Yodhrin wrote:So yeah, sure, diversity is good because people like to see themselves reflected in the stories and art they consume, so including more "unremarkable" female and recognisably non-white European male models will make the hobby more attractive to women and non-white European males, but grumbling about it seems silly considering we're not even talking about it just not costing you anything; having more variety is an unqualified positive for everybody whether it's because they feel more accepted in their chosen hobby, because it aligns with your ethics, or just because it gives you more cool and interesting models to build and paint and create stories with. Literally nobody loses, so there's no reason not to support the idea.
THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!
Nobody loses!
Keep Space Marines male, Sisters of Battle female, and everyone else gets a mix of genders - and EVERY human faction should have a wider variance of facial features.
Except Orkz.
There is no gender, and only one ethnicity. Green. Coz green iz best. Non green iz loozaz.
EDIT: Reading fail on my part. Missed the "human" bit.
Sorry, just my tired brain seeing you talking about orks before realising you were replying to a post solely about humans made me think of Diggas - humans that have taken on Ork Kultur as their own and who emulate the greenskins (going so far as to paint all their skin green).
Selym wrote: Do they drink too much and worship the fell god Fu'tbal?
The Diggas are a tribe of people descended from the survivors of an Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator ship that crashed on the planet Angelus. They were trapped underground for centuries (hence the 'Digga' bit), and eventually freed by accident by Orks. They were so enamoured of the Orks and Orky Kultur that they pretend to be Orks. The Orks think they're mad, but for the most part tolerate them the same way they tolerate Grots.
It's all there in the Gorkamorka supplement Digganob.
Howling banshees and various HQs hell eldar is almost half half
best way to go about it for guard would be sell it as a extra spru for 5 bucks
No, they don't. The Eldar have a few female torsos in the Guardian box (IIRC), and the Howling Banshees. They should also have female torsos in all the other Aspect Warrior units, at least one female Warlock, and female torsos for their vehicle crews and jetbike riders.
GW doesn't sell extra sprues really, but I suppose something like the Ultramarines Upgrade Clampack might work?
Selym wrote: 40k is the medieval era IN SPAAACE. The Imperium is roman catholicism IN SPAAACE. Marines are Monks/Crusaders IN SPAAACE[…]That is why there are no female marines. It's just not thematic gor the IOM to be unbiased towatds gender.
Tau are medieval era? No. Sebastian Thor brought the reform, it's Protestantism in Space now . White Scars are monks/crusaders ? No. All your comparison are approximations. None of them are absolute. The Imperium has a bunch of inspirations. Inspirations. But GW never meant it to be an accurate reproduction of anything. When SM chapter whatever has sources of inspiration that are pretty damn well compatible with female warriors, like say Space Wolves, then there is no reason they shouldn't include some. If it is not fitting for, say, Dark Angels, well, they can be an exception to the rule if you really, really want it. Because deep down, the space marines are a BLANK CANVAS under which every chapter get some personality added over. A very boring blank canvas that just says “super-human warrior with likely some religious beliefs”. And it's intentional. It allows people great freedom when creating their own SM chapters. Your spiritual liege, for instance, are inspired by Roman legions and organizations. Black Tempars are indeed inspired by Crusaders, and Dark Angels by monks, but White Scars are inspired by the Mongol warriors, Blood Angels are inspired by vampires and Italian artists of the Renaissance, … Let's make that blank canvas a little more open, a little more free.
Yodhrin wrote: Bollocks, by that standard Mechanicus and Necrons are basically the same because they're both really hype about machines.
That's exactly how I feel about your explanation that Sisters and Marines are the same. I feel it's bollocks. I guess that means my comparison was apt then.
Yodhrin wrote: And I've had enough of big lore changes in IP's I enjoy, thanks.
Well, you don't own the IP, I don't need to convince you. If I do convince the owner though, too bad for you.
Yodhrin wrote: You'll have to cite the codex for SoB that include male SoB, because it's not one I recall.
I am going to write this again and maybe you'll understand. The 2nd edition Codex: Sisters of Battle had 3 male special characters, 2 female special characters. The Codex : Witch-hunter had 1 male and 1 female special character. The WDex had 2 male and 1 female special characters. The eBook Codex: Sisters of Battle has 1 male and 1 female special character. On the other hand, literally none of the much, much more numerous Space Marines codecies, that include much, much more special characters than your average Sisters of Battle codex, ever included any female special character.10 How can you complain that men are not represented enough in the different codecies for Sisters of Battle? Are you arguing in bad faith?
Yodhrin wrote: Out of interest - do you believe works of literature should be censored or rewritten to remove any product-of-its-time language and sentiments that relate to gender, race, sexuality etc?
That argument would hold so much more merit if 40k's fluff wasn't expanded, modified and retconned every damn time, and that apparently never prevented you from enjoying it. Really if you like 2nd edition fluff more, nothing is preventing you from enjoying it. Your old books won't be rewritten behind your back. Just the new material is going to be different, and you'll be free to ignore it.
Selym wrote: 40k is the medieval era IN SPAAACE. The Imperium is roman catholicism IN SPAAACE. Marines are Monks/Crusaders IN SPAAACE[…]That is why there are no female marines. It's just not thematic gor the IOM to be unbiased towatds gender.
Tau are medieval era? No.
Sebastian Thor brought the reform, it's Protestantism in Space now .
White Scars are monks/crusaders ? No.
All your comparison are approximations. None of them are absolute. The Imperium has a bunch of inspirations. Inspirations. But GW never meant it to be an accurate reproduction of anything. When SM chapter whatever has sources of inspiration that are pretty damn well compatible with female warriors, like say Space Wolves, then there is no reason they shouldn't include some. If it is not fitting for, say, Dark Angels, well, they can be an exception to the rule if you really, really want it.
Because deep down, the space marines are a BLANK CANVAS under which every chapter get some personality added over. A very boring blank canvas that just says “super-human warrior with likely some religious beliefs”. And it's intentional. It allows people great freedom when creating their own SM chapters. Your spiritual liege, for instance, are inspired by Roman legions and organizations. Black Tempars are indeed inspired by Crusaders, and Dark Angels by monks, but White Scars are inspired by the Mongol warriors, Blood Angels are inspired by vampires and Italian artists of the Renaissance, …
Let's make that blank canvas a little more open, a little more free.
Tau are representative of the emergence of freethought and progress. The IOM's response to them is the same as how humans in general used to treat such things. It's not absolute, but there are massive historical influences involved in 40k, directing the thematics and designs of things like Space Marines. And White Scars are Mongols.
Selym wrote: Tau are representative of the emergence of freethought and progress.
Tau are not known for free-thought, rather for suspicion of thought control. And no, they are not medieval. The emergence of technological prowess is not a thematic element linked to the medieval period.
Also White Scars are not mongols. White Scars are inspired by Mongols. Which means they can be different from actual Mongols in any way GW wants them to.
Selym wrote: Tau are representative of the emergence of freethought and progress.
Tau are not known for free-thought, rather for suspicion of thought control. And no, they are not medieval. The emergence of technological prowess is not a thematic element linked to the medieval period.
Also White Scars are not mongols. White Scars are inspired by Mongols. Which means they can be different from actual Mongols in any way GW wants them to.
Right, I'm not sure you read my post. Try again.
I'll even highlight some key points:
Selym wrote: Tau are representative of the emergence of freethought and progress. The IOM's response to them is the same as how humans in general used to treat such things. It's not absolute, but there are massive historical influences involved in 40k, directing the thematics and designs of things like Space Marines. And White Scars are Mongols.
Perhaps the concepts need sorting a bit. On the one hand, we have the concept of variety. This simply stands for the idea that the model ranges ought to better reflect/portray the richness of the 40k setting. The key example would be female IG sculpts. On the other hand, we have the concept of diversity. That means the model ranges, and the 40k setting itself, should be aligned with a contemporary IRL political ideology. The banner example for this concept is female Space Marines.
Everyone is getting #rekt left and right in a silly debate that will forever run in circles. Both parties, or at least one, claim that the argument is futile as long as they convince GW and yet they keep the toxicity levels from going down. I applaud the 40k Fanbase with a standing ovation.
Then why are you posting here and not helping anything from changing for the better? Because this is hilarious to watch.
---
I think what GW is in the process of, or is going to do, is to pull a Lucasfilms and purge most of the lore. They'll then make a claim of something like.... "All this stuff from this point on is to be taken as Canon, anything before is just a mess because we hadn't built a super-duper-leak-proof-foundation and is to be treated as 'Tales from the Warp'." This would fix most of the but gw is darn inconsistent and It has always been that way because GW would be making the final say. Do I expect GW to introduce Spesh Mahreens as female-inclusive? Probably not, but it is a possibility.
Some of the arguments I am seeing are:
If you get female Space Marines then I get to have male bras without it being called cross-dressing because if 40k is no longer being marketed to only the dominant male demographic then neither should underwear. Or the button-shirts that are buttoned on the "wrong side" This kind of argument spawned boxers for females.
Can't everyone share? And this spawned Communism (Just Kidding).
I hold a nostalgic value in maintaining traditions and patterns despite any other inconsistencies that may lie within the game's lore Which is kinda where I am at. I do not like change because I am sexist, I just am comfortable with things kinda being the same a lot. I still hate the new Necron lore with a burning passion because I enjoyed what Necrons had been previously, mindless terminators. Would I be opposed with something that I have read countless pages of changing? I'd be real uncomfortable and shaken up that "everything I knew was wrong", but I'd get used to the new stuff fine enough because I just wanna put the liquid on my models and make my army my own despite whatever the lore says. Anyone can make their army their own without changing the "official gak", look at the people who play Star Wars Expanded Universe exclusively or the people who write fan-fiction. Does this prevent Space Marines from being female? Not really, because there would be a group who claims the opposite either way in their play groups.
The list of arguments is exhaustible but I do not want to type anymore of them.
No one is going to get anywhere with their arguments on this thread because everyone is arguing for something else. Everyone is standing on their own "Little Big Horn" with different previous experiences and opinions. It's like if a bunch of blind people arguing about what colour the sign in front of them was, they'll argue in circles but nobody is going to be able to see the truth in each other's argument.
In the end: 40k is like a cloud, it can be interpreted anyway you want it to be but not everyone is going to see the same picture as you. So be fine with eachother's interpretations and let them do their thing, GW is a big boy and can make marketing decisions without being pestered by gamers of every point-of-view imaginable.
What is certain, mostly: More diversity brings in customers, but that is up to GW.
One final argument:
Screw the lore, I just want better gameplay choices for faction x. Me, in the full sense of the sentence. Like I said.... Regimental Doctrines, Ork Clans, etc please.... This is the Diversity that is 90% needed and will actually matter. I just want to be thrown a bone for following Blood Axes or have some rule-aspects to further personalize my army beyond the modelling part.
I have seen Bronie Armies with the same list as an Ultramarines army, they were the same list but different armies. Look at Protieus' Rebel Grot army, he made goblins use the Imperial Guard rules, because the fluff doesn't matter when you have your own vision. you just need the rules and the Rebel Grot Conversion Project had to use something as the codex without restricting itself to 1 unit choice.
