I have one of those unpainted Primaris funko pops right on my deskside. Do you know what it says on the box of that Primaris funko pop?
"DIY".
You sure missed that point by a country mile Maybe it says "DIY" because it's unpainted, not because it refers to the Space Marine faction?
If you admit that Guard are the most flexible in lore, why is your solution to coopt a less flexible faction just because they're better catered for modelwise, rather than advocating for putting greater focus elsewhere.
Not Online!!! wrote: Are they really sexist? or are they critical of certain attempts at influence by a minority or outsiders of the hobby?
We happen to be part of the hobby, it’s entirely that to dismiss and push us out. It’s that specifically that turn this discussion hostile, using terms like Woke as a negative is used constantly in very specific ways.
So on the other hands people should just deal with the agenda, accept the change and shut their mouths i guess? The demand for what they deem out of an multitude reasons unnecessary or worsening change? And when they articulate that they are called sexists? Mysoginists? And above we have that admitted?
So calling the other side slurs is fine now" BeCaUsE ThEY DiD sO ToO!!!!" From insinuations of insanity to sexism?
And from that point further, theres the status quo of the univers existing as it is with the heavily drawn inspirations as it does right now and you just assume that people accept that change because you tell them too?
F.e. under the guise of the argument that the lore and setting constantly changed and therefore that would be nothing new, and the case of that exemple was the 13th crusade and by virtue of that the characther of abbadon, the single worst exemple beyond maybe magic wand alpha legion in all of chaos and a sever pitfall that to this day cripples the story side of things of chaos? Was that really a good change? Last i checked Abbadon and his 13th (number what is it now 3? this time we tore the galaxy a new one edition?) was still regarded with contempt for how badly he was written and retconned. Its "disfunctional" lore as in it doesn't jive well with the rest of the story...
Not Online!!! wrote: Are they really sexist? or are they critical of certain attempts at influence by a minority or outsiders of the hobby?
We happen to be part of the hobby, it’s entirely that to dismiss and push us out.
It’s that specifically that turn this discussion hostile, using terms like Woke as a negative is used constantly in very specific ways.
So on the other hands people should just deal with the agenda, accept the change and shut their mouths i guess? The demand for what they deem out of an multitude reasons unnecessary or worsening change? And when they articulate that they are called sexists? Mysoginists? And above we have that admitted?
So calling the other side slurs is fine now" BeCaUsE ThEY DiD sO ToO!!!!" From insinuations of insanity to sexism?
What agenda? and no, I actually think space marines being all men is fine, in a setting well maintain and well thought out.
But at the same time this discussion is important as 40k has some serious issues,
But it’s funny how you can accuse one side of things when they put those posts up first, there is more to the harm words can do than Slurs. It is a response to that specifically.
It seems it’s fine for some people to do that, but not in response.
Cybtroll wrote: I'm talking about unhelmeted head obviously. Does it need specification or were you just muddling the water even more?
(And that's about model anyway, not lore).
And about their supposed monastic life... Did you read the standard day of a Marine? It's much more akin to a special forces training regimen then a monastic life. Aside from the fact that, of course, that I would say that the biggest part of monks and nuns identities are their detachment for material worries, and the fact that they don't fight. Both flying in the face of Marine.
So, maybe you are confusing your stereotypes of monks with the real deal. Kind of life you're stereotyping people as woke because they think more options is better than less.
We have the DIY faction: let's take it seriously.
why would general female space marine troopers not wear helmets when their counterpart does? Why would they go in to battle as the main force of the army without helmets. The only space marines that dont wear helmets are often those with character keywords to look bad ass. the normal troop choices and what not wear helmets. So why would females not wear helmets just so we can see they are female for your pleasure? that makes even LESS sense than adding helmets that are feminine.
When I edit sections from quotes out, I do it to avoid massive blocks of text. Lord knows my text blocks are large enough as is.
Multiple points in the same ballpark of the part you quoted.
Including but not limited to the typical debate style involved centered squarly arround subjective sentiments, with not so much a hint of understanding or attempt at of the opposing side (both ways).
Which is why I've been asking people to unpack their subjective statements, so that I don't misrepresent them. Unfortunately, people don't tend to like doing that, for some reason.
An need to seek validation via company for a (supposedly) needed social political change in an fantastical universe which serves as a ground escapism for reasons of validation again of ones own agenda.
So why, when some people want that escapism, are they told they can't have it, because it would be "non-canon"?
Because there ARE options for GW to increase the diversity without NEEDING to force feed an agenda into Marines OR Sisters for that matter.
I agree. Including women Astartes doesn't need an agenda, other than "because it's cool".
CthuluIsSpy wrote:]Most "generic" chapters still have references to monastics though.
"Generic" Chapters? Examples?
Most "generic" Chapters we know very little about overall, and often when we do get more information about them, we see how much they differ from the standard model of other Chapters.
It's just that some chapters go all in (such as Black Templars and arguably Dark Angels) and others barely touch upon it (such as Space Wolves).
Yes, agreed. So, sure, maybe the Templars don't have women Astartes, but why not the Space Wolves?
Vikings also underwent their own set of religious rituals too, so they arguably were the Norse version of Military Orders anyway.
Yes, they absolutely did - but they didn't have the same rules that the Teutonic orders had, which is why I'm highlighting this point about this supposed "one-size-fits-all" military order and warrior-monk lifestyle. There is no single culture that the Space Marines derive from - so why are we sticking to the cultural practices of one group that not all Astartes draw from?
I have one of those unpainted Primaris funko pops right on my deskside. Do you know what it says on the box of that Primaris funko pop?
"DIY".
You sure missed that point by a country mile Maybe it says "DIY" because it's unpainted, not because it refers to the Space Marine faction?
Notice how they didn't release an unpainted funko pop of another faction?
If you admit that Guard are the most flexible in lore, why is your solution to coopt a less flexible faction just because they're better catered for modelwise, rather than advocating for putting greater focus elsewhere.
Because the Guard are *so* customisable in the lore that GW physically can't represent that accurately.
Space Marines, on the other hand, all use the same core template - a Space Wolf uses the same power armour baseline as an Ultramarine or Dark Angel. Guardsmen don't have that.
Not Online!!! wrote:So on the other hands people should just deal with the agenda, accept the change and shut their mouths i guess?
Again, "agenda"? We just want women Astartes.
What's the agenda here? Why is that a different agenda to "we don't want women Astartes"?
The demand for what they deem out of an multitude reasons unnecessary or worsening change?
And what about the demand for what could also be deemed unnecessary and harmful exclusionism?
And when they articulate that they are called sexists? Mysoginists?
And when we articulate that, we are told we have an agenda, or are SJWs, or "woke"?
Not Online!!! wrote: Are they really sexist? or are they critical of certain attempts at influence by a minority or outsiders of the hobby?
We happen to be part of the hobby, it’s entirely that to dismiss and push us out. It’s that specifically that turn this discussion hostile, using terms like Woke as a negative is used constantly in very specific ways.
So on the other hands people should just deal with the agenda, accept the change and shut their mouths i guess? The demand for what they deem out of an multitude reasons unnecessary or worsening change? And when they articulate that they are called sexists? Mysoginists? And above we have that admitted?
So calling the other side slurs is fine now" BeCaUsE ThEY DiD sO ToO!!!!" From insinuations of insanity to sexism?
What agenda? and no, I actually think space marines being all men is fine, in a setting well maintain and well thought out. But at the same time this discussion is important as 40k has some serious issues,
But it’s funny how you can accuse one side of things when they put those posts up first, there is more to the harm words can do than Slurs. It is a response to that specifically. It seems it’s fine for some people to do that, but not in response.
See edit in regards to the storyline.
Also: On the last page we have smudge openly admit that smudge has that agenda. And its not fine, i highlighted both as issues of this debate.
Insofar as the votes go it speaks a plenty clear picture aswell.
Cybtroll wrote: I'm talking about unhelmeted head obviously. Does it need specification or were you just muddling the water even more?
(And that's about model anyway, not lore).
And about their supposed monastic life... Did you read the standard day of a Marine? It's much more akin to a special forces training regimen then a monastic life.
Aside from the fact that, of course, that I would say that the biggest part of monks and nuns identities are their detachment for material worries, and the fact that they don't fight. Both flying in the face of Marine.
So, maybe you are confusing your stereotypes of monks with the real deal. Kind of life you're stereotyping people as woke because they think more options is better than less.
We have the DIY faction: let's take it seriously.
why would general female space marine troopers not wear helmets when their counterpart does?
... you do know that there are plenty of bare-headed Space Marines heads on their sprues, right?
No-one's saying that ONLY unhelmeted Space Marines need to be women, or that women can only be unhelmeted, but that they want the option, like how the option exists for men.
The only space marines that dont wear helmets are often those with character keywords to look bad ass. the normal troop choices and what not wear helmets.
Firstly, what if I want the Space Marines in my army with character keywords to be women?
Secondly, that's flat out incorrect. Look at GW's own models - plenty of rank and file Space Marines are helmetless.
Both cases are rediculous
I agree that they're ridiculous, but that's what happens when you blatantly misrepresent someone's argument.
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Not Online!!! wrote: Also: On the last page we have smudge openly admit that he has that agenda.
Two things:
- Did I? I don't believe I did. And hark at you for saying I was misrepresenting arguments!
Seems to me that we need a female heads sprue and some fluff to use female Primaris models as Primaris Adepta Sororita. Make them identical to the male Primaris and then people can choose without compromising the stories of existing SM chapters. If you want female Space Marines then go for it, if not then they are just trans human power armoured Sisters of Battle.
When I edit sections from quotes out, I do it to avoid massive blocks of text. Lord knows my text blocks are large enough as is.
Multiple points in the same ballpark of the part you quoted.
Including but not limited to the typical debate style involved centered squarly arround subjective sentiments, with not so much a hint of understanding or attempt at of the opposing side (both ways).
Which is why I've been asking people to unpack their subjective statements, so that I don't misrepresent them. Unfortunately, people don't tend to like doing that, for some reason.
Most gave you a reason, rangeing from integrity of the storyline to just dislike of the idea.
An need to seek validation via company for a (supposedly) needed social political change in an fantastical universe which serves as a ground escapism for reasons of validation again of ones own agenda.
So why, when some people want that escapism, are they told they can't have it, because it would be "non-canon"?
Because there ARE options for GW to increase the diversity without NEEDING to force feed an agenda into Marines OR Sisters for that matter.
I agree. Including women Astartes doesn't need an agenda, other than "because it's cool".
And the majority does disagree with you. Most people seem to think that the homogenised sisters and marines seem to better for it as a story element. And its the status quo on top of it, so the burden actually is on your shoulders not of those that oppose the change.
Not Online!!! wrote:So on the other hands people should just deal with the agenda, accept the change and shut their mouths i guess?
Again, "agenda"? We just want women Astartes.
And other people just don't want it? The majority actually, for a whole slew of reasons again.
What's the agenda here? Why is that a different agenda to "we don't want women Astartes"?
The demand for what they deem out of an multitude reasons unnecessary or worsening change?
And what about the demand for what could also be deemed unnecessary and harmful exclusionism?
And when they articulate that they are called sexists? Mysoginists?
And when we articulate that, we are told we have an agenda, or are SJWs, or "woke"?
Sounds like this applies both ways to me.
The agenda is enforcing a change. The reason as to why it is despised that way, is mainly because in the anglosaxon world, there seems to be going on some thing called culture war and your demand lines up with the demands of those that want to enforce change?
Granted that can be wrong in your case since you'd just find them cool and have no underlying ideology under that, except when opposed both of those combat words drop really fast aswell. For no reason at all.
Not Online!!! wrote: Are they really sexist? or are they critical of certain attempts at influence by a minority or outsiders of the hobby?
We happen to be part of the hobby, it’s entirely that to dismiss and push us out.
It’s that specifically that turn this discussion hostile, using terms like Woke as a negative is used constantly in very specific ways.
So on the other hands people should just deal with the agenda, accept the change and shut their mouths i guess? The demand for what they deem out of an multitude reasons unnecessary or worsening change? And when they articulate that they are called sexists? Mysoginists? And above we have that admitted?
So calling the other side slurs is fine now" BeCaUsE ThEY DiD sO ToO!!!!" From insinuations of insanity to sexism?
What agenda? and no, I actually think space marines being all men is fine, in a setting well maintain and well thought out.
But at the same time this discussion is important as 40k has some serious issues,
But it’s funny how you can accuse one side of things when they put those posts up first, there is more to the harm words can do than Slurs. It is a response to that specifically.
It seems it’s fine for some people to do that, but not in response.
See edit in regards to the storyline.
Also: On the last page we have smudge openly admit that he has that agenda.
And its not fine, i highlighted both as issues of this debate.
Insofar as the votes go it speaks a plenty clear picture aswell.
I said the agenda comment since everyone here has one, and holds a position.
It’s very targeted wording, with the others used in those posts it paints a really bad look that can’t really be brushed away.
I actually don’t need female marines, I want female representation across the board to break down the issues that 40k really has.
I will go back and read the edit as well. (I actually agree, chaos highlights the big mess that is the 40k setting. Where is the demon lady’s and princess. For me when I started, I loved chaos since it represented that the imperium was possibly just as wrong as the side with the monsters. And that both sides could find equilibrium in a setting that was not 40k. 40k gonna burn slowly down ! And it’s the humans that did, much grim for me at the time )
But I would highlight a issue, in so much media it is already assume male until otherwise noted, 40k space marines are just following a norm set and it’s a real issue that quite often it’s the same thing.
Female representation is the only time people will come out to defend to such a degree, lore and the setting is mostly pushed aside for anything else. It’s even a really evident pattern with GW, with age of sigmar being a welcome change for the company
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Notice how they didn't release an unpainted funko pop of another faction?
Because Space Marines are by far the most popular they know it's profitable to sell multiple different examples that style of Funko Pop.
I'm having trouble bending my head around trying to use Funko Pops to reinforce assertions about the 40k line as a whole.
Again, "agenda"? We just want women Astartes.
Who's we? 2/3 of this community DOESN'T want female astartes.
I'd also say it's pretty clear you want more than just female astartes as well. If that really was all you wanted you could just do it, many others have. What you actually want is GW to validate female astartes for you, why?
[Edit: answering to Zenbadger above]
From my point of view, yes, it may work properly. In the end I'm only interested in not stifling the creativity of modelist.
I don't think it's the best way to do so, but perfection isn't of this world, so I would be ok with it.
Not Online!!! wrote:Most gave you a reason, rangeing from integrity of the storyline to just dislike of the idea.
And I unpicked "integrity of the storyline" myself, and asked for additional insight on "dislike of the idea". I rarely got responses that unpicked it further.
An need to seek validation via company for a (supposedly) needed social political change in an fantastical universe which serves as a ground escapism for reasons of validation again of ones own agenda.
So why, when some people want that escapism, are they told they can't have it, because it would be "non-canon"?
Because there ARE options for GW to increase the diversity without NEEDING to force feed an agenda into Marines OR Sisters for that matter.
I agree. Including women Astartes doesn't need an agenda, other than "because it's cool".
And the majority does disagree with you.
And does being the majority mean that it is *right* to prevent other people having their own options?
Again, just because I don't like Space Marine bikers doesn't mean that other people shouldn't have them.
And its the status quo on top of it, so the burden actually is on your shoulders not of those that oppose the change.
Status quo is an awful argument if you can't defend why it should be there in the first place.
Again, "agenda"? We just want women Astartes.
And other people just don't want it?
Great - so don't include it in your armies then?
What's the agenda here? Why is that a different agenda to "we don't want women Astartes"?
The demand for what they deem out of an multitude reasons unnecessary or worsening change?
And what about the demand for what could also be deemed unnecessary and harmful exclusionism?
And when they articulate that they are called sexists? Mysoginists?
And when we articulate that, we are told we have an agenda, or are SJWs, or "woke"?
Sounds like this applies both ways to me.
The agenda is enforcing a change. The reason as to why it is despised that way, is mainly because in the anglosaxon world, there seems to be going on some thing called culture war and your demand lines up with the demands of those that want to enforce change?
"Anglo-Saxon World"??
Sorry, do you swear fealty to the king of Wessex or something? Are you preparing to fight off the Danelaw to the north in Northumbria?
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Notice how they didn't release an unpainted funko pop of another faction?
Because Space Marines are by far the most popular they know it's profitable to sell multiple different examples that style of Funko Pop.
I'm having trouble bending my head around trying to use Funko Pops to reinforce assertions about the 40k line as a whole.
Exactly - Space Marines are the most *profitable*, and a lot of that profit comes from their design as a very easily customised and marketable design that tailors well to personalisation.
Again, "agenda"? We just want women Astartes.
Who's we? 2/3 of this community DOESN'T want female astartes.
So don't add them into your army. Simple.
I'd also say it's pretty clear you want more than just female astartes as well.
Oh? What else do I want?
And be careful, I'm sure you'd hate to misrepresent anyone.
If that really was all you wanted you could just do it, many others have. What you actually want is GW to validate female astartes for you, why?
Because I'm sick of people shouting down people's throat that their models are "non-canon" and insulting them because they have the gall to stick a woman's head on their plastic war doll.
If people were *actually* as grown up and mature and welcoming as you imply, this wouldn't be an issue - but it is.
I want GW to validate women Astartes because they're cool, and because people use their illegitimacy in the lore as an excuse to insult real human beings.
Savvy?
Not Online!!! wrote:i did explain why it is and or regarded as a political agenda or percieved as an illegitimate demand of change via agenda down there.
Other people's perception and regardings doesn't make it the case. That *is* misrepresentation.
Secondary: Mea culpa, ironically one of your posts seemingly has swallowed your sig.
Not a problem, in which case, I'll remind that it says They/Them.
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kirotheavenger wrote: Games Workshop has about 2.7 billion reasons why the status quo is a good idea.
And a potential several other billion why it might not be.
Every single member of this forum is, or was, a fan of 40k and stands as another reason why the status quo is a good idea.
It really doesn't (especially the "was" a fan part - you don't even know how many people here actively still play 40k!) - status quo is useless if you can't defend it in the first place beyond "it is what it is".
It should be noted, that when you exclude groups. That is the first political choice made, not the response to that.
When GW made marines male only, they made a political statement within the setting. Does it hold up, hmm, I mostly think it’s kinda dumb currently.
In the mystery of the decline of the imperium it’s a plot to work with. As we learn so much, it sorta just reinforces the writers are a bit over there heads.
The emperor being less of the man worshiped is supportive of the idea.
It is a point within the setting, a start to the traditions that the marine chapters are not equipped to change.
And the imperium has no reason to bother.
I said the agenda comment since everyone here has one, and holds a position. It’s very targeted wording, with the others used in those posts it paints a really bad look that can’t really be brushed away. I actually don’t need female marines, I want female representation across the board to break down the issues that 40k really has. I will go back and read the edit as well. (I actually agree, chaos highlights the big mess that is the 40k setting. Where is the demon lady’s and princess. For me when I started, I loved chaos since it represented that the imperium was possibly just as wrong as the side with the monsters. And that both sides could find equilibrium in a setting that was not 40k. 40k gonna burn slowly down ! And it’s the humans that did, much grim for me at the time ) But I would highlight a issue, in so much media it is already assume male until otherwise noted, 40k space marines are just following a norm set and it’s a real issue that quite often it’s the same thing. Female representation is the only time people will come out to defend to such a degree, lore and the setting is mostly pushed aside for anything else. It’s even a really evident pattern with GW, with age of sigmar being a welcome change for the company
Maybee use less politically loaded terminology then.
IT can be brushed away though since a lot of the demand of such changes have been uttered from outside hobbies and against the wishes of the actual hobiests, cue mainline comics f.e. Assuming then that the same can happen to this hobby will people make lash out against such sugestions, probably more harshly than they deserve. Remember: theres a difference between poltily telling someone off and impolitely.....People will defend what they know and that is not wrong.
Further in regards of the lore, i don't agree with that sentiment it get's themathised quite a bit... i f.e. quite despise some of the nu gw sales introdcutions and fiddlying with the lore for sales reasons... especially in regards to chaos... i have quite a whole slew of issues in regards to reresentation there in regards to GW, especially thanks to GW yeeting the board representing capabilites of my main army... and i'd have some very choice words for that aswell.
Recent slaanesh daemons were a good thing though, but storyline wise... the reason failbadon the (h)armless exists in memeform moreso than in his full title is very justified in regards to the attrocities gw pulled in regards to his lore....
And better not get me started on Alpha legion, the word bearers representation or the new "TM"able "TM" naming "TM" conventions ..............or cawl for that matter, albeit cawl has atleast developped a bit outside torwards just badly written plot device away from magic wand for sales purposes....
Contrast that with marine lore being unflinching and unchancheing and having a imperial mirror in regards to the powerfull player the ecclesiarchy and their sisters and the general lack of trust and stagnating internal fighting.. which by extension makes the homogenisation an actually usefull tool to tell the story of the stagnating empire which is internally divided.......
meanwhile abbadon goes on the 13 th (really 17th) black crusade and the mortal turncoats that actually would endanger imperial hegemony and legitimacy have been legended.
But don't fret, we now got female cadian heads... on some of the most meh to bad minis gw has ever designed... Here would you like a marine instead? With or without spikes? Most of the issues in regards to GW and representing their universe on the board are selfinflicted by GW, via a lack of support as highlighted here or just outright company internal politicking or greed...
I said the agenda comment since everyone here has one, and holds a position.
It’s very targeted wording, with the others used in those posts it paints a really bad look that can’t really be brushed away.
I actually don’t need female marines, I want female representation across the board to break down the issues that 40k really has.
I will go back and read the edit as well. (I actually agree, chaos highlights the big mess that is the 40k setting. Where is the demon lady’s and princess. For me when I started, I loved chaos since it represented that the imperium was possibly just as wrong as the side with the monsters. And that both sides could find equilibrium in a setting that was not 40k. 40k gonna burn slowly down ! And it’s the humans that did, much grim for me at the time )
But I would highlight a issue, in so much media it is already assume male until otherwise noted, 40k space marines are just following a norm set and it’s a real issue that quite often it’s the same thing.
Female representation is the only time people will come out to defend to such a degree, lore and the setting is mostly pushed aside for anything else. It’s even a really evident pattern with GW, with age of sigmar being a welcome change for the company
Maybee use less politically loaded terminology then.
IT can be brushed away though since a lot of the demand of such changes have been uttered from outside hobbies and against the wishes of the actual hobiests, cue mainline comics f.e. Assuming then that the same can happen to this hobby will people make lash out against such sugestions, probably more harshly than they deserve.
Remember: theres a difference between poltily telling someone off and impolitely.....People will defend what they know and that is not wrong.
Further in regards of the lore, i don't agree with that sentiment it get's themathised quite a bit... i f.e. quite despise some of the nu gw sales introdcutions and fiddlying with the lore for sales reasons... especially in regards to chaos... i have quite a whole slew of issues in regards to reresentation there in regards to GW, especially thanks to GW yeeting the board representing capabilites of my main army... and i'd have some very choice words for that aswell.
Recent slaanesh daemons were a good thing though, but storyline wise... the reason failbadon the (h)armless exists in memeform moreso than in his full title is very justified in regards to the attrocities gw pulled in regards to his lore....
And better not get me started on Alpha legion, the word bearers representation or the new "TM"able "TM" naming "TM" conventions ..............or cawl for that matter, albeit cawl has atleast developped a bit outside torwards just badly written plot device away from magic wand for sales purposes....
The posts highlighted where extreamly political charged, when having to baby step around others when they do not have to show the same is itself quite charged in the same light.
Comics are there own thing, and often now the ones that are better written are wining out. Some of the most popular and best selling are from the pushed agenda it seems.
My own comics are doing great considering
Also, when I talk of chaos. I don’t mean the marine forces only, but chaos as a whole. Deamons and humans, as I have used my chaos marines with the marine codex for years.
Chaos been pushed into a box, and it sucks that it really has been.
Slaanesh is good, but it’s also a case where feminine side is fetishised and placed into a negative. With demons being manifested they should at least have some feminine traits, and in a oppressive environment almost anyone should be willing to try there hand at demon hood.
My imperium guard army is effect none GW now in its entirety.
A cat hybrid regiment is in the works for kill team
Dear god, its a furry Jokes aside. you did miss half my edits....
Also i stated mainline for a reason. Changes to established charachters against their identity didn't do good, surprsingly /S
As for slaanesh... well.. slaanesh does slaanesh, atleast its fetishising issue is all encompassing and true to its charachter. That is more than we can say about abbadon.. or Nightlords constantly getting portrayed with the one studio helldrake and forgefiend i believe... (espeically in that regards because we have good looking chaos aircraft... )
Not Online!!! wrote: Dear god, its a furry Jokes aside. you did miss half my edits....
Also i stated mainline for a reason. Changes to established charachters against their identity didn't do good, surprsingly /S
As for slaanesh... well.. slaanesh does slaanesh, atleast his fetishising issue is all encompassing and true to its charachter. That is more than we can say about abbadon.. or Nightlords constantly getting portrayed with the one studio helldrake and forgefiend i believe...
I am on a iPad and typing with a pen in a cast, makes it hard to check edits.
And it’s going to be awesome, sanctioned beastmen. Already have others to go with them.
I actually think the worst offender for lore issues is the Horus heresy, can’t get more mainline than that.
For slaanesh I think it’s great, GW mostly doing it right.
It’s finally pulling demons out of there low effort point, chaos had no love for a long time.
Not Online!!! wrote: Dear god, its a furry Jokes aside. you did miss half my edits....
Also i stated mainline for a reason. Changes to established charachters against their identity didn't do good, surprsingly /S
As for slaanesh... well.. slaanesh does slaanesh, atleast his fetishising issue is all encompassing and true to its charachter. That is more than we can say about abbadon.. or Nightlords constantly getting portrayed with the one studio helldrake and forgefiend i believe...
I am on a iPad and typing with a pen in a cast, makes it hard to check edits.
And it’s going to be awesome, sanctioned beastmen. Already have others to go with them.
I actually think the worst offender for lore issues is the Horus heresy, can’t get more mainline than that.
For slaanesh I think it’s great, GW mostly doing it right.
It’s finally pulling demons out of there low effort point, chaos had no love for a long time.
Well GW took a 3rd of chaos (arguably the most important by number and lore) behind the shed so to speak..
Atleast daemons getting something out of that is indeed an... improvement.
As for the heresy i am 50 % sure it was their biggest mistake for the lore and 50 % sure that it is also their best idea...
The problem now is, getting a coherent heresy going and the quality of BL is, shall we say all over the place ....
* remembers Goto and shudders
If they really HAVE to do it, then I ‘d prefer Erda having something to do with this, as it’s almost common knowledge now that “Erda screws things up”.
Seriously though, if Erda somehow managed to survive to the current stage, I kind hope someone as irrational and ironically “humane” as she is, would turn out to have created something resembling a “daughter” with genes combined with big E but more on her part (basically a big F You to the man himself). So, boom, the ultra-heresy known as female primarch thus emerges.
Edit: If GW is stupid enough to go for even an ounce of these I mentioned then...lol.
This is a strange topic. In personal fluff, do what you want. On the table top how would you tell the difference?
Marines are 7+ foot tall monsters in armor thats effectively three feet wide. They are genetically modified creations and not truly human. Do what you want.
I agree, but people are strange. Some feel like judging other people's war doll based on some fictional universe inherently incoherent.... Who knows what's in their head.
The results of this poll are interesting and pleasing, I would loved to have seen a majority for change and inclusion but the fact it’s around 1/3 to 2/3 for is better than imagines and just the fact that this poll has gone ahead and not been shot down by the angry mob is progress in of itself.
Andykp wrote: The results of this poll are interesting and pleasing, I would loved to have seen a majority for change and inclusion but the fact it’s around 1/3 to 2/3 for is better than imagines and just the fact that this poll has gone ahead and not been shot down by the angry mob is progress in of itself.
I also find it interesting that the percentages are different between "lore" and "models".
I mean, these polls aren’t very meaningful. If a different group of people saw (or did not see) these threads, the results could be completely opposite of what they are now.
Andykp wrote: The results of this poll are interesting and pleasing, I would loved to have seen a majority for change and inclusion but the fact it’s around 1/3 to 2/3 for is better than imagines and just the fact that this poll has gone ahead and not been shot down by the angry mob is progress in of itself.
I also find it interesting that the percentages are different between "lore" and "models".
Probably because models would imply head swap conversions by individual players.
Which is fine, it's if it becomes official (as in, part of the fluff) that it gets messy.
It's a matter of basic logic, not authority.
Would you prefer to have two options, or only one? You're free to chose either, or both of course.
Proof that the second option will damage the first one are still to be provided. What we get until now is all about historical inspiration and monastic life (plus pseudoscience, but that is another topic about how fictional world logic works... It's a pretty technical point that will add little to the discussion).
Would you like to have an overview of the major monastic Western traditions, so we can double-check what factions between those available maintain more closely a similar feeling in 40k?
Spoiler alert: usually it's not Marine, but another branch or faction within the Imperium.
The lore doesn’t need to be messy, if it’s just an idea that a particular hobbyist has about her or his particular project. If anything, homebrew lore can be some of the most fascinating. Fans tend to take great pains to make their ideas “fit” with existing canon, especially when their idea seems to contradict an established principal of canon.
What would make it messy lore-wise is if the corporation just used hamfisted fiat to shoehorn in whatever a beancounter proclaims will sell better. This kind of top-down imposition tends to have the least consideration for existing canon.
I’m using “canon” here as a convenient term, I know it’s not exactly applicable.
Would you prefer to have two options, or only one? You're free to chose either, or both of course.
You are already free to chose to have female SM in your army. It’s your army, it can be whatever you want.
What do people who want female space marines actually want? Based on the process we know of, they'd be exactly the same as male space marines, aside from using female pronouns wouldn't they? The amount of hormonal and physical changes inherent in the space marine process are not going to result in female space marines that are recognizably female - even facial features are impacted significantly by testosterone therapy and that sort of thing, and what space marines undergo goes far beyond anything humans currently experience. There's unlikely to be any physical distinguishing features that are going to be visible at a 28/32mm scale, unless they go out of their way to feminize them.
Is it just the idea that under that armor the person might have originally had XX chromosomes rather than XY chromosomes? And that some of them might use female pronouns rather than male ones?
