional. Women aren't. Why would people struggle to accept that women are a thing?
I feel like your grasp on how people accept change is being clouded by the fact that this involves women and sexist connotations. I know you’ll say “fish people don’t exist, and women do”, but that’s irrelevant to 40k. Chaos spawn, orks, eldar, tyranids etc. don’t exist in the real world, but they are in 40k, because 40k is fictional. Fiction is not restricted to only adding to the real world – it can also remove things as well, because it isn’t real.
But why is the fiction removing women? Why is that such an important aspect? And, again, if you remove those thirteen words from the lore, and just move on, there'd be no reason to believe that women could never be Astartes in the first place.
I shouldn't be having to debate why women are similar to fish people.
So back to the psychological debate we are having – whether or not how the introduction is made will affect its reception – try to take the sexism, representation, morals, and all that out of it and focus solely on the way it will affect people who aren’t affected by the problems we are trying to solve.
I can't do that, because a lot of the reasons for why people oppose women Astartes are rooted in those ideals.
Do we agree on that – that this should be treated just like any other change in 40k, and that we want it to be as well received as possible?
It should be treated like any other change in 40k, yes. The problem for you is that most changes in 40k are done exactly as I describe - with no fanfare or lore development. It just suddenly *exists*.
As for "as well received as possible", I don't believe that should include appeasement. So, yes - as well received as possible, without appeasement. And from your own argument, you're painting the lore as a form of appeasement.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:If the "majority" of people would turn toxic towards women simply because they were included in Space Marines without a lore justification, I don't think this is even a safe hobby for women at that point.
I don't know, maybe I was being optimistic, maybe a little naive, but I genuinely was under the illusion that *most* people wouldn't turn toxic and start being resentful towards women if suddenly little plastic dollies could now have women heads on them without any explanation or political commentary. If I'm wrong on that, and it turns out that people care enough about their little plastic toys needing some made up words to say they can now have women's heads, and if they don't get those made-up words, they'll be toxic towards women, maybe this isn't a safe space for women at all.
I feel that I was perhaps wording it slightly wrong when I said that they would turn toxic – apologies. I was alluding to the idea that they would make the environment more toxic, rather than being outwardly toxic directly to women. They would make jokes about the change, and suggest – rightly, if no lore explanation justifies their appearance – that they were added solely for political reasons. Have you met the British public, and heard their views on politics? We are at our core a cynical bunch, who will take the mickey out of anything if given the ammunition.
Oh, I know we absolutely do that - but it doesn't excuse people taking those shots in the first place.
Again, as you say, we're a cynical bunch - which is why I have no doubts that people would still say, even with a lore explanation, that this was solely for political reasons.
Personally, I feel like women would feel more comfortable amongst a group of people joking about how Cawl can do anything and how any change they want they should just ask Cawl to do it, than a bunch of people who are joking about how space marines have been changed to become more PC by adding women. A woman could easily feel like this vein of joking implies that marines were better before women were added, even if they were only a criticism of how the change were implemented and not a criticism of the change itself.
The issue is that people wouldn't be just doing this. I believe that a significantly larger portion of people would be saying how the lore only advanced because of political reasons, and would basically paint Cawl as this SJW political influence on their hobby. This isn't even far fetched, as people were saying the same when Primaris were introduced.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:I have one question to ask: if, as I described, women Space Marines became a thing, with no lore "development", but also no big political statement from GW - you go to sleep, and the next day, women Space Marines are just there - would you be toxic towards women? Resentful? Would you immediately call the inclusion of women a "political" change, and blame women for it?
Or would you just shrug your shoulders, and move on, and enjoy 40k regardless?
What comes first to you: enjoying the hobby and it's inclusivity, or kicking up a fuss because the lore was changed and no-one told you?
If that happened, I would ask someone in the store why there were female marines now. What answer would you want people to give?
"Because it's cool, and 40k's always been about rule of cool". Same answer I'd give about things like Centurion warsuits, or grav-guns, or Stormtalons.
We’ve already discussed before how taking away people’s “but the lore says no” will ostracise them and their extreme views if they choose to keep them up. Why don’t you feel it important to say “but the lore says yes”?
Getting rid of the "lore says no" would change that to a "lore says yes", in the same way that it says yes about me having a Welsh Princedoms inspired Chapter.
Again, simply featuring women Astartes is an example of "lore says yes".
Sgt_Smudge wrote:Hopefully, there shouldn't *be* anyone to "bait", as you put it.
But if you're implying that there *are* people with exclusionary views, and they would *still* be sticking around, lurking, having those exclusionary views while I'm simultaneously saying to women "yeah, this is a safe space, you're totally welcome here!", then it's not really a safe space, is it? If there's people with exclusionary views sticking around, then I'm not really fixing the problem, I'm just sweeping the people with exclusionary views under the rug.
You’ve changed tack here. Originally the concept was to remove the viewpoint. To get rid of the idea that women should be playing sisters of battle because everyone else is either men or aliens. You said yourself that if people in the hobby see female models as normal, they will see women as normal too.
Absolutely, yes.
Now you’re suggesting that these same people, who have grown up in a hobby dominated by men and male models, who aren’t personally sexist but have inadvertently been spending their time in a sexist-by-apathy environment (nobody bothered to change it), and who we might find are somewhat skewed in their subconscious beliefs by this (which we have established as a part of the issue, otherwise adding female models wouldn’t help) should all leave because they resent change to their game – not because of the content, but the application. You’ve moved from re-education to purging. I think that’s a bit of an extreme jump.
Why should I be "re-educating" people who are so actively opposed to women?
I'm not saying to "purge" the slightest resistance, not at all. But I'd like to think that most people should be able to let go of their lore hangups and simply accept that women Astartes exist, instead of making the environment toxic. As I've seen a couple times alluded to in the thread since my absence, there's this idea of "I was excluded/had injustices done to me, that's why I don't want change" - and that's not an excuse for continuing to exclude others. There's only so far people's excuses can go to justify their actions.
Let’s just say the change is made, and there are some people who aren’t happy about it. Do you really think that they will just go away? Now let’s say the change is done badly and there are more people unhappy about it. Some say “the change was political, raar!” and others say “The change was unnecessary, marines should be men, raar!”. These two groups will be joined by the common message of “The change was bad, raar!”, and will find vindication in their views from one another.
Sure - and I'd have to then have the same conversation we're having right now with the "the change was unnecessary!" group (which would almost certainly still exist with your proposed idea still) and challenge why Space Marines need to men in the first place.
Nothing changes, as far as I'm concerned, except they lose legitimacy.
I guarantee you that if they just made female marine models without saying a thing about them anywhere, everyone would ask where female marines came from, and when no lore reason arises, they will look elsewhere.
I'm sorry, but no. I know first hand that this doesn't work, because this happened with Primaris.
Primaris had lore explanations, had reasons to exist in canon, and were otherwise watertight with lore. And yet you still have large amounts of people seeing them as a cash-grab, a way for GW to resell everyone their Space Marines, a kiddification of 40k, or anything other than "it's just the lore".
In AoS, Stormcast being gender-neutral is explained in lore (Sigmar simply just picks up any worthy soul for his army), but some people still see it as "political", or "SJWs infiltrating the hobby".
Sorry, but no matter what lore reason GW give, the simple fact that it will change in the first place will enough for these people to cry "politics".
Look at it this way – we are expecting 3 types of people to come out of this change – we can disregard the numbers of them for now, as we’re just going back and forth on that one! The people are for, against, and don’t know how they feel. The goal is for the people who are for the change to get as many people who haven’t made opinions about it onto their side.
I don't think I fully agree. The goal for people for the change is to dismantle arguments against that change. That doesn't mean swaying people over via appeasement tactics. That means elaborating on why the arguments in favour of status quo are flawed and in what way. People can react in two ways - with hostility when their views are exposed, or can learn and develop their views, like I believe both of us have done (definitely on my end - I used to be anti-women Astartes. Only through my arguments being dismantled and reflected on was I able to realise how flawed my stance was).
But I can't dictate how people choose to react to their arguments being shown wrong.
The people who are against it are armed with “This is only political, it’s politics interfering with the hobby, the only reason they added it was for politics and not for the game, space marines have always been male and they’ve only put this in to avoid offending snowflakes” as their argument.
What are the people who are for it armed with for their argument? “Actually it’s a good change”. That’s it. They can’t say “actually Cawl did >loads of stuff here<”, so it’s not political, it’s just the progression of the 40k storyline!” if there’s nothing justifying their existence.
The people who are for it are armed with "there's literally no justifiably consistent reason why Space Marines need to be all-male, so why are they?" and "I want people to have as much choice as possible in their hobby".
Take any other thing in 40k. Anything. Why are there thousand sons? It’s not to pander to the Egyptian crowd, it’s because >all the lore about T-Sons here<. “Awesome, that’s so cool!” replies the inquisitive newcomer! Why are there chaos spawn? >loads of lore goes here< “Ew, that’s gross!” says the newcomer. Why were heldrakes added? >insert daemon engine lore in here<. Why were primaris marines added? >Insert primaris lore here<. Why were Custodes added? >Insert Custodes lore here<. Knights? Lore. Chaos knights? Lore. Ork buggies? Lore. Death Guard as their own codex? Lore. Female marines? >complete absence of lore<. Oh, must have been for another reason then.
Why are women Guardsmen a thing? Women Knights? Women Tau? Women Eldar? Women Genestealer Cultists? Oh yeah - there isn't any, because having women doesn't need justification.
Do we have a lore reason why Male Marines exist? Male Guardsmen? Male Custodes? No, of course not, and we don't need one, because real human people literally just existing doesn't need lore.
For all that women are a real thing in real life, woman space marines aren’t a thing right now, and if that is changed without changing the lore, then they will stick out like a sore thumb.
But WHY aren't women Space Marines a thing right now??
They literally won't stick out at all any more so than women Guardsmen stick out.
You can say “they should have been there from the start”, but the fact of the matter is that they weren’t
Neither were grav-guns, or Centurions, or Stormravens or any of the countless other things GW just invented.
Why is "women" such a hard hurdle?
People are used to a universe where marines are all male, and changing that without comment will leave people feeling confused about why.
"Because it's cool, and we wanted to give people options. Same reason why we have all these cool new units!"
It comes down to that – people will want to know why, regardless of how we implement this. If we say nothing, they will assume their own things. And we already know how well “make up your own lore” has gone for people making female marines, so they can’t go saying “Cawl dun it”, and they will know enough about the lore to say “it wasn’t always like this”, so they will find the only other option – politics has interfered with the game.
People will make that assumption regardless of whatever reason you give, unfortunately - as evidenced by Primaris and women Stormcast. If someone wants to ascribe political motivations to it, they will, no matter what you tell them.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: You might be mistaken. GW have made it very clear that they can change things without the lore needing to back it up constantly.
Grav-guns? They exist now. Centurions? They exist now. Stormravens? They exist now. Scions? They exist now. Celestian Sacresants? They exist now. Perpetuals? They exist now.
GW can just add things without needing the lore. I don't see why they can't do that with women Space Marines.
And every one of those things is lacking any explanation in the lore? There’s nothing about them in the books, is there? No write-up of what a grav-gun does, no entire-page-of-fluff about every codex entry in the codex?
Yes. The explanation for how they came to be, and how come they weren't there before on older models is never addressed. There's no "Celisarius Bawl invented the grav-gun in M41, and that's why you never see them in the Tyrannic Wars". It's like they always existed.
The only lore they have is literally "these exist now". Which is exactly what I'm advocating for women Astartes.
My point is that it’s not just a permissive ruleset, it’s a permissive lore. If it’s not written into the lore, then it doesn’t feel like it’s part of the actual 40k universe. If I made fish-marines, they will exist on the tabletop, and will have rules as marines, but as there’s nothing saying fish marines exist then it’s not canonical.
So, did black Space Marines not exist until they were explicitly mentioned/shown? Was everyone in the Imperium white?
The lore isn't "permissive" at all, otherwise the whole concept of custom Chapters is killed in the crib. The lore is incredibly flexible and open-ended to player creativity, with only a handful of hard limits and restrictions - which is why the whole "you can do anything except have women in your Space Marines" is so bafflingly bizarre.
And you mention "fish people" - but women aren't fish people, they're literal human beings.
The whole issue people have had is dingbats using “the lore says” as a reason to be highly unpleasant to people making female marines. “female marines aren’t canon” is their argument. Things only become canon by being written into the lore. So if you don’t write female marines into the lore, they aren’t canon, and these idiots still have their ammo to continue being dingbats.
You can include women Astartes in the lore without having to invent Cawl making them a thing. Women Astartes can exist just like how male Astartes do - by simply existing.
I don't get why you seem to think that "women being written in the lore" means "we need to explain how they suddnely exist" instead of just "we include women in the lore".
Sgt_Smudge wrote:And if they're more invested in the lore than in letting women be a part of the hobby, is that not a pretty messed up set of priorities?
Yes. But a lot of people won’t see how female marines will let women be a part of the hobby. When I joined this thread, I didn’t see how making female marines would let women be a part of the hobby.
And so I explain that to them, instead of obfuscating it.
They want the game designers to make the game better. They want every release to be about improving the game, furthering the lore, finding out what happens next and what cool new models they can play.
Exactly - they never cared about women in the first place. So when women Astartes are added, no matter what lore reason you give, they'll still grimace at the inclusion of women, because they don't care about women. Simply including women will be seen as political, because to them, anything not in the game is "political", and because women weren't in the game before, this will be political.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Well, not quite true. There *are* lore explanations explaining Marines being all-male, but they're: - Inconsistent - Obscure and not put in the focus - Thematically incongruous - Utterly arbitrary
It's *because* there is "lore" explaining why women can't be Space Marines that people get ganged up on when they make women Space Marine conversions, and told it's "non-canon".
So why do you seem so opposed to writing in something in the lore which directly and unavoidably removes that ammunition?
Because that ammunition can be removed without writing things in as well.
The problem with writing stuff in is that it still creates the impression that the lore is more important than people, and that it still doesn't remove that "but this was a political change!!" motive.
If GW start making female marines without lore justification then people will say they are being inconsistent with their own lore and start looking for other reasons why it’s been changed. Most people could be easily appeased and brought on-side by writing about the change in the lore.
As I've said, the lore can include women without Cawl needing to suddenly invent them. The lore can include women by simply... including women.
I'll go back to the thing about how apparently the lore is permissive. We had very few, if any, examples of non-white Space Marines. Did we need a piece of lore explaining how suddenly Kelisarius Bhawl figured out how to make Space Marines from non-white recruits? Of course not, because it was enough just to say "yeah, this is a thing now". It didn't need "explaining" because there was nothing to explain.
Every change in 40k needs to be justified in the lore.
No, it doesn't. And GW don't even agree with that principle. As I've said - grav-guns, Stormtalons, Centurion suits, etc etc.
And every change has been – some done better and some done worse, but every model on the tabletop has lore backing up its ability to represent the factions in the lore.
No, they don't - not like how you're describing how you want to add women Astartes.
Where's the lore "backing up" women Tau? Because I don't think anything ever backs it up beyond "this exists".
Space Marines (or Astartes) are a fictional concept – the models only exist to represent them. If you want to change the models, then you need to change the lore so that the models you are making continue to represent the fictional concept of marines.
Sure. So you change the lore to say that Space Marines are gender neutral, and anyone can be recruited, or simply remove any mention of exclusionary recruiting processes.
Simple.
The models not being representative isn’t the issue, it’s the lore not being representative.
No, it is both. The lore for guardsmen is gender-neutral, but the models aren't. This is a change that needs to happen,*as well as Space Marine too*.
The lore says “they’s all men and they’s big” and the models are all men and the yare big, so the models are perfectly representing the lore. Nobody can say “space marine models don’t look like space marines”, can they? They used to say they were too short, but primaris has fixed that!
But why does the lore say they need to be men? Especially as the Space Marine design has evolved beyond their identity being tied to them being all men.
Again, back to the model front - Space Marines are the flagship of 40k, and get disproportionately more screen time than any other faction and resources allocated to them. Why is the flagship a mono-gender faction?
So if you change the models and not the lore, then the models no longer represent the lore and you will get people saying “I’m not using female models as they aren’t in the lore”, which is obviously a bad result! So you need to change the lore to say “Space marines are people and they are big and fight in power armour and have chainswords and bolters”, and then have the models represent big people with chainswords and bolters, some of which are women, and it all fits together.
Nobody is saying “You have to justify adding women space marines in the lore because they are women!”. They are saying “You have to justify model changes in the lore because the two have to match”.
Yes, agreed!
But I fail to see why I need to invent some kind of lore reason why Cawl can now suddenly make women Astartes instead of just "Space Marines recruit from all manner of human stock." Why does the lore need to act like this is new, instead of just stating it as a fact?
Sgt_Smudge wrote:So, what - your solution is to essentially lie and tell them that "we're totally not being political, look, Cawl did it!"?
I don't think I like the idea of lying to hide my motivations.
I'd much rather let people just come up with their own reasons, and if they say "oh, it's political, guess this justifies me going out and being toxic towards women", that's more of an indictment on them, surely?
Is it lying about the motivations to give explanations in the lore as to why female marines are now a thing?
When those explanations apparently exist only to stop people from crying "politics!"? Yes, I think so.
As I’ve said above, the lore and the models have to match.
Yes, agreed. I don't disagree on that - it's why Guardsmen are not as "representative" as people claim them to be, because their models don't match that.
If GW decided to release animal-headed marines without a word of why they did so in the lore, people would be confused about their existence. People making monkey-marines might get flak from others because there is no reason for monkey marines to exist in the lore. Lots of people would direct hatred towards the monkey-marine models, for not matching the world they are supposed to represent.
I hate to say it again, but women are normal humans. Not fictional monkey people.
If there were suddenly female marine models without lore explanation, people would ask why. If there was a lore explanation, the answer wouldn’t be “’cos politics”.
I'm not saying give no lore explanation. I'm saying that the lore explanation doesn't need to be "Cawl suddenly invented them" or "here's why we never had women Space Marines before".
You say that the lore needs to be reflective of the models, and vice versa. I agree. Why can't the lore simply be changed to "Space Marines recruit from male and female stock". There's the lore explanation for why women Space Marines exist.
"Ah, but that's not what I was asking!", you'll say. You were asking for a lore explanation for the *change*. But that has nothing to do with the models existing in the first place. The models are justified by *my* lore explanation, but the change isn't justified - because the change doesn't need justification.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:I don't know. I say this with all respect to you, I really do, and I know that you're pro-women Astartes, which is great - but I do think you're perhaps a little optimistic/naive about how many people would "accept" the Cawl was just able to make women Space Marines without calling that lore development itself "political".
What I see happening is that the same people you describe as looking for "political" motives, if there were no lore explanation, would call the lore explanation "political" as well, and we'd still be stuck with people who were crying politics at us.
I appreciate your disclaimer, I know how hard it can be to not sound like an arse on the internet! I also have respect for you in your views, which I truly hope comes across!
It comes across, you needn't worry!
I don’t care overmuch about the people who will find politics no matter what – they are a minority. The vast majority of people will only care about what the lore says. But if the lore says nothing, they will look for their answers elsewhere.
Again, I don't believe this is a minority. I would like to be wrong, but the people who would cry politics about this are the kind of people who would always cry politics about that. I believe that the majority of people you refer to, the ones who care about the lore, would likely just shrug their shoulders and get over it - but those who would cry politics would always do so.
Look at primaris – people got shirty about that, saying it was a money grab and so on, but most people now say it’s a thing Cawl did and yadda yadda. There will be an initial grumble from the community as any change happens, but when it settles down and people ask “where did female marines come from”, there needs to be an answer which doesn’t make it sound like a token gesture.
Again, no insult or offence intended, but I think you're overestimating how people have just accepted "Cawl did it", and how it's more just that they've stopped complaining about the external reasons. They're not accepting the lore, they're just not complaining as loudly.
Hell, just look at the renaming of the Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum. GW gave a reason why they were called the Astra Militarum (it's their High Gothic name), but that doesn't stop people still calling them the Imperial Guard and actively telling GW to shove their new name where the sun don't shine (for what it's worth, I'm indifferent. I use Astartes and Space Marine interchangeably, and I do the same for the AM/IG).
Sgt_Smudge wrote:I don't see why they would stick out like a sore thumb. T'au have women, with no explicit lore "reason". Eldar have women, with no "lore reason". Dark Eldar have women, with no "lore reason". Guardsmen have women, with no "lore reason". Genestealer Cults have women, with no "lore reason".* Women existing in 40k doesn't need a lore reason, because we don't need a lore reason for men existing.
I'm not sure how they'd stick out at all.
*well, Guardsmen especially should have more women represented, but regardless, they *have* women, and no lore reason other than "of course they have women".
But right now space marines don’t have women, and they have a lore reason why. Without contradicting it, we’ve already seen people pull 20+yr old lore out and say “this says no!”
Yes - so we just get rid of those 13 words preventing it, and problem solved. Now there's no reason they can't be gender neutral, just like Tau and Guardsmen.
Obviously natural populations like guard and tau and GSC will have women, it goes without saying. But Space Marines are made, not born, and they currently are all male for lore reasons, and everyone knows they are all male.
Sure, Space Marines are "made" - but why do they need to be only "made" from male recruits, if that lore (which I've spent all thread explaining how it doesn't really fit or need to exist) didn't exist?
Sgt_Smudge wrote:Yes, absolutely. And likewise, even with a good lore justification, anyone who wants to hear it was political will believe it to be so as well.
Anyone who wants to hear political reasons will, yes. But what about the vast amount of people who just want a reason? Any reason? Some justification for a change being made to their game, with no ulterior motives behind their curiosity? What happens when the only reason they hear is “because politics”?
They can hear any reason they like - they can hear "because it's cool", "because Cawl said so", or "because politics" - it's their choice to choose what they actually take on board.
All I'm saying is that I don't think for a second that the lore explanation would be enough, or the preventative measure you describe it to be.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:Whichever reason people want to give for it. Let people choose for themselves what reason they think GW did it for, because that's what they were going to do anyway.
I mean, look at Primaris. GW gave a reason why Primaris are a thing, but many other people are pretty convinced that it was done for business reasons, to rebrand, to remarket, to get people to "buy all their models all over again" - whatever reason people choose to come up with. Look at Riptides, Stormsurges and Supremacy Suits. GW gave a reason why Tau scientists were making them and why it diverged from the typical Tau system of "aircraft being used as Titan hunters", but many other people just see it as "GW wanted to sell us big shiny walkers and mech-suits".
No matter what GW choose to say or do, people will make up their own reasons behind it, be it "oh, I guess something happened in the lore", or "I guess they were always around" or "GW are after my money!" or "GW are all political and messing up my hobby".
I just don't want to lie about my intentions, I guess.
Not everyone goes looking for reasons with bias behind them. Look at Primaris. When they turned up, everyone whinged about them. Now they’re just normal. They had lore to back up their existence, and a lot of people got excited about the lore and bought the models. Lots of people said “they’re just a money grab”, but now more lore has come out explaining their place in 40k, those people are generally barely acknowledged or just told to shut up about it already by the people who are too busy enjoying the lore to look for deeper motives behind it.
I really don't think that it's the lore that did that. I think it's far more likely that people just stopped complaining and got tired screaming into the void. They don't care that Cawl wrote them into the lore, they don't care who Cawl is beyond another deus-ex character GW invented (and I don't want this to sound like a criticism of Cawl or Primaris, I love both). They don't love the lore or even accept it. They're just tired of complaining about change, and got over it.
I feel the same wound happen about women Astartes - a bit of screaming about change, and then just getting over it when they realise GW's legal teams won't send teams to your house to replace the heads on your models.
Riptides and such were generally more criticised for being overpowered in the rules to sell more models (hence the term “Triptide”) than they were considered a money grab. Most people just thought they were cool models.
But that doesn't change how in the lore, they had no reason to exist, until they did. The lore took a backseat to GW making a new meta-defining unit.
People who are inclined to complain about it will complain, I agree, but if they have no opposition, then that will become how people think of the change.
Opposition can come in forms that don't rely on the lore, such as "rule of cool".
You have suggested implementing it without any comment. How is adding comments about how Cawl dun it lying about your intentions, when you have suggested not saying anything anyway?
Because it feels (and it is only a feeling, I won't wish to ascribe motive) that the whole reason for inventing a reason for the change in the lore is purely to stop people thinking it was politically motivated.
I'll respond in kind to the summary points too, for your own ease if you don't want to go over all my stuff!