You can say whatever you want about your army, except the rules. Please make the factions' codi, the rules, more diverse since that is what ultimately matters at an Official Event
Seriously though, as someone who struggles to see herself represented in any media, I fail to see why someone else's mild preference / discomfort takes priority. It reflects very poorly on Games Workshop and the entire 40k fandom that "only men" is still a thing, and that anyone defends it for any reason. This communicates something loud and clear, and if you realized what it was you may not like what it says about you.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm also just going to point out that apparently this rigorous Space Marine making process kills anyone who's transgender, because otherwise I guarantee you'll have female Space Marines one way or another.
Seriously, at some point you need to ask yourself why this is a hill you want to die on, and what that says to the people around you. Someone important to you could come out of the closet or express personal concern about something you've made jokes about, minimized the importance of, or belittled the people who care about it, and you're going to feel like a fething heel.
I know I did.
So basically everything has to be you? Or at the very least, you should be specifically represented in every form of fiction? Or maybe I should say every faction? Social Justice has to hit a wall at some point. As far as transgender Space Marines go, the aspirants don't want to be male OR female, they want to be Space Marines. Being a Space Marine is to strip away damn near every aspect of your old life, INCLUDING any sort of romance or intimacy you had before. You think anyone with any sort of female mindset would want that? Nope.
Also, if we're going by the "everything must be me" card, should I boycott GW until they produce a model with supporting fiction that is a Heterosexual Cisgendered Disabled Lithuanian-American Veteran and Sci Fi fan, Musician, Artist, Machinist AND Transformers collector? Hell, just being Baltic makes me more of a minority than most people claiming the status. Yet I'm fine with how models are produced because I can simply write whatever background for whatever model I have that represents whatever character I want. So I ask again, what are you even fighting for?
Howling banshees and various HQs hell eldar is almost half half
best way to go about it for guard would be sell it as a extra spru for 5 bucks
About the 50/50 of eldars on gender representation, well let say its not nearly the case.
Only Guardians have the option two different sex. Its 3 female torse for 7 male ones. Banshees are the only female aspect warriors. While there is no gender restriction on any of the fluff on any aspect warriors (including banshees), all the other are strictly male. There is only one female special character for 6 men. At most you can argue that 15 to 20% of eldars are represented has women.
In the dark eldar range, things are slightly more balanced. Kabalite warriors have the same option for gender than guardians, For wytches its 50/50. There is has much female torse than male ones. Hellions have one female in a group of 5, Scourge 2 in a group of 5, Incubi are all male so are Mandrakes and Wracks, there is three female HQ (two wytches and the lhamaean) for 5 male ones. Thus, dark eldar are much more representative than eldar but still cap at around 30% which matches the presence of women in pretty much all medias from movies to television, to newspaper, cartoons, comic book, etc.
Gen.Steiner wrote:
As for Chapter Serfs, I was always under the impression that they were failed aspirants, so, again, all male.
Actually, aspirants who fall short generally die in the attempt. Or, if they're really unlucky, get turned into servitors. So the chapter serfs come from a different talent pool, and there's no reason to think they're segregated. For that matter, since the various chapters tend to drain the male half of the tiny little warrior societies the fluff tends to have them recruit from, you'd think they'd have to have female serfs to avoid completely depleting said tiny little warrior societies' ability to reproduce.
The tenuousness of the recruitment pool official fluff posits for GW-written chapters is why my chapter recruits from hive city gangers. But that's off topic.
Yodhrin wrote:
Out of interest - do you believe works of literature should be censored or rewritten to remove any product-of-its-time language and sentiments that relate to gender, race, sexuality etc? Not to say 40K is literature, but I'm interested to find out if you're only in favour of rewriting 40K background because it doesn't meet some arbitrary personal threshold of importance, or if altering established elements of existing works of fiction based on modern left-liberal ethics is a point of principle.
The background to 40K isn't literature (which you do acknowledge), it's a context for a product GW wants to sell. The context is exclusionary to a large segment of the population (the majority in the United States, I'll point out). Changing the background so it's not exclusionary isn't SJW meddling, it's just smart business practice. It effectively doubles the size of the audience the product can appeal to.
GW is currently behind the demographic curve, having little female representation in most of their armies, and none in their flagship product. That's not a recipe for bringing more female gamers into 40K. Having one mostly-female army (that's still all-metal, has sub-par rules, and can only be bought online) doesn't redress the balance, it's just tokenism that serves to further highlight how underrepresented females are. I'd argue that in order to catch up to the demographic curve, GWhas to increase the representation of women in the products they sell, and ideally that would include female Space Marines. That would probably cause countless heads to explode and a GamerGate-esque uproar, but there's really no two ways about it. Either have female Space Marines, or be open to criticism about female representation in the game.
That said, ANY increased female representation would be an improvement. Hence my idea about Chapter Serf units. That would allow some female representation in Space Marine armies without retconning the precious (rolls eyes) fluff. A female Cadian sprue. A female Farseer, and some female Aspect Warrior bodies in the temples that aren't Howling Banshees. How about a friggin' mini for Inquisitor Valyria? Are these things really too hard for GW to produce?
Ahh, the old false binary choice argument. No, you don't need to crowbar in women into the Space Marines to add diversity to Warhammer 40k. Properly support the Adepta Sororitas, increase the diversity in factions that already have it and for god's sake stop making everything about Space Marines. Most of the Imperium's wars are fought by the Imperial Guard. Even as a Space Marine player I am sick of the attention lavished on Space Marines.
I am going to write this again and maybe you'll understand. The 2nd edition Codex: Sisters of Battle had 3 male special characters, 2 female special characters. The Codex : Witch-hunter had 1 male and 1 female special character. The WDex had 2 male and 1 female special characters. The eBook Codex: Sisters of Battle has 1 male and 1 female special character. On the other hand, literally none of the much, much more numerous Space Marines codecies, that include much, much more special characters than your average Sisters of Battle codex, ever included any female special character.10
How can you complain that men are not represented enough in the different codecies for Sisters of Battle? Are you arguing in bad faith?
Well, that's a little disingenuous. The 2nd Ed Codex, while being titled "Sisters of Battle", is still pulling in elements of the Ecclesiarchy. Sisters of Battle themselves remain all female, even if the Preachers, Confessors, etc. could be either gender. The reverse would be the Daemonhunters codex, in which the all-male Grey Knights were joined/led by adjuncts without gender restrictions.
It IS too bad that there aren't more female SCs accross the Imperium, there's certainly room for them. But the ranks of the SoB themselves are still exclusively filled with women.
Exactly - plus is anyone arguing against there being some Ecclesiarchal characters (or even units) in a hypothetical SoB dex? I mean, that would wonderfully contextualize their place in the setting.
Again Variety versus Diversity. Having lots of options is not the same thing as some IRL political agenda.
Manchu wrote: Exactly - plus is anyone arguing against there being some Ecclesiarchal characters (or even units) in a hypothetical SoB dex? I mean, that would wonderfully contextualize their place in the setting.
Im down with the clown frown.
i would love a lot more female characters as well in IG and various Xeno factions.
RELEASE THE DOMINATRIX! (actually cant recall if there was 40k scale model of it)
Pointing out that the Sisters of Battle codecies have always included the same number or more male SC than female SC is disingenuous, but pretending that the existence of this single, extremely neglected codex that includes more male SC than female SC is in any way, shape or form a meaningful counterbalance to the fact the numerous and very generously filled SM codecies are all strictly, 100% male only is not disingenuous? Is that what you believe?
Insectum7 wrote: The reverse would be the Daemonhunters codex, in which the all-male Grey Knights were joined/led by adjuncts without gender restrictions.
Oh but did you forget how the Inquisition got separated from the rest, leaving a 100% male only Grey Knight codex without Inquisitors in it, and a Sisters of Battle codex with more male SC than female SC without Inquisitors in it?
Insectum7 wrote: But the ranks of the SoB themselves are still exclusively filled with women.
Yes, and that is not in any way equivalent to the fact SMs are exclusively male, for the reasons explained above.
Pointing out that the Sisters of Battle codecies have always included the same number or more male SC than female SC is disingenuous, but pretending that the existence of this single, extremely neglected codex that includes more male SC than female SC is in any way, shape or form a meaningful counterbalance to the fact the numerous and very generously filled SM codecies are all strictly, 100% male only is not disingenuous? Is that what you believe?
Insectum7 wrote: The reverse would be the Daemonhunters codex, in which the all-male Grey Knights were joined/led by adjuncts without gender restrictions.
Oh but did you forget how the Inquisition got separated from the rest, leaving a 100% male only Grey Knight codex without Inquisitors in it, and a Sisters of Battle codex with more male SC than female SC without Inquisitors in it?
Insectum7 wrote: But the ranks of the SoB themselves are still exclusively filled with women.
Yes, and that is not in any way equivalent to the fact SMs are exclusively male, for the reasons explained above.
Yeah yeah yeah, I get all that. Codex SoB, (the 2nd Ed. one) is really "Codex: Ecclesiarchy", but just as it happens, their militant arm is all women, and the Sisters are the iconic battlefield presence there. Could it have had more female SC's in it? Sure.
No, I did not forget that Grey Knights and Inquisition got split into their respective codexes. But given that the provided examples of SoB Codexes are from well over a decade ago, and that the format of releases has changed since then, I don't think it's as relevant as you might be implying.
But the Grey Knight codex is also symptomatic of what I think is a supporting problem that you may have with marines being exclusively male. The focus of GW production is too marine-centric. Because GW laivshes a ton of emphasis on marines, it further skews the ratio of gender representation. We just got Codex: Deathwatch (another marine book) when I think a lot of us would have much rather had a new Codex: Sisters. Which, now that the Inquisition has it's own book, a Sisters book might feature more female SCs than Male.
Quickjager wrote: Hybrid for fear of misunderstanding your point... what are you getting at?
A. You want female Space Marines
B. You want female options for IG C. You want Sisters of Battle supported
I really don't understand what you are getting at anymore.
Il take D all of the above. including A only because of the rage it would induce in the 40k population. not because i actually want female space marines. i think its a horrible stab at the fluff. not if there was an alternative not space marine space marine faction of super genetically enhanced female warriors i think that would be cool. just dont call them space marines,.
If Sisters got a Deldar-style release, I expect that new SoBSCs would be part of that. But Ecclesiarchal SCs would also likely be a part of that. The trick is, how many of the latter would also be women?
Insectum7 wrote: But given that the provided examples of SoB Codexes are from well over a decade ago, and that the format of releases has changed since then, I don't think it's as relevant as you might be implying.
I also provided example from the 5 years old and the 3 years old codices too. I literally listed every Sisters of Battle rules ever, except for the Chapter Approved from 2001 because I couldn't get the info on that one.
So, what's not relevant?
Insectum7 wrote: Which, now that the Inquisition has it's own book, a Sisters book might feature more female SCs than Male.