Not trying to be snarky here, I'm honestly curious. Because what people want has a big impact on how the lore would have to change.
edit: Based on the poll in the model thread, virtually nobody wants feminized marines. So is it just that people want an official GW blessing that they are "allowed" to call their dudes dudettes instead?
It would be nice yeah.
All these posters keep saying that "officialdom" doesn't matter and just make "Your Dudes" but then get up in arms when change is suggested.
So what is it? Does the background matter or not?
I'd say the three best options overall for this would be:
1) They have always been there. This is lazy, but just say "oh yeah they've been around forever its just never come up" and start slowly adding in female characters/models/lore bits.
2) The lost Primarchs were female: Probably already mentioned, didn't read through the entire thread, but the two missing Primarchs were female and one or both of them returns from parts unknown, along with the institutional knowledge on how to make female space marines. Their legions can either be all female, or mixed gender.
3) Lean into the post human, hunk of meat ungendered angle. Marines are no longer human, and have gone through years and years of mutation and conditioning. Throw in the fluff that men and women both become marines, and the changes inflicted upon them more or less turn them into a hunk of meat. Maybe include initiates, serfs, and say marines with only the early stages of implants be shown as both genders, while full marines get marked more as a "they/them", or even "it" (by outsiders), with slightly redone heads to help mark in what they once were.
Honestly of the three there I find 2 the most interesting.
Manchu wrote: The lore doesn’t need to be messy, if it’s just an idea that a particular hobbyist has about her or his particular project. If anything, homebrew lore can be some of the most fascinating. Fans tend to take great pains to make their ideas “fit” with existing canon, especially when their idea seems to contradict an established principal of canon.
Indeed, when in doubt make them a chaos chapter. Chaos can do anything.
What would make it messy lore-wise is if the corporation just used hamfisted fiat to shoehorn in whatever a beancounter proclaims will sell better. This kind of top-down imposition tends to have the least consideration for existing canon.
I haven't seen anyone express opposition to you calling "your dudes" "your dudettes" instead. If people want to say their chapter has female marines and invent whatever explanation for that they want, that seems to be fine with the vast majority of people in this thread.
Maybe the compromise everyone could live with then would be GW saying "almost all space marines are male, but the galaxy is a big and mysterious place and who knows if there might be female space marines somewhere out there? The process is normally thought to only work on males, but who knows how reliable the Imperial scribes are who wrote that down?" and leave it at that?
It harkens back to GW's original "leave a little mystery and ambiguity in the galaxy" approach - one they have largely abandoned for the rest of the IP - but maybe it's time for the return of a little of that old attitude?
yukishiro1 wrote: I haven't seen anyone express opposition to you calling "your dudes" "your dudettes" instead. If people want to say their chapter has female marines and invent whatever explanation for that they want, that seems to be fine with the vast majority of people in this thread.
Maybe the compromise everyone could live with then would be GW saying "almost all space marines are male, but the galaxy is a big and mysterious place and who knows if there might be female space marines somewhere out there? The process is normally thought to only work on males, but who knows how reliable the Imperial scribes are who wrote that down?" and leave it at that?
It harkens back to GW's original "leave a little mystery and ambiguity in the galaxy" approach - one they have largely abandoned for the rest of the IP - but maybe it's time for the return of a little of that old attitude?
That would be a perfectly good introduction in my books. To the point of I don't even consider it a compromise. Based on current lore one could say it's even implied right now.
Well there's a 70 page discussion and this one is on 12 pages, both of which have loads of posters saying people shouldn't have "Their Dudettes". I don't see a problem with your option Yukishiro but apparently having the potential for female SM is going to destroy the setting of 40k.
Really? I see a lot of people opposed to changing the existing lore in significant ways and opposed to GW bringing out a bunch of new kits and female characters. I don't see anyone saying "I would be angry and/or would not play against your space marines army if you told me they're dudettes instead of dudes."
If GW was just ambiguous about it - not ruling it out, but not explicitly confirming it either - that seems like it satisfies everyone. People who want female space marines can have them, people who don't won't, and neither the game nor the lore need to change in any substantial way to accommodate both camps.
yukishiro1 wrote: Really? I see a lot of people opposed to changing the existing lore in significant ways and opposed to GW bringing out a bunch of new kits and female characters. I don't see anyone saying "I would be angry and/or would not play against your space marines army if you told me they're dudettes instead of dudes."
I mean I just literally had a picture of a model with about 200 likes deleted by a moderator on a large Facebook group because the marine was female. Now I didn't receive serious insults or death threats like happens sometimes when people post their female marine models, but it still means that my models are not welcome.
If GW was just ambiguous about it - not ruling it out, but not explicitly confirming it either - that seems like it satisfies everyone. People who want female space marines can have them, people who don't won't, and neither the game nor the lore need to change in any substantial way to accommodate both camps.
Well, 'maybe' is definitely better than 'hell, no!'
yukishiro1 wrote: Really? I see a lot of people opposed to changing the existing lore in significant ways and opposed to GW bringing out a bunch of new kits and female characters. I don't see anyone saying "I would be angry and/or would not play against your space marines army if you told me they're dudettes instead of dudes."
I mean I just literally had a picture of a model with about 200 likes deleted by a moderator on a large Facebook group because the marine was female.
Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.
yukishiro1 wrote: Really? I see a lot of people opposed to changing the existing lore in significant ways and opposed to GW bringing out a bunch of new kits and female characters. I don't see anyone saying "I would be angry and/or would not play against your space marines army if you told me they're dudettes instead of dudes."
I mean I just literally had a picture of a model with about 200 likes deleted by a moderator on a large Facebook group because the marine was female.
Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.
No - it was a good move. It is just going to spark endless debate and draw needless attention to their page. Facebook might actually shut your site down if they see things the deem "hate speech" which that debate is highly likely to produce - whether it is motived by hate or not.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I prefer this answer -
Female space marines should not be added just as Male space marines should not be added. Space marines have no gender - they have no sex. They are cyborgs with interest in 1 thing. Killing aliens.
Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.
I agree it is absurd, but it is not unusual at all. Female space marines are like a red rag to a bull to certain people. If you post pics of such conversions online, in many places negativity will follow, sometimes to utterly absurd degree. And these are not some random isolated incidents. If people could do their own stuff in peace, and people would treat this like other canon deviations like making loyalist versions of traitor legions etc, then it wouldn't matter that much (Cool loyalist World Eaters, mate!) But that simply is not the reality where we live in.
I used to think like you, but this insane hostility the mere idea of female marines garners is actually what has changed my mind about the topic. I want GW to officially back female marines to normalise them.
Sorry, I didn't know you were the arbiter on that.
No need to apologize, now you know lol.
In all seriousness, when I say the IP “ain’t broken” I’m not making an arbitrary declaration, I’m observing fact.
Some of you are coming at this topic as if GW has hired you to consult them on how to reboot a failing property.
In reality, the property has been and is doing great.
If anything, “I didn’t know you were the arbiter of that” is the proper response to those who say that GW must make female SM.
No-one's saying that it's not doing financially well.
What we are talking about is issues like what Crimson explains below, or how "good" doesn't mean "best" or "unimprovable".
Manchu wrote:You are already free to chose to have female SM in your army. It’s your army, it can be whatever you want.
Again, I wish it were so, but far too often do I see women Astartes models get shot down and the subject of great flame wars *simply for existing*.
That doesn't happen with orange Space Marines, or yellow Space Marines, or blue Space Marines, or pink Space Marines.
yukishiro1 wrote:What do people who want female space marines actually want?
Women Space Marines. Just like how there's male Space Marines.
Based on the process we know of, they'd be exactly the same as male space marines, aside from using female pronouns wouldn't they?
We don't really know anything for sure, because we don't have women Space Marines.
The amount of hormonal and physical changes inherent in the space marine process are not going to result in female space marines that are recognizably female - even facial features are impacted significantly by testosterone therapy and that sort of thing, and what space marines undergo goes far beyond anything humans currently experience. There's unlikely to be any physical distinguishing features that are going to be visible at a 28/32mm scale, unless they go out of their way to feminize them.
But there's apparently enough detail that we can have visually different and distinct masculine features?
If Space Marines bare heads *were* indistinguishable fleshy masses of muscle, then I'd agree, but GW have made it pretty clear that Space Marines have some pretty varied faces amongst their lot. I don't doubt that more feminine heads could be distinguished.
Is it just the idea that under that armor the person might have originally had XX chromosomes rather than XY chromosomes? And that some of them might use female pronouns rather than male ones?
Also that too, especially in one of my comments about Space Marine Chapters potentially having a distinction between their assigned birth genders and their Astartes identity.
So is it just that people want an official GW blessing that they are "allowed" to call their dudes dudettes instead?
yukishiro1 wrote: Really? I see a lot of people opposed to changing the existing lore in significant ways and opposed to GW bringing out a bunch of new kits and female characters. I don't see anyone saying "I would be angry and/or would not play against your space marines army if you told me they're dudettes instead of dudes."
I mean I just literally had a picture of a model with about 200 likes deleted by a moderator on a large Facebook group because the marine was female.
Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.
No - it was a good move. It is just going to spark endless debate and draw needless attention to their page. Facebook might actually shut your site down if they see things the deem "hate speech" which that debate is highly likely to produce - whether it is motived by hate or not.
So the answer is to remove an inoffensive picture of a model instead of banning and removing everyone who made "hate speech" comments?
Sounds like a failure of moderation, if you ask me.
I prefer this answer -
Female space marines should not be added just as Male space marines should not be added. Space marines have no gender - they have no sex. They are cyborgs with interest in 1 thing. Killing aliens.
I would too, if Space Marines *were* explicitly genderless. Unfortunately, they do have male-presenting features. I would really like them to be explicitly genderless - I think having them only use "Astartes" pronouns, and be visibly inhuman would be so much more interesting than "warrior monk = all male".
Basically, if we can have men, then we can have women. If we can't have women, then we shouldn't have men. And obviously, vice versa.
Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.
I agree it is absurd, but it is not unusual at all. Female space marines are like a red rag to a bull to certain people. If you post pics of such conversions online, in many places negativity will follow, sometimes to utterly absurd degree. And these are not some random isolated incidents. If people could do their own stuff in peace, and people would treat this like other canon deviations like making loyalist versions of traitor legions etc, then it wouldn't matter that much (Cool loyalist World Eaters, mate!) But that simply is not the reality where we live in.
I used to think like you, but this insane hostility the mere idea of female marines garners is actually what has changed my mind about the topic. I want GW to officially back female marines to normalise them.
Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters. You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?
Like...did you see that Ravengard Shrike model with the emo hairstyle? Did you see how that was ridiculed? It has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with space marines are supposed to look a certain way.
If GW was just ambiguous about it - not ruling it out, but not explicitly confirming it either - that seems like it satisfies everyone. People who want female space marines can have them, people who don't won't, and neither the game nor the lore need to change in any substantial way to accommodate both camps.
Allowing people to pretend people they don't like aren't real does not have great end results over the course of history, even if it appeases their egos.
That would be a perfectly good introduction in my books. To the point of I don't even consider it a compromise. Based on current lore one could say it's even implied right now.
Absolutely correct. As things already stand, female SM can already exist in 40k as your own hobby project. And GW saying “it’s your army, do what you want!” has been a thing for a long, long time.
Also there is a BIG gap between the way people can be endlessly acrimonious online and how people behave IRL.
If you have a beautiful army that includes or comprises female SM and you take it to the store, all things being equal, it’s not going to be a problem.
When people post their conversions in the P&M section of this site, it doesn’t really create problems either. The problems seem to come from the abstract demi-ideological around what GW should/must do/not do.
That would be a perfectly good introduction in my books. To the point of I don't even consider it a compromise. Based on current lore one could say it's even implied right now.
Absolutely correct. As things already stand, female SM can already exist in 40k as your own hobby project. And GW saying “it’s your army, do what you want!” has been a thing for a long, long time.
Tell that to the people saying that it's not canon, heresy, so-on-so-forth, in this very thread, I guess.
Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters. You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?
What? Even assuming you mean agendered, that's explicitly not true because they're Battle Brother this, Battle Brother that.
Well it isn’t canon, it probably is canonically heresy, etc, etc.
But there is room for non canon / heretical stuff in your own project.
Again, my all- or partially-female SM chapter may think of itself as completely orthodox but the inquisition might very well think otherwise and send your chapter to hunt me down. Now we have a good narrative for our game.
Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters.
Why is being female sexualisation? Marines are currently men, why is that not sexualisation? And yeas, they should remain asexual; women can be asexual. Or are you confusing agender with asexual? Current marines are not agender. Though yes, some marines indeed could be agender too.
You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?
Tell that to Space Wolves! Also, are women legally required to have ponytails where you live?
Like...did you see that Ravengard Shrike model with the emo hairstyle? Did you see how that was ridiculed? It has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with space marines are supposed to look a certain way.
Yet people posting their painted Shrikes didn't receive hostility.
No I mean A sexual - space marines don't have sex organs. That is what that means. Were talking about models here. They are pumped full of testosterone to an insane degree - they would not have any feminine features. - There is no debate to be had really...human females that take heavy testosterone look like males. Graudruple that and what do you expect to see. I put helmets on all my marines anyways if I can - their faces usually look pretty bad...mostly because GW is pretty bad at making mass produced faces. Look at the codex art for Ultramarines and Ironhands supplements. Those meat heads are what marines should look like.
If you want to talk about what space marines call each other...like "Brother" I would assume that is just military tradition passed down. The primarchs are all male so they called them brothers...Seeing as the space marines were Asexual and have no purpose for a gender...I don't see that as much of an issue.
If GW was just ambiguous about it - not ruling it out, but not explicitly confirming it either - that seems like it satisfies everyone. People who want female space marines can have them, people who don't won't, and neither the game nor the lore need to change in any substantial way to accommodate both camps.
Allowing people to pretend people they don't like aren't real does not have great end results over the course of history, even if it appeases their egos.
I honestly don't know what this response has to do with my suggestion.
Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters.
Why is being female sexualisation? Marines are currently men, why is that not sexualisation? And yeas, they should remain asexual; women can be asexual. Or are you confusing agender with asexual? Current marines are not agender. Though yes, some marines indeed could be agender too.
You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?
Tell that to Space Wolves! Also, are women legally required to have ponytails where you live?
Like...did you see that Ravengard Shrike model with the emo hairstyle? Did you see how that was ridiculed? It has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with space marines are supposed to look a certain way.
Yet people posting their painted Shrikes didn't receive hostility.
How else are you going to differentiate male/female features on a 32mm model covered in power armor?
Your right...shrike is a great model and everyone loved it
Gert wrote: Well there's a 70 page discussion and this one is on 12 pages, both of which have loads of posters saying people shouldn't have "Their Dudettes". I don't see a problem with your option Yukishiro but apparently having the potential for female SM is going to destroy the setting of 40k.
FSM wont destroy the 40K setting... But many consider this an arbitrary change that diludes or muddles the setting for no real gain to be appreciated (beyond the wishfull thinking of a few).
1) They don't really make sense, given everything we know about the recruitment and selection process for Marines. Depending on the Chapter, a few dozen slots a year are divided amongst millions or billions or people, which means that much like modern elite units, even exceptional women would probably fall off. Add in the ritualized nature of the surgeries, it takes a lot of folding and exception grabbing for FSMs to make sense within the context of everything we know about marines.
2) They attract a hostility and level of vitriol grossly out of proportion to point number 1.
I find the desire to have female marines a bit odd, but harmless. I also think that most people that actually do it are doing so because they think it's neat, not out of some ideological point. However, any mention of FMSs invariably brings out the screeching hordes who seem shockingly invested in the genital situation of their asexual super soldiers. And that, of course, leads to things being said which brings out the inclusion argument, because you can read the "no girls allowed" vibe through these dudes from a mile away.
And thus we get this weird verbal war of attrition. 20 years ago somebody though that modeling breasts on a space marine would be cool, and now we have to have endless discussions about the topic.
most people that actually do it are doing so because they think it's neat
Spot on and IME totally accurate. There is a huge gap between people actually making an army and creating their own army background on the one hand and, on the other hand, arguing online about what kind of products a corporation ought to sell.
most people that actually do it are doing so because they think it's neat
Spot on and IME totally accurate. There is a huge gap between people actually making an army and creating their own army background on the one hand and, on the other hand, arguing online about what kind of products a corporation ought to sell.
Right, which means that Female Space marines aren't even really being fought over, any more than the Germans cared if they actually took the town of Verdun. It's just an excuse to vent bile, either against the limp wristed SJWs ruining your hobby, or the closed minded bigots ruining your hobby.
Manchu wrote: Asexual is also a term in biology, referring to a type of reproduction.
It can also be used more generally of people to mean lack of sexual activity.
And there is also the usage as a sexual orientation.
Anyhow, it’s true that regardless of SM having no concern for sexuality one way or the other, they are nonetheless gendered as male.
By what? word choice like brother ... because they are part of a brotherhood? Which is in fact - not gendered.
Brotherhood -
an association, society, or community of people linked by a common interest, religion, or trade.
Use of He/him pronouns? He is the default pronoun for anything non gendered. It's just English. You could always rewrite English if you have an issue with that.
Space marines are not human...Why is anyone so concerned with their gender?
Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.
I agree it is absurd, but it is not unusual at all. Female space marines are like a red rag to a bull to certain people. If you post pics of such conversions online, in many places negativity will follow, sometimes to utterly absurd degree. And these are not some random isolated incidents. If people could do their own stuff in peace, and people would treat this like other canon deviations like making loyalist versions of traitor legions etc, then it wouldn't matter that much (Cool loyalist World Eaters, mate!) But that simply is not the reality where we live in.
I used to think like you, but this insane hostility the mere idea of female marines garners is actually what has changed my mind about the topic. I want GW to officially back female marines to normalise them.
Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters.
That's not what asexual means, and as someone with friends who *are* asexual, I don't think they'd appreciate being called "monsters" because of their asexuality - if that IS what you meant.
Asexual when referring to humans is in reference to their sexuality and sexual preferences. Asexual people do not feel sexual attraction.
You are referring to agender, people who do not have a gender, or you are referring to people who lack sexual organs. Neither of these are "asexual" necessarily, as you put it.
You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?
Boy, wait until you see the White Scars. Or Abaddon, for that matter.
It has to do with space marines are supposed to look a certain way.
And what way is that? What one-size fits all idea do you have in mind?
IanMalcolmAbs wrote:No I mean A sexual - space marines don't have sex organs. That is what that means.
No, it doesn't.
Asexual when talking about humans is referring to their sexuality. Not their genitalia.
Now, Space Marines probably ARE asexual as well, but that's not what you were referring to.
IanMalcolmAbs wrote:How else are you going to differentiate male/female features on a 32mm model covered in power armor?
I think Crimson did a fairly good job, as you can see in this thread, I believe.
which means that Female Space marines aren't even really being fought over
That’s correct.
Anyone who wants female SMs can have them right now. And the most any of the rest of can do is weigh in with our own opinion, of no greater or lesser weight that the person who wants female SMs.
Anything beyond this gets into the territory of wanting to have some kind of authority over what other people “ought to” think about the subject.
IanMalcolmAbs wrote: By what? word choice like brother ... because they are part of a brotherhood? Which is in fact - not gendered.
I... what??
Brotherhood -
an association, society, or community of people linked by a common interest, religion, or trade.
Is Sisterhood also not gendered? If that's the case, why can't I have my Space Marines be part of a Sisterhood, and refer to eachother as Sister, but they're totally not gendered?
Use of He/him pronouns? He is the default pronoun for anything non gendered. It's just English. You could always rewrite English if you have an issue with that.
Laughably incorrect. The default pronoun for things non-gendered in the English language is "they". He/him isn't gender-neutral any more so than she/her is.
If you want gender neutral Astartes, then you should be using they/them pronouns, or a different *actually* neutral pronoun.
Maybe you need to go back to school.
Space marines are not human...Why is anyone so concerned with their gender?
They are human - transhuman.
But agreed. I don't know why people should be so concerned over their gender that they'd stop people having women ones.
Why not go all the way and eliminate all traces of inequality, sexism and issues of representation that apparently exist within this hobby.
Let's make an end times event where the necrons win and remain the only faction, so you only have genderless robots left. Lore can be changed after all, and all that GW publishes is then established lore and therefore automatically equally as good as anything that came before.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: But agreed. I don't know why people should be so concerned over their gender that they'd stop people having women ones.
Because some people think "females" must be represented by the "feminine values" as established by the patriarchal society. If you note the poll options from the locked thread, the options call for different "degrees of female representation" through the lens of dice nerds who define women as "human beings with prettier, slenderer face shape, full bust, pinched waist & pronounced hip". It's offensive, really.
Just take the middle option in this thread:
"Amend the lore to suggest space marines have always included women, but they look like the men, so are usually mistaken for male marines"
"Oh, I'm sorry, you were so ugly I thought you were a male this whole time".
Explain to me exactly what female features were omitted so that such mistake could be made.
Tiberias wrote:Why not go all the way and eliminate all traces of inequality, sexism and issues of representation that apparently exist within this hobby.
I mean, yes?? Don't we want a hobby which doesn't have sexism and inequality?
I'm trying to see if there's a trick question in this.
Let's make an end times event where the necrons win and remain the only faction, so you only have genderless robots left. Lore can be changed after all, and all that GW publishes is then established lore and therefore automatically equally as good as anything that came before.
First, Necrons aren't genderless - well, not all of them. The higher ranking Necrons have genders.
Second, if that's the only way you can see the hobby being truly equal, then I think you're perhaps a little bit missing the point. Either that, or deliberately so.
skchsan wrote:
Sgt_Smudge wrote: But agreed. I don't know why people should be so concerned over their gender that they'd stop people having women ones.
Because some people think "females" must be represented by the "feminine values" as established by the patriarchal society.
Do they? Which people? What "feminine values"?
If you note the poll options from the locked thread, the options call for different "degrees of female representation" through the lens of dice nerds who define women as "human beings with prettier, slenderer face shape, full bust, pinched waist & pronounced hip". It's offensive, really.
I don't know if you remember, but I don't think those words were ever uttered beyond your mind.
Not only that, but even if that *was* ever mentioned, you'd find that only 2% of people voted for it, and 31% wanted only headswaps, which has nothing to do with their bust, waist, or hip - and face shape was never mentioned at all.
Overall, I think this leads to a scientific analysis that you're trolling.
which means that Female Space marines aren't even really being fought over
That’s correct.
Anyone who wants female SMs can have them right now. And the most any of the rest of can do is weigh in with our own opinion, of no greater or lesser weight that the person who wants female SMs.
Anything beyond this gets into the territory of wanting to have some kind of authority over what other people “ought to” think about the subject.
That pretty much sums up my opinion. I have no problem with people making their own fem-SM and their own lore to either fit within the lore or supersede it like fan-fiction. But to try and impose that over the hobby as a whole out of some maligned idea that they need to be validated on the official level to ward off people they wouldn't likely meet or play with IRL?
I dunno, the way a lot of the pro-FSM side go about it seems like they don't care about 40k lore (just change it! that mentality is what brought us the slippery slope of increasingly bizarre marine additions, from centurions, all the new flyers, to eventually primaris, which I'm still not a big fan of) and just care about representation, which you can find in so many other franchises. 40k need not be your end all, be all in tabletop wargaming for that need to be met.
which means that Female Space marines aren't even really being fought over
That’s correct.
Anyone who wants female SMs can have them right now. And the most any of the rest of can do is weigh in with our own opinion, of no greater or lesser weight that the person who wants female SMs.
Anything beyond this gets into the territory of wanting to have some kind of authority over what other people “ought to” think about the subject.
That pretty much sums up my opinion. I have no problem with people making their own fem-SM and their own lore to either fit within the lore or supersede it like fan-fiction. But to try and impose that over the hobby as a whole out of some maligned idea that they need to be validated on the official level to ward off people they wouldn't likely meet or play with IRL?
Can't the same be said the other way around?
To try and impose that "only male Space Marines" over the whole hobby as a whole out of some maligned idea that their warrior monk concept needs to be validated on the official level to "ward off" people they wouldn't likely meet or play with IRL?
I dunno, the way a lot of the pro-FSM side go about it seems like they don't care about 40k lore (just change it! that mentality is what brought us the slippery slope of increasingly bizarre marine additions, from centurions, all the new flyers, to eventually primaris, which I'm still not a big fan of)
It's not that we don't care about the lore. It's that its an intellectually void argument to say "well, that's just what the lore says".
Tell me *why* the lore says what it says. Tell me *what* it adds, not just that it does. Tell me *why* it needs to stay the way it is, instead of just telling me it stays because it's there.
Justify the lore to me, sell me on it, and maybe I'll see your point, instead of "but lore says this is canon".
Again, you say "increasingly bizarre", but that's the lore now. I thought that the lore was important?
and just care about representation, which you can find in so many other franchises. 40k need not be your end all, be all in tabletop wargaming for that need to be met.
Shall we get rid of guns too, because you can find them in other franchises?
which means that Female Space marines aren't even really being fought over
That’s correct.
Anyone who wants female SMs can have them right now. And the most any of the rest of can do is weigh in with our own opinion, of no greater or lesser weight that the person who wants female SMs.
Anything beyond this gets into the territory of wanting to have some kind of authority over what other people “ought to” think about the subject.
That pretty much sums up my opinion. I have no problem with people making their own fem-SM and their own lore to either fit within the lore or supersede it like fan-fiction. But to try and impose that over the hobby as a whole out of some maligned idea that they need to be validated on the official level to ward off people they wouldn't likely meet or play with IRL?
I dunno, the way a lot of the pro-FSM side go about it seems like they don't care about 40k lore (just change it! that mentality is what brought us the slippery slope of increasingly bizarre marine additions, from centurions, all the new flyers, to eventually primaris, which I'm still not a big fan of) and just care about representation, which you can find in so many other franchises. 40k need not be your end all, be all in tabletop wargaming for that need to be met.
I dunno, I find Crimson's argument and example pretty convincing. If people can't post pictures of female space marines on facebook because they're getting deleted by moderators due to concerns about hate speech and threats...maybe that does mean GW needs to come out and validate them, at least to some modest degree. It doesn't have to be any more than the "the galaxy's a big place, many things are possible, keep an open mind space cowboys!" that I suggested...but I am starting to think they probably do need to make some kind of statement that makes it clear that it is not acceptable behavior to send hate speech at somebody for the "crime against the hobby" of putting a female head on a marine body.
which means that Female Space marines aren't even really being fought over
That’s correct.
Anyone who wants female SMs can have them right now. And the most any of the rest of can do is weigh in with our own opinion, of no greater or lesser weight that the person who wants female SMs.
Anything beyond this gets into the territory of wanting to have some kind of authority over what other people “ought to” think about the subject.
That pretty much sums up my opinion. I have no problem with people making their own fem-SM and their own lore to either fit within the lore or supersede it like fan-fiction. But to try and impose that over the hobby as a whole out of some maligned idea that they need to be validated on the official level to ward off people they wouldn't likely meet or play with IRL?
I dunno, the way a lot of the pro-FSM side go about it seems like they don't care about 40k lore (just change it! that mentality is what brought us the slippery slope of increasingly bizarre marine additions, from centurions, all the new flyers, to eventually primaris, which I'm still not a big fan of) and just care about representation, which you can find in so many other franchises. 40k need not be your end all, be all in tabletop wargaming for that need to be met.
I dunno, I find Crimson's argument and example pretty convincing. If people can't post pictures of female space marines on facebook because they're getting deleted by moderators due to concerns about hate speech and threats...maybe that does mean GW needs to come out and validate them, at least to some modest degree. It doesn't have to be any more than the "the galaxy's a big place, many things are possible, keep an open mind space cowboys!" that I suggested...but I am starting to think they probably do need to make some kind of statement that makes it clear that it is not acceptable behavior to send hate speech at somebody for the "crime against the hobby" of putting a female head on a marine body.
Honestly thinking about it, I'd be fine with even a step further removed, and them posting either a warhammer community article showing off a hobbyist's female space marines or doing it during a hobby hangout Twitch stream. Even that little validation would go a long way towards proving that "it's your hobby, you can do what you'd like".
Sgt_Smudge wrote: But agreed. I don't know why people should be so concerned over their gender that they'd stop people having women ones.
Because some people think "females" must be represented by the "feminine values" as established by the patriarchal society. If you note the poll options from the locked thread, the options call for different "degrees of female representation" through the lens of dice nerds who define women as "human beings with prettier, slenderer face shape, full bust, pinched waist & pronounced hip". It's offensive, really.
If feminine values established by society don't define women, then what does in your opinion?
@sgt smudge "He" has always been the correct way to refer to a person when you don't know if they're a man or woman. Everything you're saying is newspeak; just because "they" has caught on among certain types doesn't change the fact that it's a plural pronoun and violates number agreement.
I don't think this is a place for a in depth discussion of the history of English grammar, but that's simply wrong. We have examples of they used as a singular pronoun for a person of indeterminate gender that go back to at least the 14th century.
That pretty much sums up my opinion. I have no problem with people making their own fem-SM and their own lore to either fit within the lore or supersede it like fan-fiction. But to try and impose that over the hobby as a whole out of some maligned idea that they need to be validated on the official level to ward off people they wouldn't likely meet or play with IRL?
Out of curiosity, what behavior crosses the line into "imposing?" And if they are responding to people saying their stuff doesn't belong in 40k, is defending it still imposing?
I dunno, the way a lot of the pro-FSM side go about it seems like they don't care about 40k lore (just change it! that mentality is what brought us the slippery slope of increasingly bizarre marine additions, from centurions, all the new flyers, to eventually primaris, which I'm still not a big fan of) and just care about representation, which you can find in so many other franchises. 40k need not be your end all, be all in tabletop wargaming for that need to be met.
The Lore has constantly evolved, and yes, it has changed almost from it's inception. It's not sacred scriptures, it's literally the adult version of saturday morning cartoons: simply designed to sell toys.
@sgt smudge "He" has always been the correct way to refer to a person when you don't know if they're a man or woman. Everything you're saying is newspeak; just because "they" has caught on among certain types doesn't change the fact that it's a plural pronoun and violates number agreement.