• It’s not “Justification in the lore” in the sense that the change has to be justified, it’s changing the lore so that the models we want to add continue to properly represent the space marine faction in the lore. It’s not that the lore is more important than the people, it’s that any change in 40k needs to be accounted for both in the models and the lore. If the lore said “marines have 2 heads” then marine models would need to have 2 heads as well. If the models had 2 heads, then the lore would need to say “marines have 2 heads”. If one says 1 head and the other says 2 heads then the models no longer represent marines. It’s the same thing with female representation – AM lore says there are women, and so the models need to have women as well. SM lore says there are no women, so the models have no women. You can’t change one without changing the other. If the lore doesn’t match the models, it will be an issue for a lot of people, regardless of what the content of the change is.
The thing is, I think we're talking about two different things. We both agree that the lore needs to explain the models, and the models need to be reflective of that lore. However, I disagree that *changes* need to be accounted for.
We're both pro-explaining women in the lore, but we're not agreed on what we want that explanation to be *of*. For me, I simply want to show that Space Marines with feminine pronouns exist, and this can be achieved by... well, having Space Marines with feminine pronouns. I don't want to show any change or modification, other than simply just showing that, self-evidently, women Space Marines exist, in the same way that non-white Space Marines exist. I believe that lore changes do not need to accounted for.
For you (if I'm not mistaken!), you want to show that there was a change, and show how that change came to be. You want to show that Space Marines with feminine pronouns exist, by explaining how they didn't exist before, and now do. You believe that lore changes need to be accounted for.
Fundamentally, our different comes from if we draw attention to the change or not.
• If there is no other reason forthcoming, then the people who only want a reason and haven’t already made up their minds (which I think would be the majority) will only get the answer “it’s political”, and as far as I can see this is the only thing in 40k which would have been added for purely political reasons, so it will stick out. The ones whose minds are made up cannot be helped, we should forget about them. I am concerned with what I believe to be the vast majority, which is the people who like the game as a combination of cool models and a huge, sprawling backstory, and want to see the two continue to marry up as smoothly as possible.
Again, I think the people who haven't made their minds up will also most likely be the group of people most likely to just get on with their day and just accept what happens, for whatever reason, in much the same way it happened with Primaris.
I believe that we have different ideas on what the "vast majority" of 40k players would do - you believe that this would alienate them without a lore reason, where as I believe that they will always ascribe political motivations to this, but ultimately will get on with their hobby in time when their world doesn't burn around them.
Again, perhaps I'm just jaded from Primaris, but I've seen plenty of times how, no matter what lore excuses GW give, people will still call their bluff and blame changes on political, economic, or legal reasons. And additionally, I still feel uncomfortable with the implication that the lore is more important to get "right" than making sure people are represented.
• If women constantly hear about how female marines were only added for political reasons, there’s nothing there to get them interested in their representation within the game, which is bad. If they instead hear cool stories about the benefits of more recruits and so on, they will feel like not only were women added to marines, but that they kicked ass when they did so and are continuing to do so. I feel like option 2 will make women feel more interested in 40k, and make people who aren’t inherently dingbats more welcoming to them.
I think that veers into the territory of tokenism and exceptionalism, which I kind of want to avoid. I'm not looking for "women offer a brand new tactical advantage and are new and different on the battlefield!" - I'm literally just after "women exist, and are just as capable as any other Space Marines". I think someone mentioned earlier about how perhaps women Space Marines might be more strategic or ranged specialists, but I really don't like that - it, again, promotes this idea of there being a difference and a distinction, which I'd rather there not be. Space Marines should be as blank a slate as possible, and that includes gender - it should be as free and unbound as whatever colour you chose to paint Your Dudes.
I totally agree with the idea of changing it without fuss or fanfare, but feel like a few pronouns in the fluff just isn’t going to do well enough at making people believe that this is a change that’s integrated into the very storyline of 40k, and not just a sticker slapped on the box saying “may contain women”.
Perhaps - but then, I feel that inventing a lore reason saying how women weren't a thing, but now totally are, only serves to paint women as exceptional and "different", no matter with how much good intention.
Again, making something feel "integrated" will only happen with time. I remember when Primaris, for all their lore reasons, still felt new and not quite landed and integrated. It was only with time and new material that they felt like everything else. I'd hope the same to happen to women Astartes.
Deadnight wrote:Hmm, i still can't quite agree that 'warrior monk' is no longer a core design element nor that this, and the touted 'blank canvas' identity are mutually exclusive. It might not be the only element, but I think it's a poor argument to dismiss it out of hand. It has not been set aside. 9th Ed rulebook p28 describes them as 'organised info chapters, each of which id a self-contained and largely self sufficient army with its own monastic culture, heraldry, traditions and tactics'.it also references their fortress monasteries. You don't get more up to date than this. This isn't old lore that is no longer relevant.
As I've already said, considering how many different traditions Space Marines can draw from, why are we limiting the definition of "monk" to only the Christian version? Why does "monk" have to mean "all-male" when that is just as varied as monks being secluded, or ascetic, or peaceful.
If we're going to say that Space Marines are monkly, but don't exhibit all the monk traits, why is the monk trait they follow that they're all-male? - especially when many non-Christian monk orders are not all-male.
I thibk.you are misreading me. Youre projecting views that I'm not saying.
I'm not proposing space marines should be all male. I don't see why you are bringing that up.with relation to my point, when what I said had nothing to.do with it. You're doing that thing again where you are tarring everyone with the same brush. Please consider this. This tangent with gert was specific to a discussion relating to whether the monastic and warrior monk tropes are still relevant. I think are, and I think it's neither incompatible with female marines or with your notion that marines are a blank.slate faction.
I was the first one to mention tou you about non-christian monk traditions (I believe I mentioned buddhist and shaolin traditions). Back god knows how many pages ago you tried to confine it to just the Christian tradition. I said before that monastic traditions are quite varied and I've never confined my views of them to only the Christian interpretations.
Also, in fairness, plenty orders of Monks in the real.world are gender segregated. Especially historically. Women join a nunnery, guys join a monastery. The 'common trope' is a bunch of people living apart from the rest of society, living frugal and ascetic lives and dedicating their life/sacrifice to God/other diety . Overall this monk design element can still support both all male 'traditional' marine design ethos, and the new design ethos you are proposing.
In Christian cultures, sure. But in Asian cultures? The same cannot be said.
And, as we've agreed, not all monk traditions are made equal. Many monks are more peaceful, whereas others are more militant. Others are secluded and isolated, and others are more integrated into their wider communities. I ask again why the thing we're choosing to single out is their gender exclusivity, especially when not all monk orders are all-male.
I personally don't think basing a design element on borrowed aspects of monastic life and their associated commonly understood imagery is bad, or is something that needs to be removed, devalued or cut out because you want to add females to marines and the Two are imcompatible. Using easily identifiable cultural references is sop for gw. Just because space marines might not adhere absolutely and exactly to every aspect of monastic culture in real life does not mean there is no link with the two.
Sure, but when the only common thread you're taking from "monk" is "they're all male" (which is reductive of Asian monk orders), I have to wonder why that's the thing we're keeping, and not other aspects, like their asceticism.
You say yourself that they don't need to follow every aspect of monastic culture - so why do they need to follow the gender part when the other bits are happily ignored?
.
Because I'm not sayimg that?
What I said above was that the tropes associated with the monastic tradition can support both the traditional male only view and the mixes gender approach that is the topic of this thread.
With respect, you're projecting things/views I'm not saying onto words said on a different topic. Christ Smudge, We've spoken on this thread and in private. You know where I stand. I'm for female marines. More so than at the start of the thread when I was decidedly neutral.
I really don't appreciate this from you. I feel like I'm being called out, and called out for things I didn't even say.
Again. Separate discussion. Unrelated to female marines.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: As I've already said, considering how many different traditions Space Marines can draw from, why are we limiting the definition of "monk" to only the Christian version? Why does "monk" have to mean "all-male" when that is just as varied as monks being secluded, or ascetic, or peaceful.
If we're going to say that Space Marines are monkly, but don't exhibit all the monk traits, why is the monk trait they follow that they're all-male? - especially when many non-Christian monk orders are not all-male.
I thibk.you are misreading me. Youre projecting views that I'm not saying.
I'm not proposing space marines should be all male. I don't see why you are bringing that up.with relation to my point, when what I said had nothing to.do with it. You're doing that thing again where you are tarring everyone with the same brush. Please consider this. This tangent with gert was specific to a discussion relating to whether the monastic and warrior monk tropes are still relevant. I think are, and I think it's neither incompatible with female marines or with your notion that marines are a blank.slate faction.
Yes, I know that you're pro-women Astartes. I'm not saying that *you*, as an individual, are.
But I am saying that the argument you're making, the whole "but they're warrior monks", can be used as an argument in support of all-male Marines, and as such, I want to express how I disagree with that being a justification of women Astartes. I know you're not making those arguments, but I want to put them to bed before someone does.
I was the first one to mention tou you about non-christian monk traditions (I believe I mentioned buddhist and shaolin traditions). Back god knows how many pages ago you tried to confine it to just the Christian tradition. I said before that monastic traditions are quite varied and I've never confined my views of them to only the Christian interpretations.
Actually, I believe that I was the one to mention how non-Christian monk traditions aren't exclusively all-male. I know you broadened the horizon on what it meant to be a monk, but by broadening that horizon, you only highlighted to me how utterly arbitrary the whole "no women" rule was, and how pointless it was to compare them to monks. As we both said, monastic traditions are incredibly varied - including their gender segregation - so why do we (the royal We, the hobby community We) let those varied traditions flourish, except when it involves women? It seems that the whole "monk" definition was quite useless, as, because of the massive variety in what actually made a monk, there wasn't really any single thing to pin down what made a Space Marine a monk. Yet, many people pointed to a specific subset of monks (all-male Christian monks) and claimed that this was the reason why Space Marines needed to be all male - yet overlooked how monastic traditions include a variety of genders.
Again, this isn't a *you* thing, this is a rebuttal of the argument of "warrior monks = male Astartes". I'm not going after you. I'm addressing that this argument could be made, and that I want to dismantle it before it can be made.
Also, in fairness, plenty orders of Monks in the real.world are gender segregated. Especially historically. Women join a nunnery, guys join a monastery. The 'common trope' is a bunch of people living apart from the rest of society, living frugal and ascetic lives and dedicating their life/sacrifice to God/other diety . Overall this monk design element can still support both all male 'traditional' marine design ethos, and the new design ethos you are proposing.
In Christian cultures, sure. But in Asian cultures? The same cannot be said.
And, as we've agreed, not all monk traditions are made equal. Many monks are more peaceful, whereas others are more militant. Others are secluded and isolated, and others are more integrated into their wider communities. I ask again why the thing we're choosing to single out is their gender exclusivity, especially when not all monk orders are all-male.
I'm not.
I know that you're not. My apologies if that's the tone, but I am addressing the argument that many many other have used in this thread about how "Space Marines are warrior monks, so must be all-male".
Either: Space Marines must follow from the gendered rules of stereotypical monks, but many Chapters don't exhibit those stereotypes; or Space Marines draw from a wide range of monastic traditions, which doesn't prevent the existence of women Astartes.
I'm just trying to make that point crystal clear to anyone who want to use "warrior monk = all male" as an argument.
I personally don't think basing a design element on borrowed aspects of monastic life and their associated commonly understood imagery is bad, or is something that needs to be removed, devalued or cut out because you want to add females to marines and the Two are imcompatible. Using easily identifiable cultural references is sop for gw. Just because space marines might not adhere absolutely and exactly to every aspect of monastic culture in real life does not mean there is no link with the two.
Sure, but when the only common thread you're taking from "monk" is "they're all male" (which is reductive of Asian monk orders), I have to wonder why that's the thing we're keeping, and not other aspects, like their asceticism.
You say yourself that they don't need to follow every aspect of monastic culture - so why do they need to follow the gender part when the other bits are happily ignored? .
Because I'm not sayimg that?
What I said above was that the tropes associated with the monastic tradition can support both the traditional male only view and the mixes gender approach that is the topic of this thread.
And I'm agreeing with that - I'm shooting down the "warrior monk = all male" view, not you in particular.
With respect, you're projecting things/views I'm not saying onto words said on a different topic. Christ Smudge, We've spoken on this thread and in private. You know where I stand. I'm for female marines. More so than at the start of the thread when I was decidedly neutral.
I really don't appreciate this from you. I feel like I'm being called out, and called out for things I didn't even say.
Again. Separate discussion. Unrelated to female marines.
You're reading into this as a argument against you. It's not. It is an argument against the position of "warrior monks = all male", which I used your comment as a springboard into that discussion. It it not aimed at you - I know your stance on the matter. I thought our correspondence over private messages had made that position clear. Evidently not, and for that, I apologise, but this is not aimed at you. I am not putting words into your mouth, I am addressing comments that continue to be held by others, using your bringing up of monastic traditions as my way of doing that, and highlighting how arbitrary the exclusion of women still is.
It's not aimed at you. My apologies if I didn't make that clear.
I know you're not making those arguments, but I want to put them to bed before someone does.
At my expense!
You want to make a point, then make the point. Don't take me out at the same time, especially when you are absolutely misusing the content of my posts.
Again, this isn't a *you* thing, this is a rebuttal of the argument of "warrior monks = male Astartes". I'm not going after you. I'm addressing that this argument could be made, and that I want to dismantle it before it can be made.
For someone 'not going after me', you do a damn good job of taking me out in your crossfire Smudge.
There was no context to your posts. No springboard. No caveats. No explanations. Just responses directly to what I said, and completely misrepresenting what I was saying.
You wrote a novel in responding to some bloke. You can damn well afford a few words when youre quoting me as a springboard to discussing this to explain what you're doing.and how it's 'not personal or 'not directed at me'.
I know that you're not. My apologies if that's the tone, but I am addressing the argument that many many other have used in this thread about how "Space Marines are warrior monks, so must be all-male".
And I'm agreeing with that - I'm shooting down the "warrior monk = all male" view, not you in particular.
Youre 'addressing the argument' by directly addressing me in responses to my posts taken out of context. With no context that your expanding the discussion or want to touch on something else.
Firstly he tone was completely unessessary. How you address people, and how you use their words matters. Whether you want to.or not , you're setting me up as the villain in this piece and without any explanation, burning me alongside to make a point.
You're reading into this as a argument against you. It's not. It is an argument against the position of "warrior monks = all male", which I used your comment as a springboard into that discussion. It it not aimed at you - I know your stance on the matter. I thought our correspondence over private messages had made that position clear. Evidently not, and for that, I apologise, but this is not aimed at you. I am not putting words into your mouth, I am addressing comments that continue to be held by others, using your bringing up of monastic traditions as my way of doing that, and highlighting how arbitrary the exclusion of women still is.
It's not aimed at you. My apologies if I didn't make that clear.
And I thought our correspondence would have entitled me to a bit more respect from you than for my posts to be 'used' so poorly in such a public manner.
and you didn't make it clear. That's the whole point. And you absolutely burned me in thr process! That's not OK man.
And I'm actually more than a little bit annoyed and upset that yet again this is happening.
For something 'not aimed at me', you've done a very poor job Smudge. And yes, whether it was your intention or not, or whether you just don't care, you've absolutely put words I've never said into my mouth and projected opinions onto my posts that I do not hold.
Do better than apologies Smudge. Anything else, let's take it to pm's.
Similarly, I'm not going to let a post that can, as you well know, be so easily misrepresented by other people as support of excluding women go unchallenged, no matter who makes it.
I've shot down arguments by Fezzik and other people if they've erred close to giving ammunition to why women Astartes shouldn't be made. This isn't about sides, it's not about the people making these comments - it's simply about the arguments being made, and making sure that they're unpicked fully. I have no intention to burn anyone, and again, I'm happy saying very publicly that you did not make those comments. However, I want to make it very clear that those comments absolutely have been made in this thread, and those needed to be re-iterated.
I apologise that I used you as a vector for that, but likewise, by not addressing those issues that I raised with the monk argument, your comments could very easily have been used as endorsement and support in favour of excluding women Astartes, regardless of your own noted support of women Astartes. I wanted to nip that in the bud - not *your* comments, but the ones that I've seen raised again, and again, and again.
Regardless, I should have explained that all better, and do better, you are correct. I hold my hands up to that.
Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago?
The main thing that scares me is the absolute detachment from reality that some people seem to have. In life human males are stronger than human females. It is not just muscle mass. Men are built by biology to fight and hunt. There is a reason why sports are divided by sex. There is a reason why armies throughout history have been mostly male. And it is not because of "i hate girls".
Space Marines aren't human so "biology" doesn't apply and the majority of the Imperium's military organisations are mixed so there goes that argument.
Now 40k is a fictional universe, we all know this. So not all the rules of reality apply. But 40k, like most science fiction works when we have basis of comparison in our real world. There are very good reasons in game why space marines are male only. And once more, it isn't about "i hate girls". Well, for some it is I would guess. To paint everyone of that view point as the same as the he-man woman haters squad is just as bad as any bigotry. It only shows how small your perception really is.
Didn't say all people, just the majority of anti female-SM arguments come from sexist reasons like "women are weaker than men". As for your very good reasons, what would they be exactly? Biology? It's the future and genetic manipulation is common. Tradition? Only one of the segregated armies has any real explanation as to why it is segregated (SoB).
But I do have a question that pro female marine fans have never answered on this forum. WHY do you want female space marines? There is a faction of female warriors already in the game. And while GW has historically not been kind to that faction, things are changing. Inclusion for inclusions sake is not a real reason. Is it about forcing your morality on others for a fleeting feeling of power? Is it to signal your morality? is it to take things from others you find to be less than yourself? I seriously cannot think of a decent reason to do this and find at times the above examples to be true. But my observations are biased.
If you don't think there's been answers to that question, you haven't been reading the thread chief. Here's a few:
Adding female SM to the range would hopefully reduce toxic behaviour towards those who already make their SM female.
It would look cool.
The Imperium isn't a sexist place, so why are SM not allowed to be female?
Cawl made the Primaris changes so why can't he also find a way to make female SM?
SoB aren't equal to SM in any way regarding market presence, hell it took nearly 30 years to update the bloody model line. And are you seriously going to stand there and say that women should be happy that the only faction in the game that represents them is characterised by its religious zealotry and being dumped on by the writers for about 30 years? It's not inclusion for inclusions sake, it's inclusion because there is a serious problem of sexism and harassment of women in this hobby. Normalising the presence of women within the hobby by putting them in the flagship faction would hopefully help to reduce this issue. The only people in this hobby that I consider less than myself are the scumbags who send death threats to hobbyists for making female SM.
I would be 100% ok with sisters of battle being just as powerful as the marines in lore. And that is perhaps what people should be pushing for.
SoB aren't and should not be SM. They are fine as they are as a distinct faction.
On a side note, before I am called a number of names and my intentions are called out to be nefarious, I shall give you a tiny bit of personal history. I have a wife and a mother that I love more than any man. I in no way think that females are worth less than males. Perhaps there are good reasons why people do not want female marines. Just as I assume there are good reasons for people to want them.
When someone comes up with a reason that doesn't put a fictional setting above real people, isn't sexist nonsense, and isn't just "I don't want politics", then I'll agree that there are good reasons for not adding female SM.
You are right. It is fantasy. Or sci fi rather. And yes, the space marines are AUGMENTED humans. Well, it could be argued what exactly a human is. The idea is they are the evolution of humanity in the direction of a meat train with a sledgehammer. They are not xenos. That being said. Yes, in a fictional setting rules can be bent. But how would you think if in 40k, all humans were purple? There is a general baseline to all sci fi, and that baseline is almost always humans shared perception of reality. And in that reality, men are better hunters and fighters. In the animal and insect world this is not always the case. But it is with humans.
No one said that sisters should be marines. Well, perhaps someone did, but it was not me. I said, that perhaps the Sisters should have a bigger share of the spotlight and be as effective as a faction as marines. And I am totally ok with that. You should be to.
So you want female space marines because, politics. Gotcha. I have seen a lot of that. And perhaps that is a good thing. I am opposed to it because of all the reasons seen on this thread. On both sides.
But to say that a faction, that is the unapologetic face of a nightmare regime based off of hatred and fear and total domination of the individual. The imperium is the worst parts of extremist governments on earth. And you think there should be female marines because "equality" or "inclusion" is just silly. You are playing the bad guys. No matter how GW pushes SM, in the lore they are almost as bad as chaos. And in ways worse. Also, the Imperium does not discriminate............lol chief, I think you need to read more.
Table wrote: Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago? The main thing that scares me is the absolute detachment from reality that some people seem to have. In life human males are stronger than human females. It is not just muscle mass. Men are built by biology to fight and hunt. There is a reason why sports are divided by sex. There is a reason why armies throughout history have been mostly male. And it is not because of "i hate girls".
Now 40k is a fictional universe, we all know this. So not all the rules of reality apply. But 40k, like most science fiction works when we have basis of comparison in our real world. There are very good reasons in game why space marines are male only. And once more, it isn't about "i hate girls". Well, for some it is I would guess. To paint everyone of that view point as the same as the he-man woman haters squad is just as bad as any bigotry. It only shows how small your perception really is.
But I do have a question that pro female marine fans have never answered on this forum. WHY do you want female space marines? There is a faction of female warriors already in the game. And while GW has historically not been kind to that faction, things are changing. Inclusion for inclusions sake is not a real reason. Is it about forcing your morality on others for a fleeting feeling of power? Is it to signal your morality? is it to take things from others you find to be less than yourself? I seriously cannot think of a decent reason to do this and find at times the above examples to be true. But my observations are biased. So if you would kindly illuminate your reasons so I can adjust my views accordingly.
I would be 100% ok with sisters of battle being just as powerful as the marines in lore. And that is perhaps what people should be pushing for.
On a side note, before I am called a number of names and my intentions are called out to be nefarious, I shall give you a tiny bit of personal history. I have a wife and a mother that I love more than any man. I in no way think that females are worth less than males. Perhaps there are good reasons why people do not want female marines. Just as I assume there are good reasons for people to want them.
You're an American right? As an American, we are taught certain principles throughout our life, whether it be by our parents, our teachers, our mentors, our friends, or other close acquaintances. Those principles are very simple, ranging from judicial ones, to more individual ones. Freedom to express, freedom to defend yourself, and your loved ones. Right to be judged as an equal amongst peers. Then ones that are not clearly defined by our code of law, but taught to every youth on this cherished land as far as I know; such as: if you value your freedoms, it would be wise to respect those same freedoms in all other individuals, regardless of origin, of faith, of upbringing. Part of that is respect, part of it is preservation of dignity, for yourself, and for others. The ones who are found in evidence based court to have violated that dignity, and our code of law, have actively forfeited those rights.
Then there are some rights that are not in the American front consciousness yet. But have been nodded at, and theorized in some of the most hallowed documents in human history. The pursuit of happiness, and freedom of choice. Freedom of Choice.
As a freedom loving individual, if you ever say to me you can choose between having one option, or more, I will always choose to have more options. Only recently in the past years, through personal growth, have I come to realize how valuable the pursuit of happiness, and freedom of choice have become to me as an individual, how much I value those freedoms in those I love, and due to events over the past decade; how fragile those freedoms can be for us Americans.
If you give me an option, and say to me: "You can either not have a gun, or you can have a gun and not need to use it." I will always choose the more option.
If you say to me: "You can have one megacorporation and have your stuff delivered super-fast, or you can have a ton of small companies that fight each other and inadvertently promote fairness." I will always choose the more option.
If you say to me: "You cannot have abortions and same-sex marriage, or you can have both, and you need not practice either." I will always choose the more option.
Regardless of personal interest in having female space marines, if you give me an option, and say to me: "We can just have male space marines, or we can have both male and female space marines, and you can just make your army however you like to." I will always choose the more option.
For me, personal preference has a little to do with it. I took up 40K as a hobby when Space Marines were all male. I still have all male space marines. My vostroyans, death korps, and tau have always been all male. I'll most likely keep most of them all male. But on moral principle, if you say to me, you can either have one freedom, or more freedoms. I will always choose more.
Being an American has little to do with this. There is a entire world out there. We are not the center of it. I am not going wax poetic on morality and personal ethics. That is not why we are here.
I do not play marines, well, I did. But not the imperial flavor. I played the good guys.
There is no rule saying that you cannot model your space marines as female. Have at it. Its non sequitur, but there is space for that conversation. A game of 40k can be accepted or denied for almost any reason. No one should be hassling any other player for modeling choices. If it bothers them then do not accept the game. We can agree on this point.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Cybtroll wrote: I just want to add a point about "biology" because it always get me, and I think I finally found a way to express that:
WOMEN ARE STRONGER THAN MAN.