Out of the four codices I mentioned, only one featured any Inquisitor at all…
How does the Codex: Inquisition, that was released a mere month after the last Codex: Sisters of Battle, has to do with anything at this point?
Insectum7 wrote: But given that the provided examples of SoB Codexes are from well over a decade ago, and that the format of releases has changed since then, I don't think it's as relevant as you might be implying.
I also provided example from the 5 years old and the 3 years old codices too. I literally listed every Sisters of Battle rules ever, except for the Chapter Approved from 2001 because I couldn't get the info on that one.
So, what's not relevant?
Insectum7 wrote: Which, now that the Inquisition has it's own book, a Sisters book might feature more female SCs than Male.
Out of the four codices I mentioned, only one featured any Inquisitor at all…
How does the Codex: Inquisition, that was released a mere month after the last Codex: Sisters of Battle, has to do with anything at this point?
Well, then it's clear that Codex: SoBs are really Codex Ecclesiarchy, with representatives of the Imperial Church, no?
If the issue is that Sisters should, as a faction, be more supported and have more SC's, I'm all on board.
If the issue is that "GW thinks that women can't take to the field of battle without a man being in charge." I can't agree with that.
If the issue is that Sisters should have a codex dedicated to them, and not other members of the Ecclesiarchy. . . Maybe? I just think so far it's been a convenient thing to do for GW.
Da Kommizzar wrote: Everyone is getting #rekt left and right in a silly debate that will forever run in circles. Both parties, or at least one, claim that the argument is futile as long as they convince GW and yet they keep the toxicity levels from going down. I applaud the 40k Fanbase with a standing ovation.
Then why are you posting here and not helping anything from changing for the better? Because this is hilarious to watch.
So, english speakers say "Bravo" too ? That's funny. I love when different languages use the same word, it's beautiful
Insectum7 wrote: If the issue is that Sisters should, as a faction, be more supported and have more SC's, I'm all on board.
If the issue is that "GW thinks that women can't take to the field of battle without a man being in charge." I can't agree with that.
If the issue is that Sisters should have a codex dedicated to them, and not other members of the Ecclesiarchy. . . Maybe? I just think so far it's been a convenient thing to do for GW.
The “issue” is that Yodhrin quoting the Sisters of Battle codices as some kind of justification for the all-male nature of the Space Marines was not in any way a relevant argument. As I already pointed out.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
godardc wrote: So, english speakers say "Bravo" too ? That's funny. I love when different languages use the same word, it's beautiful
The “issue” is that Yodhrin quoting the Sisters of Battle codices as some kind of justification for the all-male nature of the Space Marines was not in any way a relevant argument. As I already pointed out.
I suppose. Though you did point out that the SOB codexes included more male SCs than female. I felt the point that Yodhrin was making was more "in-universe" than "in-codex".
IMO, in-universe the SoBs seem like more of a female mirror to the all male Space Marines, even if their representation by GW is sorely lacking.
TheCustomLime wrote:Ahh, the old false binary choice argument. No, you don't need to crowbar in women into the Space Marines to add diversity to Warhammer 40k. Properly support the Adepta Sororitas, increase the diversity in factions that already have it and for god's sake stop making everything about Space Marines. Most of the Imperium's wars are fought by the Imperial Guard. Even as a Space Marine player I am sick of the attention lavished on Space Marines.
Absolutely.
It is entirely possible to maintain the post-human Space Marines as an entirely male force and increase both variety and diversity within the game.
As far as Codex: Sisters of Battle, (WD) Codex: Sisters of Battle, Codex: Witchhunters, (WD) Codex: Sisters of Battle, and Codex: Adepta Sororitas go... the Ecclesiarchy's characters and models are all male; the Sisters of Battle characters and models are all female. It seems strange that there are no female priest figures on one level, but frankly that's something that can be solved with, er, a new Codex...
Dark Heresy Rulebook wrote:"The wartorn 41st millenium is not always an encouraging place to be for a female. Few get the opportunities of their male counterparts, but by the same token they do not get exposed to the danger out there in the wilder parts of the galaxy. Certain Imperial Guard regiments recruit females to fight alongside men; the Eclessiarchy and the Inquisition likewise employ females at all ranks, but again their number is not in proportion to men
... but that ofc makes the universe better, because it fits the tone of backwards, oppressive society. The number of women should stay exactly the same, SoB, some Inquisitors and few % in IG.
Seriously though, as someone who struggles to see herself represented in any media, I fail to see why someone else's mild preference / discomfort takes priority. It reflects very poorly on Games Workshop and the entire 40k fandom that "only men" is still a thing, and that anyone defends it for any reason. This communicates something loud and clear, and if you realized what it was you may not like what it says about you.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm also just going to point out that apparently this rigorous Space Marine making process kills anyone who's transgender, because otherwise I guarantee you'll have female Space Marines one way or another.
Seriously, at some point you need to ask yourself why this is a hill you want to die on, and what that says to the people around you. Someone important to you could come out of the closet or express personal concern about something you've made jokes about, minimized the importance of, or belittled the people who care about it, and you're going to feel like a fething heel.
I know I did.
I'm just gonna weigh in here.
I do believe that Female Space Marines COULD have been made by the Emperor. He made the Primarchs after all which are a hell of a lot more complicated but for some reason he couldn't be bothered with Females. Whilst it COULD have been done, it wasn't. We have to accept that because that's the fictional universe we're playing in.
You can't just say -- I dislike that fundamental facet of a faction in this fictional universe and it should be changed, people who refuse are 'choose one' (bigoted/misogynists/chauvinists/pigs).
That's like reading the Lord of the Rings and saying -
'The Dead Men of Dunharrow are all male! I demand representation and your refusals to change this fictional group says something about you irl!'
Now you'll probably call me out as marine fanboy but I'm the exact opposite; I am extremely fed up with all the Space Marine focus GW keeps promoting and prefer the stories of normal humans instead. I am also fed up with movie marines and their mary-sue-ness. Also as I said earlier, I believe Female Space Marines could have been made. I just believe that if we choose to play and enjoy the 40k universe, we have to accept the fictional restrictions (Warp, Psychic Powers, Chaos Gods, Teleportation etc. etc.).
Yodhrin wrote:
Out of interest - do you believe works of literature should be censored or rewritten to remove any product-of-its-time language and sentiments that relate to gender, race, sexuality etc? Not to say 40K is literature, but I'm interested to find out if you're only in favour of rewriting 40K background because it doesn't meet some arbitrary personal threshold of importance, or if altering established elements of existing works of fiction based on modern left-liberal ethics is a point of principle.
The background to 40K isn't literature (which you do acknowledge), it's a context for a product GW wants to sell. The context is exclusionary to a large segment of the population (the majority in the United States, I'll point out). Changing the background so it's not exclusionary isn't SJW meddling, it's just smart business practice. It effectively doubles the size of the audience the product can appeal to.
GW is currently behind the demographic curve, having little female representation in most of their armies, and none in their flagship product. That's not a recipe for bringing more female gamers into 40K. Having one mostly-female army (that's still all-metal, has sub-par rules, and can only be bought online) doesn't redress the balance, it's just tokenism that serves to further highlight how underrepresented females are. I'd argue that in order to catch up to the demographic curve, GWhas to increase the representation of women in the products they sell, and ideally that would include female Space Marines. That would probably cause countless heads to explode and a GamerGate-esque uproar, but there's really no two ways about it. Either have female Space Marines, or be open to criticism about female representation in the game.
That said, ANY increased female representation would be an improvement. Hence my idea about Chapter Serf units. That would allow some female representation in Space Marine armies without retconning the precious (rolls eyes) fluff. A female Cadian sprue. A female Farseer, and some female Aspect Warrior bodies in the temples that aren't Howling Banshees. How about a friggin' mini for Inquisitor Valyria? Are these things really too hard for GW to produce?
Oh yes, tokenism. When there's no women or people of other skin color, it's sexism/ racism/ whatever. When there's a few, or a designated faction, it's tokenism. We can only rest when everything is fair and represents the demographics. Why don't you and other representarians just write some guidelines with percentages so we can finaly have some true diversity with every creative product showing exactly the same society and concerned about same issues.
Why is it smart to bring more female gamers by bringing female space marines, do you have any data? What if a big part of that apparently mysogynistic, unwelcoming, nasty white male 40k crowd decides that this girly 40k is not for them anymore, and then it turns out that this bloated, time consuming, ultra militaristic, statistics heavy strategy wargame doesn't appeal to most females anyway? Just saying.
I think it's better to allow girls to enjoy 40k for what it is. I find all this cheap, stats and polls induced marketing tricks insulting anyway, no matter towards women or me, hey we have awesome girly space marinette just for you our special super stronk girl player. I think women can take 40k as is, just as I can take the portrayal of soviet inspired commisar as cool after my grandfather was in a soviet camp and returned home below 40kg of weight and extremaly sick, not to mention hundreds of thousands of my countrymen enslaved, raped or just shot in the back of the head by soviets.
To concur with Plumbumbarum, in the UK we have an organisation called the Cadet Corps. Teenagers can sign up to be a cadet to recieve a toned-down version of the military experience, with a focus on helping the local community and learning discipline.
Being militaristic, however, is is very boyish. There is lots of talk about guns and war machines, lots of crawling through mud, and you all get referred to as "lads" or "men", or get told to "man up".
As expected, more boys join than girls. Is this because everyrhing is male-oriented? I do not think so. My Air Cadet Squadron (1166) had a near 50/50 split of male and female at one time. Some girls just liked the nature of being a Cadet. It did not matter that the army is usually considered a schlong-fest, they just enjoyed running, jumping, climbing trees...
It may well be that women in general just do not like war games. Just like how men in general aren't into high fashion (and you never see campaigns to masculinise the fashion industry)
Gen.Steiner wrote: It is entirely possible to maintain the post-human Space Marines as an entirely male force and increase both variety and diversity within the game.
Not in a significant way as long as SM keeps having 7 different codicies.
Otto Weston wrote: You can't just say -- I dislike that fundamental facet of a faction in this fictional universe and it should be changed, people who refuse are 'choose one' (bigoted/misogynists/chauvinists/pigs).
I'm pretty sure we can. Especially if the rhetoric used by those that refuse shows they are.
Selym wrote: To concur with Plumbumbarum, in the UK we have an organisation called the Cadet Corps. Teenagers can sign up to be a cadet to recieve a toned-down version of the military experience, with a focus on helping the local community and learning discipline.
Being militaristic, however, is is very boyish. There is lots of talk about guns and war machines, lots of crawling through mud, and you all get referred to as "lads" or "men", or get told to "man up".
As expected, more boys join than girls. Is this because everyrhing is male-oriented? I do not think so. My Air Cadet Squadron (1166) had a near 50/50 split of male and female at one time. Some girls just liked the nature of being a Cadet. It did not matter that the army is usually considered a schlong-fest, they just enjoyed running, jumping, climbing trees...