I've never heard this once in my 31 years of life. In fact, the first time anybody ever objected to my use of singular they was like, 2016? And I said the phrase "I called the doctor's office and got the receptionist. They said I could come in Thursday". The person who had previously objected to singular they thought for a second, agreed that that was a correct and normal phrase that they had heard and used many times before, and we moved on.
If anything, opposition to singular they is newspeak.
@sgt smudge "He" has always been the correct way to refer to a person when you don't know if they're a man or woman. Everything you're saying is newspeak; just because "they" has caught on among certain types doesn't change the fact that it's a plural pronoun and violates number agreement.
I've never heard this once in my 31 years of life. In fact, the first time anybody ever objected to my use of singular they was like, 2016? And I said the phrase "I called the doctor's office and got the receptionist. They said I could come in Thursday". The person who had previously objected to singular they thought for a second, agreed that that was a correct and normal phrase that they had heard and used many times before, and we moved on.
If anything, opposition to singular they is newspeak.
Look at you! You did it again! Singular they! To the stocks with you!
The singular they is completely standard in English for either people of indeterminate gender ("I saw a person fleeing from the scene of the crime. They were about five foot eight, wearing a cap and a full length coat. I didn't see their face.") or when the gender of the person is irrelevant (hence the use of "they" here for the receptionist - doesn't matter whether it was a he or she or a something else, so they is natural). Always has been. People who say otherwise are the ones who are confused.
yukishiro1 wrote: I dunno, I find Crimson's argument and example pretty convincing. If people can't post pictures of female space marines on facebook because they're getting deleted by moderators due to concerns about hate speech and threats...maybe that does mean GW needs to come out and validate them, at least to some modest degree. It doesn't have to be any more than the "the galaxy's a big place, many things are possible, keep an open mind space cowboys!" that I suggested...but I am starting to think they probably do need to make some kind of statement that makes it clear that it is not acceptable behavior to send hate speech at somebody for the "crime against the hobby" of putting a female head on a marine body.
Honestly thinking about it, I'd be fine with even a step further removed, and them posting either a warhammer community article showing off a hobbyist's female space marines or doing it during a hobby hangout Twitch stream. Even that little validation would go a long way towards proving that "it's your hobby, you can do what you'd like".
Yeah, agreed. I think that would be a really good move overall.
Irkjoe wrote:@sgt smudge "He" has always been the correct way to refer to a person when you don't know if they're a man or woman.
No, it hasn't, and no, it isn't.
"They" is the correct term, and has been since *Shakespeare*. If you found someone's phone on the train, you wouldn't say "oh, someone's lost his phone". You'd say "someone's lost *their* phone".
He/him is not gender neutral. Sorry, but that's the English language for you.
Everything you're saying is newspeak
Three things:
A - Strange way to say you don't know English
B - The entire language is newspeak. That's how the language was made.
C- You are, again, oblivious of the history of this language. They hasn't been a newfangled invention, it was used in a singlar gender-neutral context by goddamn Shakespeare.
just because "they" has caught on among certain types doesn't change the fact that it's a plural pronoun and violates number agreement.
I really think you need to get a refund from whoever taught you English, and whoever it was who taught you needs a refund from whoever taught them.
(Oh, look how easy that was! I used they as a singular. I bet you never even realised until I pointed it out.)
Sgt_Smudge wrote: But agreed. I don't know why people should be so concerned over their gender that they'd stop people having women ones.
Because some people think "females" must be represented by the "feminine values" as established by the patriarchal society. If you note the poll options from the locked thread, the options call for different "degrees of female representation" through the lens of dice nerds who define women as "human beings with prettier, slenderer face shape, full bust, pinched waist & pronounced hip". It's offensive, really.
If feminine values established by society don't define women, then what does in your opinion?
I'm actually appalled at this comment - I hope this was just a banter playing the other side of the argument.
The point is that there is no reason why the society has to define whether a person is male or female based on their outward appearances. This is outright flawed and discriminatory.
If a male dresses up as a female, is that person a male or female?
If a female wears a man's suit, is that person a female or male?
If a transgender went through gender change from she to he, and yet still wears "female" clothing (i.e. a sun dress), is that person female or male?
If a man with clinical "man-boobs" but otherwise fit, is that person male or female?
Let me reiterate: IT IS WRONG TO JUDGE ANYONE BY THEIR OUTWARD APPEARANCE.
There is nothing wrong with wanting or having "female", or 'quasi-female' for that matter, in your collection, but don't argue that it's for inclusivity purposes.
Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.
I agree it is absurd, but it is not unusual at all. Female space marines are like a red rag to a bull to certain people. If you post pics of such conversions online, in many places negativity will follow, sometimes to utterly absurd degree. And these are not some random isolated incidents. If people could do their own stuff in peace, and people would treat this like other canon deviations like making loyalist versions of traitor legions etc, then it wouldn't matter that much (Cool loyalist World Eaters, mate!) But that simply is not the reality where we live in.
I used to think like you, but this insane hostility the mere idea of female marines garners is actually what has changed my mind about the topic. I want GW to officially back female marines to normalise them.
Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters. You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?
Like...did you see that Ravengard Shrike model with the emo hairstyle? Did you see how that was ridiculed? It has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with space marines are supposed to look a certain way.
Sigh...do I need to point out that we have TONS of fething marines that style their hair in various ways? Like, come on. Just look at the space wolves sprue for five fething seconds, I don't know.
What the feth would putting a ponytail on a space marine do that the space wolves having half-gokus and side-braids and mohawks and.....ponytails hasn't already done?
Like seriously, I get the annoyance with changing the lore. I truly do. There are many, many changes to the lore in 40K that annoy me, and I have similar reaction to certain changes in other franchises.
But the thing is that lore has always changed, and especially in 40K it has never been terribly rigid, it has always been a nebulous, often contradictory mess. (Which is actually one of its strengths.)
And frankly, I don't see 'all marines are men' as thematically terribly important. It is more of a technical detail. For better or worse, I think far more thematically impactful changes have already happened in 40K. And furthermore, this certainly links to real world issues far more directly than whether space marines have 19 or 22 made up super organs or whether Necrons are unfeeling killer robots or space Egyptians or indeed even whether Primarchs are barely remembered myths of the bygone era or superheroes running around leading the Imperium.
The truth is that this topic garners completely disproportionate amount of vitriol, and it often reveals some rather nasty underlying attitudes. (Which of course is not to say that anyone who is opposed to the change has such attitudes.) So I really wish that people would honestly stop to consider if this one specific piece of lore is really that important. No one is suggesting getting rid of male marines, merely broadening the lore to allow other interpretations too.
The use of masculine nouns/pronouns to include woman and those of unknown gender was, and to a much lesser extent still is, proper. We spoke of mankind, bought things from Salesmen, and had union cards in "brotherhoods." I think even at the time, the whole "well masculine words include women too" was a fig leaf to cover the reality that those words referred to male exclusive or dominated usage, but it's know well known.
In some fields, terms that applied only to men are becoming more gender neutral, such as many female performers referring tot themselves as an "Actor" not an actress. On the flip side, my wive's grandmother sends us cards addressed to "Mr and Mrs. Polonius" which is very old school.
the point is, language is alive and fluid, but often is structured to reflect the reality of the people using it.
I am pretty sure every person who has ever objected to the singular they uses it themselves all the time (oh my god! I did it again!) without even realizing it.
Polonius wrote: The use of masculine nouns/pronouns to include woman and those of unknown gender was, and to a much lesser extent still is, proper. We spoke of mankind, bought things from Salesmen, and had union cards in "brotherhoods."
This is also true. But that's language for you - it isn't monolithic. English has both a firmly established tradition of the singular "they," and also a tradition of using male-gendered words to refer to both genders, ala "mankind" or "to each his own." Anyone who tries to deny either of these elements of the language is engaged in perpetuating false information, usually in furtherance of their particular agenda.
skchsan wrote:The point is that there is no reason why the society has to define whether a person is male or female based on their outward appearances. This is outright flawed and discriminatory.
So we should be allowed whatever heads we want on our Space Marines, from a variety of types, ranging from stereotypically masculine to stereotypically feminine, and it's up to use how we want to assign gender to them, and that's all canon?
Works for me!
If a male dresses up as a female, is that person a male or female?
Whatever they identify as.
If a female wears a man's suit, is that person a female or male?
Whatever they identify as.
If a transgender went through gender change from she to he, and yet still wears "female" clothing (i.e. a sun dress), is that person female or male?
Whatever they identify as.
If a man with clinical "man-boobs" but otherwise fit, is that person male or female?
Whatever they identify as.
Let me reiterate: IT IS WRONG TO JUDGE ANYONE BY THEIR OUTWARD APPEARANCE.
You're right. But these aren't people. Their plastic models. Plus, as I've just said, I'm not asking for the heads to have a label on them saying "this is a woman's head". I'm saying to give me a range of heads, that span a spectrum of both masculine and feminine. Then, let the players assign whatever gender they want to whatever head they want. Sound fair?
Tiberias wrote:Why not go all the way and eliminate all traces of inequality, sexism and issues of representation that apparently exist within this hobby.
I mean, yes?? Don't we want a hobby which doesn't have sexism and inequality?
I'm trying to see if there's a trick question in this.
Let's make an end times event where the necrons win and remain the only faction, so you only have genderless robots left. Lore can be changed after all, and all that GW publishes is then established lore and therefore automatically equally as good as anything that came before.
First, Necrons aren't genderless - well, not all of them. The higher ranking Necrons have genders.
Second, if that's the only way you can see the hobby being truly equal, then I think you're perhaps a little bit missing the point. Either that, or deliberately so.
You are right of course I deeply apologize. High ranking necrons can have genders which could possibly be grounds for sexism and inequality and representation issues, so let me correct myself. Let's make an end times event where the Tyranids win and remain the only faction left. So players have to play different asexual gribblies that eat each other....we have now achieved maximum inclusion and everyone will be happy. Lore wouldn't be an issue in this case like you surely demonstrated.
skchsan wrote:The point is that there is no reason why the society has to define whether a person is male or female based on their outward appearances. This is outright flawed and discriminatory.
So we should be allowed whatever heads we want on our Space Marines, from a variety of types, ranging from stereotypically masculine to stereotypically feminine, and it's up to use how we want to assign gender to them, and that's all canon?
Works for me!
If a male dresses up as a female, is that person a male or female?
Whatever they identify as.
If a female wears a man's suit, is that person a female or male?
Whatever they identify as.
If a transgender went through gender change from she to he, and yet still wears "female" clothing (i.e. a sun dress), is that person female or male?
Whatever they identify as.
If a man with clinical "man-boobs" but otherwise fit, is that person male or female?
Whatever they identify as.
Let me reiterate: IT IS WRONG TO JUDGE ANYONE BY THEIR OUTWARD APPEARANCE.
You're right. But these aren't people. Their plastic models. Plus, as I've just said, I'm not asking for the heads to have a label on them saying "this is a woman's head". I'm saying to give me a range of heads, that span a spectrum of both masculine and feminine. Then, let the players assign whatever gender they want to whatever head they want. Sound fair?
Precisely. That's all I'm saying. Don't say that you put feminine head on a stereotypically male figure because [INCLUSION! YAY!] Do what you want, but don't spew your (non specific 'you' in case of miscommunication) nonsensical crusade to bring social justice and equality into a fictional world involving plastic toy soldiers as a justification.
Polonius wrote:The use of masculine nouns/pronouns to include woman and those of unknown gender was, and to a much lesser extent still is, proper.
Archaic, but proper. They/them has always been acceptable, in the meantime.
We spoke of mankind, bought things from Salesmen, and had union cards in "brotherhoods." I think even at the time, the whole "well masculine words include women too" was a fig leaf to cover the reality that those words referred to male exclusive or dominated usage, but it's know well known.
Absolutely so - which kind of makes the claim that those are "gender-neutral" phrases a little improper.
Again, just to highlight that "they/them" is not only common, but also correct.
the point is, language is alive and fluid, but often is structured to reflect the reality of the people using it.
And when that reality was that the world was massively more male-dominated, and that you simply referred to things as male *because men were probably the most likely thing you'd be talking about*, that doesn't really mean it was "gender-neutral" all the same.
Not meaning to leap down your throat, I don't think you're arguing that they/them is wrong or improper, but he/him still isn't gender neutral. They/them is, and has been for centuries.
I just wanna make that absolutely clear to everyone.
Tiberias wrote: You are right of course I deeply apologize. High ranking necrons can have genders which could possibly be grounds for sexism and inequality and representation issues, so let me correct myself. Let's make an end times event where the Tyranids win and remain the only faction left. So players have to play different asexual gribblies that eat each other....we have now achieved maximum inclusion and everyone will be happy. Lore wouldn't be an issue in this case like you surely demonstrated.
Are you aware you're basically making the same joke that Michael Scott did in an early episode of the office about diversity? And that the meta joke 15 years ago was that the joke had been stale for a decade?
I was a teenager making hyperbolic jokes about political correctness 25 years ago.
Tiberias wrote:Why not go all the way and eliminate all traces of inequality, sexism and issues of representation that apparently exist within this hobby.
I mean, yes?? Don't we want a hobby which doesn't have sexism and inequality?
I'm trying to see if there's a trick question in this.
Let's make an end times event where the necrons win and remain the only faction, so you only have genderless robots left. Lore can be changed after all, and all that GW publishes is then established lore and therefore automatically equally as good as anything that came before.
First, Necrons aren't genderless - well, not all of them. The higher ranking Necrons have genders.
Second, if that's the only way you can see the hobby being truly equal, then I think you're perhaps a little bit missing the point. Either that, or deliberately so.
You are right of course I deeply apologize. High ranking necrons can have genders which could possibly be grounds for sexism and inequality and representation issues, so let me correct myself. Let's make an end times event where the Tyranids win and remain the only faction left. So players have to play different asexual gribblies that eat each other....we have now achieved maximum inclusion and everyone will be happy. Lore wouldn't be an issue in this case like you surely demonstrated.
Yup, as I suspected, the latter.
Enjoy your time under the bridge.
skchsan wrote:Precisely. That's all I'm saying. Don't justify that you put feminine head on a stereotypically male figure because [INCLUSION! YAY!] Do what you want, but don't spew your (non specific 'you' in case miscommunication) nonsensical crusade to bring social justice and equality into a fictional world involving plastic toy soldiers.
So, just to confirm - you support having a range of both masculine and feminine heads for Space Marines, and letting players determine how they want to include/represent them?
which means that Female Space marines aren't even really being fought over
That’s correct.
Anyone who wants female SMs can have them right now. And the most any of the rest of can do is weigh in with our own opinion, of no greater or lesser weight that the person who wants female SMs.
Anything beyond this gets into the territory of wanting to have some kind of authority over what other people “ought to” think about the subject.
That pretty much sums up my opinion. I have no problem with people making their own fem-SM and their own lore to either fit within the lore or supersede it like fan-fiction. But to try and impose that over the hobby as a whole out of some maligned idea that they need to be validated on the official level to ward off people they wouldn't likely meet or play with IRL?
I dunno, the way a lot of the pro-FSM side go about it seems like they don't care about 40k lore (just change it! that mentality is what brought us the slippery slope of increasingly bizarre marine additions, from centurions, all the new flyers, to eventually primaris, which I'm still not a big fan of) and just care about representation, which you can find in so many other franchises. 40k need not be your end all, be all in tabletop wargaming for that need to be met.
I dunno, I find Crimson's argument and example pretty convincing. If people can't post pictures of female space marines on facebook because they're getting deleted by moderators due to concerns about hate speech and threats...maybe that does mean GW needs to come out and validate them, at least to some modest degree. It doesn't have to be any more than the "the galaxy's a big place, many things are possible, keep an open mind space cowboys!" that I suggested...but I am starting to think they probably do need to make some kind of statement that makes it clear that it is not acceptable behavior to send hate speech at somebody for the "crime against the hobby" of putting a female head on a marine body.
That's not what it is.
The picture itself is innocent - no one has a problem with it other than the fact it doesn't really make lore sense - do whatever you wish with your models though. Drawing attention from SJW is the crime against the hobby. The last thing we need is for Gameworkshop to Disneyfi it's products.
skchsan wrote:Precisely. That's all I'm saying. Don't justify that you put feminine head on a stereotypically male figure because [INCLUSION! YAY!] Do what you want, but don't spew your (non specific 'you' in case miscommunication) nonsensical crusade to bring social justice and equality into a fictional world involving plastic toy soldiers.
So, just to confirm - you support having a range of both masculine and feminine heads for Space Marines, and letting players determine how they want to include/represent them?
No, I do not care one bit. I just find it absolutely disgusting that the "males" on the forum are trying to come up with way to be "more inclusive of women in the hobby" by defining what makes marines masculine, and by extension, are defining what female looks like and doesn't look like.
Recently, what bothered me from GW is the Cadian upgrade sprue - they give you a head with dreadlocks, and it was conveniently painted with dark skin. And back in 8th ed, the cover art of white scars codex KILLED me. Talk about slits for eyes, because he's supposed to be some sort of Asian descent. F-cking disgusting.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: And when that reality was that the world was massively more male-dominated, and that you simply referred to things as male *because men were probably the most likely thing you'd be talking about*, that doesn't really mean it was "gender-neutral" all the same.
And this gets to the heart of what any meaningful diversity training needs to undo: the idea that white and/or male isn't just white and male, but also "neutral," or "default." When people see female characters, or characters of color, as "representation" but they don't understand that making a character white or male is also a choice, that's a problem.
It’s always been the case that the players get to have whatever army they want to create.
I like the idea of GW/Warhammer Community spotlighting somebody’s army of/that includes female SMs to reinforce the decades-old standard that it’s a vast and vastly strange galaxy and us gamers can be as creative with our personal hobby projects as our imaginations allow.
The picture itself is innocent - no one has a problem with it other than the fact it doesn't really make lore sense - do whatever you wish with your models though.
Are you calling Crimson a liar? They (oh no! singular they!) said people did have a problem with it, to the point where past pictures have resulted in threats and hate speech.
Seems like a weird thing to do to some random person on the internet they (look! I did it again! singular they!) don't know. Are you sure you know better than they (!) do what has or has not happened to them (!) or others like them (!)?
I don’t think Crimson’s example is very meaningful.
As a moderator myself, I’ve seen over a decade of argument around this topic. It tends to attract a lot of passion and a lot of (sometimes unconscious) insulting implications about whichever “side” one disgarees with. I have argued in the past that the topic should just be banned, outside of people posting their actual hobby work (conversions and homebrew fluff).
Again, the standard of what people think or how they behave IRL simply cannot be measured by anecdotes of online acrimony.
Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.
I agree it is absurd, but it is not unusual at all. Female space marines are like a red rag to a bull to certain people. If you post pics of such conversions online, in many places negativity will follow, sometimes to utterly absurd degree. And these are not some random isolated incidents. If people could do their own stuff in peace, and people would treat this like other canon deviations like making loyalist versions of traitor legions etc, then it wouldn't matter that much (Cool loyalist World Eaters, mate!) But that simply is not the reality where we live in.
I used to think like you, but this insane hostility the mere idea of female marines garners is actually what has changed my mind about the topic. I want GW to officially back female marines to normalise them.
Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters. You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?
Like...did you see that Ravengard Shrike model with the emo hairstyle? Did you see how that was ridiculed? It has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with space marines are supposed to look a certain way.
Sigh...do I need to point out that we have TONS of fething marines that style their hair in various ways? Like, come on. Just look at the space wolves sprue for five fething seconds, I don't know.
What the feth would putting a ponytail on a space marine do that the space wolves having half-gokus and side-braids and mohawks and.....ponytails hasn't already done?
Can you point to the feminine looking space wolf? I think it is clear that...these are Viking themed hairstyles. Induced by actual wolf DNA in their geenseed. It's just further to the idea that you can't actually make a space marine look female by changing it's hair. IMO though - space wolves do look pretty stupid.
Again, the standard of what people think or how they behave IRL simply cannot be measured by anecdotes of online acrimony.
I'm not saying it does. But it's an independent problem if people are getting harassed online for posting pictures of female space marines, or if they are having those pictures deleted because it's "too controversial," even if it never happens to them in real life.
The picture itself is innocent - no one has a problem with it other than the fact it doesn't really make lore sense
So why was their picture taken down? Why, when *I* saw it, were there a bunch of comments being snarky about it being a woman Astartes, despite me also seeing plenty of "non-canon" colour schemes and designs in that group?
The picture is fine, because the model is fine. It's just a different head in some power armour.
Polonius wrote:
Sgt_Smudge wrote: And when that reality was that the world was massively more male-dominated, and that you simply referred to things as male *because men were probably the most likely thing you'd be talking about*, that doesn't really mean it was "gender-neutral" all the same.
And this gets to the heart of what any meaningful diversity training needs to undo: the idea that white and/or male isn't just white and male, but also "neutral," or "default." When people see female characters, or characters of color, as "representation" but they don't understand that making a character white or male is also a choice, that's a problem.
Yes, absolutely true. "White male" isn't neutral or default, and so having non-white and non-male representation isn't "unnatural" or "forced diversity", and breaking away from that idea is very important to meaningful discussion on the matter.
Still a bit miffed that the 'mutation that allows some chapters to recruit women' wasn't used. Its about the only one that doesn't require Cawl to pluck yet more brand new things from his waste port.
Manchu wrote: I don’t think Crimson’s example is very meaningful.
As a moderator myself, I’ve seen over a decade of argument around this topic. It tends to attract a lot of passion and a lot of (sometimes unconscious) insulting implications about whichever “side” one disgarees with. I have argued in the past that the topic should just be banned, outside of people posting their actual hobby work (conversions and homebrew fluff).
Again, the standard of what people think or how they behave IRL simply cannot be measured by anecdotes of online acrimony.
Oh, I dunno, Manchu, we haven't seen a repeat of the DocThunder situation for a while, so things are improving!
IanMalcolmAbs wrote:Can you point to the feminine looking space wolf? I think it is clear that...these are Viking themed hairstyles. Induced by actual wolf DNA in their geenseed. It's just further to the idea that you can't actually make a space marine look female by changing it's hair. IMO though - space wolves do look pretty stupid.
You never mentioned "feminine". You said "You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?", as if a ponytail would make a Space Marine less of a "monster" - or, more specifically, in regards to your claims about them being agender (not asexual), that they would be gendered for having a ponytail.
The picture itself is innocent - no one has a problem with it other than the fact it doesn't really make lore sense - do whatever you wish with your models though.
Are you calling Crimson a liar? They (oh no! singular they!) said people did have a problem with it, to the point where past pictures have resulted in threats and hate speech.
Seems like a weird thing to do to some random person on the internet they (look! I did it again! singular they!) don't know. Are you sure you know better than they (!) do what has or has not happened to them (!) or others like them (!)?
I think you are misunderstanding the issue here - the issue is facebook having the power to ban here. Imagine having a Facebook group with lots of people discussing this topic much much like Dakka? Suddenly a bunch of internet trolls start posting in a certain way as to rile up those passionate about their space marines (some people are really passionate about space marines mind you - myself included) it just turns into a barking war - people get banned - the group might get disbanded. There is no reason to take that risk. Just ban the topic. It's essentially - ban the topic or facebook will ban you.
You must understand. The majority of interest in this topic is not genuine. These are toys...I'm honestly surprised they have allowed this topic to be discussed. Though everyone is staying pretty behaved.
if people are getting harassed online for posting pictures of female space marines, or if they are having those pictures deleted because it's "too controversial”
Those are two different things. Arguably, the first doesn’t really happen. The second one happens not because gamers hate women, or whatever, but because gamers love to argue online past all reasonable standards of civility and this particular topic is a lightning rod for that — as Polonius mentioned, not over the idea of female SM themselves, but over the idea of what GW ought to do, make, focus on. We argue the same way about, and just as endlessly, about X or Y faction getting too little or too much support, etc.
If you want to do lady marines then go for it your hobby your rules ( if your against this but happy with any custom elements in your 40k (custom chapters regiments etc) you need to have a think about that)
That said I voted no
It’s not for me, I don’t see anything cool or fun about it and so many people do it that it’s not even a good way to make my dudes different and special.
But as long as your not trying to get gw to change the lore then go for it.
As a setting I don’t see the issue with having male “masculine” space marines and female “feminine“ sisters of battle (both hit the monastic warrior order theme)
I mean the 9th edition trailer where you had both a marine and SOB facing down the destroyer Lord together looked amazing.
In the end just because you or I think some thing is cool I don’t think that’s a good reason to change a setting to shoe horn in that cool thing.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: And when that reality was that the world was massively more male-dominated, and that you simply referred to things as male *because men were probably the most likely thing you'd be talking about*, that doesn't really mean it was "gender-neutral" all the same.
And this gets to the heart of what any meaningful diversity training needs to undo: the idea that white and/or male isn't just white and male, but also "neutral," or "default." When people see female characters, or characters of color, as "representation" but they don't understand that making a character white or male is also a choice, that's a problem.
Yes, absolutely true. "White male" isn't neutral or default, and so having non-white and non-male representation isn't "unnatural" or "forced diversity", and breaking away from that idea is very important to meaningful discussion on the matter.
I'd like to add that if you can actually "see" the race (edit: I can see how that can be misleading in 40k setting: here, race != faction) of your 28mm scale miniature figurines, chances are the problem is within the player and not the models.
Similarly, if you are trying to visually set apart 'gender' or 'sex' from a non-gendered, non-specific plastic toys, then chances are you are either looking for boobs, hourglass figure or pretty face.
IanMalcolmAbs wrote:Can you point to the feminine looking space wolf? I think it is clear that...these are Viking themed hairstyles. Induced by actual wolf DNA in their geenseed. It's just further to the idea that you can't actually make a space marine look female by changing it's hair. IMO though - space wolves do look pretty stupid.
You never mentioned "feminine". You said "You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?", as if a ponytail would make a Space Marine less of a "monster" - or, more specifically, in regards to your claims about them being agender (not asexual), that they would be gendered for having a ponytail.
Ponytails don't have genders. It's hair.
The idea is about femininity isn't it? To make the models look more female? I assure you...hair is on the menu. Compare a space marine to a sister of battle. What is different?
Sgt_Smudge wrote: And when that reality was that the world was massively more male-dominated, and that you simply referred to things as male *because men were probably the most likely thing you'd be talking about*, that doesn't really mean it was "gender-neutral" all the same.
And this gets to the heart of what any meaningful diversity training needs to undo: the idea that white and/or male isn't just white and male, but also "neutral," or "default." When people see female characters, or characters of color, as "representation" but they don't understand that making a character white or male is also a choice, that's a problem.
Yes, absolutely true. "White male" isn't neutral or default, and so having non-white and non-male representation isn't "unnatural" or "forced diversity", and breaking away from that idea is very important to meaningful discussion on the matter.
I'd like to add that if you can actually "see" the race of your 28mm scale miniature figurines, chances are the problem is within the player and not the models.
Similarly, if you are trying to assign 'gender' or 'sex' onto a non-gendered, non-specific plastic toys, then chances are you are either looking for boobs, hourglass figure or pretty face.
BaronIveagh wrote: Oh, I dunno, Manchu, we haven't seen a repeat of the DocThunder situation for a while, so things are improving!
The way that whole thing ended was, Doc Thunder and I argued about the issue for a long time like in this thread.
But then something weird happened: we decided to collaborate on a homebrew backstory about his female Space Marines. We even co-wrote some fiction about it that is probably still around here somewhere.
That more or less ended the argument.
Go figure, spending your time doing the hobby rather than arguing about it! And I haven’t heard anything much from Doc since those days,
if people are getting harassed online for posting pictures of female space marines, or if they are having those pictures deleted because it's "too controversial”
Those are two different things. Arguably, the first doesn’t really happen.
So you're saying anyone saying it has happened, whether to them or to others, is lying, or at best mistaken?
If it's all a big hoax that people get harassed for posting pictures of female space marines, why would there be any need to delete those pictures? The only reason to do it is because the topic is apparently so controversial that you can't even allow the picture to be posted because it's going to set people off so much.
Can't really have this one both ways I don't think. If there's a need to ban pictures of female space marines because it sets people off too much, that means that, well, people are getting set off too much by pictures of female space marines.
I'm a big fan of corvus beli's infinity models. Pan-o has a lot of religious crusader/ knights templar themed power armoured troops. They're mixed gender whilst still adhering to the broad themes of the knightly orders. Look at the brotherhood of steel in fallout. They have female 'knights'. Look at starship troopers. It's always 'sir'.
Admittedly, 40k has different mood music. Its darker and grittier and dirtier. Older too. Industrial metal versus synth.The Imperium is a horrible, fascist dystopia. One 'modern' twist to the formula of one part of it doesn't unmake that formula or reduce or change the sheer horribleness of the setting. It just means everyone gets their hands dirty. It doesn't unmade an eternity of war and futility or change the mood music of the setting.
As folks say, you can do whatever you want. And you can. Hell, I just converted my justiciar to be walking a bulldog on a lead. People love it. Even though it is firmly based in 'silly', I get zero hate. I guess 'humour' and animal sentimentality gives me a get out of jail free card to step all over the lore for this? I just wish the lore in this case was more open ended, since you can do anything else with SMs, and folks who want to do fsms had something in the lore that would allow them to create the projects they want without the associated negativity that always comes their way - and fsm generates way more heat than almost anything else. Give the haters less ammo.
Manchu, do you have proof that people aren't harassed online for posting female SM? Because there's plenty out there that says otherwise. Just because you personally don't know anyone who makes female SM doesn't mean their experiences aren't there. IIRC scotsman said they were a recipient of harassing messages for posting a female SM or you could look up Wulfhidr's Angels of Purification, an entire project around normalising female SM because of the harassment they received.
I'm actually appalled at this comment - I hope this was just a banter playing the other side of the argument.
The point is that there is no reason why the society has to define whether a person is male or female based on their outward appearances. This is outright flawed and discriminatory.
If a male dresses up as a female, is that person a male or female?
If a female wears a man's suit, is that person a female or male?
If a transgender went through gender change from she to he, and yet still wears "female" clothing (i.e. a sun dress), is that person female or male?
If a man with clinical "man-boobs" but otherwise fit, is that person male or female?
Let me reiterate: IT IS WRONG TO JUDGE ANYONE BY THEIR OUTWARD APPEARANCE.
There is nothing wrong with wanting or having "female", or 'quasi-female' for that matter, in your collection, but don't argue that it's for inclusivity purposes.