At least for all that is important to become (note carefully: not to be) a Space Marine. Henceforth, their exclusion actively damage the setting making it more implausible than what will be if the opposite would be true.
To specify better: man are bigger and stronger than women? Irrelevant: Marine are posthuman bulkhead and we have clear example (Blood Angel) of weaklings being perfectly fine after the transformation. So it is definitely clear that it doesn't matter how physically you have before.
But then, what about the transformation process itself?
It is a bombardment of hormones and therapies that can kill any candidate, right?
Guess what gender is more resilient to changes, already used to experience hormonal imbalances and biologically suited to the teally extreme changes required to give birth?
Spoiler alert: not men, for sure.
So, if you think men are better candidates to be Space Marine, maybe you may aspire to be the Emperor... but you aren't cut to be the Emperor's Genetist for sure.
100% incorrect. Well, I am not going to engage on the idea that females are better than males or the contrast. Males, in reality, are hunters and genetically better fighters. They can also not give birth. Who is better? Both are needed. Both should be treated as equals. Its not that all of biology is equal, it most certainly is not. Its about TREATING everyone as an equal.
But the part you are incorrect about is that space marines are weaklings or could be before the transformation. Everything in the lore says the exact opposite. Your headcanon has no bearing.
Hecaton, you really are just ranting now about how we are wrong because we are and you know best. It’s sad. But as you are the one always demand to see the evidence of things, then please show me any evidence that anyone’s desire for female marines is in anyway sexual?
P.S. you can’t because their is none because you have made that little idea up. So stop.
Table wrote: Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago? The main thing that scares me is the absolute detachment from reality that some people seem to have. In life human males are stronger than human females. It is not just muscle mass. Men are built by biology to fight and hunt. There is a reason why sports are divided by sex. There is a reason why armies throughout history have been mostly male. And it is not because of "i hate girls".
Now 40k is a fictional universe, we all know this. So not all the rules of reality apply. But 40k, like most science fiction works when we have basis of comparison in our real world. There are very good reasons in game why space marines are male only. And once more, it isn't about "i hate girls". Well, for some it is I would guess. To paint everyone of that view point as the same as the he-man woman haters squad is just as bad as any bigotry. It only shows how small your perception really is.
But I do have a question that pro female marine fans have never answered on this forum. WHY do you want female space marines? There is a faction of female warriors already in the game. And while GW has historically not been kind to that faction, things are changing. Inclusion for inclusions sake is not a real reason. Is it about forcing your morality on others for a fleeting feeling of power? Is it to signal your morality? is it to take things from others you find to be less than yourself? I seriously cannot think of a decent reason to do this and find at times the above examples to be true. But my observations are biased. So if you would kindly illuminate your reasons so I can adjust my views accordingly.
I would be 100% ok with sisters of battle being just as powerful as the marines in lore. And that is perhaps what people should be pushing for.
On a side note, before I am called a number of names and my intentions are called out to be nefarious, I shall give you a tiny bit of personal history. I have a wife and a mother that I love more than any man. I in no way think that females are worth less than males. Perhaps there are good reasons why people do not want female marines. Just as I assume there are good reasons for people to want them.
You're an American right? As an American, we are taught certain principles throughout our life, whether it be by our parents, our teachers, our mentors, our friends, or other close acquaintances. Those principles are very simple, ranging from judicial ones, to more individual ones. Freedom to express, freedom to defend yourself, and your loved ones. Right to be judged as an equal amongst peers. Then ones that are not clearly defined by our code of law, but taught to every youth on this cherished land as far as I know; such as: if you value your freedoms, it would be wise to respect those same freedoms in all other individuals, regardless of origin, of faith, of upbringing. Part of that is respect, part of it is preservation of dignity, for yourself, and for others. The ones who are found in evidence based court to have violated that dignity, and our code of law, have actively forfeited those rights.
Then there are some rights that are not in the American front consciousness yet. But have been nodded at, and theorized in some of the most hallowed documents in human history. The pursuit of happiness, and freedom of choice. Freedom of Choice.
As a freedom loving individual, if you ever say to me you can choose between having one option, or more, I will always choose to have more options. Only recently in the past years, through personal growth, have I come to realize how valuable the pursuit of happiness, and freedom of choice have become to me as an individual, how much I value those freedoms in those I love, and due to events over the past decade; how fragile those freedoms can be for us Americans.
If you give me an option, and say to me: "You can either not have a gun, or you can have a gun and not need to use it." I will always choose the more option.
If you say to me: "You can have one megacorporation and have your stuff delivered super-fast, or you can have a ton of small companies that fight each other and inadvertently promote fairness." I will always choose the more option.
If you say to me: "You cannot have abortions and same-sex marriage, or you can have both, and you need not practice either." I will always choose the more option.
Regardless of personal interest in having female space marines, if you give me an option, and say to me: "We can just have male space marines, or we can have both male and female space marines, and you can just make your army however you like to." I will always choose the more option.
For me, personal preference has a little to do with it. I took up 40K as a hobby when Space Marines were all male. I still have all male space marines. My vostroyans, death korps, and tau have always been all male. I'll most likely keep most of them all male. But on moral principle, if you say to me, you can either have one freedom, or more freedoms. I will always choose more.
Being an American has little to do with this. There is a entire world out there. We are not the center of it. I am not going wax poetic on morality and personal ethics. That is not why we are here.
I do not play marines, well, I did. But not the imperial flavor. I played the good guys.
There is no rule saying that you cannot model your space marines as female. Have at it. Its non sequitur, but there is space for that conversation. A game of 40k can be accepted or denied for almost any reason. No one should be hassling any other player for modeling choices. If it bothers them then do not accept the game. We can agree on this point.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Cybtroll wrote: I just want to add a point about "biology" because it always get me, and I think I finally found a way to express that:
WOMEN ARE STRONGER THAN MAN.
At least for all that is important to become (note carefully: not to be) a Space Marine. Henceforth, their exclusion actively damage the setting making it more implausible than what will be if the opposite would be true.
To specify better: man are bigger and stronger than women? Irrelevant: Marine are posthuman bulkhead and we have clear example (Blood Angel) of weaklings being perfectly fine after the transformation. So it is definitely clear that it doesn't matter how physically you have before.
But then, what about the transformation process itself?
It is a bombardment of hormones and therapies that can kill any candidate, right?
Guess what gender is more resilient to changes, already used to experience hormonal imbalances and biologically suited to the teally extreme changes required to give birth?
Spoiler alert: not men, for sure.
So, if you think men are better candidates to be Space Marine, maybe you may aspire to be the Emperor... but you aren't cut to be the Emperor's Genetist for sure.
100% incorrect. Well, I am not going to engage on the idea that females are better than males or the contrast. Males, in reality, are hunters and genetically better fighters. They can also not give birth. Who is better? Both are needed. Both should be treated as equals. Its not that all of biology is equal, it most certainly is not. Its about TREATING everyone as an equal.
But the part you are incorrect about is that space marines are weaklings or could be before the transformation. Everything in the lore says the exact opposite. Your headcanon has no bearing.
Those fellas from Baal are what I think he was referring too. Famous weak and near death from radiation but still turned into big strapping marines.
Not sure I’df it’s an official GW pic but fits the description pretty well.
Table wrote: [
Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago?
Right here on Dakka and just as loud as it is now. It's been an ongoing thing for a VERY long time now, as any of Dakka's old guard could tell you.
You are right. It is fantasy. Or sci fi rather. And yes, the space marines are AUGMENTED humans. Well, it could be argued what exactly a human is. The idea is they are the evolution of humanity in the direction of a meat train with a sledgehammer. They are not xenos. That being said. Yes, in a fictional setting rules can be bent.
Space Marines are augmented so much they are not human, they are ab-human much like Ogryns or Ratlings. The human that is used to make a SM ceases to become a human the moment the first genetic alterations and implants are given.
But how would you think if in 40k, all humans were purple? There is a general baseline to all sci fi, and that baseline is almost always humans shared perception of reality. And in that reality, men are better hunters and fighters. In the animal and insect world this is not always the case. But it is with humans.
In a hunter/gatherer society that doesn't have access to genetic manipulation tech as standard, that might be true. Of course, the Imperium isn't a hunter/gatherer society that lacks access to genetic manipulation tech as standard.
And to parrot a bunch of other posters, purple humans aren't real, women are.
No one said that sisters should be marines. Well, perhaps someone did, but it was not me. I said, that perhaps the Sisters should have a bigger share of the spotlight and be as effective as a faction as marines. And I am totally ok with that. You should be to.
You said they should be the same power level as SM. Here's you saying it:
I would be 100% ok with sisters of battle being just as powerful as the marines in lore
Whoops.
SoB have their own strengths and weaknesses that define them as a faction. SoB wear PA but don't have the strength and toughness of a SM because they are just baseline humans who are buff. Yup, I absolutely agree that SM have too much of the spotlight but at the same time, I also know that they will never lose that spotlight, and pretending otherwise is dumb.
So you want female space marines because, politics. Gotcha. I have seen a lot of that. And perhaps that is a good thing. I am opposed to it because of all the reasons seen on this thread. On both sides.
I want female SM for multiple reasons, allow me to list them:
Spoiler:
1 - I think they look cool.
2 - Sexism and misogyny are huge problems in the hobby, IMO making the flagship faction (that just so happens to be the route cause of most instances of sexism and misogyny) available as both male and female, would do a lot to combat this. If there's no "justification" for the exclusionary behaviour then people aren't likely to agree with exclusionary views.
3 - The only reason that there are no female SM in the first place is maybe because of sales but this might not be true because the source isn't known for their truthfulness.
4 - People are already doing it anyway.
But to say that a faction, that is the unapologetic face of a nightmare regime based off of hatred and fear and total domination of the individual. The imperium is the worst parts of extremist governments on earth. And you think there should be female marines because "equality" or "inclusion" is just silly. You are playing the bad guys. No matter how GW pushes SM, in the lore they are almost as bad as chaos. And in ways worse. Also, the Imperium does not discriminate............lol chief, I think you need to read more.
Show me where I said the Imperium were the "good guys" at any point at all in any of my posts.
Show me where the Imperium is institutionally sexist and actively prevents women from serving in its various military branches.
Have you considered that by introducing female SM there would be an added layer of "grimdark" to the setting? The Imperium doesn't care what organs or body parts you have, get indoctrinated and surgically altered and go kill these aliens meatsack.
But the part you are incorrect about is that space marines are weaklings or could be before the transformation. Everything in the lore says the exact opposite. Your headcanon has no bearing.
Weird because all the Blood Angels recruits are from the radiated wasteland that is Baal. Also, kids are weak. SM aren't made from adults, they're made from children, who are weak.
Andykp wrote: Hecaton, you really are just ranting now about how we are wrong because we are and you know best. It’s sad. But as you are the one always demand to see the evidence of things, then please show me any evidence that anyone’s desire for female marines is in anyway sexual?
P.S. you can’t because their is none because you have made that little idea up. So stop.
It's an opinion I have and I haven't been disabused of it.
Women generally aren't as interested in that kind of power fantasy as men. Moreover, being anything in the Imperium is a gakky power fantasy since the Imperium is so morally bankrupt.
How kind of you to enforce that preference by disallowing it.
I can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would occur if I insinuated that this opinion must stem from a sexual desire of yours to see women as naturally biologically inclined towards a meek and submissive nature which would never result in them imagining smashing things.
That kind of claim is clearly only a perfectly fine and valid thing coming from the group being oppressed by the goose-stepping legions of orwell's nightmare, the concept of potential tiny plastic heads with feminine features.
the_scotsman wrote: How kind of you to enforce that preference by disallowing it.
I'm not enforcing it. I'm saying, however, that putting a r63 power fantasy into 40k wouldn't attract a female playerbase like you say it will. Like I said, though, I don't think that having Astartes as an unironic power fantasy is a good idea to begin with.
the_scotsman wrote: I can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would occur if I insinuated that this opinion must stem from a sexual desire of yours to see women as naturally biologically inclined towards a meek and submissive nature which would never result in them imagining smashing things.
I mean I know you'd be wrong. I think I'd get over it pretty fast, though. Plenty of my Harlies are female, and I view them as more of a "power fantasy" since they aren't brainwashed goons of a despicable regime.
Andykp wrote: Hecaton, you really are just ranting now about how we are wrong because we are and you know best. It’s sad. But as you are the one always demand to see the evidence of things, then please show me any evidence that anyone’s desire for female marines is in anyway sexual?
P.S. you can’t because their is none because you have made that little idea up. So stop.
It's an opinion I have and I haven't been disabused of it.
So this idea has come from your mind, how interesting.
Team, maybe just stop interacting with someone you know isn't interested in discussing anything. Why waste the effort on someone who's only here to insult you and waste your time?
Table wrote: [
Wanting female space marines could be for many reasons. But to act like one of them isn't political is just as myopic. Where was the outrage and roar for inclusion 10 years ago?
Right here on Dakka and just as loud as it is now. It's been an ongoing thing for a VERY long time now, as any of Dakka's old guard could tell you.
Oh god yes. I have been on Dakka for about 10 years (if you include my time as a lurker) and I have seen more female Space Marine threads than I can remember. The discussions back then were basically the same as they are now and they never change. There was a big female Space Marine thread here when I left for a break a few years ago and now I come back to another one. Feels just like I never left.
Now personally I don't think female Space Marines are necessary (I'd much rather see female guard and Custodes), but the fact that their inclusion would end these stupid discussions that too often degenerate into name-calling and misogyny is a big argument in favor for the addition of female Space Marines.
Also people, please stop bringing biology into the discussion. Not only are a lot of the facts thrown around here false or inaccurate, but the whole question of biology is also completely irrelevant. We are talking about a setting where babies are sculpted into god-like giant killing machines and people can replace all their parts with cybernetics to become flying skulls with mechanical tentacles. This is the 41st Millennium. Biology can be whatever you want.
Andykp wrote: Hecaton, you really are just ranting now about how we are wrong because we are and you know best. It’s sad. But as you are the one always demand to see the evidence of things, then please show me any evidence that anyone’s desire for female marines is in anyway sexual?
P.S. you can’t because their is none because you have made that little idea up. So stop.
It's an opinion I have and I haven't been disabused of it.
So this idea has come from your mind, how interesting.
That’s a weird way of admitting that you made it up with absolutely no evidence whatsoever. Now my own made up opinion that I based on the fact that you keep bringing space marine fetishism up out of nowhere leads me to believe that this is a bit of you projecting yourself on to others than it is about others actually being space marine fetishists.
Automatically Appended Next Post: PS not directed at Andy, just to be clear
Table wrote:You are right. It is fantasy. Or sci fi rather.
To be specific, sci-fantasy.
And yes, the space marines are AUGMENTED humans. Well, it could be argued what exactly a human is. The idea is they are the evolution of humanity in the direction of a meat train with a sledgehammer. They are not xenos. That being said. Yes, in a fictional setting rules can be bent. But how would you think if in 40k, all humans were purple? There is a general baseline to all sci fi, and that baseline is almost always humans shared perception of reality. And in that reality, men are better hunters and fighters. In the animal and insect world this is not always the case. But it is with humans.
Enough to matter for a 7 foot tall killing machine pumped with hormones from childhood to make them a better brainwashed super soldier? I don't think so.
You vastly overestimate the biological different between boys and girls, and even further oversell the idea that Space Marines are only picked form the physically "best" specimens. A Catachan women is going to be a vastly better hunter than a man from Terra. A Baalite boy is an irradiated weakling compared to a Cadian girl. So why do the Imperial Fists recruit from Terra, and the Blood Angels recruit from Baal when their populaces are inferior to others? Maybe it's not all about strength.
I said, that perhaps the Sisters should have a bigger share of the spotlight and be as effective as a faction as marines. And I am totally ok with that. You should be to.
As I've said previously, it's a noble goal - but unrealistic. Why? Because GW won't surrender the dominance that Space Marines have. The Astartes are their flagship faction, and for pretty good reason. Their armour is ungendered, their design simplistic and easily customised, their lore fairly simple to explain and translate, and their product range vast and interchangeable. Space Marines wouldn't be touched by another faction's influence unless the other faction had thousands upon thousands of pounds injected into it.
So you want female space marines because, politics.
And people don't want women Space Marines because politics too. It works both ways - neutrality and status quo are still "political".
But to say that a faction, that is the unapologetic face of a nightmare regime based off of hatred and fear and total domination of the individual. The imperium is the worst parts of extremist governments on earth. And you think there should be female marines because "equality" or "inclusion" is just silly. You are playing the bad guys. No matter how GW pushes SM, in the lore they are almost as bad as chaos. And in ways worse.
Absolutely. But if there's people who want to play Space Marines, why can't they make those Space Marines women?
If we're going to go down the "you shouldn't want to play Space Marines, because they're evil and the bad guys" route, sure. Should we just stop people playing Space Marines? Ban people from playing any non-good faction? I'm not sure how many factions you'd be left with.
As for "equality and inclusion" - well, yeah, because this a real game with real models that real people play in real places. Why shouldn't their real concerns of being represented and included be valid? Who cares if it's for a fictional totalitarian state? Are you saying that people shouldn't get to customise their models with alternate colour schemes, because their the bad guys, and if you do anything with the bad guys, you're a bad person by association? If you play Space Marines, do you forfeit any personal enjoyment from the real world little doll soldiers game?
Also, the Imperium does not discriminate............lol chief, I think you need to read more.
The Imperium *totally* discriminates. But not against anything that we experience, other than class (and class in the Imperium is entirely unlike anything we currently have) - discrimination in the Imperium is against actual *mutants* (like, I'm talking tentacle limbs and psychic powers), outright aliens, and Warp-spawn. Sex is largely irrelevant, and race/ethnicity has no mention. What exactly are you saying the Imperium discriminate on that I missed?
Table wrote:There is no rule saying that you cannot model your space marines as female. Have at it.
Eh, that's not what everyone who says "BUT IT'S NON-CANON" tells me.
The lore is, for some people, law (hehe). It defines their play experience - and when someone breaks that, they tend to get awfully touchy. Hell, a lot of people's first comments against women Space Marines are "but the lore says XYZ", before they pivot to arguing about biological essentialism, or how people who want women Astartes are sexual fetishists. Ultimately, the lore *is* used as a rule against people, and that ammunition should be taken away.
No one should be hassling any other player for modeling choices.
Agreed, and yet that hard rule in 40k canon still exists - that women allegedly cannot be Space Marines.
Well, I am not going to engage on the idea that females are better than males or the contrast. Males, in reality, are hunters and genetically better fighters.
Which one was it again? That you weren't going to engage in a biological discussion, or that you'd fall back on ridiculous bio-essential tropes?
They can also not give birth.
And this is relevant... how?
Its about TREATING everyone as an equal.
Like the Imperial Guard does, right? You know, with a mixed gender force?
Look, I hear a lot of these "the Imperium is sexist"/"the Imperium only cares about having the strongest warriors"/"the Emperor was a massive misogynist" comments, but they all fall apart when you look how Guardsmen are mixed gender. If any faction was the be the most stereotypically "all-male", it would be the Guard - except they're not all-male. They're a mixed gender military, born out of the Imperium's sole drive for war and need for raw bodies on the battlefield. That, to me, speaks far more of the Imperium's evil and moral decay than "hahahaha we don't include women because we're sexist". The Imperium isn't evil because it tries to be. The Imperium is evil because it is utterly dehumanising, utterly reductive of humanity and the spark of life. You're not a man or woman, you're another cog in the astronomically vast wheel, and no-one will mourn you. That is much more evil and horrifying than "we're sexists".
But, that's my opinion.
Iron_Captain wrote:Also people, please stop bringing biology into the discussion. Not only are a lot of the facts thrown around here false or inaccurate, but the whole question of biology is also completely irrelevant. We are talking about a setting where babies are sculpted into god-like giant killing machines and people can replace all their parts with cybernetics to become flying skulls with mechanical tentacles. This is the 41st Millennium. Biology can be whatever you want.
Entirely agreed. Any biological or scientific argument is rendered kinda moot when so much of the setting is completely handwaved and arbitrary. What we're discussing is *why* those arbitraries have to be the way they are.
Iron_Captain wrote: Also people, please stop bringing biology into the discussion. Not only are a lot of the facts thrown around here false or inaccurate, but the whole question of biology is also completely irrelevant. We are talking about a setting where babies are sculpted into god-like giant killing machines and people can replace all their parts with cybernetics to become flying skulls with mechanical tentacles. This is the 41st Millennium. Biology can be whatever you want.
You missed my point then. My point is that it's possible to imagine a theoretical process that would only work on male humans to transform them into Astartes. Not that it *must* be that way.
Hecaton wrote: My point is that it's possible to imagine a theoretical process that would only work on male humans to transform them into Astartes. Not that it *must* be that way.
Possible? Sure. But why would you want to make that arbitrary restriction?
I’m with fezz and Bert on this one. Hecaton has not had anything other than insulting innuendo and loud opinions based on naff all to add to this so I will not engage further. Not blocking though.
Hecaton wrote: My point is that it's possible to imagine a theoretical process that would only work on male humans to transform them into Astartes. Not that it *must* be that way.
Possible? Sure. But why would you want to make that arbitrary restriction?
I can imagine one that only works on rabbits. Or pumpkins. Or…..this is just stupid.
Hecaton wrote: My point is that it's possible to imagine a theoretical process that would only work on male humans to transform them into Astartes. Not that it *must* be that way.
Possible? Sure. But why would you want to make that arbitrary restriction?
I can imagine one that only works on rabbits. Or pumpkins. Or…..this is just stupid.
Exactly. There's a whole load of things we could "imagine", it's theoretically infinite - which ultimately means to say it doesn't matter what you can imagine, when the point is to justify why you've made that creative decision.
I don't know why it's so hard to imagine *real world women* as Space Marines, but it's so much easier to imagine this whole realm of sentient fungi, warp daemons, and skeleton robots.
Gert wrote: Because people seem to think perpetuating real world exclusion in fictional settings is "grimdark".
I mean that's a big part of it, yeah.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Andykp wrote: I can imagine one that only works on rabbits. Or pumpkins. Or…..this is just stupid.
Aight. I demand that GW make it so rabbits can be uplifted into Astartes, and make it canon. With sculpts.
It's obvious to everyone you are just trolling, and are not here to argue in good faith. All of your "attempts" at arguments have been shown to have defeaters. All of your assertions are baseless suppositions. Why do you bother to waste your time on this thread?
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Eh, that's not what everyone who says "BUT IT'S NON-CANON" tells me.
The lore is, for some people, law (hehe). It defines their play experience - and when someone breaks that, they tend to get awfully touchy. Hell, a lot of people's first comments against women Space Marines are "but the lore says XYZ", before they pivot to arguing about biological essentialism, or how people who want women Astartes are sexual fetishists. Ultimately, the lore *is* used as a rule against people, and that ammunition should be taken away.
No one should be hassling any other player for modeling choices.
Agreed, and yet that hard rule in 40k canon still exists - that women allegedly cannot be Space Marines.
*points to 'Cursed Founding' Loophole*
Just a reminder, there's a giant founding which had an unknown number of unknown geneseed mutations. 'Works on Girls' would be a lot less extreme than, say 'Ghost Rider Marines' or 'Wolverine Marines' and such a mutation would be completely in keeping with canon.
You missed my point then. My point is that it's possible to imagine a theoretical process that would only work on male humans to transform them into Astartes. Not that it *must* be that way.
But it's actually a lot easier to imagine one that works on both, if you're ideas of 'humans' mesh too closely with reality.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: It's obvious to everyone you are just trolling, and are not here to argue in good faith. All of your "attempts" at arguments have been shown to have defeaters. All of your assertions are baseless suppositions. Why do you bother to waste your time on this thread?
Been shown to have "defeaters"? WTF do you mean by that? Nah, I've generally been right about the things I've said. When you guys are proven factually incorrect (like about intersex conditions, or the Templar Oaths) you just change the topic and try to pretend you were right all along. The facts are on my side.
The way this hole debate is framed by the most active members of the thread no one can achieve "victory"... Its just about stating in an endless cicle if one OPINION is in favour or against FSM.
Which BTW is quite pointless since its quite obvious that GW has decided to use Sorotitas as the vehicule to increase female representation in 40K.