It may well be that women in general just do not like war games. Just like how men in general aren't into high fashion (and you never see campaigns to masculinise the fashion industry)
Why are we even talking about female Space Marines?
I have seen some excellent conversions to give people's armies female Marines (I'm specifically thinking of Raja Khandar Madu from the Fighting Tigers of Veda), but I don't think there needs to be any official support for that, because it's been the case for so long and is so embedded in the background.
What I'm asking for, and what I think most people on here are asking for, is:
- more female figures in general in the armies that they are supposed to be in, e.g. Guard, Chaos, etc.;
- a properly supported Codex: Sisters of Battle and a properly supported Codex: Inquisition;
- different facial features represented across the human armies, so we can have all sorts of humanity represented;
- more strange and non-humanoid aliens.
Does anybody have any actual, serious, problems with this?
Gen.Steiner wrote: Does anybody have any actual, serious, problems with this?
Only in the sense that GW have a finite amount of time and resources to dedicate so people will want them to focus on the things they personally care about.
HANZERtank wrote: How would people here go about adding more diversity to the 40k universe. I hear things about female space marines need to be added in. I'm personally not too bothered about that as it currently doesn't exist in the fluff. I get that maybe it should amd feel free to discuss it. However I do believe that distinctly female options should be made for Guard and Tau. Both of these have female warriors in the fluff yet not properly represented (at least with gw minis) on the table.
Sisters of battle are Female SMs and they are written into the fluff and beyond that it actually makes sense.
Is this really about more diversity or "We need more female models" There is a difference.
:: slams own face against desk repeatedly ::
Sisters of Battle are NOT female Space Marines in ANY way, shape, or form.
Yes they are. Do they wear power armor like SMs? yes
Do they have bolters like SMs? Yes
Do they look like SMs? Yes
Are the rules the same or in other words are SOB as good as SMs? Hell no, but SoB are still Female Space Marines.
quote=Plumbumbarum]
Oh yes, tokenism. When there's no women or people of other skin color, it's sexism/ racism/ whatever. When there's a few, or a designated faction, it's tokenism. We can only rest when everything is fair and represents the demographics. Why don't you and other representarians just write some guidelines with percentages so we can finaly have some true diversity with every creative product showing exactly the same society and concerned about same issues.
I think you're missing the point. I'm not arguing GW should increase female representation in their product on some high-falutin' moral grounds. I'm arguing they should do so in order to make their product appeal to female gaming nerds. Back when 40K was first introduced, female nerds were a rare thing. Now, by my observation, they're pretty close to 50% of the gaming community, and if they aren't, they will be in the not too distant future.
Plumbumbarum wrote:Why is it smart to bring more female gamers by bringing female space marines, do you have any data? What if a big part of that apparently mysogynistic, unwelcoming, nasty white male 40k crowd decides that this girly 40k is not for them anymore, and then it turns out that this bloated, time consuming, ultra militaristic, statistics heavy strategy wargame doesn't appeal to most females anyway? Just saying.
Good riddance? Demographics would suggest that your dire prediction is unlikely. Also, if every SM kit contained a few demonstrably female minis, gamers who don't want female Marines in their army are free to trade them to gamers who do. Thus, any who don't want any girly minis in their armies don't have to have them just because there are some in the boxes GW would be selling. However, with their being none, those that do want them can't have them, and therein lies the problem, for both them and GW.
Plumbumbarum wrote:I think it's better to allow girls to enjoy 40k for what it is. I find all this cheap, stats and polls induced marketing tricks insulting anyway, no matter towards women or me, hey we have awesome girly space marinette just for you our special super stronk girl player. I think women can take 40k as is, just as I can take the portrayal of soviet inspired commisar as cool after my grandfather was in a soviet camp and returned home below 40kg of weight and extremaly sick, not to mention hundreds of thousands of my countrymen enslaved, raped or just shot in the back of the head by soviets.
I'm amused you think I'm a girl just because I'm arguing there should be more female representation in 40K.
Selym wrote:
It may well be that women in general just do not like war games. Just like how men in general aren't into high fashion (and you never see campaigns to masculinise the fashion industry)
I highly doubt there's anything in our DNA that makes girls less likely than boys to like war games. The reason girls have been less apt to be into nerd hobbies in the past has been societal gender roles. But, anyone who's been paying attention can see that those gender roles are shifting and the female nerd population increasing.
Gen.Steiner wrote:Why are we even talking about female Space Marines?
I have seen some excellent conversions to give people's armies female Marines (I'm specifically thinking of Raja Khandar Madu from the Fighting Tigers of Veda), but I don't think there needs to be any official support for that, because it's been the case for so long and is so embedded in the background.
What I'm asking for, and what I think most people on here are asking for, is:
- more female figures in general in the armies that they are supposed to be in, e.g. Guard, Chaos, etc.;
- a properly supported Codex: Sisters of Battle and a properly supported Codex: Inquisition;
- different facial features represented across the human armies, so we can have all sorts of humanity represented;
- more strange and non-humanoid aliens.
Does anybody have any actual, serious, problems with this?
People are talking about female Space Marines because Space Marines are GW's flagship product, because 40K is GW's best-selling game, and because Space Marines are at the heart of the background for 40K.
The reason Space Marines are so popular is because the central event of 40K's setting, the Horus Heresy, is all about them. They're undeniably the setting's main protagonist and antagonist. Anything besides the conflict between the IoM and Chaos is a sideshow to the main event. Therefore, those factions are going to attract more players to the game than any of the others.
Any increase in female representation in 40K would be a vast improvement over the current situation. Doing things like properly supporting the Sisters of Battle and having more female minis across the range in other armies would be vast improvements, and would be the low-hanging fruit for GW. Buuuuuuuut if there are no female Space Marines, the setting and the game are still going to be exclusionary. Retconning the fluff to include them would be a huge and controversial change. I've got no illusions about that. However, retconning the fluff so Space Marines weren't central to the setting anymore would be an even bigger and more controversial change.
Mind you, there is an option for GW to introduce female Space Marines without changing the fluff of anyone's existing armies and implying an obligation to girly-up their armies in a way they'd find uncomfortable - they could come from the 2nd and 11th legions. They'd have to be retconned in to explain why they've been out of the picture till the 11th hour, but the Warp is a convenient way to hand-wave that. That'd let GW have their cake and eat it too - make their product more attractive to the huge, under-served segment of the population without enraging their pre-existing customers who are members of G.R.O.S.s.
Gen.Steiner wrote: but I don't think there needs to be any official support for that, because it's been the case for so long and is so embedded in the background.
“It's been the case for a long time” is not in itself a good argument not to change something.
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote: People are talking about female Space Marines because Space Marines are GW's flagship product, because 40K is GW's best-selling game, and because Space Marines are at the heart of the background for 40K.
The reason Space Marines are so popular is because the central event of 40K's setting, the Horus Heresy, is all about them. They're undeniably the setting's main protagonist and antagonist. Anything besides the conflict between the IoM and Chaos is a sideshow to the main event. Therefore, those factions are going to attract more players to the game than any of the others.
And don't forget, a BIG part of what makes Space Marines very popular is that they are by a huge margin a blank state to be filled with diverse inspiration. If all marines were just the basic marines from, say, the Novamarine chapter, they would draw a lot less interest. But they also have the Austere Monk/Paranoid secretive schemers with skeletons in the closet marines, the Renaissance Artists and Vampire marines, the Crusaders marines, the Cyborg marines, the Viking/ Werewolves/WOLFWOLFWOLFYMCWOLF marines, the pyromaniac blacksmith with giant lizards marines, the Mongol hordes marines, …
I mean, there is even a whole chapter of canon Depressed Marines for crying out loud.
But while none of those are “against the themes of the setting”, female space marines definitely would be! Come on, Wolfy McWolfPersonn feasting and drinking super strong ale so that even with his enhanced biology he can still be a drunken idiot singing bawd songs is totally suitably grimdark, it really speaks of how the Imperium is an oppressive backward society, but female space marines? Damn that would break all immersion amirite?
Desubot wrote: Well Female Space Marine would break immersion current as the fluff is written :/
So does every piece of new lore, what's your point?
Like what new lore?
The existence of Imperial Knights, and any other new units and factions that are added to any codex ever-- or for that matter, removed from the codex. GW retconning Sisters to have only 3 major orders, then retconning it back to 6 some months later. The massive changes to Necrons, the C'tan, and such. Blood Angels and Necrons working together, creating a stupid meme and ending the idea of Necrons being unable to do anything resembling diplomacy. The introduction of the Tau Empire. The various additions to Chaos, such as the Forge of Souls. The insane new tech used by the Skitarii. The Wolfy Wolfkin Wulfen Wolfifying of the Wolf Marines.... err, I mean Space Wolves. The insanity that is Draigo.
And so on and so forth. And even if you hate some of these changes, you accept it. Because GW did the retcon so it's now the official canon, until GW changes it again.
There haven't been major changes to the basic SM fluff of late but an example from otherwhere would be the 5th Ed Necrons dex, which totally revamped the faction. Arguably, that was not necessarily a retcon (as the previous dex could just be taken as indicative of the Imperium's one-time ignorance regarding Necrons).
Melissia - Imperial Knights aren't new. TBH none of your examples, perhaps barring Necrons, is really a retcon. Mind you, adding female SM would not have to be either (missing primarchs bleh).
Like I said, I don't have any dog in this hunt, as I don't really care to start a Marine army of any kind. I just find the "you can't just change the lore" argument stupid, because GW does it with every additional codex, adding new stuff to the lore, and removing and altering old stuff.
Well fair enough about the crons i kinda forgot about it :/ i like that the more powerful dudes have actual character instead of literally everyone being soulless killing machines.
Also IIRC IK existed since epic. a lot of the stuff that is coming out are already established things. maybe not the skitaree and admech being separate but that i dont really know.
Asides from Cros changing completely nothing has been added as new fluff that hasn't already existed.
Sure, the fluff obviously can be and often is changed - at a certain level. But - again, aside from the Necrons, and even there only arguably and not necessarily - there are certain fundamental brand elements that seem to be sacrosanct. Some people think the SM being, essentially, an all-male religious order is one of them (including me). Similarly, I think the all-female nature of the SoB is a fundamental element of that faction. Why SM are all-male obviously isn't as explicit in the fluff, of course.
Melissia wrote: And yet there's been far more male special characters for Sisters of Battle than female ones.
I thought we covered this - none of the male SCs in question are SoBs. The SoB fit into the the larger constellation of the Ecclesiarchy, which is represented by male characters. The "more male than female SCs" issue is really a red herring; follow that path and all you come to is a discussion about whether Sisters should be in an Ecclesiarchy book/be supplemented by Ecclesiarchy units and SCs.
TheCustomLime wrote: I wish GW would make a seperate Forces of the Ecclesiarchy dex and make the SoB codex full of just... SoB.
Here again we see how variety and diversity can be different goals. A codex that incorporates the Ecclesiarchy (it certainly does not merit its own dex in a wargame) undoubtedly portrays the 40k setting in a richer, more varied way than a Sisters-only dex.