It's an honest question, I'm trying to understand and build a map of how this works. I'm asking because if your society defines woman in a specific way and you don't present that then what are you? If you don't act the social construct then you can't claim to be that gender, because that's all gender is. Could you describe what a woman is for me?
The picture itself is innocent - no one has a problem with it other than the fact it doesn't really make lore sense - do whatever you wish with your models though.
Are you calling Crimson a liar? They (oh no! singular they!) said people did have a problem with it, to the point where past pictures have resulted in threats and hate speech.
Seems like a weird thing to do to some random person on the internet they (look! I did it again! singular they!) don't know. Are you sure you know better than they (!) do what has or has not happened to them (!) or others like them (!)?
I think you are misunderstanding the issue here - the issue is facebook having the power to ban here. Imagine having a Facebook group with lots of people discussing this topic much much like Dakka? Suddenly a bunch of internet trolls start posting in a certain way as to rile up those passionate about their space marines (some people are really passionate about space marines mind you - myself included) it just turns into a barking war - people get banned - the group might get disbanded. There is no reason to take that risk. Just ban the topic. It's essentially - ban the topic or facebook will ban you.
No, that's still pretty awful moderation. At that point, you may as well just ban every topic, because if you're that worried about trolls, and you won't actually get rid of them, then any discussion will just become troll bait.
It doesn't matter if you're pre-emptively deleting because of trolls, or because trolls already came in and ruined it - the solution is to ban the trolls.
Manchu wrote:
if people are getting harassed online for posting pictures of female space marines, or if they are having those pictures deleted because it's "too controversial”
Arguably, the first doesn’t really happen.
Arguably, it very much does.
skchsan wrote:Similarly, if you are trying to assign 'gender' or 'sex' onto a non-gendered, non-specific plastic toys, then chances are you are either looking for boobs, hourglass figure or pretty face.
I don't know. I assign male gender to my plastic toys, but I'm not looking for pendulous penises when I do it.
IanMalcolmAbs wrote:Can you point to the feminine looking space wolf? I think it is clear that...these are Viking themed hairstyles. Induced by actual wolf DNA in their geenseed. It's just further to the idea that you can't actually make a space marine look female by changing it's hair. IMO though - space wolves do look pretty stupid.
You never mentioned "feminine". You said "You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?", as if a ponytail would make a Space Marine less of a "monster" - or, more specifically, in regards to your claims about them being agender (not asexual), that they would be gendered for having a ponytail.
Ponytails don't have genders. It's hair.
The idea is about femininity isn't it? To make the models look more female? I assure you...hair is on the menu. Compare a space marine to a sister of battle. What is different?
Not all Sisters of Battle have hair. One of my favourite heads on the new Battle Sisters sprue is bald.
However, I would comfortably say that most people would define it as feminine.
Hair is not the arbiter of femininity. I mean, if you look on the new Battle Sister models, they cover a pretty nice range of faces and face shapes. If that were coupled with the Space Marines range of heads, you've got a pretty nice list of heads to choose and differentiate from.
I'm actually appalled at this comment - I hope this was just a banter playing the other side of the argument.
The point is that there is no reason why the society has to define whether a person is male or female based on their outward appearances. This is outright flawed and discriminatory.
If a male dresses up as a female, is that person a male or female?
If a female wears a man's suit, is that person a female or male?
If a transgender went through gender change from she to he, and yet still wears "female" clothing (i.e. a sun dress), is that person female or male?
If a man with clinical "man-boobs" but otherwise fit, is that person male or female?
Let me reiterate: IT IS WRONG TO JUDGE ANYONE BY THEIR OUTWARD APPEARANCE.
There is nothing wrong with wanting or having "female", or 'quasi-female' for that matter, in your collection, but don't argue that it's for inclusivity purposes.
It's an honest question, I'm trying to understand and build a map of how this works. I'm asking because if your society defines woman in a specific way and you don't present that then what are you? If you don't act the social construct then you can't claim to be that gender, because that's all gender is. Could you describe what a woman is for me?
I can't define what a woman is for you, but I can tell you that (human) females are members of of the human race who are born of XX chromosomes and have reproductive organ capable of giving birth to an offspring.
Having boobs and pretty face and slender body does NOT define what a female is.
Tiberias wrote:Why not go all the way and eliminate all traces of inequality, sexism and issues of representation that apparently exist within this hobby.
I mean, yes?? Don't we want a hobby which doesn't have sexism and inequality?
I'm trying to see if there's a trick question in this.
Let's make an end times event where the necrons win and remain the only faction, so you only have genderless robots left. Lore can be changed after all, and all that GW publishes is then established lore and therefore automatically equally as good as anything that came before.
First, Necrons aren't genderless - well, not all of them. The higher ranking Necrons have genders.
Second, if that's the only way you can see the hobby being truly equal, then I think you're perhaps a little bit missing the point. Either that, or deliberately so.
You are right of course I deeply apologize. High ranking necrons can have genders which could possibly be grounds for sexism and inequality and representation issues, so let me correct myself. Let's make an end times event where the Tyranids win and remain the only faction left. So players have to play different asexual gribblies that eat each other....we have now achieved maximum inclusion and everyone will be happy. Lore wouldn't be an issue in this case like you surely demonstrated.
Yup, as I suspected, the latter.
Enjoy your time under the bridge.
skchsan wrote:Precisely. That's all I'm saying. Don't justify that you put feminine head on a stereotypically male figure because [INCLUSION! YAY!] Do what you want, but don't spew your (non specific 'you' in case miscommunication) nonsensical crusade to bring social justice and equality into a fictional world involving plastic toy soldiers.
So, just to confirm - you support having a range of both masculine and feminine heads for Space Marines, and letting players determine how they want to include/represent them?
Polonius wrote:
Tiberias wrote: You are right of course I deeply apologize. High ranking necrons can have genders which could possibly be grounds for sexism and inequality and representation issues, so let me correct myself. Let's make an end times event where the Tyranids win and remain the only faction left. So players have to play different asexual gribblies that eat each other....we have now achieved maximum inclusion and everyone will be happy. Lore wouldn't be an issue in this case like you surely demonstrated.
Are you aware you're basically making the same joke that Michael Scott did in an early episode of the office about diversity? And that the meta joke 15 years ago was that the joke had been stale for a decade?
I was a teenager making hyperbolic jokes about political correctness 25 years ago.
Get a new joke.
Now wait a second, I thought lore consistency and continuity does not matter and old lore has no bearing on new lore whatsoever. So what's wrong with my proposition? I'm just asking for logical consistency here.
yukishiro1 wrote:Can't really have this one both ways I don't think. If there's a need to ban pictures of female space marines because it sets people off too much, that means that, well, people are getting set off too much by pictures of female space marines.
Exactly.
Irkjoe wrote:It's an honest question, I'm trying to understand and build a map of how this works. I'm asking because if your society defines woman in a specific way and you don't present that then what are you? If you don't act the social construct then you can't claim to be that gender, because that's all gender is. Could you describe what a woman is for me?
But social constructs are just that - constructed. There's nothing inherent about them. If you want to change that construct, whatever you do under the identity of that construct is contributing to the shape of that construct.
I can't define what a woman is for you, but I can tell you that (human) females are members of of the human race who are born of XX chromosomes and have reproductive organ capable of giving birth to an offspring.
Uhhh, not quite there. For example, there are humans born of XX chromosomes that don't have reproductive organs capable of giving birth to an offspring that would conventionally be called and may even identify as female/women.
skchsan wrote:I can't define what a woman is for you, but I can tell you that (human) females are members of of the human race who are born of XX chromosomes and have reproductive organ capable of giving birth to an offspring.
Having boobs and pretty face and slender body does NOT define what a female is.
Agreed with the latter, but I also have to disagree with the "reproductive organ capable of giving birth to offspring."
Infertility doesn't preclude someone's sex.
Just a note.
Tiberias wrote:
Polonius wrote:
Tiberias wrote: You are right of course I deeply apologize. High ranking necrons can have genders which could possibly be grounds for sexism and inequality and representation issues, so let me correct myself. Let's make an end times event where the Tyranids win and remain the only faction left. So players have to play different asexual gribblies that eat each other....we have now achieved maximum inclusion and everyone will be happy. Lore wouldn't be an issue in this case like you surely demonstrated.
Are you aware you're basically making the same joke that Michael Scott did in an early episode of the office about diversity? And that the meta joke 15 years ago was that the joke had been stale for a decade?
I was a teenager making hyperbolic jokes about political correctness 25 years ago.
Get a new joke.
Now wait a second, I thought lore consistency and continuity does not matter and old lore has no bearing on new lore whatsoever. So what's wrong with my proposition? I'm just asking for logical consistency here.
Because you're being deliberately hyperbolic and inflammatory.
I can't define what a woman is for you, but I can tell you that (human) females are members of of the human race who are born of XX chromosomes and have reproductive organ capable of giving birth to an offspring.
Uhhh, not quite there. For example, there are humans born of XX chromosomes that don't have reproductive organs capable of giving birth to an offspring that would conventionally be called and may even identify as female/women.
Touche. I did fall short on that point.
I limited my definition to 'assigned gender' only.
Gert wrote: Manchu, do you have proof that people aren't harassed online for posting female SM?
I’ve been a moderator here for over a decade. I have seen and dealt with all of this stuff for ages. Even before I was a moderator, one of my first big debates on this site was about female SMs. This wealth of experience has shown me that people generally do not get harassed for sharing their hobby projects, all else being equal. Conversely, people do get caught up in highly acrimonious online fights around abstract discussions like this one, and no doubt some of them feel that they are the victims of harassment (and maybe they truly are) without thinking carefully about how their own participation might feel like harassment to others.
The surest cure for it all is to drop the hypothetical debate and get down to actually doing hobby activities. Build an actual army. Write some actual fluff. Good luck getting ANY feedback, TBH. If only people’s hobby blogs got as much attention as this stupid thread.
Want female SMs? Go make them! No one can stop you! If you do a good job, there is a better chance others will like them, too, rather than dislike them. But it doesn’t really matter what others think one way or the other.
Want everyone to agree with you? That’s a different issue and not something any of us are entitled to.
skchsan wrote: I can't define what a woman is for you, but I can tell you that (human) females are members of of the human race who are born of XX chromosomes and have reproductive organ capable of giving birth to an offspring.
Having boobs and pretty face and slender body does NOT define what a female is.
Agreed, biology.
@sgt Smudge
So there's really no difference between genders at all in your opinion. They can be anything at any time.
I'm a big fan of corvus beli's infinity models. Pan-o has a lot of religious crusader/ knights templar themed power armoured troops. They're mixed gender whilst still adhering to the broad themes of the knightly orders. Look at the brotherhood of steel in fallout. They have female 'knights'. Look at starship troopers. It's always 'sir'.
Admittedly, 40k has different mood music. Its darker and grittier and dirtier. Older too. Industrial metal versus synth.The Imperium is a horrible, fascist dystopia. One 'modern' twist to the formula of one part of it doesn't unmake that formula or reduce or change the sheer horribleness of the setting. It just means everyone gets their hands dirty. It doesn't unmade an eternity of war and futility or change the mood music of the setting.
As folks say, you can do whatever you want. And you can. Hell, I just converted my justiciar to be walking a bulldog on a lead. People love it. Even though it is firmly based in 'silly', I get zero hate. I guess 'humour' and animal sentimentality gives me a get out of jail free card to step all over the lore for this? I just wish the lore in this case was more open ended, since you can do anything else with SMs, and folks who want to do fsms had something in the lore that would allow them to create the projects they want without the associated negativity that always comes their way - and fsm generates way more heat than almost anything else. Give the haters less ammo.
Funny you should mention Infinity because they removed the male order of Knights known as Father Knights and replaced them with Knights of Justice. It was not a good change, if for no other reason than all the male Knights are now OOP and the only one left is a female swinging her weapon in a very girly anime pose.
And as someone who now has 4 Infinity sectorials the lore is the worst part of the game. It's just bland.
skchsan wrote:I can't define what a woman is for you, but I can tell you that (human) females are members of of the human race who are born of XX chromosomes and have reproductive organ capable of giving birth to an offspring.
Having boobs and pretty face and slender body does NOT define what a female is.
Agreed with the latter, but I also have to disagree with the "reproductive organ capable of giving birth to offspring."
Infertility doesn't preclude someone's sex.
Just a note.
Tiberias wrote:
Polonius wrote:
Tiberias wrote: You are right of course I deeply apologize. High ranking necrons can have genders which could possibly be grounds for sexism and inequality and representation issues, so let me correct myself. Let's make an end times event where the Tyranids win and remain the only faction left. So players have to play different asexual gribblies that eat each other....we have now achieved maximum inclusion and everyone will be happy. Lore wouldn't be an issue in this case like you surely demonstrated.
Are you aware you're basically making the same joke that Michael Scott did in an early episode of the office about diversity? And that the meta joke 15 years ago was that the joke had been stale for a decade?
I was a teenager making hyperbolic jokes about political correctness 25 years ago.
Get a new joke.
Now wait a second, I thought lore consistency and continuity does not matter and old lore has no bearing on new lore whatsoever. So what's wrong with my proposition? I'm just asking for logical consistency here.
Because you're being deliberately hyperbolic and inflammatory.
Don't play coy.
Just because you don't like my idea, doesn't mean it's not worth implementing. I'm just using the same logic you did when you argued that lore consistency and continuity is not as important as inclusion.
My idea would solve the perceived problem for sure, also what's the problem with Tyranids? Just because they are non human aliens, doesn't mean they can't be the face of the setting.
Edit: after all it's just a fantasy setting and lore can be written in any way, doesn't make it worse, right?
Gert wrote: Manchu, do you have proof that people aren't harassed online for posting female SM?
I’ve been a moderator here for over a decade. I have seen and dealt with all of this stuff for ages. Even before I was a moderator, one of my first big debates on this site was about female SMs. This wealth of experience has shown me that people generally do not get harassed for sharing their hobby projects, all else being equal.
So what are you saying about the examples of ones where they have been harassed?
and no doubt some of them feel that they are the victims of harassment (and maybe they truly are) without thinking carefully about how their own participation might feel like harassment to others.
Why would participation feel like harassment?
Want female SMs? Go make them! No one can stop you! If you do a good job, there is a hood chance others will like them, too. But it doesn’t really matter what others think one way or the other.
But surely if some topics are gaining more... incendiary comments, shall we say, than others, shouldn't something done about that?
Irkjoe wrote:@sgt Smudge
So there's really no difference between genders at all in your opinion. They can be anything at any time.
Genders? Yes, absolutely. Gender is a spectrum, and you choose where you fall on it, depending on the traits that you feel you exhibit/resonate with. It's as simple as that.
I'm rather happy with my gender, personally.
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Tiberias wrote:Just because you don't like my idea, doesn't mean it's not worth implementing.
It's not that I don't like your idea. It's that your idea is completely and utterly missing the trees for the forest, and most likely deliberately misrepresentative of both my own comments, and the real world.
I'm just using the same logic you did when you argued that lore consistency and continuity is not as important as inclusion.
You're right. But guess what - your solution wasn't inclusive. It was *reductive*.
My idea would solve the perceived problem for sure
It absolutely wouldn't, but you know that.
Edit: after all it's just a fantasy setting and lore can be written in any way, doesn't make it worse, right?
Actually, that's a pretty major misunderstanding of my points about the ephemerality of lore.
Lore can be whatever it is. You just need to be able to justify *why* it is, and *what* that adds that determines its necessity and value.
Because even when people think they are being polite, they end up posting things like “in a sane world, everyone would agree with me” — indicating that people who don’t are insane. This isn’t done out of malice. It just goes to how on topics about what GW “should do” people tend to think their own opinions are obviously correct and that the fact that there are any others is outrageous to some degree.
Sure I can: the Tyranids are arguably the most successful species in 40k right now, so it's not that far of that they win.
Also it's about time that a non humanoid species becomes the front runner in a major scifi setting. Who says you can't identify yourself with the hive mind. Doesn't always have to be human centric. Cause again, as one of your main points before was: lore consistency and continuity doesn't matter.
This is my main issue by the way. In a vaccum I couldn't care less if marines are depicted as male or female. But lore consistency matters
Because even when people think they are being polite, they end up posting things like “in a sane world, everyone would agree with me” — indicating that people who don’t are insane. This isn’t done out of malice. It just goes to how on topics about what GW “should do” people tend to think their own opinions are obviously correct and that the fact that there are any others is outrageous to some degree.
My bad, I think I misread what you said about "participation" - I thought you were saying that just posting women Space Marines could feel like harassment, and that very much confused me!
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Tiberias wrote: Who says you can't identify yourself with the hive mind. Doesn't always have to be human centric.
Ah yes, because comparing women to a fictional alien hive mind race is a fair comparison /s
Cause again, as one of your main points before was: lore consistency and continuity doesn't matter.
You literally don't have a clue what my point is, do you?
@Manchu
I've never seen a Grizzly Bear but I can say with some certainty they exist since others have seen Grizzly Bears and recorded their existence.
You're a moderator on one website and are saying that nobody ever gets harassing messages when they make female SM. Do you check everyone's PM's to see if there are people sending harassing messages? What about Twitter/Reddit/Instagram PM's? You have taken your personal experience and extrapolated that onto the entire community. Posters have given examples of either themselves or others receiving harassing messages but since you personally have never seen any, then it doesn't happen.
Dakka's definitely one of the friendlier, less toxic places on the internet to talk about warhammer. Even though I'm sure it doesn't feel that way sometimes if you're a mod here!
Because even when people think they are being polite, they end up posting things like “in a sane world, everyone would agree with me” — indicating that people who don’t are insane. This isn’t done out of malice. It just goes to how on topics about what GW “should do” people tend to think their own opinions are obviously correct and that the fact that there are any others is outrageous to some degree.
My bad, I think I misread what you said about "participation" - I thought you were saying that just posting women Space Marines could feel like harassment, and that very much confused me!
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Tiberias wrote: Who says you can't identify yourself with the hive mind. Doesn't always have to be human centric.
Ah yes, because comparing women to a fictional alien hive mind race is a fair comparison /s
Cause again, as one of your main points before was: lore consistency and continuity doesn't matter.
You literally don't have a clue what my point is, do you?
Jeez you really like to paint people in a certain light. I didn't compare women to the hive mind, which is a ridiculous accusation in the first place, I made a point that if lore consistency and continuity does not matter then all bets are off and my proposition is as valid as yours.
So what is your point exactly? I'm dying to know since you still haven't answered me as to what problem exactly we are trying to address here.
Because even when people think they are being polite, they end up posting things like “in a sane world, everyone would agree with me” — indicating that people who don’t are insane. This isn’t done out of malice. It just goes to how on topics about what GW “should do” people tend to think their own opinions are obviously correct and that the fact that there are any others is outrageous to some degree.
My bad, I think I misread what you said about "participation" - I thought you were saying that just posting women Space Marines could feel like harassment, and that very much confused me!
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Tiberias wrote: Who says you can't identify yourself with the hive mind. Doesn't always have to be human centric.
Ah yes, because comparing women to a fictional alien hive mind race is a fair comparison /s
Cause again, as one of your main points before was: lore consistency and continuity doesn't matter.
You literally don't have a clue what my point is, do you?
Jeez you really like to paint people in a certain light. I didn't compare women to the hive mind, which is a ridiculous accusation in the first place, I made a point that if lore consistency and continuity does not matter then all bets are off and my proposition is as valid as yours.
So what is your point exactly? I'm dying to know since you still haven't answered me as to what problem exactly we are trying to address here.
He did the same with me. I tried making a point that if the fluff could be that readily changed, then it should be fine making everyone a squig. He decided that meant that I thought women are comparable to squigs.
Because even when people think they are being polite, they end up posting things like “in a sane world, everyone would agree with me” — indicating that people who don’t are insane. This isn’t done out of malice. It just goes to how on topics about what GW “should do” people tend to think their own opinions are obviously correct and that the fact that there are any others is outrageous to some degree.
My bad, I think I misread what you said about "participation" - I thought you were saying that just posting women Space Marines could feel like harassment, and that very much confused me!
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Tiberias wrote: Who says you can't identify yourself with the hive mind. Doesn't always have to be human centric.
Ah yes, because comparing women to a fictional alien hive mind race is a fair comparison /s
Cause again, as one of your main points before was: lore consistency and continuity doesn't matter.
You literally don't have a clue what my point is, do you?
Jeez you really like to paint people in a certain light. I didn't compare women to the hive mind, which is a ridiculous accusation in the first place, I made a point that if lore consistency and continuity does not matter then all bets are off and my proposition is as valid as yours.
So what is your point exactly? I'm dying to know since you still haven't answered me as to what problem exactly we are trying to address here.
He did the same with me. I tried making a point that if the fluff could be that readily changed, then it should be fine making everyone a squig. He decided that meant that I thought women are squigs.
Hence why I called him out on being intellectually dishonest in the other thread, there were other examples as well in there. At least in this conversation and topic. I am not implying that he always argues this way in every topic, that would be unfair.
Tiberias wrote:Jeez you really like to paint people in a certain light. I didn't compare women to the hive mind
No, you just happened to pitch the Hive Mind using the same terms I did to pitch the importance of women Astartes.
The difference is that women are real. Tyranids aren't.
which is a ridiculous accusation in the first place, I made a point that if lore consistency and continuity does not matter then all bets are off and my proposition is as valid as yours.
This isn't about "lore consistency or continuity" though. This is about how apparently making every faction Tyranids would solve all the problems in the community.
So what is your point exactly? I'm dying to know since you still haven't answered me as to what problem exactly we are trying to address here.
As I just said - the fact that you're acting like making all factions Tyranids would fix every problem in the hobby, which is very clearly a reductionist take on how adding women Astartes would *help* make women feel more welcome, and *help* in removing the all-male stigma.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:He did the same with me.
"He" didn't do anything.
I tried making a point that if the fluff could be that readily changed, then it should be fine making everyone a squig. He decided that meant that I thought women are comparable to squigs.
Play stupid reductio-ad-absurdam games, get stupid prizes, I suppose.
Obviously there's a difference between changing the fluff to include *women* as opposed to changing it to include *squigs*. Or am I dealing with actual children here?
And also, "he" said nothing.
Tiberias wrote:Hence why I called him out on being intellectually dishonest in the other thread, there were other examples as well in there.
You named none of those examples, of which there were many apparently? You didn't name one.
At least in this conversation and topic. I am not implying that he always argues this way in every topic, that would be unfair.
"He" doesn't argue this way in any topic.
Both of you, maybe turn your sigs on, or read my previous comments. I'm getting real damn tired of this.
Tiberias wrote:Jeez you really like to paint people in a certain light. I didn't compare women to the hive mind
No, you just happened to pitch the Hive Mind using the same terms I did to pitch the importance of women Astartes.
The difference is that women are real. Tyranids aren't.
which is a ridiculous accusation in the first place, I made a point that if lore consistency and continuity does not matter then all bets are off and my proposition is as valid as yours.
This isn't about "lore consistency or continuity" though. This is about how apparently making every faction Tyranids would solve all the problems in the community.
So what is your point exactly? I'm dying to know since you still haven't answered me as to what problem exactly we are trying to address here.
As I just said - the fact that you're acting like making all factions Tyranids would fix every problem in the hobby, which is very clearly a reductionist take on how adding women Astartes would *help* make women feel more welcome, and *help* in removing the all-male stigma.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:He did the same with me.
"He" didn't do anything.
I tried making a point that if the fluff could be that readily changed, then it should be fine making everyone a squig. He decided that meant that I thought women are comparable to squigs.
Play stupid reductio-ad-absurdam games, get stupid prizes, I suppose.
Obviously there's a difference between changing the fluff to include *women* as opposed to changing it to include *squigs*. Or am I dealing with actual children here?
And also, "he" said nothing.
Tiberias wrote:Hence why I called him out on being intellectually dishonest in the other thread, there were other examples as well in there.
You named none of those examples, of which there were many apparently? You didn't name one.
At least in this conversation and topic. I am not implying that he always argues this way in every topic, that would be unfair.
"He" doesn't argue this way in any topic.
Both of you, maybe turn your sigs on, or read my previous comments. I'm getting real damn tired of this.
All things aside did I use a wrong word addressing you? I'm not a native speaker, so I'm sorry if I missed any clues regarding this.
Edit: female astartes are not needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby, decent people interacting with them are needed. What does that have to do with the lore?
Please folks, cool off a bit. This is the sort of stuff that gets threads locked. We've done well to keep things pretty civil up to now, take a step back and stop riling each other up.
Because even when people think they are being polite, they end up posting things like “in a sane world, everyone would agree with me” — indicating that people who don’t are insane. This isn’t done out of malice. It just goes to how on topics about what GW “should do” people tend to think their own opinions are obviously correct and that the fact that there are any others is outrageous to some degree.
My bad, I think I misread what you said about "participation" - I thought you were saying that just posting women Space Marines could feel like harassment, and that very much confused me!
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Tiberias wrote: Who says you can't identify yourself with the hive mind. Doesn't always have to be human centric.
Ah yes, because comparing women to a fictional alien hive mind race is a fair comparison /s
Cause again, as one of your main points before was: lore consistency and continuity doesn't matter.
You literally don't have a clue what my point is, do you?
Jeez you really like to paint people in a certain light. I didn't compare women to the hive mind, which is a ridiculous accusation in the first place, I made a point that if lore consistency and continuity does not matter then all bets are off and my proposition is as valid as yours.
So what is your point exactly? I'm dying to know since you still haven't answered me as to what problem exactly we are trying to address here.
He did the same with me. I tried making a point that if the fluff could be that readily changed, then it should be fine making everyone a squig. He decided that meant that I thought women are comparable to squigs.
But it's self evident that the fluff can be 'that easily changed'. GW have done it and continue to do so. There's no debate about whether it happens, because it factually evidentiarily has and continues to every edition. The indomitus crusade was retconned only within a few years of being created!
The idea that marines are only male is some holy inviable writ of background is a subjective nonsense being perpetuated as some kind of objective truth to protect it ever changing.
The primaris marines are a bigger change to lore than marines recruiting from all of the imperium rather than one side of it. Primarchs becoming immortal giants whose relics couldn't possibly fit on the bodies of the marines who wear/carry them in 40k is a bigger retcon.
Using genetic manipulation and organ transplantation on non male humans in 40k is a trivial difference in comparison to the complete retconn of the Necrontyr (every other form of genetic manipulation/body horror/augmentation is performed on women from servitors to princeps). It's smaller than orks going from marsupial sexually reproducing organisms to fungal/algae lichen hybrids that grow in the ground.
The argument from sacred fluff is no argument at all and GW has proven that with 34 years of continuous retconns of small and large scale. There is no argument to be had here, except that GW retconns and as soon as they do it becomes sacred fluff until they retconn it again and THAT becomes sacred. This argument is an autonomous goal post moving system...
Your point is a combination of ad absurdum and appeal to tradition fallacies.
Tiberias wrote:Jeez you really like to paint people in a certain light. I didn't compare women to the hive mind
No, you just happened to pitch the Hive Mind using the same terms I did to pitch the importance of women Astartes.
The difference is that women are real. Tyranids aren't.
which is a ridiculous accusation in the first place, I made a point that if lore consistency and continuity does not matter then all bets are off and my proposition is as valid as yours.
This isn't about "lore consistency or continuity" though. This is about how apparently making every faction Tyranids would solve all the problems in the community.
So what is your point exactly? I'm dying to know since you still haven't answered me as to what problem exactly we are trying to address here.
As I just said - the fact that you're acting like making all factions Tyranids would fix every problem in the hobby, which is very clearly a reductionist take on how adding women Astartes would *help* make women feel more welcome, and *help* in removing the all-male stigma.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:He did the same with me.
"He" didn't do anything.
I tried making a point that if the fluff could be that readily changed, then it should be fine making everyone a squig. He decided that meant that I thought women are comparable to squigs.
Play stupid reductio-ad-absurdam games, get stupid prizes, I suppose.
Obviously there's a difference between changing the fluff to include *women* as opposed to changing it to include *squigs*. Or am I dealing with actual children here?
And also, "he" said nothing.
Tiberias wrote:Hence why I called him out on being intellectually dishonest in the other thread, there were other examples as well in there.
You named none of those examples, of which there were many apparently? You didn't name one.
At least in this conversation and topic. I am not implying that he always argues this way in every topic, that would be unfair.
"He" doesn't argue this way in any topic.
Both of you, maybe turn your sigs on, or read my previous comments. I'm getting real damn tired of this.
All things aside did I use a wrong word addressing you? I'm not a native speaker, so I'm sorry if I missed any clues regarding this.
Edit: female astartes are not needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby, decent people interacting with them are needed. What does that have to do with the lore?
Their signature notes "they/them" as their preferred pronouns. It is one of the problems with speaking via text in only small snippets combined with the "default" in most places just being assumed to be he/him. I know of a few forums that let you place preferred gender tags, but otherwise it is usually a guessing game and people go to the above mentioned default.
Tiberias wrote: Who says you can't identify yourself with the hive mind. Doesn't always have to be human centric.
Pointing out that it's generally more difficult for people to identify with a faction that holds values that are alien to them is an interesting way to own the people arguing that half the human population shouldn't be barred from representation in half the armies and model releases in the game.
Representation doesn't matter, that's why the most popular factions within essentially any game with a role-playing element are those factions that have appearances, morals, personalities and motivations that most closely resemble the people playing them at any given gak wait no
Their signature notes "they/them" as their preferred pronouns. It is one of the problems with speaking via text in only small snippets combined with the "default" in most places just being assumed to be he/him. I know of a few forums that let you place preferred gender tags, but otherwise it is usually a guessing game and people go to the above mentioned default.
I just call everyone 'they' online these days. It's gender neutral so should work for everyone.
skchsan wrote:"Stop thinking you can solve women's problems" is the point he's making.
Stop assuming every women in this world are damsel in distress awaiting your rescue.
If an individual fitting your definition of woman wants to get into this hobby, she will do it with or without your "assistance".
I don't think anyone's doing this for "damsel in distress" points. They're doing this because they're sick and tired of people's models being treated as inferior for having a different head. They're doing this because their friends and loved ones have been made to feel like they don't belong in this hobby. They're doing this for more than "aw jeez, let me white knight for you".