BaronIveagh wrote:*points to 'Cursed Founding' Loophole*
Just a reminder, there's a giant founding which had an unknown number of unknown geneseed mutations. 'Works on Girls' would be a lot less extreme than, say 'Ghost Rider Marines' or 'Wolverine Marines' and such a mutation would be completely in keeping with canon.
While very true, it doesn't really help people if they wanted their women Astartes to be Ultramarines, or Space Wolves, or in a non-Cursed Founding Chapter. And obviously, while gene-seed mutations are not exclusive to Cursed Founding Chapters, it's still not exactly wide representation.
Plus, and I'm sure you're not intentionally implying this, but just to mention it all the same, it's still a little iffy comparing being a women a "mutation" (even if, as you rightly say, it's on a lesser degree than literally being Wolverine), in the same way I don't quite appreciate a lot of the comparisons in this thread between women and fictional fish people or rabbits. It's entirely a tone thing, and just paints women as this undesirable side effect, than as equally valid and capable Astartes, which I think is important for this change.
Again, not something I think you were going for at all, but something I should highlight in the wider argument.
Vatsetis wrote:The way this hole debate is framed by the most active members of the thread no one can achieve "victory"... Its just about stating in an endless cicle if one OPINION is in favour or against FSM.
It's not really just opinion though. It's the use of factual information and artistic necessity to work out just exactly *what* is so important about women Space Marines not existing, and then why it's so important that they do.
Ultimately, at the very least, I think we've been pretty good at dispelling the various issues on why they apparently must all be male (how all the decisions are invariably arbitrary, not based in biology, and now currently incongruous with previous design philosophies). The issue is that I think many people still consider "all-male" as the default of any fictional military still, and that, as I've said to some bloke, the inclusion of women in previously non-women's spaces is seen as political just by virtue of being women, no matter what I might say to justify it.
At the very least, this discussion has been fruitful in shedding many of the myths on why Space Marines "must" be male, and that, at the very least, is something rooted in fact and analysis.
Which BTW is quite pointless since its quite obvious that GW has decided to use Sorotitas as the vehicule to increase female representation in 40K.
And I've made my comments on why that's not enough to meaningfully achieve it, in the same way that increasing representation "where it belongs" is still marginalisation.
Vatsetis wrote: The way this hole debate is framed by the most active members of the thread no one can achieve "victory"... Its just about stating in an endless cicle if one OPINION is in favour or against FSM.
Which BTW is quite pointless since its quite obvious that GW has decided to use Sorotitas as the vehicule to increase female representation in 40K.
You are right, however a lot of the people here are starting with an ideological belief and working backwards, no matter what any evidence suggests or demonstrate the conclusions are always the same.
These individuals start with a premise that 40k lacks female representation and work back from that premise to justify it, outright ignoring anything that does not fit with pre conceived conclusions as if accepted that the premise could be wrong then the whole argument falls apart.
Also due to this same school of thought nothing is considered "sacred" or "sacrosanct", any lore is irrelevant as it can just be changed (so long as it changes the way they intend), no argument is worthy as the ones making is are not worthy of making the argument (the creation of the other), any person that makes an effective argument is to be silenced or purged and always labelled with whatever in vogue term is needed to ostracise that person in the eyes of the in group.
So when you say that GW has already shown that it will be using Sisters of Battle as the Female representation you are correct, GW has shown a revealed preference by pushing them to the fore alongside its flagship product of space marines, this however does not give these individuals what they want however as their pre conceived outcome has not been reached, if they can force through pressure GW to give them Female marines then they can do the same in other areas and ultimately gain control of the platforms (the hobby, model line and intellectual property) and further push their advocacy.
Hecaton wrote: Been shown to have "defeaters"? WTF do you mean by that? Nah, I've generally been right about the things I've said. When you guys are proven factually incorrect (like about intersex conditions, or the Templar Oaths) you just change the topic and try to pretend you were right all along. The facts are on my side.
Facts? What facts? You have not once linked an article or study that you hadn't spun to hell or proved to be total BS when anyone actually bothered to click on it. So no. You have not. You've not accomplished a thing besides making the argument against look as shallow and foolish as possible without actually incurring moderation.
Vatsetis wrote: The way this hole debate is framed by the most active members of the thread no one can achieve "victory"... Its just about stating in an endless cicle if one OPINION is in favour or against FSM.
Which BTW is quite pointless since its quite obvious that GW has decided to use Sorotitas as the vehicule to increase female representation in 40K.
You are right, however a lot of the people here are starting with an ideological belief and working backwards, no matter what any evidence suggests or demonstrate the conclusions are always the same.
These individuals start with a premise that 40k lacks female representation and work back from that premise to justify it, outright ignoring anything that does not fit with pre conceived conclusions as if accepted that the premise could be wrong then the whole argument falls apart.
Also due to this same school of thought nothing is considered "sacred" or "sacrosanct", any lore is irrelevant as it can just be changed (so long as it changes the way they intend), no argument is worthy as the ones making is are not worthy of making the argument (the creation of the other), any person that makes an effective argument is to be silenced or purged and always labelled with whatever in vogue term is needed to ostracise that person in the eyes of the in group.
So when you say that GW has already shown that it will be using Sisters of Battle as the Female representation you are correct, GW has shown a revealed preference by pushing them to the fore alongside its flagship product of space marines, this however does not give these individuals what they want however as their pre conceived outcome has not been reached, if they can force through pressure GW to give them Female marines then they can do the same in other areas and ultimately gain control of the platforms (the hobby, model line and intellectual property) and further push their advocacy.
This is a never ending cycle essentially
I actually think we have taken a very pragmatic approach to the “lore” and examined it in depth. It does not stack up as an argument to retain the status quo. We have looked at every aspect of it but have been proven right in that it is out dated, out of print and not of sufficient importance to be printed in that factions codex at ANY time. EVER. if you know otherwise then please show me the information to consider.
As for silencing people. The only people “silenced” were those spouting hate filled vitriol and they were silenced by the mods who have been very even handed in this. I have blocked no one and made good effort to engage with everyone. The problem comes when there arguments boil down to, I don’t like it and you are trying to take over and bully me. Which is basically what you are saying.
The pro-female marines side as we have become known (though I preferred famous 5) all come from different starting points as to why we want this, for some it’s political first and foremost others less so but it’s certainly more nuanced than you make out. I made my first female marine years again and the only people who saw it were my gaming group who are in favour anyway. So no politics there just cool model and fluff opportunities. My reason for coming in here to discuss it is political. Unashamedly so. And the number of bigots and sexist unearthed by this thread shows we need to be political. (Not naming names or pointing fingers, they know who they are). But we have also converted some people or opened their minds a bit to an alternative take. What I am not doing, nor anyone else on “my” side of the debate is to seize control of your hobby and force you to do things you don’t like. We have all advocated for the option for female marines, the key word being option. Giving you more choice. In fact what we all really want is to stop the abuse and make the hobby a nicer place.
But it’s the age all argument of the majority when asked to give a bit more to a minority, “you are pressing me!” The truth is we are not and it’s sad that you think we are.
Hecaton wrote: Been shown to have "defeaters"? WTF do you mean by that? Nah, I've generally been right about the things I've said. When you guys are proven factually incorrect (like about intersex conditions, or the Templar Oaths) you just change the topic and try to pretend you were right all along. The facts are on my side.
Facts? What facts? You have not once linked an article or study that you hadn't spun to hell or proved to be total BS when anyone actually bothered to click on it. So no. You have not. You've not accomplished a thing besides making the argument against look as shallow and foolish as possible without actually incurring moderation.
To be fair, he has trod that line well. Better than most but I agree. Not heard a thing that he was close to right about or that made much sense. And all his accusations have been found to be without an ounce of merit.
Formosa wrote:You are right, however a lot of the people here are starting with an ideological belief and working backwards, no matter what any evidence suggests or demonstrate the conclusions are always the same.
You *are* right, but I think we're not talking about the same people here.
These individuals start with a premise that 40k lacks female representation and work back from that premise to justify it, outright ignoring anything that does not fit with pre conceived conclusions as if accepted that the premise could be wrong then the whole argument falls apart.
The vast majority of all models are male, especially in the most dominant factions, and the only two factions with significant women's representation are either sexualised and extremely limited in player customisation, or sexualised, and fall into the "sexy elves" trope. And those two factions are *fine*, if there were other options - which there aren't in any meaningful sense.
Guardsmen have barely any women's representation - it's taken until now for a few headswaps in a faction that should be one of the most even out there. Tau again have scarcely any visible representation. Likewise with Eldar, and Genestealer Cultists, and Chaos Cultists, and so on. And yet, even if those factions *did* have adequate representation, you still have to contend with the fact that Space Marines are both the most dominant faction of all 40k (with a large proportion of factions being a derivative of power armoured Astartes in some way), and needlessly gender-exclusive.
There factually is a gender imbalance. The question is if people think that's a problem or not, and if so, how to fix that.
Also due to this same school of thought nothing is considered "sacred" or "sacrosanct"
You act like this is a problem, for one. Clearly, GW don't consider their own lore to be sacred or sacrosanct - ask Guilliman, getting up for his Sunday stroll.
Second, lore is only as good as you can justify it's necessity. Why should I consider a certain fragment of lore as important if you can't tell me what it adds to the setting, and why that's important?
any lore is irrelevant as it can just be changed (so long as it changes the way they intend)
Misrepresentation. I don't care which way the change goes, as long as you can *justify* it, and why that should be the way it goes.
Can you justify continuing to keep Space Marines all-male, without having to claiming "sacred" or "sacrosanct"?
no argument is worthy as the ones making is are not worthy of making the argument (the creation of the other)
That sounds like something you're projecting there. People are being called out because of their awful arguments, not because they're necessarily awful people. For example, an argument might be sexist, but that doesn't always mean the person is. I would have thought that was the core of civil debate, but as evidenced by Hecaton, who constantly seeks to ascribe sexual and fetishistic undertones to the *other users here*, this is evidently not true.
If you want to talk about the "otherisation" of people, I suggest you perhaps start to clean house first.
Also, regarding the "creation of the other" - yes, that's exactly why we're discussing the necessity of women Astartes: because women are made to feel Othered in this hobby.
any person that makes an effective argument is to be silenced or purged and always labelled with whatever in vogue term is needed to ostracise that person in the eyes of the in group.
Like? What "effective arguments" have been made?
Honestly, this is how it looks to me - correct me if I'm wrong: - Someone makes a bad argument explaining why Space Marines shouldn't be changed. - People call out the awful logic and bad takes used in this argument. - You see the calling out and dismantling of the bad argument as "silencing" or "purging", simply because you don't want to accept that the argument was bad. - You find it easier to just act like there's a massive conspiracy against you, than simply that your arguments are bad.
So when you say that GW has already shown that it will be using Sisters of Battle as the Female representation you are correct, GW has shown a revealed preference by pushing them to the fore alongside its flagship product of space marines, this however does not give these individuals what they want however as their pre conceived outcome has not been reached
Rather, it is because only improving women's representation through a single model line still isn't representative, and still contributes to the Otherisation that you so kindly mentioned earlier.
Women's representation isn't "oh look, here's the Women's Faction, look how much we gave them!", because that's still implicitly pigeon-holing women into only being seen as welcome to that faction. By including women in the most prominent and dominant factions, factions that (as I've elaborated and explained several times) don't have a reason to be all-male, beyond clinging to "sacrosanct" or "sacred" lore, this works against the marginalising and "Otherising" effect, and integrates women naturally and equally into 40k. By removing the boundaries between "men's faction" and "women's faction", this actually achieves both representation *and* inclusivity.
Don't get me wrong, as a Sisters player, I love the new stuff. But it's not effective representation.
if they can force through pressure GW to give them Female marines then they can do the same in other areas and ultimately gain control of the platforms (the hobby, model line and intellectual property) and further push their advocacy.
Okay, now here's the bit where the mask slips - "gain control"? Gain control of what? *For* what? You're going back to this idea that there's a shadowy cabal of people out there to... gain control of a toy soldiers game? And "push advocacy"? Advocacy of what? What's the agenda, the pitch, the goal, the motive?
Or, like I said earlier, perhaps it's easier to just claim that there's a secret cabal of organised "advocates" who are trying to Take Over The Hobby TM , instead of considering that "maybe this isn't good representation for women; maybe I'm wrong".
I tells ya, if this was a detective novel, I'd be screaming at the author for this creation of a villain without any motive at all.
Are we back to the part of the discussion where the anti female SM side just throw insults and hyperbole because they have no arguments? Cool. Very fun.
So we'll have a few days where the anti female SM side just do their troll posts designed to make the pro female SM side angry then someone new will pop up and ask the exact same questions and make the exact same points other anti female SM posters have already made, then we do the merry dance again.
Can we call this done since the anti side hasn't come up with a new argument since like page 30?
Gert wrote: Are we back to the part of the discussion where the anti female SM side just throw insults and hyperbole because they have no arguments?
I think this is the "there's a shadowy cult of people who want to Take Control Of The Hobby TM , for nebulously described reasons" part of the discussion again.
Though thankfully we've avoided the "SJW", "Marxist" or "Radical" buzzwords!*
Gert wrote: Are we back to the part of the discussion where the anti female SM side just throw insults and hyperbole because they have no arguments? Cool. Very fun.
So we'll have a few days where the anti female SM side just do their troll posts designed to make the pro female SM side angry then someone new will pop up and ask the exact same questions and make the exact same points other anti female SM posters have already made, then we do the merry dance again.
Can we call this done since the anti side hasn't come up with a new argument since like page 30?
This sounds like confession through projection to me, I have been very careful not to insult anyone nor target anyone so your false framing as usual is wrong
Though I am happy you are agreeing with me albeit unknowingly it seems.
Formosa wrote:I have been very careful not to insult anyone nor target anyone so your false framing as usual is wrong
I'm not sure about that. I'd say that your usage of the term "silenced" and "purged" are pretty dogwhistling, with a definite frame of insult/insinuating behind them. Similarly, insinuating:
Formosa wrote:this however does not give these individuals what they want however as their pre conceived outcome has not been reached, if they can force through pressure GW to give them Female marines then they can do the same in other areas and ultimately gain control of the platforms (the hobby, model line and intellectual property) and further push their advocacy.
and
Formosa wrote:this was cringe and just activism
, while also claiming not to be targeting or insulting anyone is more than a little false.
I mean, am I not supposed to feel "targeted" when you call an honest discussion "cringe activism" or that I'm apparently just trying to "gain control of the platforms"? Am I not supposed to feel like I'm part of some clandestine conspiracy?
Or how about this one:
Formosa wrote:but that does not mean you get to force your views on others like some sort of buy in ticket system, if you cannot handle that go complain on Twitter or 4chan ... or you know, do some useful activism like helping the homeless.
where you imply that wanting women Astartes to be canon is "forcing" something on you (very hostile language), and that people shouldn't complain because this isn't "useful".
I don't know, maybe I'm reading into this wrong, but you seem very clear to "target" and paint one side as problematic - dare I say, "insult" - and for what reason? Wanting women Astartes? Is that it? No other reason?
I actually think we have taken a very pragmatic approach to the “lore” and examined it in depth. It does not stack up as an argument to retain the status quo. We have looked at every aspect of it but have been proven right in that it is out dated, out of print and not of sufficient importance to be printed in that factions codex at ANY time. EVER. if you know otherwise then please show me the information to consider.
your opinion is that it is outdated, which is fine that is your opinion and you are entitled to it but lets not pretend that it has anything to do with pragmatism please, you want the change to suit your pre conceptions of what should be and not what is which again is fine as that is a subset of your ideological framework, you ignore 30 years of revealed preference showing you this is still how things are done because you end goal is already set in stone.
As for silencing people. The only people “silenced” were those spouting hate filled vitriol and they were silenced by the mods who have been very even handed in this. I have blocked no one and made good effort to engage with everyone. The problem comes when there arguments boil down to, I don’t like it and you are trying to take over and bully me. Which is basically what you are saying.
No one has done so that I have seen bar possibly that alt account canadian person, forgot their name, mind you throwing ism and phobes etc. around constitutes hate filled vitriol to me but I doubt you would agree with that, I have blocked only one person and that is due to them overtly showing right from the start they will not be and honest good faith person, as for taking over, yes, you may not like that this is the end goal of the activists but that is the self confessed end goal, if that upsets you then I am sorry and you should perhaps tell them to stop behaving in such a manner, me pointing it out is not hateful or bigoted in any way.
The pro-female marines side as we have become known (though I preferred famous 5) all come from different starting points as to why we want this, for some it’s political first and foremost others less so but it’s certainly more nuanced than you make out. I made my first female marine years again and the only people who saw it were my gaming group who are in favour anyway. So no politics there just cool model and fluff opportunities. My reason for coming in here to discuss it is political. Unashamedly so. And the number of bigots and sexist unearthed by this thread shows we need to be political. (Not naming names or pointing fingers, they know who they are). But we have also converted some people or opened their minds a bit to an alternative take. What I am not doing, nor anyone else on “my” side of the debate is to seize control of your hobby and force you to do things you don’t like. We have all advocated for the option for female marines, the key word being option. Giving you more choice. In fact what we all really want is to stop the abuse and make the hobby a nicer place.
yes for some its political first, as I pointed out and was told I was wrong, I know I am not, they also know this but still they lied, ultimately though even if you are not doing it for political reasons you are helping the ones that are and will abuse that power if they get it, I understand the nuance perfectly well and even pointed it out earlier myself but again was gatlighted with immediate effect.
You should also note I said that these are your models, do as you please with them, make female marines if you wish but I object to the politicisation one way or the other of the whole hobby, I no more want ideologues from either side controlling the space, you false assumption that it is only those with an open mind that want this further proves my previous points as we consider those who cannot leave their ideology at the door to be closed minded and be under no uncertain terms we have all experienced what happens when these closed minded bigots gain control of a space and use their new found power to purge anyone that dare speak out.
There is no abuse, the hobby is already a nicer place and the demand to politicise it is making it the opposite, can you not for a second just consider the possibility that it is the ideologues and ideologically possessed that are causing the problems here and it is not about female representation.
But it’s the age all argument of the majority when asked to give a bit more to a minority, “you are pressing me!” The truth is we are not and it’s sad that you think we are.
this is a perfect example of the false framing I referred to, emotional manipulation designed to other a person that dares argue in the eyes of your in group and that you do not see it is really the true sadness here as if you could get past this you would likely reach a common ground with those you disagree with.
This sounds like confession through projection to me, I have been very careful not to insult anyone nor target anyone so your false framing as usual is wrong
Hm, that's not quite true. Let's go do some checks:
Spoiler:
blimey such cringe, must be that time of year again haha.
For what its worth, if you want to paint your models and convert them a certain way you crack on, your money your choice, otherwise just leave the established lore created by men and woman over 30+ years alone and go do your activism (because that is the real reason behind this) somewhere its actually needed.
Reduction of the discussion and a hostile attitude to those who are pro-female SM.
Spoiler:
I see I was correct when I said this was cringe and just activism, always ends in political discussions and this topic should be banned at this point as a political one because the activists always make it so.
As I said before if you want to buy the models and do what you want with them, go for it, but that does not mean you get to force your views on others like some sort of buy in ticket system, if you cannot handle that go complain on Twitter or 4chan ... or you know, do some useful activism like helping the homeless.
Oh, there it is again. Reduction of the discussion and a hostile attitude to pro-female SM posters. On top of that we also have you trying to shut down the discussion entirely because you disagree with it. Not very polite IMO.
Spoiler:
Nonsense, X,Y or Z not being political is the excuse activists use all the time knowing damn well it is political and assuming the rest of us are too politically stupid to be able to tell, they just want to be able to talk about THEIR political activism while shutting others out of theirs and I do not care what the excuse is I want it all gone, especially as the Mods were quite clear on this matter and I am surprised this thread has got this far with this much political talk in it, its cringe and has no place here so go do activism on Twitter or 4chan if you all cant keep it in your pants.
Oh man, there it is again! Reduction of the discussion, a hostile attitude to pro-female SM posters, and another attempt to shut down the discussion (despite the fact the mods had seen no reason to close the thread).
Spoiler:
"Social justice" group: we want to control the setting and universe so we can use it as a platform for our activism as we believe that power is the ultimate form of political expression, if we do not have the power, we are duty bound to force change by any means necessary in order to gain said power.
Now you've said that pro-female SM posters are power-grabbing SJW's. That's some right-wing buzzwording if I ever saw it.
Spoiler:
As I said before this has zero to do with representation, inclusivity, woman or any such thing, it's about control and power, I reject the false narrative and framing that it has anything to do with the representation.
I see no need to make female marines because activists have chosen this vector to try to control a increasingly popular "platform" as they see it, the answer is no, I know no amount of rationalising will matter, no appeal to lore, common sense or anything will matter because of the "by any means necessary" mentality the activist has, they simply do not care, so why should I care about their arguments in favour of change?
There it is again.
Spoiler:
Though I am happy you are agreeing with me albeit unknowingly it seems.
Yeah, I'm not agreeing with you chief. In fact you are someone that I specifically disagree with on many points.
Gert wrote: Are we back to the part of the discussion where the anti female SM side just throw insults and hyperbole because they have no arguments? Cool. Very fun.
So we'll have a few days where the anti female SM side just do their troll posts designed to make the pro female SM side angry then someone new will pop up and ask the exact same questions and make the exact same points other anti female SM posters have already made, then we do the merry dance again.
Can we call this done since the anti side hasn't come up with a new argument since like page 30?
It beats the old days where they would try to literally hound pro FSM posters off of Dakka. Anyone hear from DocThunder recently?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sgt_Smudge wrote: While very true, it doesn't really help people if they wanted their women Astartes to be Ultramarines, or Space Wolves, or in a non-Cursed Founding Chapter. And obviously, while gene-seed mutations are not exclusive to Cursed Founding Chapters, it's still not exactly wide representation.
Plus, and I'm sure you're not intentionally implying this, but just to mention it all the same, it's still a little iffy comparing being a women a "mutation" (even if, as you rightly say, it's on a lesser degree than literally being Wolverine), in the same way I don't quite appreciate a lot of the comparisons in this thread between women and fictional fish people or rabbits. It's entirely a tone thing, and just paints women as this undesirable side effect, than as equally valid and capable Astartes, which I think is important for this change.
Again, not something I think you were going for at all, but something I should highlight in the wider argument.
The mutation being in the geneseed, not the subjects. I'm not sure whether you failed to read the post, or the original fluff. Complaining that rather than a wholesale retcon, which most certainly would have a negative effect on GW's bottom line, that a minor alteration using a long existing canon option *isn't going far enough* smacks more of politics than a genuine interest in having female space marines.
Reduction of the discussion and a hostile attitude to those who are pro-female SM.
jokingly poking fun at the rather extremist elements in order to point out a problem.
Oh, there it is again. Reduction of the discussion and a hostile attitude to pro-female SM posters. On top of that we also have you trying to shut down the discussion entirely because you disagree with it. Not very polite IMO.
Pointing out I was correct in my previous point and that there are more important issues that these activists should be fighting and asking people not to force their views on others... I was right again btw and yep it was polite.
Now you've said that pro-female SM posters are power-grabbing SJW's. That's some right-wing buzzwording if I ever saw it.
as opposed to what? left wing buzzwords? like calling people ismphobes? and I do not know if you know this but quotation marks means I am using another persons terminology, if you do not like the term "SJW" then take it up with the people who call themselves "social justice warriors" oh and they are power grabbing, note you did not even try to deny this framing just the terminology used.
Deleted the rest as its just tone policing and not refuting anything I said, which you yourself have proven to be correct and even AndyKP confirmed that some of you are doing this for political reasons, I get you may not like my framing and you are free to disagree with it as I said before and I do not dislike you for it, I do not like your framing and do not believe you when you claim this is for inclusion and this is not impolite or rude, its just a disagreement.
Nothing I have said is impolite or rude, you just do not like what I said and decided to project your intent onto me, false framing yet again Gert
I actually think we have taken a very pragmatic approach to the “lore” and examined it in depth. It does not stack up as an argument to retain the status quo. We have looked at every aspect of it but have been proven right in that it is out dated, out of print and not of sufficient importance to be printed in that factions codex at ANY time. EVER. if you know otherwise then please show me the information to consider.
your opinion is that it is outdated, which is fine that is your opinion and you are entitled to it but lets not pretend that it has anything to do with pragmatism please, you want the change to suit your pre conceptions of what should be and not what is which again is fine as that is a subset of your ideological framework, you ignore 30 years of revealed preference showing you this is still how things are done because you end goal is already set in stone.