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Desubot wrote: IT might do well to make the church a mini dex like inquisition.
Sounds like a rip off, which if anything makes it more likely. The truth is, 40k is a wargame. Aside from the SoB, the Ecclesiarchy hasn't got much to offer a wargame outside of SCs. Unless the dex you had in mind has a single non-SC entry lol.
TheCustomLime wrote: I wish GW would make a seperate Forces of the Ecclesiarchy dex and make the SoB codex full of just... SoB.
Here again we see how variety and diversity can be different goals. A codex that incorporates the Ecclesiarchy (it certainly does not merit its own dex in a wargame) undoubtedly portrays the 40k setting in a richer, more varied way than a Sisters-only dex.
I should've said an ally mini-dex like the Stormtrooper or Harlequinns. They could give out a lot of buffs to other Imperial factions like Guard to represent the priests inspiring them with religious fervor. Add Frateris Militia for a cheap tarpit and a walking altar complete with a cardinal giving grandiose sermons and you'd have a cool side faction.
Manchu wrote: none of the male SCs in question are SoBs. The SoB fit into the the larger constellation of the Ecclesiarchy, which is represented by male characters
And yet I bitterly note that they command the Sisters.
Because clearly an all-female army needs a male commander in order to function properly.
But if such a non-astartes subfaction was added to codex: Space Marines, and a woman commanded the Space Marines, that would be rather offensive to a great many Space Marine fanboys.
In any case, I am all for GW developing more SCs that are actually Sisters.
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Melissia wrote: Because clearly an all-female army needs a male commander in order to function properly.
A rather thin premise. First - The SoB are an order of the Ecclesiarchy; of course they would take orders from church leaders. As far as those leaders are represented by male SCs - probably to avoid confusing them with the Sisters themselves as a matter of brand. But there doesn't seem to be any fluff to the effect that women cannot be priests or bishops or cardinals or whatever (women can even theoretically be cardinals in IRL Catholicism). Second - An SoB army does not need to take a non-Sister SC. There is therefore neither a fluff-based nor or a rule-based argument for the claim that GW has made Sisters so that they must be commanded by a male character.
Melissia wrote: But if such a non-astartes subfaction was added to codex: Space Marines, and a woman commanded the Space Marines, that would be rather offensive to a great many Space Marine fanboys.
In stark contrast to the example of the SoB being part of the Ecclesiarchy, the SM Chapters are effectively autonomous. There being no female SMs, it is difficult to imagine any woman having direct authority over them - at least so far as a female SC published in a SM dex. Now, perhaps there is a female version of Solar Mecharius somewhere in the annals of Imperial history. She might have commanded Space Marines.
I think you are just barking up the wrong tree. A much better example would be, GW should make at least one female IG officer SC and preferably multiple female IGSCs.
Plumbumbarum wrote:
Oh yes, tokenism. When there's no women or people of other skin color, it's sexism/ racism/ whatever. When there's a few, or a designated faction, it's tokenism. We can only rest when everything is fair and represents the demographics. Why don't you and other representarians just write some guidelines with percentages so we can finaly have some true diversity with every creative product showing exactly the same society and concerned about same issues.
I think you're missing the point. I'm not arguing GW should increase female representation in their product on some high-falutin' moral grounds. I'm arguing they should do so in order to make their product appeal to female gaming nerds. Back when 40K was first introduced, female nerds were a rare thing. Now, by my observation, they're pretty close to 50% of the gaming community, and if they aren't, they will be in the not too distant future.
Yes I did understand your point, but you also used terms like tokenism or sth and then proceeded to say how it only highlights the female underrepresentation and just those terms show that you are at least a bit ideologicaly involved, because only ideologicaly involved, 50/50 or nothing people see "tokenism" as a problem. So, you're not attracting female gamers, you're attracting ideologicaly involved female gamers who are offended by tokenism in games. Not to mention that the you have absolutely no proof that it's tokenism and it highlighting the female underrepresantation that keeps female gamers off 40k, even the feminist ones as we have a few girls/ women here with strong views on the subject but they seem to be playing/ collecting anyway.
You're also throwing GamerGate left and right, which I'm not very familiar with but afaik involved some vicious and boorish attacks on feminist article writers or sth? It would seem to me that you are trying to associate anyone opposing female SM or you with that crap which would not only be a cheap discussion technique but albo showing your bias imo.
As for the product this, product that talk, I see a lot of calls for an American approach, oh so proffesional with demographic data, cater to target audience, better marketing etc but all I predict is another soulless game like all the AAA stuff coming to pc/ consoles from USA.
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
Plumbumbarum wrote:Why is it smart to bring more female gamers by bringing female space marines, do you have any data? What if a big part of that apparently mysogynistic, unwelcoming, nasty white male 40k crowd decides that this girly 40k is not for them anymore, and then it turns out that this bloated, time consuming, ultra militaristic, statistics heavy strategy wargame doesn't appeal to most females anyway? Just saying.
Good riddance? Demographics would suggest that your dire prediction is unlikely. Also, if every SM kit contained a few demonstrably female minis, gamers who don't want female Marines in their army are free to trade them to gamers who do. Thus, any who don't want any girly minis in their armies don't have to have them just because there are some in the boxes GW would be selling. However, with their being none, those that do want them can't have them, and therein lies the problem, for both them and GW.
Great riddance, I hate sexist donkey-caves as well. For the sake of balance, let's also get rid of other extremes like feminism.
Yes it indeed seems like you're not coming from high moral grounds and it again sounds a bit like the female rights warriors, they're the same as those hardcore misogyns just on the other side of the barricade, they want to get rid of females and female rights warriors want to get rid of them.
Again, what of the number of leaving misogyns exceeds the number of the incoming females? Your prediction is as good as mine and you said that It would be smart. How would it be smart, if it lost money.
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
Plumbumbarum wrote:I think it's better to allow girls to enjoy 40k for what it is. I find all this cheap, stats and polls induced marketing tricks insulting anyway, no matter towards women or me, hey we have awesome girly space marinette just for you our special super stronk girl player. I think women can take 40k as is, just as I can take the portrayal of soviet inspired commisar as cool after my grandfather was in a soviet camp and returned home below 40kg of weight and extremaly sick, not to mention hundreds of thousands of my countrymen enslaved, raped or just shot in the back of the head by soviets.
I'm amused you think I'm a girl just because I'm arguing there should be more female representation in 40K.
Oh yes, it's hilarious. What makes it even more hilarious is that I didn't think you're a girl.
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
Selym wrote:
It may well be that women in general just do not like war games. Just like how men in general aren't into high fashion (and you never see campaigns to masculinise the fashion industry)
I highly doubt there's anything in our DNA that makes girls less likely than boys to like war games. The reason girls have been less apt to be into nerd hobbies in the past has been societal gender roles. But, anyone who's been paying attention can see that those gender roles are shifting and the female nerd population increasing.
What about this documentary https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask ? They cut the funding for Nordic Gender Institute soon after the showing. I'm not saying the documentary is 100% right but it raises a strong case for such differences in sexes and the debate is not as settled as you think it is.
That you highly doubt sth doesn't mean it's not true.
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
Buuuuuuuut if there are no female Space Marines, the setting and the game are still going to be exclusionary.
Listen man, this setting and game is not "exclusionary". There are SoB for anyone who wants to play Imperial girls and that btw includes me if only they're ever released in plastic and reasonably priced.
Exclusionary is another politicaly involved term in this context btw.
Here's an imo great post about the exclusion issue from some old thread:
Code wrote: I think, there are plenty of problems with that approach to fiction.
1) If you take it seriously, then every fictional work ever has to follow this rule. That means, if I create a fictional setting, no matter how far away into the future or how far away into the past, no matter how fundamentally different it is from our world, it HAS to represent 21st century US demographics. This idea alone is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
2) I'm not even sure, what the problem is.
You say, some people might not be comfortable to escape to a place with a single race and gender imbalace. So apparently they are still confortable escaping to a place, where human life has absolutely no worth and is thrown away by the millions just to have minor military victories. Where there is exactly one religion and if you don't follow it, you're going to get killed. Where people are hoarded to planet earth like animals, so the one true ruler of mankind can consume their souls... but gender imbalance really is a deal breaker!
Doesn't make sense to me.
Others have said, there should be people that look like you, so everyone feels represented. The thing is, there is nobody in 40k that looks like me! I'm 5 ft 7, 155 lbs and wear glasses. Who exactly looks like me. You pick ONE external characteristic, skin color, ignore everything else and then make representation about this one thing. That's arbitrary.
3) Building on the last point: It's a slippery slope. You want black people represented in 40k, fine. But now obviously you need hispanic, asian and arabic people as well, so you put in those. Now you've got all the big ethnicities covered, but what about the smaller ones? What about the native americans and polynesians, that don't feel represented? Ok, so we put in every possible ethnicity, that exist today and we're done right?
But what about the disabled people? Shouldn't they be represented as well? What about transgender people? And gay people? What about people with autism? What about Little People? What about amputees?
So we are not done, until we have a gay 4 ft 5 transgender autistic Space Marine, that may or may not have native alaskan heritage...
4) To me this approach to fiction KILLS immersion. And I'm convinced, that most people of the affected groups feel the same way. When you see this happening (and most of the time it's blatantly obvious) you're starting to think of real-world politics and stop thinking about the world you're trying to experience, which kills the fun.
This is one of the worst problem of "everything is political". TV shows are political, books are political, music is political, movies are political and 40k is political. Ironically the people suffering the most from this, are the ones trying to push this agenda. Can they even enjoy ANY media anymore? How can you enjoy something, when all you're thinking about is "Let's see how well everyone is represented in this"? How can you get lost in a work of fiction, when all you do, is trying to judge how well this supports your political goals?
In short: Keep politics where they belong! There are more than enough real-world issues in need of solving, where your commitment to social justice is well placed and productive (Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, etc.) But if you're taking your politics to places, that are supposed to be a fun escape from the real world, and taking them back into the real world in the process, all you're doing is alienating people and hurting your cause. (especially as it might not even be a problem, see point 2
Manchu wrote: none of the male SCs in question are SoBs. The SoB fit into the the larger constellation of the Ecclesiarchy, which is represented by male characters
And yet I bitterly note that they command the Sisters.
Because clearly an all-female army needs a male commander in order to function properly.
But if such a non-astartes subfaction was added to codex: Space Marines, and a woman commanded the Space Marines, that would be rather offensive to a great many Space Marine fanboys.
Double standards are fun!
I'm out.
Oi. Though I can see where you're coming from, a Sisters army neither needs to be commanded by Ecclesiarchy individuals, nor do those individuals have to be male. Though it is true that the Ecclesiarchy SCs are male, which could be awkward, they are not required. (And technically, you pick your warlord anyways, so even if you decide to include Confessor so-and-so, the Cannoness can still be giving the orders. Heck, he could be cowering in the rear giving hollow speeches to the militia rabble while she's up front with the elite troops, kicking ass and taking names.)