Tiberias wrote:All things aside did I use a wrong word addressing you? I'm not a native speaker, so I'm sorry if I missed any clues regarding this.
I am not a "he". My pronouns are they/them - I've put them in my signature, but if you missed that, then I'm happy to mention it now. I have mentioned it several times previously, however.
I do appreciate the apology.
Edit: female astartes are not needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby, decent people interacting with them are needed. What does that have to do with the lore?
Because it's the "un"-decent people who use the lore as a weapon to exclude people - such as what happened with Crimson. I totally agree that women Astartes *alone* don't fix the problem, but they do make a start, and are a sign of "we'd rather include you and encourage you to enjoy things" instead of "suck it up buttercup, that's the lore and it won't change".
Funny you should mention Infinity because they removed the male order of Knights known as Father Knights and replaced them with Knights of Justice. It was not a good change, if for no other reason than all the male Knights are now OOP and the only one left is a female swinging her weapon in a very girly anime pose.
And as someone who now has 4 Infinity sectorials the lore is the worst part of the game. It's just bland.
Infinity Lore is all over the place... The core ia serious and has a lot of interesting ideas... But its also full of cheeky fluff.
Edit: female astartes are not needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby, decent people interacting with them are needed. What does that have to do with the lore?
Because it's the "un"-decent people who use the lore as a weapon to exclude people - such as what happened with Crimson. I totally agree that women Astartes *alone* don't fix the problem, but they do make a start, and are a sign of "we'd rather include you and encourage you to enjoy things" instead of "suck it up buttercup, that's the lore and it won't change".
GW has already shown off female Stormcasts, Imperial Guardswomen and are giving Sisters of Battle much more of a spotlight. How is that not a start? If there were literally no women in the setting at all you'd have a point, but there seems to be quite a bit without the Astarte's help.
I'm not sure making FSM canon will remove the harassment problem; if people want to harass they will harass, even if it is canon. Which is certainly dreadful, but that is how people are, unfortunately. It might even result in more harassment, as there would be an increase of bad blood, similar to the contempt for AoS. The problem isn't a lack of FSM, the problem are anti-social jerks. What you are proposing is a band-aid over gangrenous leg. It ignores a deeper problem.
Fun fact, again, to prove how little you know of what you spoke about with such certainties: XX and XY do not determine the sex. There are female XY and male XX...
So, even under the current lore, a person with XX chromosomes can became a Marine (because the process description talk about "male tissues" - that do not exist - and hormones - which are synthetic anyway).
And I love the fact that we're back at "donkey-caves are the problem, not what gives them credibility". Which could even be acceptable, if the only solution would be a gender-swap of the line of such drastical measure. But we're talking about more options, so it's indefensible.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: What you are proposing is a band-aid over gangrenous leg. It ignores a deeper problem.
It's an antibiotic, though, because those gangrenous elements then can no longer use one of their vectors of infection to destroy healthy tissue. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good here; It would do good.
Manchu wrote: And I haven’t heard anything much from Doc since those days,
My understanding of it was that between the collapse of TPC and being harassed here, he packed it in.
I tried to get ahold of him a while ago when I saw someone producing the Black Widows commercially, but wasn't able to reach him.
And it wasn't the only one I can think of, but it is the only one I can remember the guys name. We had a few incidents on Dark Reign where the ban hammer was dropped over harassing DMs due to female space marines, and I can remember one that I talked to Brimmy over at Whineseer about back in the day.
Edit: female astartes are not needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby, decent people interacting with them are needed. What does that have to do with the lore?
Because it's the "un"-decent people who use the lore as a weapon to exclude people - such as what happened with Crimson.
I totally agree that women Astartes *alone* don't fix the problem, but they do make a start, and are a sign of "we'd rather include you and encourage you to enjoy things" instead of "suck it up buttercup, that's the lore and it won't change".
GW has already shown off female Stormcasts, Imperial Guardswomen and are giving Sisters of Battle much more of a spotlight. How is that not a start? If there were literally no women in the setting at all you'd have a point, but there seems to be quite a bit without the Astarte's help.
That's a fair point, but it still does kinda built to this "oh, we're fine with women, but not in this spotlight role!" It very much feels like lore>welcoming people at certain times. I'd know, because I used to do that, and I'm not proud of it.
Stormcast are really what I'm thinking of for this, basically (well, not so much the specialised armour, I could do without that, personally).
I'm not sure making FSM canon will remove the harassment problem; if people want to harass they will harass, even if it is canon. Which is certainly dreadful, but that is how people are, unfortunately. It might even result in more harassment, as there would be an increase of bad blood, similar to the contempt for AoS. The problem isn't a lack of FSM, the problem are anti-social jerks. What you are proposing is a band-aid over gangrenous leg. It ignores a deeper problem.
This is also true, but I prefer to see this not as the band aid over the gangrenous leg, but more the cleaning it and preparing it for treatment, if you get the metaphor? I'm under no illusions that this would solve everything, I'm not *that* naive, but I do think it would help - not to mention it just being pretty cool overall if there didn't feel like a hurdle to get non-masculine presenting models in power armour.
I think we're all agreed the problem is anti-social jerks, but can we not get rid of some of their ammunition, and leave the door a bit wider for people?
I've never seen a Grizzly Bear but I can say with some certainty they exist since others have seen Grizzly Bears and recorded their existence.
But to extend the metaphor, we aren’t talking about whether bears exist but whether bear attacks are rare and avoidable OR a rampant menace that justifies extreme action. And, to extend the metaphor even further, you asked a park ranger about this but, seemingly, only to dismiss the answers.
I can say confidently from long experience that there is no pandemic of abusing hobbyists who have worked hard making actual female SM armies. So such a pandemic cannot be used to justify the opinion that GW should manufacture female SM.
I can also say confidently that what aggravates people is not when hobbyists work on their personal game projects but rather when people abuse one another arguing online about what GW should do and directly/indirectly insult each other for disagreeing.
Because everyone knows those kind of arguments are so toxic, that is why they get prospectively shut down in certain online communities. This is all the more likely on FB groups, where there is generally much lower tolerance for “negativity.”
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I'd know, because I used to do that, and I'm not proud of it.
I think you are being a bit too hard on yourself for rhetorical effect. I remember reading some of your posts years ago, and IIRC posting in agreement because your arguments back then, if no less trenchant than they are today, had real logical force.
Crimson wrote: Like seriously, I get the annoyance with changing the lore. I truly do. There are many, many changes to the lore in 40K that annoy me, and I have similar reaction to certain changes in other franchises.
But the thing is that lore has always changed, and especially in 40K it has never been terribly, rigid, it has always been a nebulous, often contradictory mess. (Which is actually one of its strengths.)
And frankly, I don't see 'all marines are men' as thematically terribly important. It is more of a technical detail. For better or worse, I think far more thematically impactful changes have already happened in 40K. And furthermore, this certainly links to real world issues far more directly than whether space marines have 19 or 22 made up super organs or whether Necrons are unfeeling killer robots or space Egyptians or indeed even whether Primarchs are barely remembered myths of the bygone era or superheroes running around leading the Imperium.
The truth is that this topic garners completely disproportionate amount of vitriol, and it often reveals some rather nasty underlying attitudes. (Which of course is not to say that anyone who is opposed to the change has such attitudes.) So I really wish that people would honestly stop to consider if this one specific piece of lore is really that important. No one is suggesting getting rid of male marines, merely broadening the lore to allow other interpretations too.
This pretty closely sums up my position.
I want to be part of a 40K community I can be proud of. I want GW to follow through on their promise that Warhammer is for Everyone.
And that is much more difficult when this one topic held up by a couple dozen words in a publication from 19 years ago is responsible for empowering the level of vitriol Crimson is describing. I know that most of the people posting here are not bigoted or malevolent, but those people absolutely exist; even on Dakka, in the last FSM thread, my understanding is that we had a few people post full-on incel screeds that had to be deleted.
So many discussion places ban discussion of FSM for the sheer amount of fighting it inexplicably generates that most of us, myself included, thought it was a banned topic on Dakka. r/40K lore has precisely two banned topics: 1) a racist youtube channel, and 2) female space marines. That's the lines. Those are the two topics considered to be so volatile in that space as to be utterly beyond discussion. That is insane, and it's not a good look.
The sacrifice of a tiny bit of lore that is unimportant to major themes of the setting and the integrity thereof is absolutely worth being able say we're not a bunch of dickheads without evidence like the above pointing to the contrary.
And to those who say it's not worth pissing off the veteran players, I would say: Have you been on Dakka? Everything pisses off the veterans. I should know, I'm one of them and I'm pissed about half of 9th, yet GW only seems more successful than ever!
Crimson wrote: Like seriously, I get the annoyance with changing the lore. I truly do. There are many, many changes to the lore in 40K that annoy me, and I have similar reaction to certain changes in other franchises.
But the thing is that lore has always changed, and especially in 40K it has never been terribly, rigid, it has always been a nebulous, often contradictory mess. (Which is actually one of its strengths.)
And frankly, I don't see 'all marines are men' as thematically terribly important. It is more of a technical detail. For better or worse, I think far more thematically impactful changes have already happened in 40K. And furthermore, this certainly links to real world issues far more directly than whether space marines have 19 or 22 made up super organs or whether Necrons are unfeeling killer robots or space Egyptians or indeed even whether Primarchs are barely remembered myths of the bygone era or superheroes running around leading the Imperium.
The truth is that this topic garners completely disproportionate amount of vitriol, and it often reveals some rather nasty underlying attitudes. (Which of course is not to say that anyone who is opposed to the change has such attitudes.) So I really wish that people would honestly stop to consider if this one specific piece of lore is really that important. No one is suggesting getting rid of male marines, merely broadening the lore to allow other interpretations too.
This pretty closely sums up my position.
I want to be part of a 40K community I can be proud of. I want GW to follow through on their promise that Warhammer is for Everyone.
And that is much more difficult when this one topic held up by a couple dozen words in a publication from 19 years ago is responsible for empowering the level of vitriol Crimson is describing. I know that most of the people posting here are not bigoted or malevolent, but those people absolutely exist; even on Dakka, in the last FSM thread, my understanding is that we had a few people post full-on incel screeds that had to be deleted.
So many discussion places ban discussion of FSM for the sheer amount of fighting it inexplicably generates that most of us, myself included, thought it was a banned topic on Dakka. r/40K lore has precisely two banned topics: 1) a racist youtube channel, and 2) female space marines. That's the lines. Those are the two topics considered to be so volatile in that space as to be utterly beyond discussion. That is insane, and it's not a good look.
The sacrifice of a tiny bit of lore that is unimportant to major themes of the setting and the integrity thereof is absolutely worth being able say we're not a bunch of dickheads without evidence like the above pointing to the contrary.
And to those who say it's not worth pissing off the veteran players, I would say: Have you been on Dakka? Everything pisses off the veterans. I should know, I'm one of them and I'm pissed about half of 9th, yet GW only seems more successful than ever!
It's rather hard to take your words seriously when we've seen your insults towards others on this topic as it is. You want to change something so badly that you consider people insane for not agreeing with you despite the fact that people here are quite adamant that they would prefer people to take the lore seriously.
These constant appeals to emotion and constant side insults when people already do want gendered representation, and want more of it in the factions that make sense.
CEO Kasen wrote: I should know, I'm one of them and I'm pissed about half of 9th, yet GW only seems more successful than ever!
This is certainly one of the best ways to change that
I absolutely do not buy the premise that GW would financially harm itself more than briefly by doing so, and would suggest they stand to prosper far more in the future with a bigger tent. And you guys can feel free to chime in on this, but for most of the longrunning players taking an anti-FSM position, I severely doubt it would be the quitting straw; it'd be one more thing to grumble about like Primaris or the release schedule or 1 wound CSM or price hikes. If they stayed through that, it would seem disproportionate response in much the manner I described for the mere canonical existence of Marines with an extra X chromosome to be the dealbreaker.
CEO Kasen wrote: The sacrifice of a tiny bit of lore that is unimportant to major themes of the setting and the integrity thereof is absolutely worth being able say we're not a bunch of dickheads without evidence like the above pointing to the contrary.
Who determines what constitutes a 'tiny' bit of lore? Who determines what is 'unimportant'?
I think the heat this discussion generates proves beyond all doubt that people do not consider this to be a 'tiny' or 'unimportant' part of 40k.
CEO Kasen wrote: I should know, I'm one of them and I'm pissed about half of 9th, yet GW only seems more successful than ever!
This is certainly one of the best ways to change that
I absolutely do not buy the premise that GW would financially harm itself more than briefly by doing so, and would suggest they stand to prosper far more in the future with a bigger tent. And you guys can feel free to chime in on this, but for most of the longrunning players taking an anti-FSM position, I severely doubt it would be the quitting straw; it'd be one more thing to grumble about like Primaris or the release schedule or 1 wound CSM or price hikes. If they stayed through that, it would seem disproportionate response in much the manner I described for the mere canonical existence of Marines with an extra X chromosome to be the dealbreaker.
Or it could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I am curious if the vitriol against FSM increased after the Primaris release and after the drastic changes to the fluff concerning the primarchs.
If so, that would indicate a pattern, and also a bad omen.
I'm on the fence. If they do it realistically I wouldn't mind female marines being added. That is if the female marines were almost indistinguishable from the current marines, except for say their name and slightly more feminine facial features.
Otherwise I'm 100% all for female Inquisitors, Rogue Traders, Imperial Guard troops and characters, Ad-Mech characters (could be similar to marines though being very indistinguishable), and even Custodes.
From memory Custodes are just humans and each transformation is uniquely tailored to the initiate. So, it could be possible for female custodes? My memory is a little hazy here I might need a refresher on their creation.
We definitely need a lot more Sisters of Silence support too. Personally I'd like them to be what amounts to 2 wound Sisters of Battle. More elite and more potent anti-psyker, as well as other army debuffs like -1 Ld and -1 to hit from them being blanks.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: It's rather hard to take your words seriously when we've seen your insults towards others on this topic as it is. You want to change something so badly that you consider people insane for not agreeing with you despite the fact that people here are quite adamant that they would prefer people to take the lore seriously.
These constant appeals to emotion and constant side insults when people already do want gendered representation, and want more of it in the factions that make sense.
Allow me to quote myself apologizing for the one inadvertent insult; I understand if you missed it. There's a lot going on in this thread.
Then I'll confess I could have worded it better and did not intend to imply that people in opposition are just crazy. My sincere hope, and a belief underpinning my engagement in this conversation, is that most people in opposition aren't, because I don't want to live in a world or hobby where 65% of people are just crazy or bigoted; the moment of adrenaline-fueled vindication I'd get out of coming to that conclusion would be slowly eaten away by festering disgust over a much longer period, and leave me worse off than before, not to mention it would not win me any converts.
I will apologize for inadvertently implying insanity. I like to believe I'm coming from a position of 'reasonable,' and I'm excited to see if it works.
It feels better, at least. I've tried yelling. It's not fun past the short term, and unless you own a significant social media account or news site, only so effective.
Jarms48 wrote: I'm on the fence. If they do it realistically I wouldn't mind female marines being added. That is if the female marines were almost indistinguishable from the current marines, except for say their name and slightly more feminine facial features.
Otherwise I'm 100% all for female Inquisitors, Rogue Traders, Imperial Guard troops and characters, Ad-Mech characters (could be similar to marines though being very indistinguishable), and even Custodes.
From memory Custodes are just humans and each transformation is uniquely tailored to the initiate. So, it could be possible for female custodes? My memory is a little hazy here I might need a refresher on their creation.
We definitely need a lot more Sisters of Silence support too. Personally I'd like them to be what amounts to 2 wound Sisters of Battle. More elite and more potent anti-psyker, as well as other army debuffs like -1 Ld and -1 to hit from them being blanks.
Yeah Sisters of Silence needs some more development.
They just sort of released them in 7th ed (I think?) and forgot about them. Do they even have more than one unit?
Just reread one of my posts and can see where some confusion arose; let me consider clarifying the wording here for a minute.
I certainly call the situation insane; the situation where FSM is this taboo topic that ignites powderkegs. That is nuts. That does not mean that I think every participant or opponent is insane, but that whatever social forces surround this topic have created a situation that does not seem to make sense.
CEO Kasen wrote: The sacrifice of a tiny bit of lore that is unimportant to major themes of the setting and the integrity thereof is absolutely worth being able say we're not a bunch of dickheads without evidence like the above pointing to the contrary.
Who determines what constitutes a 'tiny' bit of lore? Who determines what is 'unimportant'?
I think the heat this discussion generates proves beyond all doubt that people do not consider this to be a 'tiny' or 'unimportant' part of 40k.
It's not even a sacrifice of lore. GW can say whatever they want about firstborn space marines, since they're just straight up not going to make anymore when the in-universe and out of universe (from GW's perspective) superior primaris are available. It retcons nothing to say that the new primaris procedure works on prepubescent girls as well as boys. Unless GW goes there and decides to retcon firstborn lore. Which they've done before. Which they will inevitably do again.
The only thing the heat of this discussion proves is that some people will find any excuse to justify the opinion they were going to have anyway, no matter how little impact it will have on them or how much it would benefit other current and potentially future members of the hobby.
"You can't have female space marines because the lore says you can't!"
How about we change the lore? It is from forty years ago and was only to justify product shipment.
"You can't change the lore! It's sacred!"
GW changes the lore all the time. Hell, every edition, Space Marines get some new toy, and okay, well, with primaris, we can add new lore that says...
"You can't do that because it will be hamfisted!"
So from the beginning there was no world in which you were open minded to female space marines?
"I just think we should keep politics out of 40k!"
So we should remove Ghazzie since he's named after Margaret Thatcher. We should remove orks because they're rugby hooligans. We should remove catachans because Rambo, Tyranids because Aliens was based off the Vietnam war, etc. I mean, if you think about it, Space Marines are brainwashed child soldiers and there's plenty of politics about that...
Since "we can do rubicon/Primaris marines now" happened, I could see them doing something similar to female space marines.
"Cawl, what is that gigantic woman in suspiciously familiar power armor over there? Is that a female space marine?"
"Oh, them, they aren't space marines, they're just my Daughters of Mars. Definitely different from space marines, promise."
Just make them literally the same as marines, except new names for everything, and higher cost.
Altima wrote: "You can't have female space marines because the lore says you can't!" How about we change the lore? It is from forty years ago and was only to justify product shipment.
I've always said that there are no female Marines in 40k because female Marines don't exist... until GW says they do. So if GW wants to change the fluff then that's on them. Their game. Their prerogative.
What I don't like however is the people insisting that they should. Or that the game needs to have female Marines. I don't see any reason why it should. So when someone asks "How best to add female Space Marines to the lore?", but immediate reaction is "Don't.".
CEO Kasen wrote: I should know, I'm one of them and I'm pissed about half of 9th, yet GW only seems more successful than ever!
This is certainly one of the best ways to change that
I absolutely do not buy the premise that GW would financially harm itself more than briefly by doing so, and would suggest they stand to prosper far more in the future with a bigger tent. And you guys can feel free to chime in on this, but for most of the longrunning players taking an anti-FSM position, I severely doubt it would be the quitting straw; it'd be one more thing to grumble about like Primaris or the release schedule or 1 wound CSM or price hikes. If they stayed through that, it would seem disproportionate response in much the manner I described for the mere canonical existence of Marines with an extra X chromosome to be the dealbreaker.
Have you considered why they didn't bring out the FSM with Primaris in the first place? it was the perfect opportunity. It seems obvious to me they're testing the waters in other areas like AoS because there's less financial risk.
I'd also suggest the push of SoB and the recent upgrade sprue for the decades old Cadian box are attempts to gauge interest and placate the FSM crowd at the same time.
All the suits at GW have a much better understanding of their market than any of us do, and if it was a sure fire success they would have pulled the trigger long ago, wouldn't they?
Altima wrote: "You can't have female space marines because the lore says you can't!"
How about we change the lore? It is from forty years ago and was only to justify product shipment.
I've always said that there are no female Marines in 40k because female Marines don't exist... until GW says they do. So if GW wants to change the fluff then that's on them. Their game. Their prerogative.
What I don't like however is the people insisting that they should. Or that the game needs to have female Marines. I don't see any reason why it should.
The welcoming of additional gender identities in the game's flagship faction that constitutes 40-50% of the game; excising genuinely toxic elements in the hobby (e.g. the ones shouting down facebook posts and issuing death threats over people's models) using official lore as a vector of that toxicity; and the relatively miniscule cost of making the change versus those benefits.
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Goose LeChance wrote: Have you considered why they didn't bring out the FSM with Primaris in the first place? it was the perfect opportunity. It seems obvious to me they're testing the waters in other areas like AoS because there's less financial risk.
I'd also suggest the push of SoB and the recent upgrade sprue for the decades old Cadian box are attempts to gauge interest and placate the FSM crowd at the same time.
All the suits at GW have a much better understanding of their market than any of us do, and if it was a sure fire success they would have pulled the trigger long ago, wouldn't they?
They may be testing waters, sure; GW's marketing department works in quite mysterious ways, and I do regard Primaris as a huge missed opportunity - but I don't think that not having pulled the trigger yet is proof that they wouldn't be popular. If they are attempting to 'placate an FSM crowd' with other releases, well, then, that suggests the existence of a purchase-making FSM crowd to placate.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I've always said that there are no female Marines in 40k because female Marines don't exist... until GW says they do. So if GW wants to change the fluff then that's on them. Their game. Their prerogative.
What I don't like however is the people insisting that they should. Or that the game needs to have female Marines. I don't see any reason why it should. So when someone asks "How best to add female Space Marines to the lore?", but immediate reaction is "Don't.".
Oh C'mon, that's rich! Because you certainly never express your opinion on how GW should do things or express your dissatisfaction of how GW does things currently!
They may be testing waters, sure; GW's marketing department works in quite mysterious ways, and I do regard Primaris as a huge missed opportunity - but I don't think that not having pulled the trigger yet is proof that they wouldn't be popular. If they are attempting to 'placate an FSM crowd' with other releases, well, then, that suggests the existence of a purchase-making FSM crowd to placate.
No it doesn't, it suggests they're testing the market.
You can placate 12 people on twitter(actually nothing can placate twitter), it doesn't "suggest the existence of a purchase-making FSM crowd". It may or may not be there.
Crimson wrote: Oh C'mon, that's rich! Because you certainly never express your opinion on how GW should do things or express your dissatisfaction of how GW does things currently!
There's a difference between liking something and accepting something.
To pivot away from 40K for a second, let's look at BattleTech.
Unlike 40k, BattleTech has always set itself up as an ongoing story, rather than a setting in which stories are told. This means that things change, constantly, and the status quo is often being tossed aside. There's some levels of comic book-i-ness in that they like to return to the status quo occasionally, but in a slightly different form, but for the most part the universe makes big changes and they tend to stick.
I don't like all the changes they've made over the years. In fact, some of them I outright hate. But I accept them. It's their story, they're the ones telling it. There have been two major factions in BattleTech that were torn apart (one as recently as a few months ago), and I really don't like that they've done that. But that's the story they're telling, so I can either get off the ride, or keep going.
Going back to 40k, the Primaris Marines you fawn over are something that I was vehemently against when they first appeared, because I have a cynics attitude to why they exist (GW can't re-sculpt the Tactical squad for a 6th time... so let's invent new Marines out of whole cloth so people have to buy new armies all over again to keep up). They also did do a bad job with the fluff ("Cawl did it!"). But they're part of 40k no matter what you, I, or anyone say and that's just the same it is.
The same applies to female Marines. If GW decides tomorrow that female Marines exist, then they do. It's that simple.
CEO Kasen wrote: The welcoming of additional gender identities in the game's flagship faction that constitutes 40-50% of the game;
That's still not a 'why'. Why does something need to change on a fundamental level to bring in more people? If something isn't appealing to Subset X of a group, but is to everyone else, why change what everyone else likes to please Subset X? Why not instead create something that Subset X likes. Cater to their needs without changing what is already there.
You want more female representation? Well, GW did a massive relaunch of an entire army based around female models. They even just received a big expansion with even more new models. Is that not good enough?
CEO Kasen wrote: excising genuinely toxic elements in the hobby (e.g. the ones shouting down facebook posts and issuing death threats over people's models) using official lore as a vector of that toxicity; and the relatively miniscule cost of making the change versus those benefits.
This seems like such a tiny minority of people that it hardly seems worth worrying about.
Since the other thread is gone, I wonder what would happen if GW didn't make it canon, but put an upgrade sprue in the boxes allowing for women's heads on marines, and sold them on their store as well, but didn't change the lore, advertising it as a way to do your own thing.
Why do people keep trotting out the "FSM will bring in more players"? What proof do they have that that is the case? Do a huge amount of women play Stormcast in AoS because some models have girl heads?
Do you know what is the difference between necessary and sufficient condition?
You can't have something without the first, but you can have something only with the second (if something has a single condition, that's called necessary and sufficient).
Everyone pointed out that is a necessary condition. Those who want to imply that would be sufficient are building a fake target to throw down to feel right, but that's reductionism.
Female Space Marine would be necessary, but not sufficient. And, to be honest, the change should happen for other reasons, that's simply a secondary byproduct.
I am sorry, but I still do not buy into the idea that female marines are needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby. As I said, decent people are needed.
There is no denying that there are some douchebags in this our hobby, but I am not convinced that this is a widespread epidemic of sexism in the 40k hobby that warrants immediate action. There are the occasional asshats in absolutely every hobby.
I would like to propose another question though: is it permissible in this day and age to have a setting like 40k where there are male only subfactions like space marines and custodes for example. Is the current zeitgeist truly that to combat real life sexism, we need close to 50/50 representation in every aspect of every fictional setting? I know that space marines are the most prominent faction in 40k, but the point still stands: can there be male only things left? I am genuinely asking, because if the answer is no, then I find that position a bit dogmatic and if the answer is yes, then why can't it be space marines in 40k?
Sim-Life wrote: What proof do they have that that is the case?
To be clear, none.
Even if it doesn’t add new players would it be a bad thing, if it only added a few would that be bad? If it just makes it a nicer place for the few women in the hobby, is that so bad?
The truth is it would do ZERO harm. None at all, if you are a remotely decent, empathetic, even slightly unselfish person, you would easily see that this small thing would not make you day any worse at all, would not stop you from painting, collecting and playing with your toy soldiers in any way you saw fit. You as an existing player would not be affected at all except to have some more options, but a new person might not be put off by the boys only mentality demonstrated here, not just women, anyone.
So that’s the ask here, make a change that has zero negative impact, but a potential positive one.
Tiberias wrote: I am sorry, but I still do not buy into the idea that female marines are needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby. As I said, decent people are needed.
There is no denying that there are some douchebags in this our hobby, but I am not convinced that this is a widespread epidemic of sexism in the 40k hobby that warrants immediate action. There are the occasional asshats in absolutely every hobby.
I would like to propose another question though: is it permissible in this day and age to have a setting like 40k where there are male only subfactions like space marines and custodes for example. Is the current zeitgeist truly that to combat real life sexism, we need close to 50/50 representation in every aspect of every fictional setting? I know that space marines are the most prominent faction in 40k, but the point still stands: can there be male only things left? I am genuinely asking, because if the answer is no, then I find that position a bit dogmatic and if the answer is yes, then why can't it be space marines in 40k?
It's about inclusivity. I used to see this happen a lot in RPGs where 'for authenticity' the DM would deliberately be racist and sexist to PCs. It's about women not turning around and finding themselves excluded in entertainment wherever they look. About not treating femaleness as a feature to add to the default male, about entertainment being a space that is available to all.
I does no harm to the lore - in fact I'd argue it makes it make more sense. Because developing genetic engineering to only work on one half of the population is more difficult than it being universally applicable.
This comic I always thought summed it up well. When it's everywhere it's the background radiation of your life.
I do not fully understand that comic I'll be totally honest. If this is about people complaining that hobbyists kitbashed their space marines with female heads then let me get one thing straight: nobody has the right to tell you what you do with your models or how you enjoy the hobby (well except if you start throwing your models at people, but you get my point).
BUT and this has been discusses ad nauseam: official lore consistency and continuity matters, this is my whole gripe with this thing. Lore can be changed by GW at a whim, but that does not mean it would be a logically consistent change regarding the already existing story line. If the position is valid that lore consistency is not as important as inclusivity, then my purposefully ridiculous proposition that we could just as well end up with nothing but genderless tyranids to eliminate sexism is also valid.
Edit: also the proposition in the comic that the presented sketch of batman makes the man uncomfortable is just highly subjective. Is the implication that most guys would react that way? Because that is just an assumption.
Tiberias wrote: I am sorry, but I still do not buy into the idea that female marines are needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby. As I said, decent people are needed.
There is no denying that there are some douchebags in this our hobby, but I am not convinced that this is a widespread epidemic of sexism in the 40k hobby that warrants immediate action. There are the occasional asshats in absolutely every hobby.
I would like to propose another question though: is it permissible in this day and age to have a setting like 40k where there are male only subfactions like space marines and custodes for example. Is the current zeitgeist truly that to combat real life sexism, we need close to 50/50 representation in every aspect of every fictional setting? I know that space marines are the most prominent faction in 40k, but the point still stands: can there be male only things left? I am genuinely asking, because if the answer is no, then I find that position a bit dogmatic and if the answer is yes, then why can't it be space marines in 40k?
It's about inclusivity. I used to see this happen a lot in RPGs where 'for authenticity' the DM would deliberately be racist and sexist to PCs. It's about women not turning around and finding themselves excluded in entertainment wherever they look. About not treating femaleness as a feature to add to the default male, about entertainment being a space that is available to all.
I does no harm to the lore - in fact I'd argue it makes it make more sense. Because developing genetic engineering to only work on one half of the population is more difficult than it being universally applicable.
This comic I always thought summed it up well. When it's everywhere it's the background radiation of your life.
Tiberias wrote: I do not fully understand that comic I'll be totally honest. If this is about people complaining that hobbyists kitbashed their space marines with female heads then let me get one thing straight: nobody has the right to tell you what you do with your models or how you enjoy the hobby (well except if you start throwing your models at people, but you get my point).