I believe that the "pragmatic" part is in referring to how the people being critical of that 30 year old lore are being critical from an artistic perspective: as in, they are analysing how necessary those aspects of the lore are, instead of just blindly accepting them due to inertia and age.
It is critical reflection of artistic merit, and that's an incredibly pragmatic thing to be doing in an artistic environment. It ensure that what is kept is kept because it's important, not because of blind inertia and sentiment.
You say "30 years of revealed preference", but you don't question why it's been there for 30 years, and what purpose it serves, if any. That's what critical reflection is there for.
As for silencing people. The only people “silenced” were those spouting hate filled vitriol and they were silenced by the mods who have been very even handed in this. I have blocked no one and made good effort to engage with everyone. The problem comes when there arguments boil down to, I don’t like it and you are trying to take over and bully me. Which is basically what you are saying.
No one has done so that I have seen bar possibly that alt account canadian person
I can count three, from my head.
The aforementioned user, one user who expressed that it was acceptable to keep women out of their hobby spaces, and another who I believe yet again compared wanting women Space Marines as a sexually gratifying exploit - not Hecaton, but a different user.
Unfortunately, because of the (justified) actions of the mods, I can't exactly link them.
mind you throwing ism and phobes etc. around constitutes hate filled vitriol to me
That all depends on what is being called out, and in what manner. Calling a *person* that? Possibly not in good faith. Calling an *argument* sexist? That's fair game, if it's truthful.
Again, it's all about calling a spade a spade.
Similarly, implying that users are only doing things for ulterior motives and for achieve some new world order? I don't think that's in good faith either.
as for taking over, yes, you may not like that this is the end goal of the activists but that is the self confessed end goal, if that upsets you then I am sorry and you should perhaps tell them to stop behaving in such a manner, me pointing it out is not hateful or bigoted in any way.
Self-confessed? Pray tell, I'd love to see this confession, and why you think it's okay to tar everyone with that brush.
And yes, it absolutely is hateful when it's fabricated. It's entirely unfair to the users here.
yes for some its political first, as I pointed out and was told I was wrong
The thing is that you implied that only one end was political. Now, if we accept that arguments on both sides are political (yes, including yours - you seem very fixated on denying "power" to this cabal of shadowy conspirators), then sure - but I won't agree that only one side is "political" in this, and fundamentally, dismantling the artistic necessity of all-male Astartes isn't political any more than getting rid of a turd floating in the pool is political - it simply doesn't need to be there.
ultimately though even if you are not doing it for political reasons you are helping the ones that are and will abuse that power if they get it
Abuse that power to do... what, exactly?
Stop threatening us with a vaguely implied good time.
You should also note I said that these are your models, do as you please with them, make female marines if you wish
That's great, but that's little consolation to the people who don't share your open-mindedness.
but I object to the politicisation one way or the other of the whole hobby, I no more want ideologues from either side controlling the space
Just a reminder, neutrality and status quo are still ideologies!
You can't claim to be apolitical when you so vociferously argue about it.
we have all experienced what happens when these closed minded bigots gain control of a space and use their new found power to purge anyone that dare speak out.
...have we? Pray tell, I'd love you to elaborate on this, because you seem to be making some interesting comparisons about people who just want women Space Marines.
There is no abuse, the hobby is already a nicer place
I guess you just overlooked people getting abuse and death threats when they make women Space Marines, or have Space Marines holding hands.
"There is no war in Ba-Sing-Se", I suppose.
the demand to politicise it is making it the opposite, can you not for a second just consider the possibility that it is the ideologues and ideologically possessed that are causing the problems here and it is not about female representation.
I'll bite - why are the "idealogues" (again, reminder that neutrality is also an ideology!) responsible for people putting women's heads on their Astartes getting death threats?
Sgt_Smudge wrote: While very true, it doesn't really help people if they wanted their women Astartes to be Ultramarines, or Space Wolves, or in a non-Cursed Founding Chapter. And obviously, while gene-seed mutations are not exclusive to Cursed Founding Chapters, it's still not exactly wide representation.
Plus, and I'm sure you're not intentionally implying this, but just to mention it all the same, it's still a little iffy comparing being a women a "mutation" (even if, as you rightly say, it's on a lesser degree than literally being Wolverine), in the same way I don't quite appreciate a lot of the comparisons in this thread between women and fictional fish people or rabbits. It's entirely a tone thing, and just paints women as this undesirable side effect, than as equally valid and capable Astartes, which I think is important for this change.
Again, not something I think you were going for at all, but something I should highlight in the wider argument.
The mutation being in the geneseed, not the subjects. I'm not sure whether you failed to read the post, or the original fluff.
I'm aware that the mutation is in the geneseed, but it's still the implication that it's a "mutation" (a rather negatively loaded word within the context of 40k) that allows for women. Again, it's entirely inference, but it draws a connection between a negative effect and women, that could be potentially a problem. Again, I don't believe for a moment that you implied that, but it's worth just bringing to attention, to explain why I don't love the Cursed Founding solution.
Complaining that rather than a wholesale retcon, which most certainly would have a negative effect on GW's bottom line, that a minor alteration using a long existing canon option *isn't going far enough* smacks more of politics than a genuine interest in having female space marines.
My interest in women Space Marines *is* genuine - but we should also consider the effects of what those "minor alterations" could lead to.
If we *had* to do a lore "alteration", as you put it, I preferred some bloke's option, rather than using the Cursed Founding, if only to allow for women in Chapters beyond the Cursed Founding, and to move away from the potentially negative connotations I mentioned.
Formosa wrote:
Reduction of the discussion and a hostile attitude to those who are pro-female SM.
jokingly poking fun at the rather extremist elements in order to point out a problem.
"jokingly"
Oh, there it is again. Reduction of the discussion and a hostile attitude to pro-female SM posters. On top of that we also have you trying to shut down the discussion entirely because you disagree with it. Not very polite IMO.
Pointing out I was correct in my previous point and that there are more important issues that these activists should be fighting and asking people not to force their views on others... I was right again btw and yep it was polite.
According to... you? Not sure you get to dictate what is and isn't polite.
Now you've said that pro-female SM posters are power-grabbing SJW's. That's some right-wing buzzwording if I ever saw it.
Do not know if you know this but quotation marks means I am using another persons terminology, if you do not like the term "SJW" then take it up with the people who call themselves "social justice warriors" oh and they are power grabbing, note you did not even try to deny this framing just the terminology used.
Did anyone here call themselves SJWs unprompted?
Nothing I have said is impolite or rude
What part of implying users here are trying to control GW through some shadowy cabal is polite, exactly?
Gert wrote: Whatever Formosa. Keep your head in the sand all you want. I'm done arguing with people like you.
People like me? what would that be Gert?
People who wilfully play coy and project an air of false modesty, and cry "politics" when their own beliefs are threatened by others.
Still waiting on you to enlighten us all on whatever you meant by this group of people trying to "gain power" in the hobby. What power? What ideology? What motivation?
I think the thought behind the 21st Founding idea is good just the execution might be a bit shabby, especially when most of the 21st Founding Chapters got deleted, died off, are considered freaks, or are the Lamenters. F for the greatest Chapter of all.
Gert wrote: I think the thought behind the 21st Founding idea is good just the execution might be a bit shabby, especially when most of the 21st Founding Chapters got deleted, died off, are considered freaks, or are the Lamenters. F for the greatest Chapter of all.
Point of fact, because it was massive and had unknown number of chapters, we have no idea if any of that is actually true. That GW treats that founding poorly currently is more the effect of trying to jam all space marine chapters into the Ultramarines, a policy that the Cursed Founding was, effectively, the antithesis of.
Gert wrote: I think the thought behind the 21st Founding idea is good just the execution might be a bit shabby, especially when most of the 21st Founding Chapters got deleted, died off, are considered freaks, or are the Lamenters. F for the greatest Chapter of all.
Yeah, I totally get the logic behind the idea, but it still ends up being restrictive. It still doesn't allow for someone to have women in a non-Cursed Chapter, for example, and again, has that unintentional connotation between "women" and "Cursed/mutation".
It's just worth highlighting the potential issues of that plan, is all.
I think a bit of it could work, since the point of the 21st was to "fix" problems in the gene-seed. What if a Magos found a way to make it suitable for implantation in female hosts? Would the High Lords let that happen on a wide scale?
Then we have maybe Cawl, doing some digging he shouldn't have been doing, find the procedure from one of his many personalities, and replicate it. With Guilliman as his safety net, the High Lords can't hide it this time.
That way there is scope for Firstborn and Primaris female SM.
Vatsetis wrote: The way this hole debate is framed by the most active members of the thread no one can achieve "victory"... Its just about stating in an endless cicle if one OPINION is in favour or against FSM.
Which BTW is quite pointless since its quite obvious that GW has decided to use Sorotitas as the vehicule to increase female representation in 40K.
You are right, however a lot of the people here are starting with an ideological belief and working backwards, no matter what any evidence suggests or demonstrate the conclusions are always the same.
These individuals start with a premise that 40k lacks female representation and work back from that premise to justify it, outright ignoring anything that does not fit with pre conceived conclusions as if accepted that the premise could be wrong then the whole argument falls apart.
Also due to this same school of thought nothing is considered "sacred" or "sacrosanct", any lore is irrelevant as it can just be changed (so long as it changes the way they intend), no argument is worthy as the ones making is are not worthy of making the argument (the creation of the other), any person that makes an effective argument is to be silenced or purged and always labelled with whatever in vogue term is needed to ostracise that person in the eyes of the in group.
So when you say that GW has already shown that it will be using Sisters of Battle as the Female representation you are correct, GW has shown a revealed preference by pushing them to the fore alongside its flagship product of space marines, this however does not give these individuals what they want however as their pre conceived outcome has not been reached, if they can force through pressure GW to give them Female marines then they can do the same in other areas and ultimately gain control of the platforms (the hobby, model line and intellectual property) and further push their advocacy.
This is a never ending cycle essentially
Your words seem to be truth. Which is sad, since ideologically I wanted to have simpathy for the FSM "cause". But unfortunatly even the best cause can be derail by hellbent preconceptions.
I really dont think anyone here has a hidden agenda, there is also very little chance anything will change due to this topic... Its only another internet echo chamber.
Gert wrote: I think a bit of it could work, since the point of the 21st was to "fix" problems in the gene-seed. What if a Magos found a way to make it suitable for implantation in female hosts? Would the High Lords let that happen on a wide scale?
And contradict the will of the Emperor and a tradition of Milennia of only male SM???
In universe the best way to introduce FSM would be perhaps through Chaos (Fabius Bile would ve an obvious candidate to implement this change). Later the loyalist could introduce FSM so that they dont losse that "competitive edge".
I just want to point out that on the "Space Marine Chapters" poster that came with Conquest, of the 99 Chapters that are named (one slot is left erased as always), 5 of them are "Sons of X" or "X Sons". The vast majority of SM Chapters have gender-neutral naming schemes.
Your words seem to be truth. Which is sad, since ideologically I wanted to have simpathy for the FSM "cause". But unfortunatly even the best cause can be derail by hellbent preconceptions.
I really dont think anyone here has a hidden agenda, there is also very little chance anything will change due to this topic... Its only another internet echo chamber.
See I have said many times that people can do with their models whatever they like but that I will not agree with the FSM group as they not doing this for honest reasons but ideological ones, it is this that I am against because it lacks honesty and integrity.
as for hidden agendas, very true its not hidden in the slightest as they are pretty open about it but as you say due to pre conceptions they will not even consider for a second that their activism is the very thing stopping people accepting FSM.
A real test to me would be if they made sisters of battle identical in statlines but aesthetically different, would they still complain because at that point you have effectively the same thing on the TT but not in the lore and that would be a middle ground I think most would be happier with as it keeps both the factions themes intact.
And contradict the will of the Emperor and a tradition of Milennia of only male SM???
In universe the best way to introduce FSM would be perhaps through Chaos (Fabius Bile would ve an obvious candidate to implement this change). Later the loyalist could introduce FSM so that they dont losse that "competirive edge".
So your solution is to introduce female SM as the creation of an insane mad scientist into the evil faction often associated with mutations. That's not great chief.
Formosa wrote:See I have said many times that people can do with their models whatever they like
That's great, really, but that's little consolation to the people who don't share that belief.
I will not agree with the FSM group as they not doing this for honest reasons but ideological ones
Neutrality and status quo are also ideologies.
Just to remind everyone.
as for hidden agendas, very true its not hidden in the slightest as they are pretty open about it
Open? Pray tell, where?
I'm curious, I want to know what agenda I apparently serve.
A real test to me would be if they made sisters of battle identical in statlines but aesthetically different, would they still complain because at that point you have effectively the same thing on the TT but not in the lore and that would be a middle ground I think most would be happier with as it keeps both the factions themes intact.
It's not about giving Sisters two wounds and Toughness 4. It's not about making them the same on the tabletop. It's not even about balancing the meta at all.
I fail to see how this would be a "test" at all, because that's not what anyone here has said their motivations were. Do you actually know what we're arguing for here, and why? Like, as truthfully and "politely" as you can, tell us all what you think we're trying to do, if you please.
Gert wrote: I think a bit of it could work, since the point of the 21st was to "fix" problems in the gene-seed. What if a Magos found a way to make it suitable for implantation in female hosts? Would the High Lords let that happen on a wide scale?
And contradict the will of the Emperor and a tradition of Milennia of only male SM???
Question - where did the Emperor say that Space Marines could only be men?
It's just you mention the "will of the Emperor", and I don't seem to remember that ever being explicit.
I prefer to think that female were deliberately excluded not because the process won't allow it, but because the Emperor was an donkey-cave born in a primitive society a few thousand year ago, and being immortal is a very, very slow learner (which is a much easier, more coherent and so more plausible explanation).
Really opposing to Crawl introducing female marine can't stand on Amy lore argument. A lot of options to explore, a lot of possible conflict, new vs old, stagnation vs innovation.... It's a golden opportunity for the lore.
I despised Primaris (and never bought one): they are a sales driver that has been force-fed into the lore. Female Primaris would, at least, let them serves some purposes aside from trying to sell you your entire collection again.
Your words seem to be truth. Which is sad, since ideologically I wanted to have simpathy for the FSM "cause". But unfortunatly even the best cause can be derail by hellbent preconceptions.
I really dont think anyone here has a hidden agenda, there is also very little chance anything will change due to this topic... Its only another internet echo chamber.
See I have said many times that people can do with their models whatever they like but that I will not agree with the FSM group as they not doing this for honest reasons but ideological ones, it is this that I am against because it lacks honesty and integrity.
as for hidden agendas, very true its not hidden in the slightest as they are pretty open about it but as you say due to pre conceptions they will not even consider for a second that their activism is the very thing stopping people accepting FSM.
A real test to me would be if they made sisters of battle identical in statlines but aesthetically different, would they still complain because at that point you have effectively the same thing on the TT but not in the lore and that would be a middle ground I think most would be happier with as it keeps both the factions themes intact.
But they can’t do what they want with there models, if the make their marine models women then they will be abused and threatened. And too many will allow it because the “lore” says so.
What you are actually doing in your replies to me especially is prejudging me. I’m telling my honest reasons for being here having this discussion and you are insulating and claiming I have a hidden agenda and prejudices. It’s the most ludicrous double standards.
As for your middle ground of making the sexy retake nuns as good as marines on the table top with out any lore based explanation…am I the only who see a problem with that? How are these holy women as tough as their super enhanced male counter parts? It makes no sense? And why the segregation? What’s the point?
You also seem to disagree that the text from 30 years again is outdated? Show me where it’s current please?
I prefer to think that female were deliberately excluded not because the process won't allow it, but because the Emperor was an donkey-cave born in a primitive society a few thousand year ago, and being immortal is a very, very slow learner (which is a much easier, more coherent and so more plausible explanation).
Really opposing to Crawl introducing female marine can't stand on Amy lore argument. A lot of options to explore, a lot of possible conflict, new vs old, stagnation vs innovation.... It's a golden opportunity for the lore.
Anyone who has ever seen a woman give birth knows you are right! Plenty of evidence is fighting of disease as well, as a medic I can attest to this.
For the emperor being a massive sexist is a great reason that it never happened before. And agree their is a window of opportunity open now.
I despised Primaris (and never bought one): they are a sales driver that has been force-fed into the lore. Female Primaris would, at least,Ake them serves some purposes aside trying to sell you your collection again.
And contradict the will of the Emperor and a tradition of Milennia of only male SM???
In universe the best way to introduce FSM would be perhaps through Chaos (Fabius Bile would ve an obvious candidate to implement this change). Later the loyalist could introduce FSM so that they dont losse that "competirive edge".
So your solution is to introduce female SM as the creation of an insane mad scientist into the evil faction often associated with mutations. That's not great chief.
Literally all those words except "mutations" are applicable if Cawl and the IOM are the enactors of the FSM program.
(Irony mode on) I suppose that the extreme xenophobia and religious dogmatism of the IOM make them a much better vessel for female representation than the chaos free thinkers.
But they can’t do what they want with there models, if the make their marine models women then they will be abused and threatened. And too many will allow it because the “lore” says so.
Yeah gonna say this never happened, mind you the people in question consider criticism abuse and words violence so from their perspective they may genuinely believe it.
What you are actually doing in your replies to me especially is prejudging me. I’m telling my honest reasons for being here having this discussion and you are insulating and claiming I have a hidden agenda and prejudices. It’s the most ludicrous double standards.
No I read the thread just listening to make sure my assessments were correct and I was proven so many times, not by you though, I think of everyone here you are the only honest one even if we disagree, so if you say you are doing it for good reasons, I believe you.
As for your middle ground of making the sexy retake nuns as good as marines on the table top with out any lore based explanation…am I the only who see a problem with that? How are these holy women as tough as their super enhanced male counter parts? It makes no sense? And why the segregation? What’s the point?
see the lore matters here but not when considering marines are all male, come on now be consistent please, I only suggest it as a compromise, as to an explanation, the sisters are so infused with the power of faith that they are enhanced spiritually and physically by it, the blunted minds of spaces marines precludes them from undergoing the same transformation, thus we now have super soldier sisters (although I would say they already fit that theme).
as to the segregation, theme, nuns and monks, the heavy religious themes of the 40k setting fit this perfectly and as others have correctly pointed out you cannot remove this theme without fundamentally changing the setting which is something people do not want, its an integral part of 40k.
You also seem to disagree that the text from 30 years again is outdated? Show me where it’s current please?
I do not need to, you are yet to provide evidence that it has been invalidated, I can cite the most recent book featuring all male space marines to show its still valid, you cannot do the same, this is not a valid vector of criticism for you and to steel man your argument for a moment this is pointless as you cannot "win" from this perspective, revealed preference shows that marines can only be male as they are only male and when we look into why we see its down to the genetic markers from the gene seed, this is long established and a constant in the 40k setting.
there are valid questions and vectors though, such as Fabious Bile, Cursed founding etc. these are the things you should concentrate on as the above is a non starter, incidentally this is exactly the kind of thing I would be expecting to talk about in the background forum, this should have been moved to off topic ages ago but nevermind eh.
People who want to play the victim when their gatekeeping is threatened. Can’t speak for gert but that’s the impression I’m getting.
Oh the irony, because that is exactly what I think Gert is doing, just the act of disagreeing with him causing him to become aggressive to the point he decided he would claim my criticisms were insults, this passive aggressive attack is very childish and exactly in keeping of the "victim" mentality he, and you, are claiming I am displaying.
As for gatekeeping, mate, the people that have been pushing this kind of thing are the biggest gatekeepers around, I have no doubt if this forum was run by such individuals I would already have been booted for the sin of disagreeing, seen it happen many many times to others.
And contradict the will of the Emperor and a tradition of Milennia of only male SM???
In universe the best way to introduce FSM would be perhaps through Chaos (Fabius Bile would ve an obvious candidate to implement this change). Later the loyalist could introduce FSM so that they dont losse that "competirive edge".
So your solution is to introduce female SM as the creation of an insane mad scientist into the evil faction often associated with mutations. That's not great chief.
Literally all those words except "mutations" are applicable if Cawl and the IOM are the enactors of the FSM program.
(Irony mode on) I suppose that the extreme xenophobia and religious dogmatism of the IOM make them a much better vessel for female representation than the chaos free thinkers.
I think the issue is, for a representation point of view, only allowing women if they are a mutation brought about by the evil protagonists isn’t great. In all the literature, in all the back ground, chaos are the advisory. The. It’s not great that they are the only ones allowed women.
That said I personally am not against chaos having female marines, but don’t think it should be limited to them. No reason why imperial Marie s can’t be female either.
But they can’t do what they want with there models, if the make their marine models women then they will be abused and threatened. And too many will allow it because the “lore” says so.
Yeah gonna say this never happened, mind you the people in question consider criticism abuse and words violence so from their perspective they may genuinely believe it.
What you are actually doing in your replies to me especially is prejudging me. I’m telling my honest reasons for being here having this discussion and you are insulating and claiming I have a hidden agenda and prejudices. It’s the most ludicrous double standards.
No I read the thread just listening to make sure my assessments were correct and I was proven so many times, not by you though, I think of everyone here you are the only honest one even if we disagree, so if you say you are doing it for good reasons, I believe you.
As for your middle ground of making the sexy retake nuns as good as marines on the table top with out any lore based explanation…am I the only who see a problem with that? How are these holy women as tough as their super enhanced male counter parts? It makes no sense? And why the segregation? What’s the point?
see the lore matters here but not when considering marines are all male, come on now be consistent please, I only suggest it as a compromise, as to an explanation, the sisters are so infused with the power of faith that they are enhanced spiritually and physically by it, the blunted minds of spaces marines precludes them from undergoing the same transformation, thus we now have super soldier sisters (although I would say they already fit that theme).
as to the segregation, theme, nuns and monks, the heavy religious themes of the 40k setting fit this perfectly and as others have correctly pointed out you cannot remove this theme without fundamentally changing the setting which is something people do not want, its an integral part of 40k.
You also seem to disagree that the text from 30 years again is outdated? Show me where it’s current please?
I do not need to, you are yet to provide evidence that it has been invalidated, I can cite the most recent book featuring all male space marines to show its still valid, you cannot do the same, this is not a valid vector of criticism for you and to steel man your argument for a moment this is pointless as you cannot "win" from this perspective, revealed preference shows that marines can only be male as they are only male and when we look into why we see its down to the genetic markers from the gene seed, this is long established and a constant in the 40k setting.
there are valid questions and vectors though, such as Fabious Bile, Cursed founding etc. these are the things you should concentrate on as the above is a non starter, incidentally this is exactly the kind of thing I would be expecting to talk about in the background forum, this should have been moved to off topic ages ago but nevermind eh.
People who want to play the victim when their gatekeeping is threatened. Can’t speak for gert but that’s the impression I’m getting.
Oh the irony, because that is exactly what I think Gert is doing, just the act of disagreeing with him causing him to become aggressive to the point he decided he would claim my criticisms were insults, this passive aggressive attack is very childish and exactly in keeping of the "victim" mentality he, and you, are claiming I am displaying.
As for gatekeeping, mate, the people that have been pushing this kind of thing are the biggest gatekeepers around, I have no doubt if this forum was run by such individuals I would already have been booted for the sin of disagreeing, seen it happen many many times to others.
I have shown as have we all, the text in question is not in print now, was last printed 4 years ago, and is missing from every spacemarine codex ever. Incidental, every spacemarines codex ever also has a section on the creation of a speace marine in it, and in each and every one that bit of information is missing.
So as a new comer into the game, I look at all the in print information about marines now, and where does it say that it is male only?? NOWHERE! So how is that, as you claim, a “fundamental change to the setting”?
And as for you swaying abuse doesn’t happen? WTF? Open your eye mate. I’ve seen it first hand, it’s been in this thread, and not as you claim in your daily mail way snowflake vulnerableness. Actual real death threats and bigoted abuse. On a face book page I got called a [see forum posting rules], homo and slow just for giving a positive comment on someone else’s picture of a female marines. So if your stance is that the abuse doesn’t happen then you need to get your head out the sand and come back and talk to us when you are prepared to look at the reality of the situation.
Literally all those words except "mutations" are applicable if Cawl and the IOM are the enactors of the FSM program.
(Irony mode on) I suppose that the extreme xenophobia and religious dogmatism of the IOM make them a much better vessel for female representation than the chaos free thinkers.
Despite it absolutely being the case, the Imperium is not treated as the "bad guys" so we have to take that into account when we consider this change.