I don't personally have a problem with a female inquisitor adjunct-commander for Space Marines. I can't speak for anyone else, but there's no double standard here.
Melissia can make her own points if she so choses, it's not up to us to decode her intent. No matter what, the claim that Sisters have to be commanded by men is flatly wrong. And in any case, if the issue to hand is, in which faction should there be more women, then this endless discussion about SoB is really misplaced. Yes, Sisters could use more SCs that actually are Sisters. Sisters could use all kinds of things, not least of all a complete update.
It'd be more profitable to leave that conversation to the other ongoing thread (which is actually about that very topic) and refocus here on this idea of "diversity" - or variety, if you (like me) prefer.
Desubot wrote: Well Female Space Marine would break immersion current as the fluff is written :/
and that is the story that GW penned and is on right now.
The worst retcons are the ones that say: "This thing that you knew as true didn't happen. The entire story we have told you is a lie." Because it erases a history and narrative that fans have bought into. (literally bought into)
But you can change the fluff for the future.
Now I'm not necessarily advocating it, but just to float the idea: What if, going forward beyond the 41st Millenium, the number of high level threats in the galaxy puts sufficient pressure onto the Imperium that they decide they must swell the numbers of Space Marines, and they have discovered/engineered/modified ye-olde geneseed to accept women into the ranks?
People have often chaffed at the notion that only 1,000,000 Space Marines are enough to secure the galaxy, so on the one hand we swell the number of marines, and on the other, begin accepting female recruits.
None of the past history is wiped away, none of the original chapter histories change, but the setting begins to evolve. This is not to say the Imperium has a new period of enlightenment (though it could, but I like my grimdark), just that the High Lords have decided to risk Great Crusade numbers of Space Marines again out of desperation. Chapters remain restricted, there are no new Primarchs, the "lost legions" remain lost, etc. There are just more marines, and some are female.
Personally, this is something I could get behind if it was handled well.
Manchu wrote: none of the male SCs in question are SoBs. The SoB fit into the the larger constellation of the Ecclesiarchy, which is represented by male characters
And yet I bitterly note that they command the Sisters.
Because clearly an all-female army needs a male commander in order to function properly.
But if such a non-astartes subfaction was added to codex: Space Marines, and a woman commanded the Space Marines, that would be rather offensive to a great many Space Marine fanboys.
Double standards are fun!
I'm out.
Isn't that all just to vaguely resemble the church hierarchy. I wouldn't like woman commander for Space Marines but it has nothing to do with me hating the idea of woman commanding men, and a lot with going further from the monks/ nuns reference.
I really don't think it's all about GW and fans misogyny, just a theme of this particular universe. I had countless woman commanders in games like UFO, Silent Storm etc.
Insectum7 wrote: only 1,000,000 Space Marines are enough to secure the galaxy
But the galaxy is not secure. The Imperium is slowly disintegrating - not just as a matter of territorial integrity but also as a matter of its institutions. The Space Marines are not immune. Even if it were within the power of Chapter Masters or even the High Lords to suddenly create untold millions of Space Marines - and I have to believe that this is beyond what any group can actually do given the major theme of decay and regression - this would register to the same actors, who are keenly aware of the HH as a matter of their fundamental worldview, as a terrible idea. There is no real possibility for Imperium-wide reform. The leaders who were capable of being effective on the nearly unimaginable galactic-scale of the Imperium are all dead or lost or incapacitated. The IP assumes the story takes place amid the ruins of a collapsing empire. Trying to fit femarines into that picture is going to be pretty tough, barring a long-lost female Primarch.
Hoyt wrote: I'd like to see GW make some female heads for Guardsmen, though It'd be great to see any new infantry models for the Guard. The current ones are a little.... lacking to say the least
I know that's from way back but God emperor is that the truth.
I'm sure Female Cadians could be done easily enough. Especially since on the plastics these days the body is no longer a separate torso with separate arms and legs etc.
Insectum7 wrote: only 1,000,000 Space Marines are enough to secure the galaxy
But the galaxy is not secure. The Imperium is slowly disintegrating - not just as a matter of territorial integrity but also as a matter of its institutions. The Space Marines are not immune. Even if it were within the power of Chapter Masters or even the High Lords to suddenly create untold millions of Space Marines - and I have to believe that this is beyond what any group can actually do given the major theme of decay and regression - this would register to the same actors, who are keenly aware of the HH as a matter of their fundamental worldview, as a terrible idea. There is no real possibility for Imperium-wide reform. The leaders who were capable of being effective on the nearly unimaginable galactic-scale of the Imperium are all dead or lost or incapacitated. The IP assumes the story takes place amid the ruins of a collapsing empire. Trying to fit femarines into that picture is going to be pretty tough, barring a long-lost female Primarch.
Personally, I would think that 'revealing' that one of the lost Primarchs was female would be more problematic. It's too much of a Deus Ex Machina for me. "Ta daaa!" Too convenient.
Rather, give some new tech/inspiration. Tell the long story of extended debate within the halls of those in power. Provide for dissent and suspicion. Give hope that these new co-ed Space Marines are more resilient to corruption. Say that because of Guillimans wise breakdown of Legions into Chapters, any potential for harm will further be mitigated. Create new chapters and modify current strains of geneseed. Have it go well enough so that the practice becomes accepted.
And yeah, THEN have the **** hit the fan again. Some Chapters go to Chaos, there is a second, less centralized Heresey, and then the Imperium is back where it started. To me that's the character of the background, any forward momentum is eventually thwarted and the Imperium still remains a necessarily terrible place, except that there are now female Space Marines. Female Space Marines weren't any less corruptible than the previous all-male institutions, and then you have a nice, "grimdark equality." Anyone can be a hero of humankind, aaaaand anyone can become a dark champion of Chaos. Nothing has really changed, and there is still only war.
I agree that "hey there was a female primarch" is dumb. I don't think there is a better way to shoehorn in the dumb concept of femarines. Whether the female primarch angle or something else is more or less dumb strikes me as academic.
The idea that there would be an in-universe mini heresy over whether or not there should be femarines is absurdly "on the nose." There is no way not to make that a swipe at everyone who recognizes how dumb the idea of femarines actually is.
I think the only way to get women into a SM dex is by including Chapter serfs. (Gosh imagine what Melissia would make of that, given her argument about male SCs in the SoB dex.)
On a more productive note - there is more room for a female SC in the CSM book.
Manchu wrote: I agree that "hey there was a female primarch" is dumb. I don't think there is a better way to shoehorn in the dumb concept of femarines. Whether the female primarch angle or something else is more or less dumb strikes me as academic.
The idea that there would be an in-universe mini heresy over whether or not there should be femarines is absurdly "on the nose." There is no way not to make that a swipe at everyone who recognizes how dumb the idea of femarines actually is.
On a more productive note - there is more (read: any) room for a female SC in the CSM book.
You know, having a chaos analogue of the SoB would be pretty fun.
Lore wise it works; the Word Bearers are known to mock the Imperial Creed by mimicking and twisting some aspects of it (like the trials in Dark Crusade), so it would make sense for them to create a chaos version of SoB, that's been horribly twisted in some way.
Say a bunch of Dark Apostles go roaming around back water planets, convincing young women to join their version of the SoB, convincing them that their scripture is the true word of the Emperor. Then they have them attacking pilgrims and shrine worlds, whilst spreading the word of chaos. They aren't are well trained or equipped as the imperial SoB, but they are just as fanatical and have the warp on their side. Or something like that.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: They aren't are well trained or equipped as the imperial SoB, but they are just as fanatical and have the warp on their side. Or something like that.
Ehhhhh ... sort of falls into the "everything needs a Chaos version" trap. I'd much rather see GW do a mini dex for Cultists that includes some female SCs. I think this sort of thing, rather than the SoB redesign, is where those who worry about things should most worry about a Harley Quinn-esque pscyho sexy type female SC. (Sort of like Lelith.)
I understand, from a business perspective, and also from the point of view that the background is mutable, that there is no good argument against female Space Marines.
However. I don't think they're necessary. They may be the poster boys (fnar) of the setting, but if they are the only all-male faction (and the Sisters of Battle are the only all-female faction), you then have fantastic analogues for monks and nuns - which, in fact, is what they are: warrior-monks and warrior-nuns. Meanwhile, the rest of the Imperium is happily gender-mixed, because it clearly is in the background.
Manchu wrote: Some people think the SM being, essentially, an all-male religious order is [ fundamental brand elements that seem to be sacrosanct] (including me).
I encourage all those people to do a lot of self-introspection, and ask themselves why they do believe so.
Manchu wrote: Sounds like a rip off, which if anything makes it more likely. The truth is, 40k is a wargame. Aside from the SoB, the Ecclesiarchy hasn't got much to offer a wargame outside of SCs. Unless the dex you had in mind has a single non-SC entry lol.
Sure. I mean, there definitely was a need to split the Mechanicus in too because the difference between Skitarii and Tech-Priest is obvious and self-evident, but splitting between Sisters of Battle and the rest of the Ecclesiarchy? One would have to be MAD to do this.
Manchu wrote: In stark contrast to the example of the SoB being part of the Ecclesiarchy, the SM Chapters are effectively autonomous. There being no female SMs, it is difficult to imagine any woman having direct authority over them - at least so far as a female SC published in a SM dex. Now, perhaps there is a female version of Solar Mecharius somewhere in the annals of Imperial history. She might have commanded Space Marines.
That's a very nice rationalization you got there.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Great riddance, I hate sexist donkey-caves as well. For the sake of balance, let's also get rid of other extremes like feminism.
Are you saying “Okay, now that we got rid of those very sexist people, let's get rid of those very anti-sexist people, so that we can enjoy a community with just the exact right amount of sexism I am comfortable with”? That's definitely how you sound. Since we are purging the extreme, I suggest we get rid of extremely TFG people AND extremely fair-play people too. Extreme are always bad, ain't they?
Code wrote: I think, there are plenty of problems with that approach to fiction.
1) If you take it seriously, then every fictional work ever has to follow this rule. That means, if I create a fictional setting, no matter how far away into the future or how far away into the past, no matter how fundamentally different it is from our world, it HAS to represent 21st century US demographics. This idea alone is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
2) I'm not even sure, what the problem is.
You say, some people might not be comfortable to escape to a place with a single race and gender imbalace. So apparently they are still confortable escaping to a place, where human life has absolutely no worth and is thrown away by the millions just to have minor military victories. Where there is exactly one religion and if you don't follow it, you're going to get killed. Where people are hoarded to planet earth like animals, so the one true ruler of mankind can consume their souls... but gender imbalance really is a deal breaker! Doesn't make sense to me.
Others have said, there should be people that look like you, so everyone feels represented. The thing is, there is nobody in 40k that looks like me! I'm 5 ft 7, 155 lbs and wear glasses. Who exactly looks like me. You pick ONE external characteristic, skin color, ignore everything else and then make representation about this one thing. That's arbitrary.