BUT and this has been discusses ad nauseam: official lore consistency and continuity matters, this is my whole gripe with this thing. Lore can be changed by GW at a whim, but that does not mean it would be a logically consistent change regarding the already existing story line. If the position is valid that lore consistency is not as important as inclusivity, then my purposefully ridiculous proposition that we could just as well end up with nothing but genderless tyranids to eliminate sexism is also valid.
Then use the new creation of primaris marines, a massive shift in the lore and and add it to that. There, logical and continuous.
Sim-Life wrote: What proof do they have that that is the case?
To be clear, none.
Even if it doesn’t add new players would it be a bad thing, if it only added a few would that be bad? If it just makes it a nicer place for the few women in the hobby, is that so bad?
The truth is it would do ZERO harm. None at all
, if you are a remotely decent, empathetic, even slightly unselfish person,
Spoiler:
you would easily see that this small thing would not make you day any worse at all, would not stop you from painting, collecting and playing with your toy soldiers in any way you saw fit. You as an existing player would not be affected at all except to have some more options, but a new person might not be put off by the boys only mentality demonstrated here, not just women, anyone.
So that’s the ask here, make a change that has zero negative impact, but a potential positive one.
do you think that implying people are the opposite to this for having a different opinion is maybe the reason these topics get heated
Tiberias wrote: I do not fully understand that comic I'll be totally honest. If this is about people complaining that hobbyists kitbashed their space marines with female heads then let me get one thing straight: nobody has the right to tell you what you do with your models or how you enjoy the hobby (well except if you start throwing your models at people, but you get my point).
BUT and this has been discusses ad nauseam: official lore consistency and continuity matters, this is my whole gripe with this thing. Lore can be changed by GW at a whim, but that does not mean it would be a logically consistent change regarding the already existing story line. If the position is valid that lore consistency is not as important as inclusivity, then my purposefully ridiculous proposition that we could just as well end up with nothing but genderless tyranids to eliminate sexism is also valid.
Then use the new creation of primaris marines, a massive shift in the lore and and add it to that. There, logical and continuous.
Yeah, people reacted really, really poorly to that shift in lore. Why? Because it introduced a deus ex machina in the form of cawl who waved his magic wand and poof: primaris. All because GW was too cowardly to just scale the old marines right.
Imo this actually reinforces my point: GW introduced a massive change of lore out of nothing that was not logically consistent with how the lore had been presented at large since 2nd edition and people really did not like it (the lore not the models, those were/are popular).
So my point stands: lore consistency matters.
Or how about the mother of idiotic lore desicions that werent logically consistent with decades of previous lore and also terribly realized: blowing up the old warhammer world and pulling the horrendous new lore for AoS out of their butts. People reacted really badly to this and rightly so.
Edit: if lore consistency and continuity does not matter, then blowing up the old warhammer fantasy world is completely valid and just new lore that is as valid as the decades of old lore.
It is simply untrue that adding female space marines has zero negative impact.
Lore should be consistent, it shouldn't just be changed on a whim.
The fact that GW does change it on a whim is immaterial to the fact that they shouldn't.
As such, retconning the lore IS in and of itself a negative impact.
It's as simple as that really.
I would also go as far as to say the positive impact of adding female space marines is slim to none.
There's been a lengthy discussion on why there are so few female wargamers in the Off-Topic forum, "I'm not allowed female space marines" was not high on the reasons given by disinterested female partners/friends.
Women are deciding 40k isn't for them long before they find out female space marines aren't canon.
Further, no one's actually prevented from female space marines. You're free to model and fluff them yourself in whatever way you see fit.
Tales of community outcry and death threats are greatly exaggerated. I have seen several female space marine armies shared on Facebook groups over the years and comments are always generally positive.
Negative comments are in the minority, offensive comments are in even smaller minority and generally the result of mutual escalation by both sides.
Quite frankly this is a bogeyman that doesn't really need slaying because it's not there.
Kiro sums it all up very nicely and I will only echo JoeRugby’s point that, once again, this always seems to return to setting up the false dilemma that anyone who agrees with the points Kiro makes is insane or hateful, etc, etc.
The lore changes, the primaris change that is being suggested was bad and negative has had no negative impact in the size of the hobby or the profits of GW. I presume you are still playing? At least engaged enough to be on here discussing it all. Everything survived, all still good and more people than ever involved.
I am not arguing for a retcon. Just an update. You might not believe that abuse and threats happen but I know they do, I have received them myself.
Totally agree Manchu, I think that's where most of the vitriol from the "no female space marines" crowd comes from.
Being accused of being a bigot/sexist/whatever is never nice and it's easy to get aggressive defending yourself.
Especially when you feel like people are ruining a hobby you deeply love.
Andykp wrote: The lore changes, the primaris change that is being suggested was bad and negative has had no negative impact in the size of the hobby or the profits of GW. I presume you are still playing? At least engaged enough to be on here discussing it all. Everything survived, all still good and more people than ever involved.
I am not arguing for a retcon. Just an update. You might not believe that abuse and threats happen but I know they do, I have received them myself.
Because new shiny models drive sales more than the negative impact of bad lore changes might dampen sales. That does not mean changing lore on a whim is a good idea or good for the setting.
Andykp wrote: The lore changes, the primaris change that is being suggested was bad and negative has had no negative impact in the size of the hobby or the profits of GW. I presume you are still playing? At least engaged enough to be on here discussing it all. Everything survived, all still good and more people than ever involved.
I am not arguing for a retcon. Just an update. You might not believe that abuse and threats happen but I know they do, I have received them myself.
Because new shiny models drive sales more than the negative impact of bad lore changes might dampen sales. That does not mean changing lore on a whim is a good idea or good for the setting.
This.
Also we don't really have the hard numbers on their sales.
Combine that with their kinda "monopolistic" position and you can assume that less sales generated more profit from pricehikes and lore fauxpas.
I mean honestly, nobody can look me in the eye and seriously suggest that the transition from warhammer fantasy to end times and then AOS was handled well regarding the lore (and basically everything else).
That is a prime example of changing lore on a whim and replacing it in record speed in the hopes of that part of the IP pulling better sales numbers again. If lore consistency and continuity does not matter then this crap was totally valid, it was just new lore.
Tiberias wrote: I mean honestly, nobody can look me in the eye and seriously suggest that the transition from warhammer fantasy to end times and then AOS was handled well regarding the lore (and basically everything else).
That is a prime example of changing lore on a whim and replacing it in record speed in the hopes of that part of the IP pulling better sales numbers again. If lore consistency and continuity does not matter then this crap was totally valid, it was just new lore.
That is what kept me away from AOS since its release, its not a bad ruleset (now), the models are really nice and still I just cannot take the plunge as I still have a bad taste left in my mouth from the end times, I want to play my dwarfs, not dispossessed or whatever they are called now, they broke my connection to the background and by doing that broke my interest for the foreseeable future.
As such, retconning the lore IS in and of itself a negative impact.
It's as simple as that really.
.
Adding something as a part of an ongoing narrative is not, however, a retcon.
Many many people here have said the opposite when they declare that GW has reconned the lore over the last 30+ years many times, I agree with you that filling in the blanks and expanding the lore is not a retcon unless it directly goes back and changes things to "have always been this way" like Newcrons being a retcon but the Horus Heresy series being an expansion of the setting.
the 40k setting over the last 30 years has been remarkably consistent with the main details especially after 3rd, more so than other IPs like Star Wars, Battletech, Marvel and DC
Tiberias wrote: I am sorry, but I still do not buy into the idea that female marines are needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby. As I said, decent people are needed.
There is no denying that there are some douchebags in this our hobby, but I am not convinced that this is a widespread epidemic of sexism in the 40k hobby that warrants immediate action. There are the occasional asshats in absolutely every hobby.
I would like to propose another question though: is it permissible in this day and age to have a setting like 40k where there are male only subfactions like space marines and custodes for example. Is the current zeitgeist truly that to combat real life sexism, we need close to 50/50 representation in every aspect of every fictional setting? I know that space marines are the most prominent faction in 40k, but the point still stands: can there be male only things left? I am genuinely asking, because if the answer is no, then I find that position a bit dogmatic and if the answer is yes, then why can't it be space marines in 40k?
It's about inclusivity. I used to see this happen a lot in RPGs where 'for authenticity' the DM would deliberately be racist and sexist to PCs. It's about women not turning around and finding themselves excluded in entertainment wherever they look. About not treating femaleness as a feature to add to the default male, about entertainment being a space that is available to all.
I does no harm to the lore - in fact I'd argue it makes it make more sense. Because developing genetic engineering to only work on one half of the population is more difficult than it being universally applicable.
This comic I always thought summed it up well. When it's everywhere it's the background radiation of your life.
That comic is so unbelievably wrong. You only have to look at the reception of Aquaman, Thor, Captain America, James Bond, as another person put it, romance novels. Twilight is the only example I can think of for that comic.
As such, retconning the lore IS in and of itself a negative impact.
It's as simple as that really.
.
Adding something as a part of an ongoing narrative is not, however, a retcon.
That is correct, however it depends on whether the addition contradicts decades of old lore. For example: if we were to say Cawl refined the geneseed process in such a way that aspirants can now be female, my issue with this addition would not be that we now have female aspirants, but rather that after ten thousand years of technological and cultural stagnation (which is actually a big part of imperium lore), Cawl waved his magic wand again.
Edit: kirotheavenger beat my by a couple of minutes....
kirotheavenger wrote: Totally agree Manchu, I think that's where most of the vitriol from the "no female space marines" crowd comes from.
Being accused of being a bigot/sexist/whatever is never nice and it's easy to get aggressive defending yourself.
Especially when you feel like people are ruining a hobby you deeply love.
Of course, they could just be bigoted, sexist and misogynistic.
As such, retconning the lore IS in and of itself a negative impact.
It's as simple as that really.
.
Adding something as a part of an ongoing narrative is not, however, a retcon.
That is correct, however it depends on whether the addition contradicts decades of old lore. For example: if we were to say Cawl refined the geneseed process in such a way that aspirants can now be female, my issue with this addition would not be that we now have female aspirants, but rather that after ten thousand years of technological and cultural stagnation (which is actually a big part of imperium lore), Cawl waved his magic wand again.
Edit: kirotheavenger beat my by a couple of minutes....
Centurions, razorbacks, countless land raider and rhino variants, countless dreadnought variants, thunder canons, servoharneses, marines on wolves, all space marine fliers except thunder hawks, dread knights, fancy dark angels speeders, frost canons, veteran specialist ammunition’s, - all fine technological enhancements without explanation..but don’t change the lore, it’s integral to the whole thing.
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kirotheavenger wrote: Totally agree Manchu, I think that's where most of the vitriol from the "no female space marines" crowd comes from.
Being accused of being a bigot/sexist/whatever is never nice and it's easy to get aggressive defending yourself.
Especially when you feel like people are ruining a hobby you deeply love.
Ruining is such a massive exaggeration, no one is ruining anything and why because you love it should others be excluded or abuse be allowed? Grow up.
Yeah, people reacted really, really poorly to that shift in lore. Why? Because it introduced a deus ex machina in the form of cawl who waved his magic wand and poof: primaris. All because GW was too cowardly to just scale the old marines right.
Imo this actually reinforces my point: GW introduced a massive change of lore out of nothing that was not logically consistent with how the lore had been presented at large since 2nd edition and people really did not like it (the lore not the models, those were/are popular).
So my point stands: lore consistency matters.
Or how about the mother of idiotic lore desicions that werent logically consistent with decades of previous lore and also terribly realized: blowing up the old warhammer world and pulling the horrendous new lore for AoS out of their butts. People reacted really badly to this and rightly so.
Edit: if lore consistency and continuity does not matter, then blowing up the old warhammer fantasy world is completely valid and just new lore that is as valid as the decades of old lore.
Do we actually have any proof that the whole primaris thing was universally unpopular? Because people gobbling up every new primaris release for two years like a bag full of dicks tends to imply the opposite.
As for AoS, I can't say if it's more appealing that if WHFB had continued or if it was better to go with AoS. What I can say is that AoS is currently a superior product to 40k.
kirotheavenger wrote: Totally agree Manchu, I think that's where most of the vitriol from the "no female space marines" crowd comes from.
Being accused of being a bigot/sexist/whatever is never nice and it's easy to get aggressive defending yourself.
Especially when you feel like people are ruining a hobby you deeply love.
Ruining is such a massive exaggeration, no one is ruining anything and why because you love it should others be excluded or abuse be allowed? Grow up.
theres a lore status quo.
that lore has been quite constant as pointed out above.
Due to that and its popularity due to its nature the universe is liked.
Most people are in it because of that and like it because of that.
In comes you, demands change of the lore for selfish reasons.
And you are now surprised why you get pushback?
kirotheavenger wrote: Totally agree Manchu, I think that's where most of the vitriol from the "no female space marines" crowd comes from.
Being accused of being a bigot/sexist/whatever is never nice and it's easy to get aggressive defending yourself.
Especially when you feel like people are ruining a hobby you deeply love.
Of course, they could just be bigoted, sexist and misogynistic.
Ah the good old "frame the oposition as just being plain bad people" defence. Always a positive addition to a discussion.
kirotheavenger wrote: Totally agree Manchu, I think that's where most of the vitriol from the "no female space marines" crowd comes from.
Being accused of being a bigot/sexist/whatever is never nice and it's easy to get aggressive defending yourself.
Especially when you feel like people are ruining a hobby you deeply love.
Of course, they could just be bigoted, sexist and misogynistic.
Not everyone against female space marines is bigoted, sexist, and/or misogynist.
But I certainly know which side of the argument those who are bigoted, sexist, and/or misogynist fall on 100% of the time. If this were real life and a subject more important than toy soldiers, if I found myself on the same side as the above on a social issue, I would definitely take a hard look at my position as I hope anyone would.
kirotheavenger wrote: Totally agree Manchu, I think that's where most of the vitriol from the "no female space marines" crowd comes from. Being accused of being a bigot/sexist/whatever is never nice and it's easy to get aggressive defending yourself. Especially when you feel like people are ruining a hobby you deeply love.
Of course, they could just be bigoted, sexist and misogynistic.
Not everyone against female space marines is bigoted, sexist, and/or misogynist.
But I certainly know which side of the argument those who are bigoted, sexist, and/or misogynist fall on 100% of the time. If this were real life and a subject more important than toy soldiers, if I found myself on the same side as the above on a social issue, I would definitely take a hard look at my position as I hope anyone would.
enforcing dogmatic change for a (supposedly ) greater good and declaring the other side to be full of x doesn't make you actually NOT bigoted either, nor does it put your position into the remotly "greater good" ballpark necessarily. And no, rethoric won't change that.
Yeah, people reacted really, really poorly to that shift in lore. Why? Because it introduced a deus ex machina in the form of cawl who waved his magic wand and poof: primaris. All because GW was too cowardly to just scale the old marines right.
Imo this actually reinforces my point: GW introduced a massive change of lore out of nothing that was not logically consistent with how the lore had been presented at large since 2nd edition and people really did not like it (the lore not the models, those were/are popular).
So my point stands: lore consistency matters.
Or how about the mother of idiotic lore desicions that werent logically consistent with decades of previous lore and also terribly realized: blowing up the old warhammer world and pulling the horrendous new lore for AoS out of their butts. People reacted really badly to this and rightly so.
Edit: if lore consistency and continuity does not matter, then blowing up the old warhammer fantasy world is completely valid and just new lore that is as valid as the decades of old lore.
Do we actually have any proof that the whole primaris thing was universally unpopular? Because people gobbling up every new primaris release for two years like a bag full of dicks tends to imply the opposite.
As for AoS, I can't say if it's more appealing that if WHFB had continued or if it was better to go with AoS. What I can say is that AoS is currently a superior product to 40k.
Again, as I already said: shiny new models drive sales more than bad lore. People disliked the lore, but liked the models because true scale marines are cool.
My point about AoS was not if its the superior product now or if WHFB should have continued, but if lore consistency does not matter, then the transition that happened between WHFB to AoS was valid in how it was handled....it's just new lore.
And how it was handled was objectively bad, I don't think anyone can dispute that. It was an insult to storytelling, good writing, the fanbases intelligence and their wallets.
kirotheavenger wrote: Totally agree Manchu, I think that's where most of the vitriol from the "no female space marines" crowd comes from.
Being accused of being a bigot/sexist/whatever is never nice and it's easy to get aggressive defending yourself.
Especially when you feel like people are ruining a hobby you deeply love.
Of course, they could just be bigoted, sexist and misogynistic.
Not everyone against female space marines is bigoted, sexist, and/or misogynist.
But I certainly know which side of the argument those who are bigoted, sexist, and/or misogynist fall on 100% of the time.
No you don't. You can make a sexist, misogynist female space marine army.
enforcing dogmatic change for a (supposedly ) greater good and declaring the other side to be full of x doesn't make you actually NOT bigoted either, nor does it put your position into the remotly "greater good" ballpark necessarily. And no, rethoric won't change that.
Implying that I'm bigoted because I want greater inclusion is some pretty impressive mental gymnastics. I'm sorry that the idea of space marines with long hair offends you so.
enforcing dogmatic change for a (supposedly ) greater good and declaring the other side to be full of x doesn't make you actually NOT bigoted either, nor does it put your position into the remotly "greater good" ballpark necessarily. And no, rethoric won't change that.
Implying that I'm bigoted because I want greater inclusion is some pretty impressive mental gymnastics. I'm sorry that the idea of space marines with long hair offends you so.
Have i stated it does?
No?
When you are done working with the straw, i live next to a farmer that would like some, considering it has been raining since 2 weeks nonstop here...
After that, i pretty surely exclaimed why it does not necessarily put your position into " good" realm and mine into "bad" because these moral quanitfiers from which you derive your right that you can just overthrow the established lore, have no bearing on it since it is A: a fantastical universe B: Was already long established beforehand. C: has been popular because of that.
You insisting on calling me a bigot because you derive a right to that from a "moral high horse, with broken legs" i dubbed it earlier in this thread still holds true, especially since you know pretty much crap about me and yet still imply anyone disagreeing with you is somehow a bigot or a sexist and for that reason alone opposition to such a suggested change is illegitimate.
No you don't. You can make a sexist, misogynist female space marine army.
What kind of army one can make in universe is irrelevant. I could make a Space Marine chapter that worships the color magenta and think feline blood makes their landspeeders go faster. Do you know why? Because GW makes it that ambiguous. But the line is drawn at female space marines and that's the hill people want to die on for some inexplicable reason.
On the other hand, I find it unlikely that a sexist, misogynist bigot would be open minded enough to fall on the pro female space marine camp. Or even the "this doesn't affect me at all but if other people want it, go for it" camp.
enforcing dogmatic change for a (supposedly ) greater good and declaring the other side to be full of x doesn't make you actually NOT bigoted either, nor does it put your position into the remotly "greater good" ballpark necessarily. And no, rethoric won't change that.
Implying that I'm bigoted because I want greater inclusion is some pretty impressive mental gymnastics. I'm sorry that the idea of space marines with long hair offends you so.
How does this always come back to implying that people are offended by anything female. I can't speak for Not online, but I assume his point was similar to mine: in a vacuum I couldn't care less about the inclusion of female space marines, but it matters how, when and to what extend you change the lore because as I said about a hundred times already: lore consistency and continuity matters, in any setting.....otherwhise stuff like the WHFB end times or ending up with just genderless tyranids as the sole faction to combat sexism is just as valid a proposition.
Because even when people think they are being polite, they end up posting things like “in a sane world, everyone would agree with me” — indicating that people who don’t are insane. This isn’t done out of malice. It just goes to how on topics about what GW “should do” people tend to think their own opinions are obviously correct and that the fact that there are any others is outrageous to some degree.
My bad, I think I misread what you said about "participation" - I thought you were saying that just posting women Space Marines could feel like harassment, and that very much confused me!
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Tiberias wrote: Who says you can't identify yourself with the hive mind. Doesn't always have to be human centric.
Ah yes, because comparing women to a fictional alien hive mind race is a fair comparison /s
Cause again, as one of your main points before was: lore consistency and continuity doesn't matter.
You literally don't have a clue what my point is, do you?
Jeez you really like to paint people in a certain light. I didn't compare women to the hive mind, which is a ridiculous accusation in the first place, I made a point that if lore consistency and continuity does not matter then all bets are off and my proposition is as valid as yours.
So what is your point exactly? I'm dying to know since you still haven't answered me as to what problem exactly we are trying to address here.
He did the same with me. I tried making a point that if the fluff could be that readily changed, then it should be fine making everyone a squig. He decided that meant that I thought women are comparable to squigs.
But it's self evident that the fluff can be 'that easily changed'. GW have done it and continue to do so. There's no debate about whether it happens, because it factually evidentiarily has and continues to every edition. The indomitus crusade was retconned only within a few years of being created!
The idea that marines are only male is some holy inviable writ of background is a subjective nonsense being perpetuated as some kind of objective truth to protect it ever changing.
The primaris marines are a bigger change to lore than marines recruiting from all of the imperium rather than one side of it. Primarchs becoming immortal giants whose relics couldn't possibly fit on the bodies of the marines who wear/carry them in 40k is a bigger retcon.
Using genetic manipulation and organ transplantation on non male humans in 40k is a trivial difference in comparison to the complete retconn of the Necrontyr (every other form of genetic manipulation/body horror/augmentation is performed on women from servitors to princeps). It's smaller than orks going from marsupial sexually reproducing organisms to fungal/algae lichen hybrids that grow in the ground.
The argument from sacred fluff is no argument at all and GW has proven that with 34 years of continuous retconns of small and large scale. There is no argument to be had here, except that GW retconns and as soon as they do it becomes sacred fluff until they retconn it again and THAT becomes sacred. This argument is an autonomous goal post moving system...
Your point is a combination of ad absurdum and appeal to tradition fallacies.
The original point from the previous thread wasn't that GWcan't change the fluff, its that they perhaps shouldn't. Most of those examples you listed were terrible examples of writing, and the fact you presume that I hold those sacred is insulting.
Oh stop the presses everyone, Hellebore found a book on argumentation! He can incorrectly identify arguments! No, I was not reducing the argument to "oh you want FSM? I guess you want squigs too". It was making an unrelated point about writing consistency, where just because something could be retconned, doesn't mean it should be. Otherwise nothing would actually matter and you might actually end up with something different to what you started with, hence the reference to the Ship of Theseus. It might be a relatively small change, especially compared to the nonsense GW pulled over the last few years, but little changes do build up.
enforcing dogmatic change for a (supposedly ) greater good and declaring the other side to be full of x doesn't make you actually NOT bigoted either, nor does it put your position into the remotly "greater good" ballpark necessarily. And no, rethoric won't change that.
Implying that I'm bigoted because I want greater inclusion is some pretty impressive mental gymnastics. I'm sorry that the idea of space marines with long hair offends you so.
How does this always come back to implying that people are offended by anything female. I can't speak for Not online, but I assume his point was similar to mine: in a vacuum I couldn't care less about the inclusion of female space marines, but it matters how, when and to what extend you change the lore because as I said about a hundred times already: lore consistency and continuity matters, in any setting.....otherwhise stuff like the WHFB end times or ending up with just genderless tyranids as the sole faction to combat sexism is just as valid a proposition.
Lass es.
He is more interested with working with straw and moral grandstanding.
Also the assumption that greater inclusivity somehow is always great especially for stories and their universes is questionable at best.
Yeah, people reacted really, really poorly to that shift in lore. Why? Because it introduced a deus ex machina in the form of cawl who waved his magic wand and poof: primaris. All because GW was too cowardly to just scale the old marines right.
Imo this actually reinforces my point: GW introduced a massive change of lore out of nothing that was not logically consistent with how the lore had been presented at large since 2nd edition and people really did not like it (the lore not the models, those were/are popular).
So my point stands: lore consistency matters.
Or how about the mother of idiotic lore desicions that werent logically consistent with decades of previous lore and also terribly realized: blowing up the old warhammer world and pulling the horrendous new lore for AoS out of their butts. People reacted really badly to this and rightly so.
Edit: if lore consistency and continuity does not matter, then blowing up the old warhammer fantasy world is completely valid and just new lore that is as valid as the decades of old lore.
Do we actually have any proof that the whole primaris thing was universally unpopular? Because people gobbling up every new primaris release for two years like a bag full of dicks tends to imply the opposite.
As for AoS, I can't say if it's more appealing that if WHFB had continued or if it was better to go with AoS. What I can say is that AoS is currently a superior product to 40k.
Again, as I already said: shiny new models drive sales more than bad lore. People disliked the lore, but liked the models because true scale marines are cool.
My point about AoS was not if its the superior product now or if WHFB should have continued, but if lore consistency does not matter, then the transition that happened between WHFB to AoS was valid in how it was handled....it's just new lore.
And how it was handled was objectively bad, I don't think anyone can dispute that. It was an insult to storytelling, good writing, the fanbases intelligence and their wallets.
Perhaps you are right Tiberias... But even if that happened, we gain female stormcast which is an argument in favour of FSM... So the Old World was destroyed for Good.
If you think otherwise you are somehow together in the same boat with sexist, male chauvinist and other unpleasant people.
Reallity is just black and white you either aspire for heaven or you help hell.
kirotheavenger wrote: Totally agree Manchu, I think that's where most of the vitriol from the "no female space marines" crowd comes from.
Being accused of being a bigot/sexist/whatever is never nice and it's easy to get aggressive defending yourself.
Especially when you feel like people are ruining a hobby you deeply love.
Of course, they could just be bigoted, sexist and misogynistic.
Not everyone against female space marines is bigoted, sexist, and/or misogynist.
But I certainly know which side of the argument those who are bigoted, sexist, and/or misogynist fall on 100% of the time. If this were real life and a subject more important than toy soldiers, if I found myself on the same side as the above on a social issue, I would definitely take a hard look at my position as I hope anyone would.
"I'm not saying people who disagree with me are bad, but the people who disagree with me are bad"
Stay classy.
After that, i pretty surely exclaimed why it does not necessarily put your position into " good" realm and mine into "bad" because these moral quanitfiers from which you derive your right that you can just overthrow the established lore, have no bearing on it since it is A: a fantastical universe B: Was already long established beforehand. C: has been popular because of that.
Sure, we can't overthrow established lore, let's just expand the existing lore since it's A) a fantastical universe and the only rules are the ones GW literally makes up (or players agree to). B) Can be brand new lore so it doesn't tread on anything anyone would consider traditional. and C) potentially increases the broad appeal of the IP so it can be more successful, the way AoS has increased their appeal. Done! Glad we could come to an agreement that satisfies everyone like adults.
You insisting on calling me a bigot because you derive a right to that from a "moral high horse, with broken legs" i dubbed it earlier in this thread still holds true, especially since you know pretty much crap about me and yet still imply anyone disagreeing with you is somehow a bigot or a sexist and for that reason alone opposition to such a suggested change is illegitimate.
Never called you a bigot nor did I ever intend to imply that you (or anyone else) were. I even went out of my way to specifically say that it was not the case that everyone who were against female space marines were bigoted.
Tiberias wrote: I am sorry, but I still do not buy into the idea that female marines are needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby. As I said, decent people are needed.
There is no denying that there are some douchebags in this our hobby, but I am not convinced that this is a widespread epidemic of sexism in the 40k hobby that warrants immediate action. There are the occasional asshats in absolutely every hobby.
Visible representation certainly matters for engagement. It's not a magic bullet, but its not insignificant either. Though I'd wager that what a potential gamer woman would find far more off putting than the lack of female marines is the reaction when someone dares to suggest that there perhaps could or even should. I'm not a woman but discussions on this topic over the years have been pretty eye opening about the attitudes in the community and not in the good way.
I would like to propose another question though: is it permissible in this day and age to have a setting like 40k where there are male only subfactions like space marines and custodes for example. Is the current zeitgeist truly that to combat real life sexism, we need close to 50/50 representation in every aspect of every fictional setting? I know that space marines are the most prominent faction in 40k, but the point still stands: can there be male only things left? I am genuinely asking, because if the answer is no, then I find that position a bit dogmatic and if the answer is yes, then why can't it be space marines in 40k?
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
I genuinely don't understand how people can read these discussions and come to the conclusion that opposition to female space marines is sexism.
No one has suggested such a thing
The only explanation is that you want to misrepresent people in such a way.
It is quite clear that the opposition to female space marines comes because people like their established lore.
If people liking the established lore is off-putting to certain people, then feth those people. I don't think things should be changed and bastardised just to appeal to a wider audience.
"Reality is just black and white you either aspire for heaven or you help hell."
I am now no longer neutral to the issue. Don't change the lore. Holy hell that is a stupid phrase.
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
Isn't that a problem in itself though? I mean, the game is meant to be a wargame with different factions. Having a subfaction be the primary focus is a bit backwards. Yes, they are the Emperor's creation, but so is the Imperium. It would be healthier overall if the focus was taken off the Marines and instead directed to the Imperium as a whole and give every faction a chance to show up in a starter set instead of Marine vs X.
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
Isn't that a problem in itself though? I mean, the game is meant to be a wargame with different factions. Having one faction, a subfaction to be precise, be the primary focus isn't good representation. It would be healthier overall if the focus was taken off the Marines and instead directed to the Imperium as a whole.
Yes, sure. But it just isn't going to happen. Yes, at this point GW adding female space marines is overwhelmingly more realistic expectation than them stopping focusing on space marines.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: "Reality is just black and white you either aspire for heaven or you help hell."
I am now no longer neutral to the issue. Don't change the lore. Holy hell that is a stupid phrase.
I'm pretty sure he was taking the piss. Or at least I hope he was.
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
Isn't that a problem in itself though? I mean, the game is meant to be a wargame with different factions. Having a subfaction be the primary focus is a bit backwards. Yes, they are the Emperor's creation, but so is the Imperium. It would be healthier overall if the focus was taken off the Marines and instead directed to the Imperium as a whole and give every faction a chance to show up in a starter set instead of Marine vs X.
in fairness they've been a bit better at focusing on the IoM as a whole lately. I mean GW's actually willing to release boxed sets without Marines you had the one with Admech vs Necrons last edition, Sisters vs dark eldar, even an eldar vs eldar set. and the upcoming kill team box is Orks vs guard. Hell they published a recent story arc across two books where the loyalist marines barely where involved
TheBestBucketHead wrote: "Reality is just black and white you either aspire for heaven or you help hell."
I am now no longer neutral to the issue. Don't change the lore. Holy hell that is a stupid phrase.