Cawl and Bile are both "mad scientists" but in different ways. Cawl is "mad" because he is made up of like 10 different people. Bile is "mad" because he is a CSM and also has a colossal ego that makes him think he is the smartest person in existence.
Also, look at the difference in what their creations are. Cawl improved the Space Marines and created new weapons equipment for them. Bile made the New Men who are mutant humans that exist to kill SM and his other "enhancements" often kill the individual or render them insane.
Yeah gonna say this never happened, mind you the people in question consider criticism abuse and words violence so from their perspective they may genuinely believe it.
I said I wasn't going to interact with Formosa but this is ignorant and extremely dangerous. Here's a hint, when people provide you with evidence of women hobbyists saying they've been sent harassing messages and death threats because they made female SMdo not brush it off as people getting offended over nothing.
I said I wasn't going to interact with Formosa but this is ignorant and extremely dangerous. Here's a hint, when people provide you with evidence of women hobbyists saying they've been sent harassing messages and death threats because they made female SMdo not brush it off as people getting offended over nothing.
I agree, lying or exagerating about harassment is ignorant and extremely dangerous as it makes people no longer trust the real cases that could be happening, and if "anyone" says they are being harassed without evidence I reserve the right to require evidence, the accusation alone is not enough, innocence until proven guilty and burden of proof are fundamental and entirely fair requests.
feel free to PM me the evidence and I am happy to change my position and will publically admit I was wrong and apologise, the evidence I require is that the harassment must be widespread as you claim, specifically about FSM and conversions and actual legitimate threats otherwise I will just dismiss this as a cynical attempt at emotional manipulation and victim culture in order to shut down the conversation.
This is way off topic so any further discussion of this point I will only reply via PMs
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I have shown as have we all, the text in question is not in print now, was last printed 4 years ago, and is missing from every spacemarine codex ever. Incidental, every spacemarines codex ever also has a section on the creation of a speace marine in it, and in each and every one that bit of information is missing.
It is still part of the background and still adhered to, you cannot show me a single female space marine that would override the previous "lore" of the setting, none of you have been able to provide any credible refutation of this fact
So as a new comer into the game, I look at all the in print information about marines now, and where does it say that it is male only?? NOWHERE! So how is that, as you claim, a “fundamental change to the setting”?
to a newcomer looking at the art, models etc. seeing the clearly male models with no traditionally feminine traits, overly masculine ones and then looking to the novels and seeing all the marines are male, the reasonable inference is that only men can be marines especially with the preponderance of strong female characters in the books, also should this hypothetical new person wish to google it they will find that the gene seed is coded to males, as above you cannot refute this fact and all you have on the subject is your opinion which you are entitled to even if its factually incorrect.
I said
"as to the segregation, theme, nuns and monks, the heavy religious themes of the 40k setting fit this perfectly and as others have correctly pointed out you cannot remove this theme without fundamentally changing the setting which is something people do not want, its an integral part of 40k."
in a separate paragraph for clarity, the religious themes are fundemental, monks and nuns are expressions of that and as such part of that fundemental theme, add male sisters and you break that theme, add female marines and you break that theme.
create another faction with combined monastic and nunnery themes and you have the inquisition, but this is neither the sisters nor the space marines and just as much an important part of the setting.
I deleted the foe outrage part as I do not believe it is genuine and is a way of taking us off topic, want to discuss it further PM me on the subject.
I might point out that most of that translates them to being better subjects for this sort of transformation than men are? Or that fact that the canon SM transformation in no way resembles how one would actually produce a superhuman?
Gert wrote: I think a bit of it could work, since the point of the 21st was to "fix" problems in the gene-seed. What if a Magos found a way to make it suitable for implantation in female hosts? Would the High Lords let that happen on a wide scale?
And contradict the will of the Emperor and a tradition of Milennia of only male SM???
Gert said:
Question - where did the Emperor say that Space Marines could only be men?
It's just you mention the "will of the Emperor", and I don't seem to remember that ever being explicit.
I thought that this thread had demostrated that there were no scientific reason for SM to be male only (IE: that the actual process of generating SM was indeed gender neutral and could be applied also to female candidates). If that is the case it must be the will of the Emperor (because he is a misogynist or because any other hidden reason) to make ONLY male Primarchs and ONLY male SM. So from an in universe perspective the authorities of the IOM in the 41st Millenium will surely assume that it was the will of the Emperor / and or an equally holy tradition the reason why SM were an only male brotherhood. There is no need for an explicit reasoning on the matter (many lore elements in 40K arent explicitly explained, nor would a dogmatic theocracy like the IOM need such explanation, just like many traditions in real world societies arent explicitly reasoned but nevertheless are enforced and adopted)
On the other hand one can also assume than neither the Emperor, Custodes, Primarchs, or SM are indeed male but rather (based on the "unreliable narrator" nature of 40K lore) gender neutral/ nor defined and therefore can be taken as She/He/They/X... frankly this would be a much more inclusive approach if GW really wanted to make a step forward towards representation and inclusivity in 40K.
Lets me explain. GW could simply make an official statement that in the 40K gender and race (amongst others) as we understand them in the early XXI century no longer divide humanity and that therefore all humans of the setting can be assume to have any gender or race (or current identity characteristic) no matter the pronouns or descriptions given in the codexes, BL books or whatever lore source (so if Leman Russ is described as a male is just again a matter of the "unreliable narrator" or a "bad translation to low gothic"). Accordingly all future 40K kits depicting human beings (dosent matter if they are named charecters or simple troops) will be supplied with the appropiate male/female/non binary head options. This is the only way that 40K can have representation and inclusivity in a manner that is coherent with how human rights are understood in the XXI century. Compared to this the FSM approach is a very limited endeavaour which lacks any real significance.
PD: sorry I make a mistake with the quote presentation in my post, hope the reference can be understood.
Vatsetis wrote:(Irony mode on) I suppose that the extreme xenophobia and religious dogmatism of the IOM make them a much better vessel for female representation than the chaos free thinkers.
Again, xenophobia and religious dogmatism never stopped the Imperium having women Guardsmen.
I keep seeing this argument of "but the Imperium's EVIL, why would they want to have women" - we see no institutional sexism in the Imperium, so this argument makes no sense to me.
Formosa wrote:
But they can’t do what they want with there models, if the make their marine models women then they will be abused and threatened. And too many will allow it because the “lore” says so.
Yeah gonna say this never happened
And this is exactly what we mean about you not being "polite", or why I doubt you when you claim that you're not insulting anyone and are being entirely in good faith.
You're outright dismissing death threats and abuse. You fundamentally reject the actual victims of this. How are we supposed to take you seriously when you won't take anyone else seriously?
mind you the people in question consider criticism abuse and words violence so from their perspective they may genuinely believe it.
Like how many of the anti-women Astartes folks seem to think that being called out on their ridiculous takes is "purging" and "silencing"?
The difference is that one group are being abused because they put different heads on their plastic models. The other group are just being told that their arguments are kinda stupid.
As for your middle ground of making the sexy retake nuns as good as marines on the table top with out any lore based explanation…am I the only who see a problem with that? How are these holy women as tough as their super enhanced male counter parts? It makes no sense? And why the segregation? What’s the point?
see the lore matters here but not when considering marines are all male, come on now be consistent please, I only suggest it as a compromise, as to an explanation, the sisters are so infused with the power of faith that they are enhanced spiritually and physically by it, the blunted minds of spaces marines precludes them from undergoing the same transformation, thus we now have super soldier sisters (although I would say they already fit that theme).
But Sisters *aren't* Space Marines any more so than Guardsmen are Space Marines. I don't get why you're trying to erase the very good niche that Sisters have, and try and act like they're just women Space Marines.
Arguably, that's exactly *why* we need actual women Space Marines - because Sisters aren't it, not just from a gameplay perspective, but from a design one, an aesthetic one, and a themed one.
as to the segregation, theme, nuns and monks, the heavy religious themes of the 40k setting fit this perfectly and as others have correctly pointed out you cannot remove this theme without fundamentally changing the setting which is something people do not want, its an integral part of 40k.
And as Deadnight and I have both illustrated, the heavily religious theme (if it even exists for Space Marines) doesn't preclude the existence of women Astartes.
And again, I'm more than happy to argue that Space Marines, as a holistic faction, do not embody "religious" traits any more so than any Imperial faction does. And, lest I neglect to mention it, most branches of the Imperial military are gender-neutral.
You also seem to disagree that the text from 30 years again is outdated? Show me where it’s current please?
I do not need to, you are yet to provide evidence that it has been invalidated
Show me where it says in the Codex that Space Marines must be all male, and why.
I can point to the Codex, and the lack of any evidence of this supposedly critical piece of identity.
I can cite the most recent book featuring all male space marines to show its still valid
I can point at a book only featuring male guardsmen as a reason why they're all male - but we all know that they're not.
this is long established and a constant in the 40k setting.
A constant that appears in only, what, four written publications?
There's more lore out there about Abaddon's sword than there is about Space Marine gender.
this is exactly the kind of thing I would be expecting to talk about in the background forum, this should have been moved to off topic ages ago but nevermind eh.
We are discussing the background - namely why the background is the way it is, instead of myopically accepting ridiculously exclusive lore.
As for gatekeeping, mate, the people that have been pushing this kind of thing are the biggest gatekeepers around
Show us where you were gatekept by people asking for women Space Marines.
I have no doubt if this forum was run by such individuals I would already have been booted for the sin of disagreeing, seen it happen many many times to others.
"Sin of disagreeing"? As we've seen, there's nothing wrong with disagreement, some bloke and I have been disagreeing about aspects of this for pages at a time - but thankfully, some bloke has never resorted to blatantly sexist arguments, because they seem to be a person of integrity.
Formosa wrote:I agree, lying or exagerating about harassment is ignorant and extremely dangerous as it makes people no longer trust the real cases that could be happening
So why are you ignoring it now?
and if "anyone" says they are being harassed without evidence I reserve the right to require evidence, the accusation alone is not enough, innocence until proven guilty and burden of proof are fundamental and entirely fair requests.
Sure. Show us the evidence here about all your claims of people wanting to "take power". Your claims how the pro-women Astartes "side" are "gatekeeping". Your claims on how you're being "purged and silenced".
I'm notoriously patient.
I have shown as have we all, the text in question is not in print now, was last printed 4 years ago, and is missing from every spacemarine codex ever. Incidental, every spacemarines codex ever also has a section on the creation of a speace marine in it, and in each and every one that bit of information is missing.
It is still part of the background
In obscure publications - not exactly a piece of critically important lore, really.
and still adhered to, you cannot show me a single female space marine that would override the previous "lore" of the setting, none of you have been able to provide any credible refutation of this fact
No-one's claiming it's not adhered to. What people are saying is that it's an utterly inconsequential and pointless piece of lore, so why does it need to exist?
to a newcomer looking at the art, models etc. seeing the clearly male models with no traditionally feminine traits, overly masculine ones
What "overly masculine" traits? How is a helmeted Space Marine "overly masculine?"
and then looking to the novels and seeing all the marines are male, the reasonable inference is that only men can be marines
Like how I can infer that Guardsmen can only be male, because there's barely any women Guardsmen models? Right?
especially with the preponderance of strong female characters in the books
That's not what preponderance means.
also should this hypothetical new person wish to google it they will find that the gene seed is coded to males
And I can google "lore" that tells me the Ultramarines have a half-Eldar Chief Astropath, or lore about how Abaddon is an armless failure.
Googled lore isn't always accurate or reflective of importance.
in a separate paragraph for clarity, the religious themes are fundemental, monks and nuns are expressions of that and as such part of that fundemental theme, add male sisters and you break that theme, add female marines and you break that theme.
Evidently, you haven't been reading Deadnight or my own posts on the matter, because you'd see that, because of the vast array of monastic traditions, there is no requirement to be male.
Space Marines cover such a massive range of aesthetic and cultural designs - why is "no women" such a critical one to focus on?
CEO Kasen wrote: Facts? What facts? You have not once linked an article or study that you hadn't spun to hell or proved to be total BS when anyone actually bothered to click on it. So no. You have not. You've not accomplished a thing besides making the argument against look as shallow and foolish as possible without actually incurring moderation.
Huh? No, your disagreements with the study of female-written narratives aside, the study I linked about women being less thing-oriented than men, on average, was very robust. And people here were stunningly unaware of basic genomics, that gak's googleable.
Again, I can generally assume that when y'all stop engaging with one of my points, it's because you know you're beat in that area.
And contradict the will of the Emperor and a tradition of Milennia of only male SM???
In universe the best way to introduce FSM would be perhaps through Chaos (Fabius Bile would ve an obvious candidate to implement this change). Later the loyalist could introduce FSM so that they dont losse that "competirive edge".
So your solution is to introduce female SM as the creation of an insane mad scientist into the evil faction often associated with mutations. That's not great chief.
Literally all those words except "mutations" are applicable if Cawl and the IOM are the enactors of the FSM program.
(Irony mode on) I suppose that the extreme xenophobia and religious dogmatism of the IOM make them a much better vessel for female representation than the chaos free thinkers.
I think the issue is, for a representation point of view, only allowing women if they are a mutation brought about by the evil protagonists isn’t great. In all the literature, in all the back ground, chaos are the advisory. The. It’s not great that they are the only ones allowed women.
That said I personally am not against chaos having female marines, but don’t think it should be limited to them. No reason why imperial Marie s can’t be female either.
But Im not saying that FSM are to be limited to chaos. Im just saying that chaos (you known the free thinker faction not constricted by tradition and dogma like the IOM) could be the one to START having FSM and later (in universe, in the marketing and modelling it could be done simultaneously) the loyalist can adopt them not to lose the edge.
Its very annoying that my words are sistematically manipulated and misquoted in this thread. I really hope is not intentional, but fellow posters should perhaps read other post more carefully.
CSM are restricted by certain traditions and dogma though. There's literally an example of a female warrior in the Bile novels who is actively shunned and kept away from command because she is female, despite being an excellent fighter and devoted adherent of Slaanesh that is as strong and tough as a CSM.
Chaos isn't "free-thinking" it's just not "Imperial thinking".
Question - where did the Emperor say that Space Marines could only be men?
It's just you mention the "will of the Emperor", and I don't seem to remember that ever being explicit.
I thought that this thread had demostrated that there were no scientific reason for SM to be male only (IE: that the actual process of generating SM was indeed gender neutral and could be applied also to female candidates).
Not exactly. The thread demonstrated that if there were biological reasons, they would be entirely arbitrary. Not that there was no scientific reason at all. There totally *could* be a biological reason - but it would completely and utterly arbitrary, not based in any actual real science.
If that is the case it must be the will of the Emperor (because he is a misogynist or because any other hidden reason) to make ONLY male Primarchs and ONLY male SM.
The problem with this is that we have mixed gender Guardsmen, Solar Auxilia, AdMech, Knight Houses, and basically every other Imperial military branch.
If the Emperor was such a raging misogynist, why are *any* Imperial military arms mixed gender?
So from an in universe perspective the authorities of the IOM in the 41st Millenium will surely assume that it was the will of the Emperor / and or an equally holy tradition the reason why SM were an only male brotherhood.
Again, guardsmen.
There is no need for an explicit reasoning on the matter (many lore elements in 40K arent explicitly explained, nor would a dogmatic theocracy like the IOM need such explanation, just like many traditions in real world societies arent explicitly reasoned but nevertheless are enforced and adopted)
But it's completely incongruous with *everything else we see about the Imperium*.
Hell, the Emperor didn't even make the Space Marines. That was the work of Amar Astarte - the head scientist of the Astartes project, hired by the Emperor, and a woman.
On the other hand one can also assume than neither the Emperor, Custodes, Primarchs, or SM are indeed male but rather (based on the "unreliable narrator" nature of 40K lore) gender neutral/ nor defined and therefore can be taken as She/He/They/X... frankly this would be a much more inclusive approach if GW really wanted to make a step forward towards representation and inclusivity in 40K.
Possibly, but as I've said, representation without visibility isn't representation.
Now, if GW went ahead and just included Astartes with female pronouns and presentation, that would be good.
Lets me explain. GW could simply make an official statement that in the 40K gender and race (amongst others) as we understand them in the early XXI century no longer divide humanity and that therefore all humans of the setting can be assume to have any gender or race (or current identity characteristic) no matter the pronouns or descriptions given in the codexes, BL books or whatever lore source (so if Leman Russ is described as a male is just again a matter of the "unreliable narrator" or a "bad translation to low gothic"). Accordingly all future 40K kits depicting human beings (dosent matter if they are named charecters or simple troops) will be supplied with the appropiate male/female/non binary head options. This is the only way that 40K can have representation and inclusivity in a manner that is coherent with how human rights are understood in the XXI century. Compared to this the FSM approach is a very limited endeavaour which lacks any real significance.
I don't mind that - but as I've said, representation needs to be *visible* to be truly representative. So, if you include the male/female/non-binary (being non-binary myself, that doesn't mean androgynous. Just to clarify) heads, that's fine - including in the Space Marines though.
Vatsetis wrote:(Irony mode on) I suppose that the extreme xenophobia and religious dogmatism of the IOM make them a much better vessel for female representation than the chaos free thinkers.
Again, xenophobia and religious dogmatism never stopped the Imperium having women Guardsmen.
I keep seeing this argument of "but the Imperium's EVIL, why would they want to have women" - we see no institutional sexism in the Imperium, so this argument makes no sense to me.
Another misquote. You are mixing and confusing arguments I made at different moments of the thread.
I wasnt arguing about the existence or not of institutional sexism in the Imperium, but rather that chaos but be a better vessel to introduce FSM into the setting.
Hecaton wrote:Again, I can generally assume that when y'all stop engaging with one of my points, it's because you know you're beat in that area.
Like how you've not responded or engaged at all with mine?
Or, perhaps, like I assume you've done with mine, they're just tired of dealing with those points. The difference is that they're tired of your awful takes, and you're tired of my calling you out on them.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Again, xenophobia and religious dogmatism never stopped the Imperium having women Guardsmen.
I keep seeing this argument of "but the Imperium's EVIL, why would they want to have women" - we see no institutional sexism in the Imperium, so this argument makes no sense to me.
It varies by writer. Lore states that majority of guard regiments are single gender, but female generals seem to be incredibly rare (only three are known in Lore) and, attempting to deal with it makes up the bulk of the internal drama of the regiment in For the Emperor if you review the insults being thrown back and forth between troopers.
Vatsetis wrote:(Irony mode on) I suppose that the extreme xenophobia and religious dogmatism of the IOM make them a much better vessel for female representation than the chaos free thinkers.
Again, xenophobia and religious dogmatism never stopped the Imperium having women Guardsmen.
I keep seeing this argument of "but the Imperium's EVIL, why would they want to have women" - we see no institutional sexism in the Imperium, so this argument makes no sense to me.
Another misquote. You are mixing and confusing arguments I made at different moments of the thread.
I wasnt arguing about the existence or not of institutional sexism in the Imperium, but rather that chaos but be a better vessel to introduce FSM into the setting.
This is so sad.
It's not really a misquote - at least, that is completely how the original quote read to me. And again, it's another misunderstanding of what we're doing for "female representation". Representing women through CSM is pointless in the same way it's pointless representing them in Harlequins - because CSM aren't the flagship faction.
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BaronIveagh wrote: Lore states that majority of guard regiments are single gender
Source?
but female generals seem to be incredibly rare (only three are known in Lore)
And I don't know any generals in lore that carry a power axe, yet I can find plenty of them represented on tabletop without people telling me they're non-canon.
End of the day, they're not rare because of an explicit reason, they're rare because we don't get stories about them, which could be due to real world reasons.
attempting to deal with it makes up the bulk of the internal drama of the regiment in For the Emperor.
And in other stories, there's no issues with it whatsoever, and the women members of the regiments are just as valued as the men.
Similarly, I can point to Space Marine stories where they're dealing with closet heretics and corruption within the Chapter - does that mean that all Space Marine Chapters are rife with corruption and heresy?
Sure, I'll explain in more detail why what you're saying is wrongheaded and based off an incorrect understanding of the science.
Saying that women are "more resilient to changes" is an incredibly generalized statement that isn't meaningfully true; one can say that men are more resistant to changes in one area, and women are more resistant in others. One study that shows that female humans have favorable outcomes from trauma-hemorrhaging; big deal. All you've shown is that yes, the sexes are meaningfully biologically different. That *increased* the likelihood that the process only works on one sex or the other. It doesn't say that women are more responsive to fantastical sci-fi processes designed to make them superhuman.
Your comment about the process of making Astartes working on weak boy, therefore it must work on strong women, fails because we do not know the mechanism of action of the process. As I've said before, it might work via upregulating genes on the Y chromosome that are not found in female humans, and therefore a weak boy makes a workable candidate where even a peak-health girl does not.
You claim that women are "used to experience hormonal imbalances," but, for example, hormonal birth control works in women because their system of hormones that controls their reproductive system is more easily disrupted. The male analog is more resilient; hormones can lower the sperm count, but not remove fertility altogether the way it can in women. Your ideas about "WOMEN ARE STRONGER THAN MAN" are fairy tales that you believe for ideological reasons, not truths. The sexes are different, biologically. The process to create Astartes is a fictional process; one could easily say that it only works on male humans *due to these biological differences.*
You don't define "Stronger" in a way that is applicable to the fictional process used to create Astartes, and you don't show that women are stronger than men. You aren't proving anything, and, to be frank, given your amateur-level understanding of English I don't think you're doing much reading of technical documentation like scientific papers with any sort of understanding.
Cybtroll wrote: Really opposing to Crawl introducing female marine can't stand on Amy lore argument.
Yes, yes it can. It's a fictional process, it can only work on people with three nipples if you want it to.
It varies by writer. Lore states that majority of guard regiments are single gender, but female generals seem to be incredibly rare (only three are known in Lore) and, attempting to deal with it makes up the bulk of the internal drama of the regiment in For the Emperor if you review the insults being thrown back and forth between troopers.
I mean there aren't many AM characters to begin with. Creed (may or may not be dead), Kell (dead), Yarrick, Straken, Harker, Nork, and Raine. So yeah there aren't a whole lot of ranking women characters but there's been plenty in BL novels which is where representation tends to shine through anyway. But again it's an issue with GW portraying 40k as a boys game and featuring very few female characters.
Vatsetis wrote: Its very annoying that my words are sistematically manipulated and misquoted in this thread. I really hope is not intentional, but fellow posters should perhaps read other post more carefully.
You know it is, and honestly the mods should step in and do something about it, but I'm guessing that at least one of them has a strong bias here, where they think that the pro-FSM side is allowed to hurl abuse but any impoliteness sent back at them is forbidden.
Lets me explain. GW could simply make an official statement that in the 40K gender and race (amongst others) as we understand them in the early XXI century no longer divide humanity and that therefore all humans of the setting can be assume to have any gender or race (or current identity characteristic) no matter the pronouns or descriptions given in the codexes, BL books or whatever lore source (so if Leman Russ is described as a male is just again a matter of the "unreliable narrator" or a "bad translation to low gothic"). Accordingly all future 40K kits depicting human beings (dosent matter if they are named charecters or simple troops) will be supplied with the appropiate male/female/non binary head options. This is the only way that 40K can have representation and inclusivity in a manner that is coherent with how human rights are understood in the XXI century. Compared to this the FSM approach is a very limited endeavaour which lacks any real significance.
I don't mind that - but as I've said, representation needs to be *visible* to be truly representative. So, if you include the male/female/non-binary (being non-binary myself, that doesn't mean androgynous. Just to clarify) heads, that's fine - including in the Space Marines though.
[
Is there any reason why the IOM has to be 100% misoginistic or 100% inclusive regarding gender? this is how historical societies actually work (this is the reallity of the US and many other military today), so it only makes the setting more "feasible". Mixed imperial guard can exist in a setting together with male only astartes and female only sorotitas.
I understand your end goal, but your framing of the issue is not the only legitimate, please stop arguing in such a manner.
Hecaton wrote: honestly the mods should step in and do something about it, but I'm guessing that at least one of them has a strong bias here, where they think that the pro-FSM side is allowed to hurl abuse but any impoliteness sent back at them is forbidden.
Ah, the old "the mods are biased, that's why the people calling me out haven't been silenced".
Again - "impoliteness" - bold words coming from the person claiming that everyone pro-women Astartes is only in it for sexual deviancy.
Y’know I think I’d say something right about now- but oh, wait, I’m
-female
-white
-well-educated
And thus I’m part of a demographic that has nothing relevant to say. Thanks to Hecaton for that post a little while back reminding me of the fact.