3) Building on the last point: It's a slippery slope. You want black people represented in 40k, fine. But now obviously you need hispanic, asian and arabic people as well, so you put in those. Now you've got all the big ethnicities covered, but what about the smaller ones? What about the native americans and polynesians, that don't feel represented? Ok, so we put in every possible ethnicity, that exist today and we're done right? But what about the disabled people? Shouldn't they be represented as well? What about transgender people? And gay people? What about people with autism? What about Little People? What about amputees? So we are not done, until we have a gay 4 ft 5 transgender autistic Space Marine, that may or may not have native alaskan heritage...
4) To me this approach to fiction KILLS immersion. And I'm convinced, that most people of the affected groups feel the same way. When you see this happening (and most of the time it's blatantly obvious) you're starting to think of real-world politics and stop thinking about the world you're trying to experience, which kills the fun.
This is one of the worst problem of "everything is political". TV shows are political, books are political, music is political, movies are political and 40k is political. Ironically the people suffering the most from this, are the ones trying to push this agenda. Can they even enjoy ANY media anymore? How can you enjoy something, when all you're thinking about is "Let's see how well everyone is represented in this"? How can you get lost in a work of fiction, when all you do, is trying to judge how well this supports your political goals?
In short: Keep politics where they belong! There are more than enough real-world issues in need of solving, where your commitment to social justice is well placed and productive (Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, etc.) But if you're taking your politics to places, that are supposed to be a fun escape from the real world, and taking them back into the real world in the process, all you're doing is alienating people and hurting your cause. (especially as it might not even be a problem, see point 2
1) Nope. But if there is already a huge imbalance in which some demographics are routinely underrepresented, don't you think it would be a good idea to go the other way for once, and over-represent them? Oups, sorry, you are not interested in that kind of deviation from 21st century US demographics, you are only interested in the one that is all white men… 2) I am going with a total lack of empathy as the reason for why ONE external characteristic is emphasized over the other. It's because… well it's the one that gets you considered in majorly different ways irl while you have no control over it. Also explains about the escapism. It's way, way easier to escape to a place that don't mirror some actual problems you have to deal with IRL. That's also why rape victims don't usually like rape stories. Very basic amount of empathy would make that crystal-clear. 3) Slippery slope 4) Unsurprisingly, when fiction mirror problems you (and the poster) have to “deal” with IRL, it kills their immersion. Suddenly, they get it! But when other people find that fiction mirror problems they have to deal with IRL (and I am using no quotation mark this time for a reason!), suddenly they should grow a thicker skin or something. Also lol at the idea that something that includes obvious political satire, and a whole freaking lot of it, is not political. Sure, the long description of the byzantine Administratum, or the Ecclesiarchy and its rise to power, and all that, definitely not politics! What, those obvious metaphors about racism using mutants as the discriminated class, even when perfectly free of any chaotic taint? That's not political at all!
Gen.Steiner wrote: IThey may be the poster boys (fnar) of the setting, but if they are the only all-male faction (and the Sisters of Battle are the only all-female faction), you then have fantastic analogues for monks and nuns - which, in fact, is what they are: warrior-monks and warrior-nuns.
Except that it totally not true. The White Scars are NOT warrior-monks. They are space mongols. The Charcarodons are NOT warrior-monks. They are canon Angry Marines. The Space Wolves are NOT warrior-monks. They are werewolves vikings with extra wolf fetish. Do you know who is warrior-monks? The Dark Angels are warrior-monks. They wear robes and all, they have land speeder that looks like small cathedrals, they have names that sounds very biblical, … Space Marines, as I already mentioned many times, are a blank canvas to be painted to whatever flavor you want for that specific chapter. Now just allow that flavor to include female warriors, like it should have from the beginning.
Manchu wrote: Some people think the SM being, essentially, an all-male religious order is [ fundamental brand elements that seem to be sacrosanct] (including me).
I encourage all those people to do a lot of self-introspection, and ask themselves why they do believe so.
Do you think men should be allowed on a female rowing team? Do you believe that men should be included in Amazonian armies, whether in model or fluff form? If not, I encourage you to do a lot of self-introspection, and ask youself why you believe so.
Manchu wrote: Sounds like a rip off, which if anything makes it more likely. The truth is, 40k is a wargame. Aside from the SoB, the Ecclesiarchy hasn't got much to offer a wargame outside of SCs. Unless the dex you had in mind has a single non-SC entry lol.
Sure. I mean, there definitely was a need to split the Mechanicus in too because the difference between Skitarii and Tech-Priest is obvious and self-evident, but splitting between Sisters of Battle and the rest of the Ecclesiarchy? One would have to be MAD to do this.
We should probably separate Commisars into their own codex while we're at it. OR we can accept that certain armies have component parts. You can choose not to run them.
Manchu wrote: In stark contrast to the example of the SoB being part of the Ecclesiarchy, the SM Chapters are effectively autonomous. There being no female SMs, it is difficult to imagine any woman having direct authority over them - at least so far as a female SC published in a SM dex. Now, perhaps there is a female version of Solar Mecharius somewhere in the annals of Imperial history. She might have commanded Space Marines.
That's a very nice rationalization you got there.
Astartes have been attached to fleets and larger military forces, it isn't an unused precedent. And who's to say the Admiral/Commander of that force isn't female if your heart so desires? Or is it more that you need examples spelled out in the fluff for all to see, rather than your own personal background?
Plumbumbarum wrote: Great riddance, I hate sexist donkey-caves as well. For the sake of balance, let's also get rid of other extremes like feminism.
Are you saying “Okay, now that we got rid of those very sexist people, let's get rid of those very anti-sexist people, so that we can enjoy a community with just the exact right amount of sexism I am comfortable with”? That's definitely how you sound.
Since we are purging the extreme, I suggest we get rid of extremely TFG people AND extremely fair-play people too. Extreme are always bad, ain't they?
Egalitarians are anti-sexist people. I wouldn't exactly call feminism anti-sexist. If the feminist movement had its way, it would be top down role reversal in every aspect of life.
Code wrote: I think, there are plenty of problems with that approach to fiction.
1) If you take it seriously, then every fictional work ever has to follow this rule. That means, if I create a fictional setting, no matter how far away into the future or how far away into the past, no matter how fundamentally different it is from our world, it HAS to represent 21st century US demographics. This idea alone is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
2) I'm not even sure, what the problem is.
You say, some people might not be comfortable to escape to a place with a single race and gender imbalace. So apparently they are still confortable escaping to a place, where human life has absolutely no worth and is thrown away by the millions just to have minor military victories. Where there is exactly one religion and if you don't follow it, you're going to get killed. Where people are hoarded to planet earth like animals, so the one true ruler of mankind can consume their souls... but gender imbalance really is a deal breaker!
Doesn't make sense to me.
Others have said, there should be people that look like you, so everyone feels represented. The thing is, there is nobody in 40k that looks like me! I'm 5 ft 7, 155 lbs and wear glasses. Who exactly looks like me. You pick ONE external characteristic, skin color, ignore everything else and then make representation about this one thing. That's arbitrary.
3) Building on the last point: It's a slippery slope. You want black people represented in 40k, fine. But now obviously you need hispanic, asian and arabic people as well, so you put in those. Now you've got all the big ethnicities covered, but what about the smaller ones? What about the native americans and polynesians, that don't feel represented? Ok, so we put in every possible ethnicity, that exist today and we're done right?
But what about the disabled people? Shouldn't they be represented as well? What about transgender people? And gay people? What about people with autism? What about Little People? What about amputees?
So we are not done, until we have a gay 4 ft 5 transgender autistic Space Marine, that may or may not have native alaskan heritage...
4) To me this approach to fiction KILLS immersion. And I'm convinced, that most people of the affected groups feel the same way. When you see this happening (and most of the time it's blatantly obvious) you're starting to think of real-world politics and stop thinking about the world you're trying to experience, which kills the fun.
This is one of the worst problem of "everything is political". TV shows are political, books are political, music is political, movies are political and 40k is political. Ironically the people suffering the most from this, are the ones trying to push this agenda. Can they even enjoy ANY media anymore? How can you enjoy something, when all you're thinking about is "Let's see how well everyone is represented in this"? How can you get lost in a work of fiction, when all you do, is trying to judge how well this supports your political goals?
In short: Keep politics where they belong! There are more than enough real-world issues in need of solving, where your commitment to social justice is well placed and productive (Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, etc.) But if you're taking your politics to places, that are supposed to be a fun escape from the real world, and taking them back into the real world in the process, all you're doing is alienating people and hurting your cause. (especially as it might not even be a problem, see point 2
1) Nope. But if there is already a huge imbalance in which some demographics are routinely underrepresented, don't you think it would be a good idea to go the other way for once, and over-represent them? Oups, sorry, you are not interested in that kind of deviation from 21st century US demographics, you are only interested in the one that is all white men…
2) I am going with a total lack of empathy as the reason for why ONE external characteristic is emphasized over the other. It's because… well it's the one that gets you considered in majorly different ways irl while you have no control over it. Also explains about the escapism. It's way, way easier to escape to a place that don't mirror some actual problems you have to deal with IRL. That's also why rape victims don't usually like rape stories. Very basic amount of empathy would make that crystal-clear.
3) Slippery slope 4) Unsurprisingly, when fiction mirror problems you (and the poster) have to “deal” with IRL, it kills their immersion. Suddenly, they get it! But when other people find that fiction mirror problems they have to deal with IRL (and I am using no quotation mark this time for a reason!), suddenly they should grow a thicker skin or something.
Also lol at the idea that something that includes obvious political satire, and a whole freaking lot of it, is not political. Sure, the long description of the byzantine Administratum, or the Ecclesiarchy and its rise to power, and all that, definitely not politics! What, those obvious metaphors about racism using mutants as the discriminated class, even when perfectly free of any chaotic taint? That's not political at all!
If you are trying to effect change in your world, your REAL world, it is fruitless to do so through a game played by far less than 1% of the world's population. Just saying.
Gen.Steiner wrote: IThey may be the poster boys (fnar) of the setting, but if they are the only all-male faction (and the Sisters of Battle are the only all-female faction), you then have fantastic analogues for monks and nuns - which, in fact, is what they are: warrior-monks and warrior-nuns.
Except that it totally not true. The White Scars are NOT warrior-monks. They are space mongols. The Charcarodons are NOT warrior-monks. They are canon Angry Marines. The Space Wolves are NOT warrior-monks. They are werewolves vikings with extra wolf fetish.
Do you know who is warrior-monks? The Dark Angels are warrior-monks. They wear robes and all, they have land speeder that looks like small cathedrals, they have names that sounds very biblical, …
Space Marines, as I already mentioned many times, are a blank canvas to be painted to whatever flavor you want for that specific chapter. Now just allow that flavor to include female warriors, like it should have from the beginning.
Because there has never historically been all-male warrior sects, especially elite Special Forces types. I forgot about the 50/50 mix of females in the Spartan army. So even though "I want female Space Marines" wasn't supposed to be the crux of your argument, it comes down to "I want female Space Marines." Got it.