I'm pretty sure he was taking the piss. Or at least I hope he was.
If he was, I retract my statement, and congratulate him for the amazing bait, mate.
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
Isn't that a problem in itself though? I mean, the game is meant to be a wargame with different factions. Having one faction, a subfaction to be precise, be the primary focus isn't good representation. It would be healthier overall if the focus was taken off the Marines and instead directed to the Imperium as a whole.
Yes, sure. But it just isn't going to happen. Yes, at this point GW adding female space marines is overwhelmingly more realistic expectation than them stopping focusing on space marines.
Well that's a bit of a problem, isn't it? I would much rather that get solved rather than settle for less.
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
Isn't that a problem in itself though? I mean, the game is meant to be a wargame with different factions. Having a subfaction be the primary focus is a bit backwards. Yes, they are the Emperor's creation, but so is the Imperium. It would be healthier overall if the focus was taken off the Marines and instead directed to the Imperium as a whole and give every faction a chance to show up in a starter set instead of Marine vs X.
in fairness they've been a bit better at focusing on the IoM as a whole lately. I mean GW's actually willing to release boxed sets without Marines you had the one with Admech vs Necrons last edition, Sisters vs dark eldar, even an eldar vs eldar set. and the upcoming kill team box is Orks vs guard. Hell they published a recent story arc across two books where the loyalist marines barely where involved
Yes, which is great, they need to keep doing that and slowly push it along to something more representative of what the game has to offer.
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
Isn't that a problem in itself though? I mean, the game is meant to be a wargame with different factions. Having one faction, a subfaction to be precise, be the primary focus isn't good representation. It would be healthier overall if the focus was taken off the Marines and instead directed to the Imperium as a whole.
Yes, sure. But it just isn't going to happen. Yes, at this point GW adding female space marines is overwhelmingly more realistic expectation than them stopping focusing on space marines.
Well that's a bit of a problem, isn't it? I would much rather that get solved rather than settle for less.
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
Isn't that a problem in itself though? I mean, the game is meant to be a wargame with different factions. Having a subfaction be the primary focus is a bit backwards. Yes, they are the Emperor's creation, but so is the Imperium. It would be healthier overall if the focus was taken off the Marines and instead directed to the Imperium as a whole and give every faction a chance to show up in a starter set instead of Marine vs X.
in fairness they've been a bit better at focusing on the IoM as a whole lately. I mean GW's actually willing to release boxed sets without Marines you had the one with Admech vs Necrons last edition, Sisters vs dark eldar, even an eldar vs eldar set. and the upcoming kill team box is Orks vs guard. Hell they published a recent story arc across two books where the loyalist marines barely where involved
Yes, which is great, they need to keep doing that and slowly push it along to something more representative of what the game has to offer.
"representive of what the game has to offer" means what exactly?
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
Isn't that a problem in itself though? I mean, the game is meant to be a wargame with different factions. Having one faction, a subfaction to be precise, be the primary focus isn't good representation. It would be healthier overall if the focus was taken off the Marines and instead directed to the Imperium as a whole.
Yes, sure. But it just isn't going to happen. Yes, at this point GW adding female space marines is overwhelmingly more realistic expectation than them stopping focusing on space marines.
Well that's a bit of a problem, isn't it? I would much rather that get solved rather than settle for less.
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
Isn't that a problem in itself though? I mean, the game is meant to be a wargame with different factions. Having a subfaction be the primary focus is a bit backwards. Yes, they are the Emperor's creation, but so is the Imperium. It would be healthier overall if the focus was taken off the Marines and instead directed to the Imperium as a whole and give every faction a chance to show up in a starter set instead of Marine vs X.
in fairness they've been a bit better at focusing on the IoM as a whole lately. I mean GW's actually willing to release boxed sets without Marines you had the one with Admech vs Necrons last edition, Sisters vs dark eldar, even an eldar vs eldar set. and the upcoming kill team box is Orks vs guard. Hell they published a recent story arc across two books where the loyalist marines barely where involved
Yes, which is great, they need to keep doing that and slowly push it along to something more representative of what the game has to offer.
"representive of what the game has to offer" means what exactly?
All of the factions available instead of just marines. Everyone should get their time in the sun for more than a few minutes.
How does this always come back to implying that people are offended by anything female.
Because we're discussing including female representation to the most popular faction which has previously catered purely and consistently to a male-focused power fantasy that represents over half the hobby, in terms of model count, lore, and marketing.
Tiberias wrote: in a vacuum I couldn't care less about the inclusion of female space marines, but it matters how, when and to what extend you change the lore because as I said about a hundred times already: lore consistency and continuity matters, in any setting.....otherwhise stuff like the WHFB end times or ending up with just genderless tyranids as the sole faction to combat sexism is just as valid a proposition.
Out of curiosity, how would you implement female space marines?
Because the answer others have provided is usually "I wouldn't." Rather, that in under no circumstance would they ever support implementing female space marines. Even if the lore was consistently updated, if the foundation had been lain with years and years of writing, if every box were checked, they would still be against it.
And that's a problem when they're essentially saying that their enjoyment of the game hinges on space marines being dudes only if it's used to deprive others of the opportunity to enjoy the hobby. And it wouldn't even be that big of an issue if that every time someone put up female space marines if there wasn't that one guy doing that one guy thing.
As for the sanctity of the lore, well, a former GW employee had this to say on the subject: "The reason there aren't female Space Marines has nothing to do with lore, or background or character of Marines." That's a quote from Alan Merritt who according to a Dan Abnett interview from a few years ago, was basically in charge of the lore at GW.
I'll repost my 'how to add female marines' from the another thread:
I was thinking about this more. Were I in charge of GW, wanted to introduce female Astartes whilst trying to minimise pushback, how would I do it?
Make a new minor chapter or 'elevate' an existing known minor chapter to a status of supported chapter. I.e. to non-first founding chapter with their own rules and some fluff like Black Templars, Crimson Fists, Flesh Tearers etc. You don't need a full supplement book, you can just dedicate couple of pages to them in some campaign book. Let the 'quirk' of that chapter to be that they have female marines (though not as their only defining feature.) So for example, Shields of Helios, a Greek-inspired Ultramarine successor chapter who happen, for some historical reason, have female marines. And have some vague sentence implying that whilst this is rare, they're not literally the only chapter doing this. Make an upgrade sprue for that chapter with some female heads, similar to the existing primaris upgrade sprues.
That's it at this point, don't make a big deal about this. Then people can play that chapter or have their own custom chapter with official fluff support and official GW bits. And I think over time people simply get used to the idea that female marines can be a thing, and the opposition will lessen and then perhaps you can expand it to other canon chapters. But that step really isn't that important.
And that's a problem when they're essentially saying that their enjoyment of the game hinges on space marines being dudes only if it's used to deprive others of the opportunity to enjoy the hobby.
Where do you pull such nonsense from?
As has been previously noted, nothing is stopping you from making or playing female marines. You are only and singularly prevented from passing it off as official canon.
Well that's a bit of a problem, isn't it? I would much rather that get solved rather than settle for less.
The problem is that until GW 'solves' the problem, the reality would be much the same if GW didn't address the question at all. Introducing female space marines is something that can be done now with relatively little effort.
If I'm being 100% honest, if including female astartes caused an AoS-style revolt and collapse of 40k and forced it to reinvent itself in a way that was more like AoS where each faction more or less has the limelight and there's no one faction that's strangling the IP, I wouldn't exactly be upset. The idea of IG being the viewpoint for humanity in the setting is just so appealing.
All of the factions available instead of just marines. Everyone should get their time in the sun for more than a few minutes.
Unfortunately, the only constant in 40k is that Space Marines will always be #1. GW's attention on factions waxes and wanes. Until recently, SoB had ancient models and outdated lore, and there was a good chance that they were about to be squatted. Eldar have ancient models, some of which still in metal (or worse, finecast). IG's range is just awful. Tyranids haven't had a new model in almost a decade (2014 seems to be the last date, and some of the models date back to 2005 or earlier!). So relying on other factions to carry any part of the hobby--whether that's gender inclusion, race inclusion, or just being an interesting faction that's not space marines--will likely result in disappointment in the long run--as long as the focus remains on the astartes.
Spoiler:
Crimson wrote: I'll repost my 'how to add female marines' from the another thread:
I was thinking about this more. Were I in charge of GW, wanted to introduce female Astartes whilst trying to minimise pushback, how would I do it?
Make a new minor chapter or 'elevate' an existing known minor chapter to a status of supported chapter. I.e. to non-first founding chapter with their own rules and some fluff like Black Templars, Crimson Fists, Flesh Tearers etc. You don't need a full supplement book, you can just dedicate couple of pages to them in some campaign book. Let the 'quirk' of that chapter to be that they have female marines (though not as their only defining feature.) So for example, Shields of Helios, a Greek-inspired Ultramarine successor chapter who happen, for some historical reason, have female marines. And have some vague sentence implying that whilst this is rare, they're not literally the only chapter doing this. Make an upgrade sprue for that chapter with some female heads, similar to the existing primaris upgrade sprues.
That's it at this point, don't make a big deal about this. Then people can play that chapter or have their own custom chapter with official fluff support and official GW bits. And I think over time people simply get used to the idea that female marines can be a thing, and the opposition will lessen and then perhaps you can expand it to other canon chapters. But that step really isn't that important.
I like this. I'd love if this hypothetical chapter were named after the Sacred Band of Thebes.
From a lore/idealistic point of view I am still waiting to understand why having female space marine invalidates your armies, your enjoyment of the setting and the lore.
Excluding juvenile argument like "any changes to the lore is bad by principle" the only relevant argument (somehow) is that the Imperium may pass as the good guys, and that's a real risk considering that GW seems to push towards such direction.
But, as already replied, the addition of female space marine may be easily spinned in the opposite direction.
So, a 100+ pages, and that's the best you got? Quite sad.
Practically speaking, everyone seems fine with GW promoting some female SM project on their official page without touching the lore, and all seems to agrees that female space marine can exist anyway already. Remember that the next time you see someone harassed online for how the built their war dolls, and speak your voice: that's enough for a start to be honest. Just remember to put your word where your mouth is: if you're so hyped in defending the lore, you should be hyped as much defending fellow players.
Finally, from an argumentative point of view, I've noticed quite a few issues in the rhetoric and logic used.
Are you (impersonal you: I think everyone should check for themselves) sure that instead of talking about the topic in hand, with the practical implementation proposed, you're not instead projecting your own butt-hurts from other topic (Star Wars horrible films comes to mind); conflating all together under a "woke" label that exist only in your head, and the evaluate practical solutions under your own private ideology?
Take Polonium and a few other posters: they're pretty sure they know better than the others, and that those request ate just the first step of the "woke conspiracy" that will then snowball.
Now: as conforting as it is to believe in conspiraciea (those implies control: anarchy and chaos - that are the real drivers of the world - are much scarier) do you really consider a wargame so important to build a conspiracy on it? GW doesn't seem to care, and they loterally live from that. Do you?
Because it seems to me you're not discussing with other, but with the simulacra of others you've built in your head. Not really a good way to interact with the world: you became an ideological caricature, exactly what you accuse the other of being.
I'm not asking for everyone to become a Squig, or for the 40k to became unicorn and rainbows: I ask the setting to be taken seriously (like if it's real), rather than at a face value like a textbook.
Seriously: female marine are already there, in the empty spaces that GW left in the setting, even if the Imperium don't know it.
I don't even ask for the Imperium to aknowledge it, I ask for GW to aknowledge it.
It's baffling many can't even see the different layer of the issue.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: "Reality is just black and white you either aspire for heaven or you help hell."
I am now no longer neutral to the issue. Don't change the lore. Holy hell that is a stupid phrase.
But if the lore is not changed to include FSM then sexist misoginist will be justified to harras and send death threats.
How can any body be neutral over such an important issue???
How does this always come back to implying that people are offended by anything female.
Because we're discussing including female representation to the most popular faction which has previously catered purely and consistently to a male-focused power fantasy that represents over half the hobby, in terms of model count, lore, and marketing.
Yes because some of us have offered ideas to boost the female representation in factions where it makes sense rather then the most popular one we are now just all offended by all things female. All because one faction we refuse based on lore. Yes that makes sense.
Cybtroll wrote: From a lore/idealistic point of view I am still waiting to understand why having female space marine invalidates your armies, your enjoyment of the setting and the lore.
Excluding juvenile argument like "any changes to the lore is bad by principle" the only relevant argument (somehow) is that the Imperium may pass as the good guys, and that's a real risk considering that GW seems to push towards such direction.
But, as already replied, the addition of female space marine may be easily spinned in the opposite direction.
So, a 100+ pages, and that's the best you got? Quite sad.
I'm pretty sure if the argument was "Do we change Eldar to having only male models only because the lore doesn't have their gender as an identity issue" there would be a major tune change here.
kirotheavenger wrote: I genuinely don't understand how people can read these discussions and come to the conclusion that opposition to female space marines is sexism.
.
I see where you're coming from. In my experience, 'sexism' and 'racism' are two words thrown out far too easily far too often when other terms might be best used.
And fair enough, opposition might not be sexist, but its not exactly welcoming either. Sometimes the defences do feel like double-speak to me.
Marines are the face of 40k, and marines can be anything- vampires, werewolves, daemon-things on fire, half robot, they can be any colour, they can be spiky, they can be evilllll!, they can draw on any historic or mythological source but for some inexplicable reason they cannot be female. That is the one absolute denial, the one inviolable 'man-space'. Just seems arbitrary to me...
This notion that this badly written,forty year old lore is sacrosanct and on this point cannot be changed or questioned or the setting is 'ruined' - come on,really? Thats the hill to make a stand? I can point to real world examples where pointing to ancient words on a page and holding them as unquestionable absolutes doesn't exactly lead to things being better.
We live in an era of metoo, and blm among God knows how many hashtags and other trends. Sometimes cultural changes are needed. Used to be women couldn't vote, get educated, wear trousers, go unto pubs etc.well they can do all that in real life and the world still keeps turning.
'Females can't be marines' might be a very small,very first world and in the larger scale,irrelevant issue. But it won't make the Imperium more progressive or less horrible- it just means everyone gets their hands dirty. The setting won't be 'ruined'. Daemons won't be replaced with care bears and a universe of eternal war where you will not be missed won't be replaced with hugs and kisses . The Emperor will not be toppled from His throne and he will still be snorting a thousand psykers a day. Folks will still be able to imagine and implement all the crusading fascist space knights they want, ita just the folks who want a different head on their toys get to do that and the lore is open enough to allow that without giving haters ammunition to crap on them.
Well that's a bit of a problem, isn't it? I would much rather that get solved rather than settle for less.
The problem is that until GW 'solves' the problem, the reality would be much the same if GW didn't address the question at all. Introducing female space marines is something that can be done now with relatively little effort.
If I'm being 100% honest, if including female astartes caused an AoS-style revolt and collapse of 40k and forced it to reinvent itself in a way that was more like AoS where each faction more or less has the limelight and there's no one faction that's strangling the IP, I wouldn't exactly be upset. The idea of IG being the viewpoint for humanity in the setting is just so appealing.
All of the factions available instead of just marines. Everyone should get their time in the sun for more than a few minutes.
Unfortunately, the only constant in 40k is that Space Marines will always be #1. GW's attention on factions waxes and wanes. Until recently, SoB had ancient models and outdated lore, and there was a good chance that they were about to be squatted. Eldar have ancient models, some of which still in metal (or worse, finecast). IG's range is just awful. Tyranids haven't had a new model in almost a decade (2014 seems to be the last date, and some of the models date back to 2005 or earlier!). So relying on other factions to carry any part of the hobby--whether that's gender inclusion, race inclusion, or just being an interesting faction that's not space marines--will likely result in disappointment in the long run--as long as the focus remains on the astartes.
So the solution to less marines is...more marines? I don't get it. It seems counterproductive. I would think the solution to less marines is to focus on other factions. If it does cause the setting to be nuked and reformed, wouldn't it become something different? For all we know, GW might make everyone into a squig Not gonna lie though, Age of Squigmar, where everything is a squigified parody of the setting, would be pretty funny as a spin off.
Excluding juvenile argument like "any changes to the lore is bad by principle"
Why is this a juvenile argument? Just because you personally don't care about established lore?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Deadnight wrote: this point cannot be changed or questioned or the setting is 'ruined'
Please refrain from such hyperbole, especially when you present this as actually quoting someone.
No one has claimed that female space marines will ruin the setting.
I find Primaris in general to be a far more jarring addition to the fluff, to empthasis the context for all of this.
The reason vampires and vikings are okay is because those are an established part of the fluff. Similarly, no female space marines is also an established part of the fluff.
[EDIT]: Screw it. I'm done with this thread. Shouldn't've got involved in the first place. I regret clicking on the link. That's on me.
No honest argument can be made here. Every attempt will be met with "you're an ist" of some sort, or "but you can change the fluff", all of which avoid the actual discussion in favour of just making the opposite side look like bad people.
Case in point:
Vatsetis wrote: How sad that 2/3 of the voters lack such a basic level of empathy.
That's not an argument. That's not a debate. So forget it...
Excluding juvenile argument like "any changes to the lore is bad by principle"
Why is this a juvenile argument? Just because you personally don't care about established lore?
Because the lore has always changed. Always.
And if you say 'but other changes were bad too', then at what point you think the lore was 'perfected'? When is the date after which no changes should have been made? And even if you were to able to pick such a date, certainly that is utterly subjective and arbitrary?
Like I get it, I dislike many of the lore changes too. But then again, I like some of them. So I really don't think 'any change is bad in itself' is a particularly tenable position.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: Yes because some of us have offered ideas to boost the female representation in factions where it makes sense rather then the most popular one we are now just all offended by all things female. All because one faction we refuse based on lore. Yes that makes sense.
Poorly written lore from decades ago that hasn't really been mentioned officially for almost a decade, and here's the opportunity to expand the lore to remove this piece of lore. To add new lore, that doesn't conflict with any existing lore.
I'm pretty sure if the argument was "Do we change Eldar to having only male models only because the lore doesn't have their gender as an identity issue" there would be a major tune change here.
1) it wouldn't make that much of a difference since the Eldar have only four-ish distinctly female models--gender representation across the hobby is atrocious with only SoB and Dark Eldar (and maybe Tau) being anywhere close to equal
2) Eldar gender/identity is already addressed, at least as far as the aspect warriors
3) And because of the above lore, no one would bat at eye at someone kitbashing male elf heads on a howling banshee body or female heads onto striking scorpions. Well, I mean, they might because of the helmet thing but it wouldn't be because of a gender thing.
Excluding juvenile argument like "any changes to the lore is bad by principle"
Why is this a juvenile argument? Just because you personally don't care about established lore?
Because the lore has always changed. Always.
And if you say 'but other changes were bad too', then at what point you think the lore was 'perfected'? When is the date after which no changes should have been made? And even if you were to able to pick such a date, certainly that is utterly subjective and arbitrary?
Like I get it, I dislike many of the lore changes too. But then again, I like some of them. So I really don't think 'any change is bad in itself' is a particularly tenable position.
Space Marine lore was fine before Primaris and worse afterwards. The Lore isn't a monolithic entity where changing one thing effects the whole setting (though arguably the Dark Imperium introduction of Primaris and Guilliman have been single biggest undermining of the setting so far) generally but specific army themes, roles etc can be easily changed for the worse and you can pinpoint when things changed from good to bad.
I would rather Space Marines played almost no role in the lore at all but they do and I would havepreferred they had remained as they were pre-8th because their existence fulfills a specific role and theme in the setting whether I like it or not.
We get Kiro, you're ideologically against change. Guess what? That's irrelevant, since your ideology is not an argument (differently from what you seem to believe).
Change is neutral, not bad. Specific implementation are good or bad. But since you're entrenched within an ideological position, there's another approach possible rather than parrot-repeating itself without any significative point added in the discussion.
Am I misunderstanding or do you agree that GW should give visibility to female space marine project and push them as legit way to build their war dolls without changing the lore?
Because that's not an ideological stance, but a pragmatical one. I don't care if the lore says "Marine are male" when people building those as female can point at a White Dwarf article that show off a mixed gender or entirely female Marine army.
Are you fine with that? Because I am.
See: compromise, not ideology. I disagree with your stance on the lore, but I don't care about ideological position rather than practical effect.
To summarize: GW should explicitly make clear that female marine are a legit and welcomed way to build their miniature, even if the don't update the lore (so, the Imperium at large will still be tragically ignorant and the lore is saved and expanded).
Edit: Sim-life it isn't a good look ok you to point out (correctly) faulty argumentation from other, and them apply the same rhetorical tricks in the same post.
We know, people are bad at discussing, I don't think we need you to point out the obvious.
@ Olthannon: no, there's quite a few differences. The 70 pages long was more about general definition and framing the issue. This one is quite more practical.
If you can dismiss my "ideology" can I dismiss yours?
I'm going to choose to define wanting female representation as an "ideology".
I don't agree that GW should give visibility to female marine projects. GW should maintain a consistent front on what is and isn't official canon, that includes White Dwarf.
Unless I supposed they did a column that was explicitly non-official but White Dwarf has long since moved away from being so hobby oriented.
What's the relevance of this anyway? You don't need official recognition or example in White Dwarf to build an army the way you want.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: "Reality is just black and white you either aspire for heaven or you help hell."
I am now no longer neutral to the issue. Don't change the lore. Holy hell that is a stupid phrase.
I'm pretty sure he was taking the piss. Or at least I hope he was.
If he was, I retract my statement, and congratulate him for the amazing bait, mate.
Dont retract the statement. It was really an stupid phrase
But some people are so hellbent on introducing FSM even if they are so unpopular amongst the current player base, and GW have shown no sign to move on that direction but rather towards expanding the SOB... That you could take it as a legitimate statement from those crusading for FSM.
kirotheavenger wrote: If you can dismiss my "ideology" can I dismiss yours? I'm going to choose to define wanting female representation as an "ideology".
I don't agree that GW should give visibility to female marine projects. GW should maintain a consistent front on what is and isn't official canon, that includes White Dwarf. Unless I supposed they did a column that was explicitly non-official but White Dwarf has long since moved away from being so hobby oriented.
What's the relevance of this anyway? You don't need official recognition or example in White Dwarf to build an army the way you want.
Yeah, you're already allowed to make conversions. You don't need GW's explicit approval. If people don't like it, so what? People get hostile over official armies and paint schemes too, so to hell with them.
Tiberias wrote: I am sorry, but I still do not buy into the idea that female marines are needed to make women feel welcome in the hobby. As I said, decent people are needed.
There is no denying that there are some douchebags in this our hobby, but I am not convinced that this is a widespread epidemic of sexism in the 40k hobby that warrants immediate action. There are the occasional asshats in absolutely every hobby.
Visible representation certainly matters for engagement. It's not a magic bullet, but its not insignificant either. Though I'd wager that what a potential gamer woman would find far more off putting than the lack of female marines is the reaction when someone dares to suggest that there perhaps could or even should. I'm not a woman but discussions on this topic over the years have been pretty eye opening about the attitudes in the community and not in the good way.
I would like to propose another question though: is it permissible in this day and age to have a setting like 40k where there are male only subfactions like space marines and custodes for example. Is the current zeitgeist truly that to combat real life sexism, we need close to 50/50 representation in every aspect of every fictional setting? I know that space marines are the most prominent faction in 40k, but the point still stands: can there be male only things left? I am genuinely asking, because if the answer is no, then I find that position a bit dogmatic and if the answer is yes, then why can't it be space marines in 40k?
No, I don't think that having monogendered factions in fiction is itself problematic. The issue with marines really is to do with how huge part of the game they're. 40K is mostly about space marines, so making them men-only makes the most of the game men-only.
I agree that Space Marines are a big part of the lore, but if that is the main issue...the issue of visibility, then I would argue and be totally for giving eldar, and badass female eldar more spots in the limelight. They have been neglected far too long anyway.
How does this always come back to implying that people are offended by anything female.
Because we're discussing including female representation to the most popular faction which has previously catered purely and consistently to a male-focused power fantasy that represents over half the hobby, in terms of model count, lore, and marketing.
Tiberias wrote: in a vacuum I couldn't care less about the inclusion of female space marines, but it matters how, when and to what extend you change the lore because as I said about a hundred times already: lore consistency and continuity matters, in any setting.....otherwhise stuff like the WHFB end times or ending up with just genderless tyranids as the sole faction to combat sexism is just as valid a proposition.
Out of curiosity, how would you implement female space marines?
Because the answer others have provided is usually "I wouldn't." Rather, that in under no circumstance would they ever support implementing female space marines. Even if the lore was consistently updated, if the foundation had been lain with years and years of writing, if every box were checked, they would still be against it.
And that's a problem when they're essentially saying that their enjoyment of the game hinges on space marines being dudes only if it's used to deprive others of the opportunity to enjoy the hobby. And it wouldn't even be that big of an issue if that every time someone put up female space marines if there wasn't that one guy doing that one guy thing.
As for the sanctity of the lore, well, a former GW employee had this to say on the subject: "The reason there aren't female Space Marines has nothing to do with lore, or background or character of Marines." That's a quote from Alan Merritt who according to a Dan Abnett interview from a few years ago, was basically in charge of the lore at GW.
To your first point: what's wrong with space marines being a male power fantasty. I've asked this before, but is it wrong to have an all male faction as a power fantasy for males, just as a general proposition? If not, why can't it be space marines. And if it's the issue of visibility and being in the limelight: I already said I am very much in favor of shifting the focus away from space marines to eldar for example.
As to your question of how I would implement female space marines: I wouldn't do it if it meant to just slap them into the lore like they always were there or something like cawl waved his magic wand again. If it was my job to implement them within the continuity of the existing lore I'd try to start small: I'd create a small short story in the space marine codex where a second founding chapter is struck by calamity and is now extremely short on aspirants. In their desperation they resort to implanting the gene seed of their primarch also into female aspirants, which goes horribly wrong for most. The lethality rate of female aspirants is higher than of male aspirants because the chance of rejecting the implants is a bit higher, a small very percentage of them survive though. This way the chapter can slowly start growing their numbers again. Other chapters and also the inquisition look curiously upon the successes of the chapter including female aspirants into their ranks.
Basically I'd start teasing it with shortstories sprinkled throughout multiple space marine codices and codex supplements. This is just from a storytelling perspective and just my personal opinion and I don't claim to be a good writer or storyteller. The main thing is, this takes time to set up. So far for the lore part.
So if you have set this up with multiple short stories over time, let's say we introduce models for female space marines: they are then of course created with the same process, so they have the same organs and stimulants pumped into them so they become hulking fighting machines, which would make sense. How do you translate that into models on a 28mm scale? If a female aspriant goes through the same process as her male counterparts, she is then also a hulking mountain of muscle. Would you even see a proper difference within their faces if their got pumped up by the same copious amounts of space steriods? Because changing the armor to be more traditionally feminine to clearly be able to differentiate them would not make much sense right? Both male and female aspirants who were able to survive would be hulking mountains of muscle pumped full of space steroids, you wouldn't even have a semblance of a female chest left because of the necessitiy of the black carapace, which is artificial.
So we've set it up over a period of time, hinting at small successes of also incoorporating female aspirants, but since they would go through the same process as the male counterparts, it would be difficult to represent the difference of male and female space marine on a 28mm scale because again, both would be hulking mountains of muscle pumped full of space steroids and extra organs.
After that, i pretty surely exclaimed why it does not necessarily put your position into " good" realm and mine into "bad" because these moral quanitfiers from which you derive your right that you can just overthrow the established lore, have no bearing on it since it is A: a fantastical universe B: Was already long established beforehand. C: has been popular because of that.
Sure, we can't overthrow established lore, let's just expand the existing lore since it's A) a fantastical universe and the only rules are the ones GW literally makes up (or players agree to). B) Can be brand new lore so it doesn't tread on anything anyone would consider traditional. and C) potentially increases the broad appeal of the IP so it can be more successful, the way AoS has increased their appeal. Done! Glad we could come to an agreement that satisfies everyone like adults.
It is arguable that it increased appeal indeed, especially since AoS locally has less players than WHFB still has. B: is problamtic since it automatically goes against A aswell in this case, else this debate wouldn't be had.
You insisting on calling me a bigot because you derive a right to that from a "moral high horse, with broken legs" i dubbed it earlier in this thread still holds true, especially since you know pretty much crap about me and yet still imply anyone disagreeing with you is somehow a bigot or a sexist and for that reason alone opposition to such a suggested change is illegitimate.
Never called you a bigot nor did I ever intend to imply that you (or anyone else) were. I even went out of my way to specifically say that it was not the case that everyone who were against female space marines were bigoted.
Not everyone against female space marines is bigoted, sexist, and/or misogynist.
But I certainly know which side of the argument those who are bigoted, sexist, and/or misogynist fall on 100% of the time. If this were real life and a subject more important than toy soldiers, if I found myself on the same side as the above on a social issue, I would definitely take a hard look at my position as I hope anyone would.
This is the type of Delgitimising the position of an opponent that i mean that is so problematic in this discussion. Maybee indeed you didn't intend it consciously but some here do, going sofar as proclaiming opposition to such change to be "juvenile" and "ideological".
Cybtroll wrote: Thank you Kiro: with enemies like you on the discussion, one doesn't need friends.
And please feel free to quote where I expressed any ideological position. Because if I had, I wouldn't be able to propose you an acceptable compromise. Guess who can't?
That said, I'm sorry for all those others that may oppose to the idea who found themselves conflated into Kiro's untenable ideological position (which probably misrepresent them) so I'll try to not double down on this point (would be easy - yet not very useful) and I'll try to focus on other interesting points that may be lost in the discussion.
So far the only thing you have shown is that you just denounce people as juvenile or ideological in an cheap attempt to delegitimise opposition and get your way.
They could write "Im a Woman" or "My name is Claudia" on their shoulderpads??
Its no about making sense in universe, its about making a point.
But there are already models to make that point? You know Marines aren't the only range in the hobby, and that GW has been making an effort to give Guardswomen and Sisters of Battle more of the spotlight?
And please feel free to quote where I expressed any ideological position.
I think you've rather missed the point.
Since you so baselessly characterised my argument as "ideological" I flipped it and equally baselessly characterised your argument as "ideological".