DalekCheese wrote: Y’know I think I’d say something right about now- but oh, wait, I’m
-female
-white
-well-educated
And thus I’m part of a demographic that has nothing relevant to say. Thanks to Hecaton for that post a little while back reminding me of the fact.
Are you interested in wargaming? Since you're here, I assume you are. If you thought that that's what I was saying than you misread me, possibly willfully.
End of the day, they're not rare because of an explicit reason,
Other than the explicit lore statement that Women only make up about 10% of the guard and that for a very long time Jenit Sulla was the ONLY canon female Lord General in the Guard.
And in other stories, there's no issues with it whatsoever, and the women members of the regiments are just as valued as the men.
Funny, I can't think of any of them where it doesn't come up to some degree outside of Gaunt's Ghosts, and maybe Minka Lesk, and I seem to recall some friction even there. Maybe there's some new books I haven't read yet.
Vatsetis wrote: Is there any reason why the IOM has to be 100% misoginistic or 100% inclusive regarding gender?
Not at all. I've made it very clear I'm fine with Custodes being all-male and Sisters being all-female. But I'm questioning why the Space Marines need to be all-male, because the Imperium clearly isn't institutionally sexist.
Why?
this is how historical societies actually work (this is the reallity of the US and many other military today), so it only makes the setting more "feasible".
So, we should just get rid of power armoured super soldiers in general, because they're not historical either, so that makes the setting more "feasible"?
Again, feasibility - why is it more feasible to imagine that we can fight sentient fungus monsters, but not have women Space Marines?
Mixed imperial guard can exist in a setting together with male only astartes and female only sorotitas.
Yes, they can - but that doesn't answer why Space Marines need to be male in the first place.
It's not because the Imperium is sexist. It's not because of biology (because biology is arbitrary in the creation of a made up Super Soldier) It's not because the monk aesthetic prevents it.
So why do Space Marines need to be all male?
I understand your end goal, but your framing of the issue is not the only legitimate, please stop arguing in such a manner.
Sure, but when I'm pointing out how there's problems in the claim that "the Imperium is institutionally sexist", that's not an improper argument. I'm not being rude in addressing that.
I mean there aren't many AM characters to begin with. Creed (may or may not be dead), Kell (dead), Yarrick, Straken, Harker, Nork, and Raine. So yeah there aren't a whole lot of ranking women characters but there's been plenty in BL novels which is where representation tends to shine through anyway. But again it's an issue with GW portraying 40k as a boys game and featuring very few female characters.
None of the women were generals from BL besides Sulla until Wolfs Honor. FFG was actually more inclusive than BL was when it came to women in positions of authority (other than Inquisitors, and maybe even then)
DalekCheese wrote: Y’know I think I’d say something right about now- but oh, wait, I’m -female -white -well-educated And thus I’m part of a demographic that has nothing relevant to say. Thanks to Hecaton for that post a little while back reminding me of the fact.
Are you interested in wargaming? Since you're here, I assume you are. If you thought that that's what I was saying than you misread me, possibly willfully.
End of the day, they're not rare because of an explicit reason,
Other than the explicit lore statement that Women only make up about 10% of the guard and that for a very long time Jenit Sulla was the ONLY canon female Lord General in the Guard.
Again, where was that explicit lore? I don't believe I've seen it in any Codex or current publication.
And in other stories, there's no issues with it whatsoever, and the women members of the regiments are just as valued as the men.
Funny, I can't think of any of them where it doesn't come up to some degree outside of Gaunt's Ghosts, and maybe Minka Lesk, and I seem to recall some friction even there. Maybe there's some new books I haven't read yet.
Gaunt's Ghosts is the main one, as well as the Severina Raine novels. If we're including other media, we can include the Indomitus trailer, the Space Marine video game, and explicit lore about Cadia, where women are only judged by their service, not their gender - just like men.
Vatsetis wrote: I thought that this thread had demostrated that there were no scientific reason for SM to be male only (IE: that the actual process of generating SM was indeed gender neutral and could be applied also to female candidates).
That's the exact opposite of the case - I provided the direct quotation earlier in this thread in response to the false claim that it didn't actually exist:
Also, expectations are a funny thing. I've recovered both the Index Astartes 1 and 2. I was pretty sure somewhere a mention to the Marine gender would appear. Guess what? Wasn't there.
I always implied it, but in the entire two book there isn't a single mention to the fact that Marine are male (aside from some gendered pronouns). Reading all the 19 steps of the implantation process and the implications of that makes even clearer that neither the sex or the gender of the candidate have any bearing.
'These considerations mean that only a small proportion of people can become Space Marines. They must be male because zygotes are keyed to male hormones and tissue types, hence the need for tissue tests and psychological screening.' 'Rites of Initiation: The Creation of a Space Marine' in Index Astartes Volume I, pg.7 (my emphasis)
Vatsetis wrote: I thought that this thread had demostrated that there were no scientific reason for SM to be male only (IE: that the actual process of generating SM was indeed gender neutral and could be applied also to female candidates).
That's the exact opposite of the case - I provided the direct quotation earlier in this thread in response to the false claim that it didn't actually exist:
Also, expectations are a funny thing. I've recovered both the Index Astartes 1 and 2. I was pretty sure somewhere a mention to the Marine gender would appear. Guess what? Wasn't there. I always implied it, but in the entire two book there isn't a single mention to the fact that Marine are male (aside from some gendered pronouns). Reading all the 19 steps of the implantation process and the implications of that makes even clearer that neither the sex or the gender of the candidate have any bearing.
'These considerations mean that only a small proportion of people can become Space Marines. They must be male because zygotes are keyed to male hormones and tissue types, hence the need for tissue tests and psychological screening.' 'Rites of Initiation: The Creation of a Space Marine' in Index Astartes Volume I, pg.7 (my emphasis)
Yeah, we're all in agreement that lore exists, that much is evident - the issue is that it's so very rarely published and in such an obscured manner, I don't understand the importance that people have ascribed to it, and as such, how relevant it really is.
It's a small distinction, but I don't want to be misrepresented here.
There's at least one woman general in Archon by Dan Abnett and there's been a couple high ranking generals/admirals IIRC so far is the Dawn of Fire series. I would like to see more but its not 100% confirmed canon that women can't be AM generals.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Again, where was that explicit lore? I don't believe I've seen it in any Codex or current publication.
Ah, we're off to the Codex, last refuge of a lore weasel. While Sandy Mitchell's Cain series is the main source for this, (Particularly the aforementioned For the Emperor, which is still in print) it also turns up in Imperial Munitorum Manual
Gaunt's Ghosts is the main one, as well as the Severina Raine novels. If we're including other media, we can include the Indomitus trailer, the Space Marine video game, and explicit lore about Cadia, where women are only judged by their service, not their gender - just like men.
Gaunt's Ghosts is not a typical guard novel series. Some of the other books openly mock it.
Space Marine is not the example you like to think it is. 2nd Lieutenant Mira is literally the last officer left in the 203rd Cadian. Severina Raine IIRC has some problems with it in the short stories, but I'd have to double check that. The Indomistus trailer only has three guardsman in it, and the woman is the only one not disintegrated. While it's undeniable that she's in command at that point, in command of 'what'?
And, to be blunt, Cadian PDF isn't the Guard, no matter how awesome they may have been. The only Cadian women to go off world served in mixed units such as the 203, the 'all female' ones, ie the majority, were assigned to the interior guard, Cadia's PDF, per Gunheads
Gert wrote: I would say 20 years and a GW article saying the information from the book is outdated. Oh man we have both of those!
Index Astartes I was published in 2002 (I'm pretty sure there was a later re-release of all of the volumes together too).
The Warhammer Community article didn't say that [all of] (or what of) the material was supposedly outdated.
EDIT: In fact it doesn't say that it is outdated at all. It claims that 'changes have been rendered to the detail' (sic)
And you've not answered the other questions which make the idea of 'retcon by omission' fall apart when put under any level of scrutiny...
If it didn't specify then the whole thing is considered outdated. Pretty simple concept.
Oh no its only 19 years, what a difference.
If GW were to republish a book they've said is outdated I would question why it's being reprinted.
Your final question doesn't make sense.
Gert wrote: If it didn't specify then the whole thing is considered outdated. Pretty simple concept.
Uh, no, not at all. Can you show anywhere where it says that the Astartes process works on female humans? If not, we can assume that part wasn't changed or made outdated.
It also notes that the updates happened in Codex: Space Marines. Where in these codices does it say that female humans can be Astartes?
Hey, YOU specified that it should be less than twenty years old.
You're the one trying to lay out some set of rules for what is and isn't canon. If you have to abandon one of your major necessities so immediately because it actually fails to support your position, that's on you...
I didn't say that all canon lore is less than 20 years old but keep twisting my words to suit your narrative chief.
Biggest thing to consider here is that the only defence you have is an outdated source (GW's words) and that's enough to never ever have female SM ever.
Yup, that doesn't say "all canon". Nice one.
Are you also really going to take the stance that since its not been contradicted (despite being in an outdated publication) that it's 100% super canon?
Are you also really going to take the stance that since its not been contradicted (despite being in an outdated publication) that it's 100% super canon?
I mean I'm saying that since it hasn't been contradicted, and they've had multiple opportunities to do so, it is definitely still canon.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gert wrote: Yup, that doesn't say "all canon". Nice one.
And no, he's talking about this specific issue. Anyone can see that he's got you dead to rights on that one.
Damocles you've linked the wrong article. The latest article concerning the creation of SM was posted last year and the it quoted Index Astartes and specifically said the quote was taken from an old publication that contained outdated info.
Are you also really going to take the stance that since its not been contradicted (despite being in an outdated publication) that it's 100% super canon?
I mean I'm saying that since it hasn't been contradicted, and they've had multiple opportunities to do so, it is definitely still canon.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gert wrote: Yup, that doesn't say "all canon". Nice one.
And no, he's talking about this specific issue. Anyone can see that he's got you dead to rights on that one.
Yes he has but remember the lore only matters insofar as it supports the cause if it does not then it can be changed or ignored don't you know, also remember that making Sisters the same as space marines stat wise has no lore reason and is ridiculous but making female space marines and changing the lore is A-ok.
Gert wrote: Damocles you've linked the wrong article. The latest article concerning the creation of SM was posted last year and the it quoted Index Astartes and specifically said the quote was taken from an old publication that contained outdated info.
Gert wrote: Damocles you've linked the wrong article. The latest article concerning the creation of SM was posted last year and the it quoted Index Astartes and specifically said the quote was taken from an old publication that contained outdated info.
Do you have a link?
The only version I can find via Google is the 2016 version.
The version which Lexicanum claims is from 2019 actually links to the 2016 version too.
Gert wrote: Damocles you've linked the wrong article. The latest article concerning the creation of SM was posted last year and the it quoted Index Astartes and specifically said the quote was taken from an old publication that contained outdated info.
Do you have a link?
The only version I can find via Google is the 2016 version.
The version which Lexicanum claims is from 2019 actually links to the 2016 version too.
went all the way through all mentions of space marine to nov 2019 and could not find what he is referring to
Space Marine may based on astrology, or nipples. That's fine: but if they would be so, we will expect and explanation about how astrology or nipples are involved in process, and how this have other implications.
That is what the suspension of disbelief is about... Building a world with ots internal consistency: otherwise it's just a bad piece of writing with no bearing.
And let me be very clear: Cawl (as a concept) horribly drop the ball on that already. Female marine really are a wash compared to Primaris. Where were Gondor when Primaris were introduced? You really think Female Spaces Marine would somehow be more impactful than that? Call alone broke the credibility of the setting order of magnitude more than what a Space Marine has between the legs.
Case in point, Chaos: Chaos has rules, an internal consistency and an internal logic (and considering it's Chaos, I think that's enough to prove that you can't ignore internal consistency in fiction not even when you are detailing the literal Caos solidified).
Currently, being male as no bearing at all in the process, it is not explained, included or used in the lore. We don't have heretic versus traditionalist, male chapter versus female chapter, or stories of female excluded from the process, or heretical foundation female marine. If thing would be so, maybe the issue would be more debatable. But it's not.
This is not the same as Sister: for them being female is a part of their internal consistency and narrative. They have an history, a decree, a civil war that all relate to that.
But let's try to clarify: would you accept a Primaris process if it would be based on fire, water, wood, metal an earth like the Chinese traditional medicine?
Note: I didn't mean it on the sense of "because the Mechanicus doesn't know how it really works". I mean, the literal technical explanation relies on the five elements and improve the amount of "fire" in the candidate bodies.
That's the current level of credibility of this specific piece of lore: so little that damage the setting for being there and should be removed.
I'v already gave at least three or four options about why extending/updating the lore can be done with exactly zero consequences or retcons, while IMPROVING the options and opportunities presented by the setting, keeping it grimdark, making the Emperor personality even worse (I think we all agree the Imperium aren't the good guys right?), not forcing anyone to change what they already have from a modelling point of view, simply including new options for everyone that they can use or not.
My preferred one is that female Astartes are already possible (as I said, the process itself conflict with it's restrictions in term of genders), but since the Imperium is unable to learn, none though about that on large scale (so any hobbyst may have Firstborn Female... They are simply unknown to the wider Imperium).
No political reasons here, as you can see. No argument about GW market, business expansions and etcetera.
Those are fine, but those will never directly convince somehow who is erroneously convinced that the current limitation lore-wise make any sense or improve their enjoyment of the setting in any plausible way (while actively working at detriment of their fellow hobbyst, both male and female).
So, again, you're refusing something that doesn't impact you negatively, and may instead produce more enjoyment for you (worst case: you'll enjoyment being the same).
The only reason to keep the lore as it is are essentially all variation of "I don't trust changes" or "I may don't like the final results".
Well, that's won't cut it when you are advocating for restricting other about how they should use their toys.
Gert wrote: Damocles you've linked the wrong article. The latest article concerning the creation of SM was posted last year and the it quoted Index Astartes and specifically said the quote was taken from an old publication that contained outdated info.
Do you have a link?
The only version I can find via Google is the 2016 version.
The version which Lexicanum claims is from 2019 actually links to the 2016 version too.
went all the way through all mentions of space marine to nov 2019 and could not find what he is referring to
I'm not going to rule out the possibility that it exists just yet.
I despised Primaris (and never bought one): they are a sales driver that has been force-fed into the lore. Female Primaris would, at least, let them serves some purposes aside from trying to sell you your entire collection again.
This sounds very sensible, but Primaris were introduced a few years ago (2017?) and remain an all male force... Which BTW shows that for GW the Astartes being male continues to be a significant part of the setting.
As I said in my first post this was a lost chance.
It's not that one, there's one later on that was linked I'm still trying to find. This thread is 69 pages long, it's like finding a needle in a haystack.
Gert wrote: Damocles you've linked the wrong article. The latest article concerning the creation of SM was posted last year and the it quoted Index Astartes and specifically said the quote was taken from an old publication that contained outdated info.
Do you have a link?
The only version I can find via Google is the 2016 version.
The version which Lexicanum claims is from 2019 actually links to the 2016 version too.
went all the way through all mentions of space marine to nov 2019 and could not find what he is referring to
I'm not going to rule out the possibility that it exists just yet.
I also just remembered in the Fulgrim Primarchs novel they say something about testing all the boys for compatibility, vague memory however so I may be mis remembering to be fair, I will check.
Edit: yep. Fabius is testing the mutants for compatibility and asks for the children to be tested "Males only" page 175 if anyone wants to check the context to make sure I am right or wrong
Gert wrote: CSM are restricted by certain traditions and dogma though. There's literally an example of a female warrior in the Bile novels who is actively shunned and kept away from command because she is female, despite being an excellent fighter and devoted adherent of Slaanesh that is as strong and tough as a CSM.
Chaos isn't "free-thinking" it's just not "Imperial thinking".
So the only legitimate in universe case of sexism in the hole 40k lore affects the chaos forces???
Can any one give me a reason that is not personal preference as to why Cawl would ve a legitimate enforcer of FSM and Bile wont??
The reason should not be that in the current GW marketing loyalist are the good guys and chaos are the baddies... Because all this FSM cause is aim precisely at changing decisevely GW marketing.
Some of the posters here are able to nit pick in a masterfull manner.
Editor’s Note: This article comes from one of yesteryear’s publications called Index Astartes I, originally printed in 2002, and the information contained within has been revisited and updated in many a Codex: Space Marines since. For posterity’s sake, we wanted to present the original article in full, despite changes that have been rendered to the detail (some subtle; others less so) in the intervening years.
In the current 9th Edition Codex: Space Marines, there is one use of explicit depiction of male Space Marines in the "Creation of a Space Marine" section and it is the phrase "Gene-Sons". That's it. There is not a single piece of background in the current or previous Codexes (according to another poster) that says SM can only be mal because of zygotes, DNA, or whatever other pseudoscience people want to quote.
There isn't explicit contradiction but there sure as hell isn't any support for the claim either.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Again, xenophobia and religious dogmatism never stopped the Imperium having women Guardsmen.
I keep seeing this argument of "but the Imperium's EVIL, why would they want to have women" - we see no institutional sexism in the Imperium, so this argument makes no sense to me.
It varies by writer. Lore states that majority of guard regiments are single gender, but female generals seem to be incredibly rare (only three are known in Lore) and, attempting to deal with it makes up the bulk of the internal drama of the regiment in For the Emperor if you review the insults being thrown back and forth between troopers.
I find this info on the AM very interesting. Thanks. Could you expand on it, please?
Editor’s Note: This article comes from one of yesteryear’s publications called Index Astartes I, originally printed in 2002, and the information contained within has been revisited and updated in many a Codex: Space Marines since. For posterity’s sake, we wanted to present the original article in full, despite changes that have been rendered to the detail (some subtle; others less so) in the intervening years.
So... yeah. The same article I linked to then.
I'm just going to go ahead and press X to doubt then.
Vatsetis wrote: So the only legitimate in universe case of sexism in the hole 40k lore affects the chaos forces???
Legitimate? No, because there is no legitimate reason for sexism. Suggesting that female SM would come from Chaos because CSM are "free thinkers" is a disingenuous point to make since the CSM are just as likely to not be ok with the change as loyalist Chapters, except the loyalists have Guilliman and some tall people in gold armour with pointy sticks that speak with the voice of the Emperor.
Can any one give me a reason that is not personal preference as to why Cawl would ve a legitimate enforcer of FSM and Bile wont??
What do you mean by personal preference? Bile is literally one of the evilest characters in the setting, which says a lot.
The reason should not be that in the current GW marketing loyalist are the good guys and chaos are the baddies... Because all this FSM cause is aim precisely at changing decisevely GW marketing.
GW marketing would have to do a complete 180 for the last 30 odd years to prevent SM and the Imperium from being seen as the "good guy" faction in 40k. The specific times Imperial forces are presented as less than paragons of goodness, people whine and moan for ages about it.
Some of the posters here are able to nit pick in a masterfull manner.
I'm just going to go ahead and press X to doubt then.
It literally says that the information in the passage has been revised and revisited since the article was published in 2002. Read the rest of my post and tell me why I should listen to an out of print publication over a current one.
Honestly, I'm sick of having to do this every single day. This thread has single-handedly killed a boatload of joy this hobby gave me, so thanks for that.
Vatsetis wrote: Is there any reason why the IOM has to be 100% misoginistic or 100% inclusive regarding gender?
Not at all. I've made it very clear I'm fine with Custodes being all-male and Sisters being all-female. But I'm questioning why the Space Marines need to be all-male, because the Imperium clearly isn't institutionally sexist.
Why?
this is how historical societies actually work (this is the reallity of the US and many other military today), so it only makes the setting more "feasible".
So, we should just get rid of power armoured super soldiers in general, because they're not historical either, so that makes the setting more "feasible"?
Again, feasibility - why is it more feasible to imagine that we can fight sentient fungus monsters, but not have women Space Marines?
Mixed imperial guard can exist in a setting together with male only astartes and female only sorotitas.
Yes, they can - but that doesn't answer why Space Marines need to be male in the first place.
It's not because the Imperium is sexist.
It's not because of biology (because biology is arbitrary in the creation of a made up Super Soldier)
It's not because the monk aesthetic prevents it.
So why do Space Marines need to be all male?
I understand your end goal, but your framing of the issue is not the only legitimate, please stop arguing in such a manner.
Sure, but when I'm pointing out how there's problems in the claim that "the Imperium is institutionally sexist", that's not an improper argument. I'm not being rude in addressing that.
Again legendary level of nitpicking.
The current lore and how the lore "should" be according to your ideology are two separate things. Im trying to argue "in universe" as to why Astartes are indeed an all male force.
This shouldnt be problematic to anyone that dosent have a delussion that make them mix their desires with external reality.
The "not institutionally sexist" Imperium can have single gender Custodes and Sob but not single gender Adeptus Astartes?
And you ask why others think you argue based on preconceptions?
Honestly, I'm sick of having to do this every single day. This thread has single-handedly killed a boatload of joy this hobby gave me, so thanks for that.
We rarely stop to commend one another for the work they put in a thread like this; Just know that your efforts do not go unappreciated, at least by me.
Honestly, I'm sick of having to do this every single day. This thread has single-handedly killed a boatload of joy this hobby gave me, so thanks for that.
We rarely stop to commend one another for the work they put in a thread like this; Just know that your efforts do not go unappreciated, at least by me.
Add another commendation and thanks for your sterling work Gert. You so eloquently phrase what I'm thinking in so many arguments.
It's genuinely appreciated.
I'm just going to go ahead and press X to doubt then.
It literally says that the information in the passage has been revised and revisited since the article was published in 2002. Read the rest of my post and tell me why I should listen to an out of print publication over a current one.
The Warhammer Community article didn't say that [all of] (or what of) the material was supposedly outdated.
EDIT: In fact it doesn't say that it is outdated at all. It claims that 'changes have been rendered to the detail' (sic)
Which changes have been rendered? To which detail? Why are you assuming that this applies seemingly specifically to the part of the text which you don't like? Why are you even taking anything Warhammer Community say seriously - thy're not exactly known for their accuracy?
By your own admission, the current Codex: Space Marines refers to Marines only as male. There is absolutely no evidence that Space Marines can be female according to the 'current' background.
And so I ask again:
Lord Damocles wrote: So is everything not in the current Codex: Space Marines non-canon?
Because that's what you're effectively arguing - that if it isn't explicitly in the [a] current book it isn't canon - and this is why arguments relying on 'retcon by omission' always devolve into contradictions and absurdities - because nobody actually believes that as a principle; it's always just some variation of 'well this doesn't count because I don't like it'.
Gert wrote: Honestly, I'm sick of having to do this every single day. This thread has single-handedly killed a boatload of joy this hobby gave me, so thanks for that.
Oh please.
a) You don't HAVE to do this.
b) If you did do this every single day, you might have some better references and arguments
c) You've cited a source which seemingly doesn't exist; claimed that there's some time limit on background, and then immediately walked that back; attempted to misrepresent my arguments/claims; and now you're the one getting shirty?
And just to clarify, I'm fine with you (or anybody else) not liking that the background says that Marine aspirants have to be male. I'm fine with you (or anybody else) wanting to change that. What I'm not fine with is this strange rigmarole we've now been through where people have claimed that the background never really said that (untrue), or the background is beyond an arbitrary age limit and so doesn't count (illogical, terrible argument), or that GW said that the background wasn't valid (untrue), or that I'm some sort of big meanie for pointing these things out.
Happen I'm significantly less emotionally invested in this topic than you are. Perhaps take a couple of days off?
The current lore and how the lore "should" be according to your ideology are two separate things. Im trying to argue "in universe" as to why Astartes are indeed an all male force.
This shouldnt be problematic to anyone that dosent have a delussion that make them mix their desires with external reality.
The "not institutionally sexist" Imperium can have single gender Custodes and Sob but not single gender Adeptus Astartes?
And you ask why others think you argue based on preconceptions?
From what I could parse of this - I agree that there should be female Custodes and male Sororitas along with FSM. You open the gates to all genders for internal consistency in an Imperium that lacks sexism as a flaw.
If I were to interpret things positively, what Smudge literally said is that they're okay with monogendered Custodes/SoB, not that it's the optimal outcome.
Vatsetis wrote: So the only legitimate in universe case of sexism in the hole 40k lore affects the chaos forces???
Legitimate? No, because there is no legitimate reason for sexism. Suggesting that female SM would come from Chaos because CSM are "free thinkers" is a disingenuous point to make since the CSM are just as likely to not be ok with the change as loyalist Chapters, except the loyalists have Guilliman and some tall people in gold armour with pointy sticks that speak with the voice of the Emperor.
Can any one give me a reason that is not personal preference as to why Cawl would ve a legitimate enforcer of FSM and Bile wont??
What do you mean by personal preference? Bile is literally one of the evilest characters in the setting, which says a lot.
The reason should not be that in the current GW marketing loyalist are the good guys and chaos are the baddies... Because all this FSM cause is aim precisely at changing decisevely GW marketing.
GW marketing would have to do a complete 180 for the last 30 odd years to prevent SM and the Imperium from being seen as the "good guy" faction in 40k. The specific times Imperial forces are presented as less than paragons of goodness, people whine and moan for ages about it.
Some of the posters here are able to nit pick in a masterfull manner.
I'm just going to go ahead and press X to doubt then.
It literally says that the information in the passage has been revised and revisited since the article was published in 2002. Read the rest of my post and tell me why I should listen to an out of print publication over a current one.
Honestly, I'm sick of having to do this every single day. This thread has single-handedly killed a boatload of joy this hobby gave me, so thanks for that.
Lets put it this way... If I say that there can be sexism in the IOM, this is labelled as anathema... If I point out that chaos might be a better starting point for FSM because they are not as constrain by tradition as the loyalist... Im pointed into cases of sexism amongst CSM. This is nitpicking, and dosent look as very good faith to me.
If anything this shows sexism is a part of the setting (its debatable as to which extent, perhaps it shouldnt prevent FSM, but it certainly exists).
The IOM are not the good guys... And chaos arent just the bad guys... There is a lot of nuance to both factions (even in Bile).
Gert Im very sorry you feel that way about the thread, but you should be aware that you make others feel exactly the same way. Perhaps we should all step back a bit and be less controversial and more empathic to each other.
Winning an argument is pointless if at the end of the day all sides feel miserable.
I, for one, am pointing out that the interpretation of the lore I saw here aren't in line with how simple logic applied to fiction works.
You rely essentially on a concept of authorship abandoned almost a century ago: that's not how fiction works (specifically modern fiction based on commercial goals with multiple authors spanning across multiple games and decades).
It's an entire different topic, and you find it explained my post in the previous page (it's the last I think?). And again, it's 100% about the lore.
Also: of course discussion on forum are based on nitpicking, carefully selecting only part of the antagonize discourses, and applies all sorts of misrepresentation. It's implicit in on the forum asynchronous structure.
That said, I firmly believe that such tricks can't work and only damage those who use them... because the majority of the readers (which lurks, rather than write) are perfectly capable of discerning between a good faith argument, and a bad faith one.
Honestly, I'm sick of having to do this every single day. This thread has single-handedly killed a boatload of joy this hobby gave me, so thanks for that.
We rarely stop to commend one another for the work they put in a thread like this; Just know that your efforts do not go unappreciated, at least by me.
Add another commendation and thanks for your sterling work Gert. You so eloquently phrase what I'm thinking in so many arguments.
It's genuinely appreciated.
And another commendation for the hard work you have dedicated to this forum.
The current lore and how the lore "should" be according to your ideology are two separate things. Im trying to argue "in universe" as to why Astartes are indeed an all male force.
This shouldnt be problematic to anyone that dosent have a delussion that make them mix their desires with external reality.
The "not institutionally sexist" Imperium can have single gender Custodes and Sob but not single gender Adeptus Astartes?
And you ask why others think you argue based on preconceptions?
From what I could parse of this - I agree that there should be female Custodes and male Sororitas along with FSM. You open the gates to all genders for internal consistency in an Imperium that lacks sexism as a flaw.
If I were to interpret things positively, what Smudge literally said is that he's okay with monogendered Custodes/SoB, not that it's the optimal outcome.
Yes I also understand it that way. But what things are and what things should be are different planes of debate. People keep muddling the waters at this point.
If I explain that poverty and imperialism create the preconditions for terrorist organizations Im not endorsing terrorism.
If I explain that in the lore of the IOM there is room for single gender military organisations (because the Emperor was a misoginist and the IOM follows traditions blindly) im not endorsing sexism in the gamming community.
The issue is, the lore as it is now DOES give sexists ammo and cover. Real-word sexists, not fictional ones.
That could change-it won’t change the sexist individuals, but it will make it clearer who they are and that it’s not acceptable. Isn’t that something that should be strived for?
Since everyone seems to be patting each other on the back.
Well done Hecatron, Damocles and vatsetis, you have all endured a lot of abuse and gaslighting for daring to stand up for yourselves and its appreciated you put the effort in, found sources proving your points and made fair arguments in favour of your stances, bigotry and hate are hard to stand up to and you should be applauded for doing so.
Sadly though football did not come home this night, the greatest tragedy.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Yeah, we're all in agreement that lore exists, that much is evident...
Clearly not, since at least two posters now have claimed the opposite!
Agreement, perhaps not. But have I at the very least made clear of that much? Yes. I've already highlighted how the person we were replying to may have made an error in what they were claiming.
BaronIveagh wrote:
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Again, where was that explicit lore? I don't believe I've seen it in any Codex or current publication.
Ah, we're off to the Codex, last refuge of a lore weasel.
I wouldn't exactly call myself a "lore weasel". Apparently, I'm the kind of person who doesn't regard the lore as "sacred" or "sacrosanct".
All I'm saying is that if it were so important, like how this whole thing about how relevant Space Marines being men was, you'd see it in a damned Codex. If it ain't in a Codex, is it really so important and critical to a faction's identity?
I mean, honestly, tell me a piece of lore that's absolutely critical to the identity of a faction that wasn't in it's Codex?
Again, I don't think I'm asking too much for you to quote exactly where this whole "women aren't a major part of the Imperial Guard" tangent comes from.
While Sandy Mitchell's Cain series is the main source for this
You mean the notoriously unreliably narrated and rather old BL book?
Forgive me, but of all the examples of "reliable data" you could give me, it certainly wouldn't be from a Cain novel.
(Particularly the aforementioned For the Emperor, which is still in print) it also turns up in Imperial Munitorum Manual
Books being in print isn't any sort of legitimacy. From what I understand, Ian Watson's 'Space Marine' is still sold by BL, and that's hilariously outdated.
I also own the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, and that makes no reference to sex or gender at all. What does it say in the Munitorum Manual? If you could, screenshots would be very appreciated here.
Gaunt's Ghosts is the main one, as well as the Severina Raine novels. If we're including other media, we can include the Indomitus trailer, the Space Marine video game, and explicit lore about Cadia, where women are only judged by their service, not their gender - just like men.
Gaunt's Ghosts is not a typical guard novel series. Some of the other books openly mock it.
Isn't it typical? I seem to recall BL touting it as one of their most iconic and influential. If Gaunt's Ghosts isn't considered one of the most iconic and probably THE archetypical Guardsman series, what is?
Space Marine is not the example you like to think it is. 2nd Lieutenant Mira is literally the last officer left in the 203rd Cadian.
And is still qualified to lead. She faces no insubordination, or doubt in her ability to command the regiment as second lieutenant, let alone as a woman.
Not even Leandros, the most likely person to be a sexist assbag, comments on it.
The Indomistus trailer only has three guardsman in it, and the woman is the only one not disintegrated. While it's undeniable that she's in command at that point, in command of 'what'?
I never claimed "command" - I claimed service. Women Guardsmen are capable of service like any other Guardsman, and I don't see any evidence to the contrary.
And, to be blunt, Cadian PDF isn't the Guard, no matter how awesome they may have been. The only Cadian women to go off world served in mixed units such as the 203, the 'all female' ones, ie the majority, were assigned to the interior guard, Cadia's PDF, per Gunheads
Again, I made no claim about "all female" regiments. I simply stated that being a woman was no impediment to service, as evidenced by the 203rd.
Mixed gender Guard units are canon, and what's more, I see no reason they aren't *common* at that.
Lord Damocles wrote:
Gert wrote: More core than the 9th Edition Space Marine Codex? Thought not.
Would you like to post more nonsense or would you like to contribute something useful?
So is everything not in the current Codex: Space Marines non-canon?
That's not what was claimed. What was claimed was "non-core", not "non-canon".
There's a distinction.
Non-core would imply that this *isn't* considered a key aspect of the faction. For example, the fact that the Ultramarines use the "practical/theoretical" model. As far as I'm concerned, it's an important part of Ultramarines lore and canon, but is it "core" content? Of course not!
Something can be "canon", but not "core". That is the distinction that Gert is making here.
Lord Damocles wrote:Index Astartes I was published in 2002 (I'm pretty sure there was a later re-release of all of the volumes together too).
The Warhammer Community article didn't say that [all of] (or what of) the material was supposedly outdated.
EDIT: In fact it doesn't say that it is outdated at all. It claims that 'changes have been rendered to the detail' (sic)
Sorry, but all that does is put the entire document at risk of being outdated. As you say, "changes have been rendered to the detail" - which details? Without any specific information on those details, the entire document could be considered unreliable, as any of those "changes rendered to the detail" could affect anything.
A mere five years old, but that same document also reaffirms "changes have been rendered to the detail" - ergo making the whole thing useless for any empirical data, as we don't know what changes were rendered - as you so say.
Hecaton wrote:Uh, no, not at all. Can you show anywhere where it says that the Astartes process works on female humans? If not, we can assume that part wasn't changed or made outdated.
Buddy, that's no how it works.
We are told that things in the document are no longer considered up to date - "changes rendered to the detail". Therefore, we should not assume *anything* in that document is still relevant, other than as a snapshot of what 40k used to be. As a result, the whole "male hormones and tissue types" thing the document references cannot be considered as evidence - and therefore, there is no reason the Astartes process SHOULDN'T work on women.
Ultimately, that source exists. The legitimacy of it is in question.
IWhere in these codices does it say that female humans can be Astartes?
Where in the Codexes does it say they can't?
Vatsetis wrote:This sounds very sensible, but Primaris were introduced a few years ago (2017?) and remain an all male force... Which BTW shows that for GW the Astartes being male continues to be a significant part of the setting.
Or, and this is my cynical side talking, GW just stuck with what they already had, and simply didn't consider rocking the boat.
It wasn't that they felt Space Marines being all male was important, they just weren't sure how to appease their audience.
Again, we'll never know for sure, but just so I can put a pin in the "GW totally think Space Marines should be male" bubble now.
Vatsetis wrote: Is there any reason why the IOM has to be 100% misoginistic or 100% inclusive regarding gender?
Not at all. I've made it very clear I'm fine with Custodes being all-male and Sisters being all-female. But I'm questioning why the Space Marines need to be all-male, because the Imperium clearly isn't institutionally sexist.
Why?
this is how historical societies actually work (this is the reallity of the US and many other military today), so it only makes the setting more "feasible".
So, we should just get rid of power armoured super soldiers in general, because they're not historical either, so that makes the setting more "feasible"?
Again, feasibility - why is it more feasible to imagine that we can fight sentient fungus monsters, but not have women Space Marines?
Mixed imperial guard can exist in a setting together with male only astartes and female only sorotitas.
Yes, they can - but that doesn't answer why Space Marines need to be male in the first place.
It's not because the Imperium is sexist.
It's not because of biology (because biology is arbitrary in the creation of a made up Super Soldier)
It's not because the monk aesthetic prevents it.
So why do Space Marines need to be all male?
I understand your end goal, but your framing of the issue is not the only legitimate, please stop arguing in such a manner.
Sure, but when I'm pointing out how there's problems in the claim that "the Imperium is institutionally sexist", that's not an improper argument. I'm not being rude in addressing that.
Again legendary level of nitpicking.
It really isn't. You're leaving pretty large holes that aren't for me to point out.
Don't call me highlighting faulty arguments nitpicking. You just do a disservice to yourself.
The current lore and how the lore "should" be according to your ideology are two separate things. Im trying to argue "in universe" as to why Astartes are indeed an all male force.
And I'm saying how "in-universe" is an entirely made up concept which has no internal justification. This is a world where sentient fungus wage war on space elves wearing organic bone-armour. "In-universe" is entirely arbitrary - and so I'm asking why the arbitrary decisions HAPPEN to exclude women.
Can you answer those questions?
This shouldnt be problematic to anyone that dosent have a delussion that make them mix their desires with external reality.
There we go, calling me delusional for questioning why a fictional universe has such arbitrarily stupid rules.
Again, it's not hard to answer why 40k apparently need to have these rules in place. At least, it shouldn't be.
The "not institutionally sexist" Imperium can have single gender Custodes and Sob but not single gender Adeptus Astartes?
Yeah. Why should Space Marine be single gender? Why shouldn't the Astra Militarum be single gender? Why shouldn't the Knights be single gender? Why shouldn't the AdMech be single gender?
If you're going to single one of them out, you at least should tell me why the others don't fit.
Why should Space Marines be mono-gender? Simple question.
And you ask why others think you argue based on preconceptions?
I don't know. Maybe it's because you don't have answers to fairly elementary questions of mine, and it's a lot easier for you to just claim that I'm biased or have preconceived notions?
And maybe I'd know, because I used to do that, before I realised how utterly stupid I was.
Lord Damocles wrote:b) If you did do this every single day, you might have some better references and arguments
I'd actually like to address this point. When the pro-women Astartes side make a point, it tends to be fairly well articulated, and in depth as to why the lore they disavow isn't exactly accurate.
And yet, almost universally, the anti-women Astartes "side" (much as I hate to devolve this to sides) simply just reject those factual observations and shift onto another argument that has been done to death.
You make it sound like "better references and arguments will save the day", but - and this isn't aimed at you - there are some people who will turn their back on any argument, no matter how well formed and analysed and unpicked, and simply call it some kind of SJW propaganda or "purging" or "silencing" or just "wrong".
I've seen it happen too many times. For some people, there isn't a "I can rationally come to an agreement", because they are so closed off. Which is why the point of this thread inevitably becomes "can I convince the lurker that this is right".
And just to clarify, I'm fine with you (or anybody else) not liking that the background says that Marine aspirants have to be male. I'm fine with you (or anybody else) wanting to change that. What I'm not fine with is this strange rigmarole we've now been through where people have claimed that the background never really said that (untrue), or the background is beyond an arbitrary age limit and so doesn't count (illogical, terrible argument), or that GW said that the background wasn't valid (untrue), or that I'm some sort of big meanie for pointing these things out.
No, that is fair. But, as I hope I've pointed out, in my own personal arguments, whatever the background says needs to be weighed with how relevant it is to that background, how often and prominently it is mentioned, and how important it is to the design of that faction.
And, for all the reasons I've expressed in this thread, I don't think that the 'Creation of a Space Marine' article, which, as you said, says about how only "male tissues" can have the treatment, is still relevant to the design of the Space Marine faction.
You're not a big meanie for pointing out what you have, but my point still stands - it's not core material, like some people so many dozens of pages ago have claimed it was.
Vatsetis wrote:Lets put it this way... If I say that there can be sexism in the IOM, this is labelled as anathema... If I point out that chaos might be a better starting point for FSM because they are not as constrain by tradition as the loyalist... Im pointed into cases of sexism amongst CSM. This is nitpicking, and dosent look as very good faith to me.
There can be sexism in the Imperium AND in Chaos. But the key point is that neither organisation have INSTITUTIONAL sexism, and that's simply canon. There's nothing wrong with saying that some people in the Imperium, or in Chaos, are sexist - but to act like either faction have any strong feelings either way on women's empowerment is simply untrue. Both the Imperium and Chaos are, institutionally, gender-neutral, and all I'm doing is reminding you of that.
It's not nitpicking to tell you that you're wrong in your judgement of the Imperium.
Vatsetis wrote:
CEO Kasen wrote: From what I could parse of this - I agree that there should be female Custodes and male Sororitas along with FSM. You open the gates to all genders for internal consistency in an Imperium that lacks sexism as a flaw.
If I were to interpret things positively, what Smudge literally said is that he's okay with monogendered Custodes/SoB, not that it's the optimal outcome.
Yes I also understand it that way. But what things are and what things should be are different planes of debate. People keep muddling the waters at this point.
But that's the thing - you say "what things are" as if that's not what we're discussing. I'm well aware of what things are - what I keep asking is why they are, and I'm noticing that answers to that question keep eluding me.
If I explain that poverty and imperialism create the preconditions for terrorist organizations Im not endorsing terrorism.
If I explain that in the lore of the IOM there is room for single gender military organisations (because the Emperor was a misoginist and the IOM follows traditions blindly) im not endorsing sexism in the gamming community.
But I'm also not wrong for pointing out how, in the Imperium, most military organisations are mixed gender, and the Emperor did not even create the damned Space Marines, that was Amar Astarte, so unless you can point to me some exceptional reason, why should Space Marines be all-male?
I *know* that there's room in the Imperium for mono-gender forces, but I'm asking why it needs to be Space Marines in particular.
I think that anyone (male or female) who isn't interested in wargaming shouldn't be worried about too much by wargaming manufacturers. It's just that people keep pretending that (white, college-educated) women have something important to say on the topic when they're part of a demographic that's uninterested in the hobby, whether or not it depicts women.
Oh, and yeah, I have nothing important to say. After all, I’m just a part of a demographic that’s uninterested in the hobby.
So Hecaton, this isn’t you saying that women like darlek cheese has nothing to say on the matter? Looks like it.
Is this again like me slinging insults and abuse at you that you couldn’t find when pushed? Stop trolling and say what you really think.
And to those saying the old fluff isn’t contradicted so still stands, can we agree that it’s old, 32 years old. Old by GWs own admission. Not in print, no, also true. Contradicted, no it isn’t. But that is entirely our point. It needs to be to stop people clinging to it as an excuse to allow abuse and exclusion. THATS the point of the thread. Change that but if lore, contradict it, either explicitly or just by including women. The fact it has been printed only in WD and WD anthologies and only about 4 times over 32 years is a sign it’s not the cement that holds the setting together. The fact it’s never made it into any codex section on making a marine is a sign that GW aren’t hanging their hat on it.
We are saying it needs changing. It needs contradicting. The fact it hasn’t been is a part of our whole argument, it isn’t a defence of it, it’s a flaw.
JNAProductions wrote:The issue is, the lore as it is now DOES give sexists ammo and cover. Real-word sexists, not fictional ones.
That could change-it won’t change the sexist individuals, but it will make it clearer who they are and that it’s not acceptable. Isn’t that something that should be strived for?
Honestly, thank you so much for summing up that in so few words.
I don't *care* what the lore says AS IS. I care what it enables people to do, what it prevents others doing, and WHY it should be allowed to continue to do that.
Formosa wrote:Well done Hecatron, Damocles and vatsetis, you have all endured a lot of abuse and gaslighting for daring to stand up for yourselves
Persecute yourself harder.
Show us this abuse, and when you do, I hope you show Hecaton's comments calling everyone on the pro-women Astartes side sexual deviants, and their outright ignorance of the voice of actual women in this thread.
I'll be waiting.
Also, and this applies for both sides of this, but in case any of y'all have your sigs turned off of whatever, I don't use he/him pronouns. It's a small courtesy, and I won't single anyone out on either side for it, but I've noticed several times that it's being missed, and I want to call it out here and now, if I can. Ta.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Also, and this applies for both sides of this, but in case any of y'all have your sigs turned off of whatever, I don't use he/him pronouns. It's a small courtesy, and I won't single anyone out on either side for it, but I've noticed several times that it's being missed, and I want to call it out here and now, if I can.
Ta.
Sorry, fethed that up. Edited at least my last post to fix that. FWIW I have a little trouble with that iRL; my language centers are just old enough that 'they' for a singular pronoun still requires a moment's conscious effort, but I'm trying. As someone who considers themselves masculine almost entirely by default (My honest answer to "What gender are you" these days is "I don't even fething know anymore") I'll do what I can.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Also, and this applies for both sides of this, but in case any of y'all have your sigs turned off of whatever, I don't use he/him pronouns. It's a small courtesy, and I won't single anyone out on either side for it, but I've noticed several times that it's being missed, and I want to call it out here and now, if I can.
Ta.
Sorry, fethed that up. Edited at least my last post to fix that. FWIW I have a little trouble with that iRL; my language centers are just old enough that 'they' for a singular pronoun still requires a moment's conscious effort, but I'm trying. As someone who considers themselves masculine almost entirely by default (My honest answer to "What gender are you" these days is "I don't even fething know anymore") I'll do what I can.
Similarly, saw this brought up a while ago, don’t have sigs on but was aware and apologies if I have git it wrong anytime.
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Formosa wrote: Since everyone seems to be patting each other on the back.
Well done Hecatron, Damocles and vatsetis, you have all endured a lot of abuse and gaslighting for daring to stand up for yourselves and its appreciated you put the effort in, found sources proving your points and made fair arguments in favour of your stances, bigotry and hate are hard to stand up to and you should be applauded for doing so.
Sadly though football did not come home this night, the greatest tragedy.
Where and when did these get abused, gaslit or anything, quotes now. I have ask Hecaton many times for examples of me abusing him as he claimed and had nothing because he hasn’t. This is some real jujitsu to turn yourselves into the victims here.
Honestly, I'm sick of having to do this every single day. This thread has single-handedly killed a boatload of joy this hobby gave me, so thanks for that.
We rarely stop to commend one another for the work they put in a thread like this; Just know that your efforts do not go unappreciated, at least by me.
Nice to know you appreciate lies and disingenuous argumentation then.
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Cybtroll wrote: Space Marine may based on astrology, or nipples. That's fine: but if they would be so, we will expect and explanation about how astrology or nipples are involved in process, and how this have other implications.
That is what the suspension of disbelief is about... Building a world with ots internal consistency: otherwise it's just a bad piece of writing with no bearing.
And I'm telling you, it doesn't break the suspension of disbelief that the process that creates Astartes only works on male humans. They don't have *science* in the Imperium, only cargo cult level understanding of technology. Even if the process *could* be modified to work on female humans, there's no guarantee that *anyone* in the Imperium has the insight to do so.
No one in the Imperium advances tech. Not one example to the contrary. Certainly they didn’t recently gain hover tanks and new Astartes. Nope, that’d be silly. /s
I’m not saying it’ll stop people being terrible. But it will make them stick out more, and encourage people to call them on BS. Even if it helps one in a thousand female or non-male gamers, that seems worth it to me, considering the cost is basically nothing.
CEO Kasen and Andykp, I don't hold it against anyone and I don't want to feel like I'm calling out or blaming any individual, I don't want to point fingers on either side here - it was just a reminder for anyone who might have their sigs turned off and might have missed it, but thank you all the same. The thought is appreciated.
Hecaton wrote:And I'm telling you, it doesn't break the suspension of disbelief that the process that creates Astartes only works on male humans.
And likewise, it doesn't break suspension of disbelief that it would work on both men, women, and everyone in between alike - or only on blond haired humans, or on humans with swell cleft in their chin, or on humans who went by the name Darren.
Ultimately, it's completely arbitrary, as I think we've settled on. So why is that arbitrary line drawn at women? That's the crux I'm trying to get to.
So Hecaton, this isn’t you saying that women like darlek cheese has nothing to say on the matter? Looks like it.
No, I was saying that white, college-educated women who *aren't wargamers and have no interest in being so* shouldn't be consulted about what wargames should be like. That demographic is like the snark of niche hobby marketing.
Andykp wrote: And to those saying the old fluff isn’t contradicted so still stands, can we agree that it’s old, 32 years old. Old by GWs own admission. Not in print, no, also true. Contradicted, no it isn’t. But that is entirely our point. It needs to be to stop people clinging to it as an excuse to allow abuse and exclusion. THATS the point of the thread. Change that but if lore, contradict it, either explicitly or just by including women. The fact it has been printed only in WD and WD anthologies and only about 4 times over 32 years is a sign it’s not the cement that holds the setting together. The fact it’s never made it into any codex section on making a marine is a sign that GW aren’t hanging their hat on it.
Nobody's using it for an excuse for abuse and exclusion. That would happen anyway.
Andykp wrote: We are saying it needs changing. It needs contradicting. The fact it hasn’t been is a part of our whole argument, it isn’t a defence of it, it’s a flaw.
No, there are people in this thread claiming that the idea that female Astartes can't exist is nonsensical, or that the lore on the topic has been contradicted, which it hasn't.
I've also noticed that the pro-FSM side is overwhelmingly on the side of wanting an unironically heroic Imperium, which... miss me with that gak. A misconception of the Imperium as unironically heroic (aided and abetted by GW trying to portray a fascist, genocidal regime as heroic for $$$) is the first part of your problem.
. It will do very little towards representation.
day. This thread has single-handedly killed a boatload of joy this hobby gave me, so thanks for that.