I say baselessly, ideology is defined as
a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
So one could easily suggest that really any position is an ideology. But then there's no reason to dismiss something simply for being an ideology so we're back to square one.
They could write "Im a Woman" or "My name is Claudia" on their shoulderpads??
Its no about making sense in universe, its about making a point.
But there are already models to make that point? You know Marines aren't the only range in the hobby, and that GW has been making an effort to give Guardswomen and Sisters of Battle more of the spotlight?
They don't get the same support, ergo they don't get the same spotlight , ergo not good enough...
like i said, half the issues with representation are GW's blatant favouritism and the other half GW's greed.
That's supposedly not good enough though and we MUST exchange one of the most constant parts of the lore, despite knowing that GW doesn't do lore very well recently...
kirotheavenger wrote: You make me laugh when you say that Sisters of Battle have close to equal gender representation.
Out of all the factions 24 of them don't have distinctly mixed gendered models, depending on how you count some of the smaller factions like custodes and sisters of silence.
Leaving out Chaos Daemons because I don't want to get into Slaanesh, that leaves: SoB, Tau, Dark Eldar, Eldar, Genestealer Cults, and Tau.
Eldar have like...three distinctly female models out of a range of about 50 but primarily male. Tau include female heads on their sprues and have a female special character. Dark Eldar are pretty even except with the haemonculus coven being predominantly male. GSC's have three--two of which are non-named characters. Apart from Eldar (sorta), canonically, all units in these armies can be of either gender (or none or fluid if so inclined).
Adepta Sororitas have 6 male options in a range of about 30 (3-4 of which came out fairly recently and several of their units pull double duty, such as your basic battle sister basically also being a retributor or dominion). So yes, that makes them one of the more equal gender represented armies on the tabletop and certainly out of the human factions. Even though they shouldn't be.
But female representation of the rest of the hobby is a different discussion. One that I hope GW addresses because I want to start an IG army. NOTE: GW would have to address other aspects of IG before I'd start them as an army.
No, I denounce people's idea as juvenile and ideological. Because they are, as I motivated.
And I also admit that it's better to move to other topic, otherwise other people may be sucked into Kiro's bad train of thought.
Just to clarify: I can't care less for what people are: I don't know you, you don't know me, and chances are we will never play together (and if we do, probably we won't be able to connect our faces to the avatars here - even if my own is a good approximation)... I only know what you write, and that's what I judge, providing my reasoning for other people to freely determine if to agree or disagree with me.
You think discussion is an enunciation of what you think? Do you really underestimate so much your and other's people time?
Because those kind of juvenile and useless posts have the same argumentative consistency of a brain fart.
They could write "Im a Woman" or "My name is Claudia" on their shoulderpads??
Its no about making sense in universe, its about making a point.
But there are already models to make that point? You know Marines aren't the only range in the hobby, and that GW has been making an effort to give Guardswomen and Sisters of Battle more of the spotlight?
Because Marines are the poster child, so other factions don't matter. Get out of here with your huge Sisters revamp or female Guardsperson heads. They don't count because they aren't in the flagship faction. Just because that faction happens to be the blandest and least interesting faction in the game (and making some of them women won't change that) and other factions are far more exciting and thematically rich also doesn't matter.
Cybtroll wrote: No, I denounce people's idea as juvenile and ideological. Because they are, as I motivated.
And I also admit that it's better to move to other topic, otherwise other people may be sucked into Kiro's bad train of thought.
What are you even attemting to state. And quite frankly your argument has been Kiro has ideology and therefore Kiro argument bad. And nothing else.
Just to clarify: Ican't care less for what people are: I don't know you, you don't know me, and chances are we will never play together (and of we do, probably we won't be able to connect our faces to the bane here - even if my avatar is a good approximation)... I only know what you worite, and that's what I judge, providing my reasoning for other people to agree or disagree with me.
What reasoning?
You think discussion is an enunciation of what you think: do you really underestimate so much your and other's people time?
Because those kind of juvenile and useless posts have the same argumentative consistency of a brain fart.
Adepta Sororitas have 6 male options in a range of about 30 (3-4 of which came out fairly recently and several of their units pull double duty, such as your basic battle sister basically also being a retributor or dominion). So yes, that makes them one of the more equal gender represented armies on the tabletop and certainly out of the human factions. Even though they shouldn't be.
That's 80% female.
Not to mention SoB are explictly advertised as the "women and friends" faction, so those male models are explicitly "other".. They're just as gender slanted as Space Marines but in the opposite direction.
The fact that you are elevating these as in some way a "balanced" faction suggests you're using "equal" to mean something entirely different to what the rest of us would understand it to be.
Adepta Sororitas have 6 male options in a range of about 30 (3-4 of which came out fairly recently and several of their units pull double duty, such as your basic battle sister basically also being a retributor or dominion). So yes, that makes them one of the more equal gender represented armies on the tabletop and certainly out of the human factions. Even though they shouldn't be.
That's 80% female.
Not to mention SoB are explictly advertised as the "women and friends" faction. They're just as gender slanted as Space Marines but in the opposite direction.
The fact that you are elevating these as in some way a "balanced" faction suggests you're using "equal" to mean something entirely different to what the rest of us would understand it to be.
Since those male options are specific units can't one just opt to not take them? It's not as if the rank and file Sisters have male models in their midsts.
A closer equivalent would be if the Marines had some sort of auxiliary unit in their codex that had female models. Like, some sort of peasant unit or something.
Adepta Sororitas have 6 male options in a range of about 30 (3-4 of which came out fairly recently and several of their units pull double duty, such as your basic battle sister basically also being a retributor or dominion). So yes, that makes them one of the more equal gender represented armies on the tabletop and certainly out of the human factions. Even though they shouldn't be.
That's 80% female.
Not to mention SoB are explictly advertised as the "women and friends" faction. They're just as gender slanted as Space Marines but in the opposite direction.
The fact that you are elevating these as in some way a "balanced" faction suggests you're using "equal" to mean something entirely different to what the rest of us would understand it to be.
Since those male options are specific units can't one just opt to not take them? It's not as if the rank and file Sisters have male models in their midsts.
A closer equivalent would be if the Marines had some sort of auxiliary unit in their codex that had female models. Like, some sort of peasant unit or something.
Adepta Sororitas have 6 male options in a range of about 30 (3-4 of which came out fairly recently and several of their units pull double duty, such as your basic battle sister basically also being a retributor or dominion). So yes, that makes them one of the more equal gender represented armies on the tabletop and certainly out of the human factions. Even though they shouldn't be.
That's 80% female. Not to mention SoB are explictly advertised as the "women and friends" faction. They're just as gender slanted as Space Marines but in the opposite direction. The fact that you are elevating these as in some way a "balanced" faction suggests you're using "equal" to mean something entirely different to what the rest of us would understand it to be.
Since those male options are specific units can't one just opt to not take them? It's not as if the rank and file Sisters have male models in their midsts. A closer equivalent would be if the Marines had some sort of auxiliary unit in their codex that had female models. Like, some sort of peasant unit or something.
Chapter servs you mean.
I know, I was being cheeky I did write about including Chapter Serfs as part of a Space Marine force in the previous thread as a possible compromise.
Adepta Sororitas have 6 male options in a range of about 30 (3-4 of which came out fairly recently and several of their units pull double duty, such as your basic battle sister basically also being a retributor or dominion). So yes, that makes them one of the more equal gender represented armies on the tabletop and certainly out of the human factions. Even though they shouldn't be.
That's 80% female.
Not to mention SoB are explictly advertised as the "women and friends" faction. They're just as gender slanted as Space Marines but in the opposite direction.
The fact that you are elevating these as in some way a "balanced" faction suggests you're using "equal" to mean something entirely different to what the rest of us would understand it to be.
Since those male options are specific units can't one just opt to not take them? It's not as if the rank and file Sisters have male models in their midsts.
I've played 100% female SoB since 5th. Converted or model repped anything that I didn't have a female model for. It's only been recently I've had to make do with male models because I didn't have the same disposable income I did back then for conversions and had to make do with converting male models Crusaders and Acro-flaggelants
I agree that Space Marines are a big part of the lore, but if that is the main issue...the issue of visibility, then I would argue and be totally for giving eldar, and badass female eldar more spots in the limelight. They have been neglected far too long anyway.
This discussion is specifically about implementing female space marines. I feel most people would agree with you on this, though. However, let's be realistic, female space marines are way more likely than GW moving away from the astartes as their poster children.
Even if they give a minor faction a day in the limelight, like they were doing with the SoB, that's no guarantee that interest in support in that army won't wane.
To your first point: what's wrong with space marines being a male power fantasty. I've asked this before, but is it wrong to have an all male faction as a power fantasy for males, just as a general proposition? If not, why can't it be space marines. And if it's the issue of visibility and being in the limelight: I already said I am very much in favor of shifting the focus away from space marines to eldar for example.
It's a problem because space marines make up the majority of 40k. If Games Workshop renamed 40k to Warhammer: Space Marines and some Frenemies, they wouldn't exactly be incorrect. All most people are proposing that *in addition* to being a male power fantasy, that they open the doors to allow women to have the same one.
Unless we're saying that no girls allowed is an intrinsic part of the male power fantasy which has some uncomfortable implications.
As to your question of how I would implement female space marines: I wouldn't do it if it meant to just slap them into the lore like they always were there or something like cawl waved his magic wand again. If it was my job to implement them within the continuity of the existing lore I'd try to start small: I'd create a small short story in the space marine codex where a second founding chapter is struck by calamity and is now extremely short on aspirants. In their desperation they resort to implanting the gene seed of their primarch also into female aspirants, which goes horribly wrong for most. The lethality rate of female aspirants is higher than of male aspirants because the chance of rejecting the implants is a bit higher, a small very percentage of them survive though. This way the chapter can slowly start growing their numbers again. Other chapters and also the inquisition look curiously upon the successes of the chapter including female aspirants into their ranks.
Basically I'd start teasing it with shortstories sprinkled throughout multiple space marine codices and codex supplements. This is just from a storytelling perspective and just my personal opinion and I don't claim to be a good writer or storyteller. The main thing is, this takes time to set up. So far for the lore part.
I'm not sure. A short story being published to make it canonical wouldn't take that long to push out, especially if GW were to just tack it onto their website somewhere like they do with AoS and Necromunda. Still, just making it canon is what most people are asking for. Maaaaybe an extra head on the sprue, which we'll address with your next point.
So if you have set this up with multiple short stories over time, let's say we introduce models for female space marines: they are then of course created with the same process, so they have the same organs and stimulants pumped into them so they become hulking fighting machines, which would make sense. How do you translate that into models on a 28mm scale? If a female aspriant goes through the same process as her male counterparts, she is then also a hulking mountain of muscle. Would you even see a proper difference within their faces if their got pumped up by the same copious amounts of space steriods? Because changing the armor to be more traditionally feminine to clearly be able to differentiate them would not make much sense right? Both male and female aspirants who were able to survive would be hulking mountains of muscle pumped full of space steroids, you wouldn't even have a semblance of a female chest left because of the necessitiy of the black carapace, which is artificial.
So we've set it up over a period of time, hinting at small successes of also incoorporating female aspirants, but since they would go through the same process as the male counterparts, it would be difficult to represent the difference of male and female space marine on a 28mm scale because again, both would be hulking mountains of muscle pumped full of space steroids and extra organs.
So this is where it gets tricky since the lore is very inconsistent about Marines appearances post implantation. Looking at the poll, most people don't seem to be asking for boob armor, and most I've spoken to about female space marines would plan on having most of their girls helmeted. As far as how they should look, there's a couple of factors.
As I mentioned, the lore is inconsistent about how marines come out once they've been baked to a golden brown perfection. Some of the lore states that they come out as broad or almost deformed. On the other hand, some of the Blood Angels are said to be very pretty. And then there's how the Space Wolves come out.
And since these girls would be primaris, that adds more questions since primaris are better proportioned than the firstborn who are described as broader (like dwarves) than a proportioned human would be.
So to answer your question, probably normal primaris armor with heads somewhere between SoB and the current marines (bald or some stylized hair, bionics, battle scars, etc). What we're likely to get is slightly feminine a la AoS stormcaste armor and some obviously stylized but still also warrior intended hair styles (though probably not real world practical but when has that ever stopped GW--there's chainsaw swords for crying out loud).
Why, if you're not invested, interested or convinced that the problem is real, do you feel like you're the right person to find a solution for it?
I mean, I get why you can disagree with some changes (still I think you don't have sounded reason to do so, but it's comprehensible at least). But this is something different, because you're advocating for your solution, while it is not you problem.
Damn, someone even think it's not even a problem at all, yet engage in lengthy post to explain why the know the answer for a question that in their opinion don't exist... How is that motivated otherwise than ideologically?
Also: replying in place of others that have different ideas is both bad form and don't help people understand the discussion underneath: let people argument for themselves... they don't need your summaries, and we be discuss at length also without any gross approximation.
Also: someone mentioned newspeak entirely wrong. It's my favourite book, so let's be clear.
Newspeak isn't the creation of fictional issues and problems in order to manipulate people. (That's what you get if you read a summary,an not the book).
Newspeak is instead the quintessential of ideology, where any word need to be interpreted under the lens of "qui prodest" before acquiring meaning. The newspeak relies not changing the meaning od the words itself, but on the fact that the context is always fluid and any words takes meaning only within a certain context... change it and it makes impossible to give meaning to things.
Orwell don't speak only about politics:: it speak about the tragedy of language, the only tool human can use, and the only one that can't escape it's own recursion structure.
(I think you can get why it's so easily abused as concept). But I'll stop here, that's probably an entire different topic. Use
They could write "Im a Woman" or "My name is Claudia" on their shoulderpads??
Its no about making sense in universe, its about making a point.
But there are already models to make that point? You know Marines aren't the only range in the hobby, and that GW has been making an effort to give Guardswomen and Sisters of Battle more of the spotlight?
For the FSM Crusaders the only faction that matters in 40k and that is a valid vessel for increasing female repressentation in the gamming community are the SM... Any suggestion otherwise and you will be framed in the "Misoginist and friends" oposition (which obviously includes both most of current 40k player base and GW itself, but that dosent matter for those following a rightgeous path).
Not Online!!! wrote: Altima, aren't you missing the wytch cults which are predominantly female in the DE line up?
No, there's male wyches. Has been since the beginning, I believe. The succubus and Lelith are female, just like the the incubi and what'shisface are male. I don't think succubi are always female. Reavers, scourges, and the hoverboarders also have both male and female models.
Since those male options are specific units can't one just opt to not take them? It's not as if the rank and file Sisters have male models in their midsts.
A closer equivalent would be if the Marines had some sort of auxiliary unit in their codex that had female models. Like, some sort of peasant unit or something.
The discussion wasn't about if you can take a mixed gender army and make it monogendered. It was on what the current models have mixed gender (or mono gender in the case of ~24 armies).
Thematically, chapter serfs would step on the toes of Imperial Guard, so wouldn't be an optimal solution. If I recall, the serfs don't usually participate in pitched combat except in defense of space marine owned assets like ships or bases.
So to answer your question, probably normal primaris armor with heads somewhere between SoB and the current marines (bald or some stylized hair, bionics, battle scars, etc). What we're likely to get is slightly feminine a la AoS stormcaste armor and some obviously stylized but still also warrior intended hair styles (though probably not real world practical but when has that ever stopped GW--there's chainsaw swords for crying out loud).
Ok, sure but why slightly feminie armor like AoS stormcast? You are right that not all space marines come out the same way when the conversion process is completed (blood angels, space wolves differences etc), but some things all space marines have, must have even. Like the black carapace to interface with their armor. This augmentation would delete any semblance of a female chest and therefore remove the need for slightly feminie armor á la stormcasts like you suggested, so I am just asking how would you see the difference if you ceep this logically consistent with the lore. The current faces of the space marines are broad slabs of meat, they are not pretty but they don't have to be, it fits their aesthetic. So if you include bald battle scarred faces that are a bid more slender to represent female space marines, how do you tell them apart on a 28mm scale when you also don't really have to change the armor to look more feminine.
Why, if you're not invested, interested or convinced that the problem is real, do you feel like you're the right person to find a solution for it?
We're not trying to find you a solution, we're telling you it's not a problem and that we don't want your 'solution'.
That's like telling me you need a solution for why my walls are painted such an ugly colour, and I shouldn't offer input if I think the walls are already fine.
Damn, someone even think it's not even a problem at all, yet engage in lengthy post to explain why the know the answer for a question that in their opinion don't exist... How is that motivated otherwise than ideologically?
Again, you don't just get to define something as a problem and use that to invalidate the opinion of anyone who doesn't agree it's a problem.
Our opinion is just as valid as yours, you say it is a problem, we say it isn't.
I don't agree that the colour of my walls is a problem, regardless of what you say.
Also, what are you even using "ideology" to mean? Because it doesn't seem have any meaning other than "is bad" the way you're using it, it's certainly quite divorced from the definition I shared earlier.
Not Online!!! wrote: Altima, aren't you missing the wytch cults which are predominantly female in the DE line up?
No, there's male wyches. Has been since the beginning, I believe. The succubus and Lelith are female, just like the the incubi and what'shisface are male. I don't think succubi are always female. Reavers, scourges, and the hoverboarders also have both male and female models.
I get the distinct impression that you're actually talking about "all female" not equal gender as you claim.
Not Online!!! wrote: Altima, aren't you missing the wytch cults which are predominantly female in the DE line up?
No, there's male wyches. Has been since the beginning, I believe. The succubus and Lelith are female, just like the the incubi and what'shisface are male. I don't think succubi are always female. Reavers, scourges, and the hoverboarders also have both male and female models.
I just counted it's 7 females to 3 males in the wych box.
Since those male options are specific units can't one just opt to not take them? It's not as if the rank and file Sisters have male models in their midsts.
A closer equivalent would be if the Marines had some sort of auxiliary unit in their codex that had female models. Like, some sort of peasant unit or something.
The discussion wasn't about if you can take a mixed gender army and make it monogendered. It was on what the current models have mixed gender (or mono gender in the case of ~24 armies).
Thematically, chapter serfs would step on the toes of Imperial Guard, so wouldn't be an optimal solution. If I recall, the serfs don't usually participate in pitched combat except in defense of space marine owned assets like ships or bases.
Don't the ultramarines use theirs in a quasi guard / solar auxilia type deal?
kirotheavenger wrote: Just because the lore has changed doesn't mean lore changing is a good thing.
So lore should have just remained as it was in the original Rogue Trader book? Fine by me, there is no restriction of marines only being male there.
a bit a wierd argumentation. Rouge trader and indeed second edition were very much less and more unrefined to 3rd edition onwards where the background stabilised a lot.
Ok, sure but why slightly feminie armor like AoS stormcast? You are right that not all space marines come out the same way when the conversion process is completed (blood angels, space wolves differences etc), but some things all space marines have, must have even. Like the black carapace to interface with their armor. This augmentation would delete any semblance of a female chest and therefore remove the need for slightly feminie armor á la stormcasts like you suggested, so I am just asking how would you see the difference if you ceep this logically consistent with the lore. The current faces of the space marines are broad slabs of meat, they are not pretty but they don't have to be, it fits their aesthetic. So if you include bald battle scarred faces that are a bid more slender to represent female space marines, how do you tell them apart on a 28mm scale when you also don't really have to change the armor to look more feminine.
Preaching to the choir. Just saying that seems to be the wind blows for GW when it comes to armored female models. They feel the need to at least somewhat feminize the look, based off of what they provide for AoS and Necromunda. I'm all for just keeping the current armored look, but I doubt we would.
As for how they look different, I'll be honest. Everyone's marine armies look the same to me, apart from paint scheme--especially since they all love taking the same 3-4 core units. However, the people who own those armies identify them as 'their dudes'. They're important to those people. I'm fairly confident people will find ways to make them their own.
Thematically, chapter serfs would step on the toes of Imperial Guard, so wouldn't be an optimal solution. If I recall, the serfs don't usually participate in pitched combat except in defense of space marine owned assets like ships or bases.
Perhaps, but they would also be a mirror to Chaos Cultists or Pox Walkers, which gameplay wise are chaff units in a "elite" army and would create something an interesting parallel between Chaos and Loyalist Marines. Fluff wise it would make sense for Serfs to supplement Marine ground forces in cases where the Imperial Guard can't reach them in time. One of the criticisms of marine fluff that I noticed is that they don't actually have the numbers to carry out their missions, so Serfs could help remedy that.
Not Online!!! wrote: Altima, aren't you missing the wytch cults which are predominantly female in the DE line up?
No, there's male wyches. Has been since the beginning, I believe. The succubus and Lelith are female, just like the the incubi and what'shisface are male. I don't think succubi are always female. Reavers, scourges, and the hoverboarders also have both male and female models.
I get the distinct impression that you're actually talking about "all female" not equal gender as you claim.
Then you're incorrect or insincere. I was counting models, which are not debatable. The only pure female choices for DE are single characters. There's plenty of pure male choices (Archon, the shadow demon things, Haemonculi, arguably grotesques and wracks, incubi, what'shisface).
I'm also a little perplexed at this tangent into DE, who are by far the most mixed gendered army in 40k.
They could write "Im a Woman" or "My name is Claudia" on their shoulderpads??
Its no about making sense in universe, its about making a point.
But there are already models to make that point? You know Marines aren't the only range in the hobby, and that GW has been making an effort to give Guardswomen and Sisters of Battle more of the spotlight?
For the FSM Crusaders the only faction that matters in 40k and that is a valid vessel for increasing female repressentation in the gamming community are the SM... Any suggestion otherwise and you will be framed in the "Misoginist and friends" oposition (which obviously includes both most of current 40k player base and GW itself, but that dosent matter for those following a rightgeous path).
On the contrary - if the ghost of Robin Williams poofed onto my doorstep and said
"Good news bad news champ I went to half-hell on account of being so funny, in half-hell you're not a slave to Satan Lord of Hell you're a contracted employee of Stan, Prince of Heck. Stan set me up with a Genie gig granting wishes but only relating to my old hobbies, so you're allowed to change any three things you'd like about 40k specifically, shoot!"
my three wishes would definitely set up the game to be an equitable, multiple factions-based setting with space marines and chaos space marines as ONE faction rather than the current 10/21 that they represent, and then this gak would be no issue at all. You'd have eldar, tau, sisters, dark eldar, all on the exact same footing as the marines and the chaos marines, getting the same amount of models, and roughly ~30% of the models released for the game would be female. That'd be perfectly fine to solve the issue of representation automatically.
But I know that's not going to happen. you know that's not going to happen. This "they just need to release models for other factions, bro!" line of defense is only ever thrown out there because the people who throw it out, know it isn't going to happen in a million years. They know GW is going to continue letting every other faction in the entire game share 30% of the model releases between them while space marines get half and Chaos Marines get 20%.
Ok, sure but why slightly feminie armor like AoS stormcast?
I don't want that and I don't think majority of people who want female Astartes want that, though of course some do. But it is possible that this is how GW would do it to mirror the Stotmcast. Personally I very much want them to have basically the same armour than the men. They're just marines that happen to female, not GIRL MARINES that are drastically different than BOY MARINES.
You are right that not all space marines come out the same way when the conversion process is completed (blood angels, space wolves differences etc), but some things all space marines have, must have even. Like the black carapace to interface with their armor. This augmentation would delete any semblance of a female chest and therefore remove the need for slightly feminie armor á la stormcasts like you suggested, so I am just asking how would you see the difference if you ceep this logically consistent with the lore. The current faces of the space marines are broad slabs of meat, they are not pretty but they don't have to be, it fits their aesthetic. So if you include bald battle scarred faces that are a bid more slender to represent female space marines, how do you tell them apart on a 28mm scale when you also don't really have to change the armor to look more feminine.
I'll repost the pic of my model:
This is roughly how I'd do it along with official recognition that female marines are possible. Just faces with slightly more feminine features. It doesn't need to be super apparent. Women in combat gear are not that distinguishable from men, and bio-engineered women in power armour even less so. And that's fine. You cant tell the genders of Tau apart when their helmets are on either, nor Cadians if they wear gasmasks and goggles. Having some bare female heads you can occasionally use is enough.
Perhaps, but they would also be a mirror to Chaos Cultists or Pox Walkers, which gameplay wise are chaff units in a "elite" army.
Fluff wise it would make sense for Serfs to supplement Marine ground forces in cases where the Imperial Guard can't reach them in time. One of the criticisms of marine fluff that I noticed is that they don't actually have the numbers to carry out their missions, so Serfs could help remedy that.
And if Chaos had a proper mortals army, pox walkers and cultists would step on their toes. But they don't, so those units don't have to compete in the creative space. Instead, chaos is CSM with everything tacked on (or daemons).
Boy do I wish we had traitor guard and dark mechanicus and mutants... Maybe one day.
Perhaps, but they would also be a mirror to Chaos Cultists or Pox Walkers, which gameplay wise are chaff units in a "elite" army.
Fluff wise it would make sense for Serfs to supplement Marine ground forces in cases where the Imperial Guard can't reach them in time. One of the criticisms of marine fluff that I noticed is that they don't actually have the numbers to carry out their missions, so Serfs could help remedy that.
And if Chaos had a proper mortals army, pox walkers and cultists would step on their toes. But they don't, so those units don't have to compete in the creative space. Instead, chaos is CSM with everything tacked on (or daemons).
Boy do I wish we had traitor guard and dark mechanicus and mutants... Maybe one day.
Ok, sure but why slightly feminie armor like AoS stormcast? You are right that not all space marines come out the same way when the conversion process is completed (blood angels, space wolves differences etc), but some things all space marines have, must have even. Like the black carapace to interface with their armor. This augmentation would delete any semblance of a female chest and therefore remove the need for slightly feminie armor á la stormcasts like you suggested, so I am just asking how would you see the difference if you ceep this logically consistent with the lore. The current faces of the space marines are broad slabs of meat, they are not pretty but they don't have to be, it fits their aesthetic. So if you include bald battle scarred faces that are a bid more slender to represent female space marines, how do you tell them apart on a 28mm scale when you also don't really have to change the armor to look more feminine.
Preaching to the choir. Just saying that seems to be the wind blows for GW when it comes to armored female models. They feel the need to at least somewhat feminize the look, based off of what they provide for AoS and Necromunda. I'm all for just keeping the current armored look, but I doubt we would.
As for how they look different, I'll be honest. Everyone's marine armies look the same to me, apart from paint scheme--especially since they all love taking the same 3-4 core units. However, the people who own those armies identify them as 'their dudes'. They're important to those people. I'm fairly confident people will find ways to make them their own.
Yeah no I'm not disputing that people will make models their own and there is nothing wrong with that. But we were arguing from an official lore standpoint. And if we adhere to those lore points we just established, I don't see how you could easily differentiate between male and female marines on a 28mm scale, which brings in the question on whether it is necessary to have distinct models.
Which in turn brings the question as to whether the lore to establish female Marines, like we just discussed, would be enough to satisfy those who argue for more inclusion especially regarding marines.
Yeah no I'm not disputing that people will make models their own and there is nothing wrong with that. But we were arguing from an official lore standpoint. And if we adhere to those lore points we just established, I don't see how you could easily differentiate between male and female marines on a 28mm scale, which brings in the question on whether it is necessary to have distinct models.
Which in turn brings the question as to whether the lore to establish female Marines, like we just discussed, would be enough to satisfy those who argue for more inclusion especially regarding marines.
Taking a quick perusal through the smurf catalogue on the GW website, not every marine face is a slab of meat. Many of them look quite normal such as the executioner. The Primaris Librarian even has a well groomed beard. Crimson has even graciously provided a custom example.
So yes, the face can be made to be obviously feminine and should. As stated, even in firstborn, how they come out is radically inconsistent especially when we throw in Blood Angels who are often described as pretty. The marines may supposed to come out looking deformed, but that is in no way reflected on the models.
At least for primaris, which these would be. I'm unaware if these's been anything officially stated about how primaris heads look different. As said before, the proportions are better, so I imagine they should look less deformed. Regardless, the current trend GW has is to make them recognizably human and heroic, so there's no reason for them not to do the same with a hypothetical female space marine release.
So tell me then when was the lore perfected, and after which no changes should have been made? Give the date.
Perfected? Never, perfection is an impossible pursuit.
When would I concrete the lore? The day I entered the hobby, because then the lore was in a state I liked.
After which would no changes have been made? Define change, retcons - no. Silly, shoehorned additions? No. Logical and awesome expansions? Definitely.
Primaris are a silly shoehorned addition, they also arguably include some retcons.
You mean lost and the damned, or did I miss something fun?
'cause LatD...I mean, yeeeeeah, kinda, but not really, y'know? I'd want it done properly. Less "sacrifice me!", more "hey, we're a professional army like the blood pact!"
But hey, if that's how you feel about these guys, that's how some people feel about female space marines.
Interesting! I saw that pop up on an fb group I follow - it's a statuesque minis head, right?
I thought it was a bit of a coincidence that model popped up at the same time as all these threads.
Anyways, I thought, and think its a bloody nice model-said as much over there.previously I'd always preferred the idea of slightly feminising the armour - I tend to prefer leaner, more 'realistic proportions anyway than the 'bulk' look so phobos armour is a better fit for me anyway.
But that mini of yours kinda sold me on the idea that a headswap can work and can do a nice job. I think the scale needs to be 'heroic' and they need the gorget at the base of the head to fit it in to the rest of the marine model, which is something I've not seen on a lot of headswaps to date. But that's another topic.
Interesting! I saw that pop up on an fb group I follow
The Primaris Marine group? They deleted it.
- it's a statuesque minis head, right?
Yep.
I thought it was a bit of a coincidence that model popped up at the same time as all these threads.
It was no coincidence, I took the pic to post in anothet thread on the topic here, and as I already had it, I posted it on FB as well.
But that mini of yours kinda sold me on the idea that a headswap can work and can do a nice job. I think the scale needs to be 'heroic' and they need the gorget at the base of the head to fit it in to the rest of the marine model, which is something I've not seen on a lot of headswaps to date. But that's another topic.
A lot of headswaps look weird, because the heads are too dainty. There really aren't many GW female heads that work, perhaps some Stormcast ones do, but they don't have proper neck either. Seeing people do models with these Statuesque heads that are specifically scaled to be bulkier is what convince me to finally add some female marines.