I disagree with the "White scars are mongols therefore Astartes aren't warrior monks in Space" counter argument. Correct me if I am wromg, but the White Scars live in a fortress monastery and each Astartes is a battle-brother. They may have mongol overtones but the Space Monk theme is still there.
There is no way not to make that a swipe at everyone who recognizes how dumb the idea of femarines actually is.
Some things just need stamping out.
I'm getting a vibe of vehemence that makes me think there's something beyond disruption of fluff tradition. I'm really interested why it's so important that all Space Marines remain all male, even without erasing their long and storied history.
". . . recognizes how dumb the idea [is]" Like dumb as in, somehow as illogical as chainswords? Or dumb as in, it's against the established lore?
There is established lore about how failed Space Wolf aspirants turn into dogs, of all things. The idea of female Space Marines is far more palatable to me than that.
Battle-brother is hardly a theme that is restricted to monks. I agree that “White Scars live in a fortress-monastery” makes them look religious. But “White Scars live in Quan Zhou”? Hardly so. Despite being the exact same thing, with just a little more precision. When I look at the White Scars models, I don't see anything that reminds me of monks. Neither when I look at their artworks. Nor when I look at their background. I mean: What is reminiscent of a monk on that picture? If all the very, very clearly un-monk-like feature of that drawings are not enough to break the “monk” theme, how would having a female marine break it?[edit]Looking closer at the picture, I can see more visual elements linking the White Scars to fascist-like regimes than to monks. For instance, the eagle, and the cross with a skull on it.[/edit] Really, the “monk” justification seems just like a post-hoc rationalization rather than a meaningful justification.
I disagree with the "White scars are mongols therefore Astartes aren't warrior monks in Space" counter argument. Correct me if I am wromg, but the White Scars live in a fortress monastery and each Astartes is a battle-brother. They may have mongol overtones but the Space Monk theme is still there.
That's my take on Space Marines. They're all Space Monks with variations, and it may not necessarily be the standard western image of a monk. Even Space Wolves, I'm pretty sure The Fang is described as a fortress monastery.
The main reason I don't want female Space Marines is because there's not currently female Space Marines, I think any attempt to shoehorn them in is going to be crap and I don't believe improving the gender diversity of Space Marines is going to make 40k more appealing to a larger audience vs adding more female models elsewhere. Even among the people who do want female Marines, I don't think there's much agreement on how it should be done; same aesthetic and just call them "sister" instead of "brother", having a more svelte aesthetic or the same basic aesthetic but females having long hair.
I think just leave Space Marines be and put the female effort in to other areas.
Well as it stands in the US there are no females in the special forces, at least as operators, tons of support staff are females, hell you can have commanders who are females, but where the rubber hits the road you have a lot of swinging male appendages and not a single female in sight.
With that said we are relating real world concepts to a game that believes in magic. So....ANYWAY.
From a game perspective female SMs are fine if you want to make your own or find some 3rd party that makes bits, go for it. Don't expect GW to do a female SM release though because as I have said before you already have an entire female army, SoB who wear the same armor, have the same guns (needs a codex update to get the new toys), have the same faction for all intents and purposes and have access to regular Marines as allies. So why dear god would you want them to go "Ohh and so and so primarch was actually a transgender, bisexual who identified as an attack helicopter, and all his/her/its minions were female SMs".
Pai Mei was a monk and a martial arts badass, more than that he was an homage/parody of all those ancient warrior monk masters from the old movies Tarantino likes so much.
So yes, top knots, long mustaches etc are monk like, you just have to expand on your idea of what monks look like.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just to further reinforce the point..
Wikipedia wrote:A warrior monk is a concept found in various cultures of a person who combines aspects of being a monk, such as deep religious devotion and an ascetic lifestyle, with being a warrior, trained to engage in violent conflict.
Examples include:
Sōhei, a type of Japanese warrior.
Knights Templar, Knights Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, warriors during the Crusades.
Shaolin Monastery, a Chinese monastery renowned for monks who were experts in the martial arts.
The description of the ideal soldier in the manual of the First Earth Battalion.
Nagas, a type of shaivite monks once served under Moghul commanders.
SemperMortis wrote: Don't expect GW to do a female SM release though because as I have said before you already have an entire female army, SoB who wear the same armor, have the same guns (needs a codex update to get the new toys), have the same faction for all intents and purposes and have access to regular Marines as allies.
Even if Sisters were an entirely female army (they are not, as explained above in this thread), or even an entire army (at this point, I don't think they qualify for this anymore…), even if they did wear the same armor (they don't) or had the same guns (they don't, they only have a tiny, tiny subset of the guns the marines have), one female army would not counterbalance 7 male armies.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: The main reason I don't want female Space Marines is because there's not currently female Space Marines, I think any attempt to shoehorn them in is going to be crap
“Shoehorn” them in like they shoehorned the various new flyers, the centurion, the grav weapons, the frost weapons and all that. It's just that easy.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Azreal13 wrote: So yes, top knots, long mustaches etc are monk like, you just have to expand on your idea of what monks look like.
What about you expand it to the point where it does include women too then, if we are about to expand it? (Where did you get that Pai Mei was a monk?)
Automatically Appended Next Post: The stereotypical ancient martial arts master is invariably a monk, as most of the martial arts originated in monasteries.
Although why don't we dispense with male and female altogether and have one gender called Philip and just call it done?
Wikipedia wrote:A warrior monk is a concept found in various cultures of a person who combines aspects of being a monk, such as deep religious devotion and an ascetic lifestyle, with being a warrior, trained to engage in violent conflict.
Examples include:
Sōhei, a type of Japanese warrior. Knights Templar, Knights Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, warriors during the Crusades. Shaolin Monastery, a Chinese monastery renowned for monks who were experts in the martial arts. The description of the ideal soldier in the manual of the First Earth Battalion. Nagas, a type of shaivite monks once served under Moghul commanders.
Do you know what is funny about those? It's that none of them had long mustache as a characteristic.
And… so… what's your point here? That monks and nuns should be separated? But that having explicitly shamanistic monks is perfectly fine?
Azreal13 wrote: The stereotypical ancient martial arts master is invariably a monk, as most of the martial arts originated in monasteries.
That's not the question I asked. Is Mai Pei a monk? Are long mustache characteristic of ANY kind of monks that you could name? How does the White Scar mustaches visually links him to being a monk rather than being a Mongol? Are you arguing in good faith that the mustache is to link him to the concept of a monk rather than to the concept of mongols?
Wikipedia wrote:A warrior monk is a concept found in various cultures of a person who combines aspects of being a monk, such as deep religious devotion and an ascetic lifestyle, with being a warrior, trained to engage in violent conflict.
Examples include:
Sōhei, a type of Japanese warrior.
Knights Templar, Knights Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, warriors during the Crusades.
Shaolin Monastery, a Chinese monastery renowned for monks who were experts in the martial arts.
The description of the ideal soldier in the manual of the First Earth Battalion.
Nagas, a type of shaivite monks once served under Moghul commanders.
Do you know what is funny about those? It's that none of them had long mustache as a characteristic.
So? That wasn't my point. The point was that "warrior monk" can reference a vast variety of different cultures and aren't mutually exclusive to other traits such as physical appearance.
And… so… what's your point here? That monks and nuns should be separated? But that having explicitly shamanistic monks is perfectly fine?
My point is we already have a word for a female monk, and that's a nun. We already have female monks, they're called something different, but they exist, so it's impossible to expand "monk" to include women, when women can already become de facto monks. Hence my comment about one gender called Phillip, unless you're campaigning for all things to be called the same regardless of gender involvement, in which case then I guess we can dispense with one or the other.
Azreal13 wrote: The stereotypical ancient martial arts master is invariably a monk, as most of the martial arts originated in monasteries.
That's not the question I asked. Is Mai Pei a monk?
Even if Sisters were an entirely female army (they are not, as explained above in this thread), or even an entire army (at this point, I don't think they qualify for this anymore…), even if they did wear the same armor (they don't) or had the same guns (they don't, they only have a tiny, tiny subset of the guns the marines have), one female army would not counterbalance 7 male armies.
I apologize, I was not aware that those stupid men have infiltrated our feminist army. (Thats sarcasm btw)
They are in fact an entire army, a heavily outdated army, but still an entire army. They have a 3+ save that looks remarkably like Power armor, if its called "SoB Durka armor" I don't care its still a 3+ and your arguing over semantics. They have the same guns as Space Marines, except the new toys AS I MENTIONED ALREADY!. Yeah they need access to the new toyz but they still use bolters, bolt pistols, heavy bolters, flamers, heavy flamers, Meltas, Plasma Guns, Multi-Meltas, Storm Bolters, hell they even have rhinos. Funny how you think that is a "tiny, tiny Subset".
And why do we need equal numbers of Female and male armies? Who cares really? And if you really want to get technical about it, again going to real world, the US military is open to both genders and guess what? About 83% of the military is MALE and only about 16% is female. And the US is probably the most progressive in regards to gender, the UK has only 10% females, so technically by that number we are over representing females in Warhammer 40k. it should be 9 to 1 not 7 to 1.
Gen.Steiner wrote: IThey may be the poster boys (fnar) of the setting, but if they are the only all-male faction (and the Sisters of Battle are the only all-female faction), you then have fantastic analogues for monks and nuns - which, in fact, is what they are: warrior-monks and warrior-nuns.
Except that it totally not true. The White Scars are NOT warrior-monks. They are space mongols. The Charcarodons are NOT warrior-monks. They are canon Angry Marines. The Space Wolves are NOT warrior-monks. They are werewolves vikings with extra wolf fetish.
Do you know who is warrior-monks? The Dark Angels are warrior-monks. They wear robes and all, they have land speeder that looks like small cathedrals, they have names that sounds very biblical, …
Space Marines, as I already mentioned many times, are a blank canvas to be painted to whatever flavor you want for that specific chapter. Now just allow that flavor to include female warriors, like it should have from the beginning.
All Space Marines, regardless of Chapter, live monastic lives that are highly regimented, include hefty amounts of prayer or meditation, and belong to cult brotherhoods. They're all monks. Just like the Sisters are all nuns.
I mean, the example daily routine of a Space Marine includes three hours of prayer, and 15 minutes of optional free time... for Marines to make their own individual observances to the Emperor or to the Chapter Cult.
It is entirely possible to have a highly diverse and inclusive set of models to support a varied and diverse set of armies and factions, both human and alien, without having female Space Marines or male Sisters of Battle.
EDIT: A thought. Is it not possible that the process of becoming a Space Marine is in fact some form of gender reassignment anyway? The amount of testosterone and various other chemicals that swill around inside a Space Marine's post-human body could well take a pre-pubescent girl and prevent them from ever becoming a woman; in which case the only difference would be in external genitalia and the presence of atrophied womb and ovaries. So a Space Marine Chapter could happily recruit girls in the same way as they recruit boys, and in both cases they stop being human and become Astartes.
Gen.Steiner wrote: IThey may be the poster boys (fnar) of the setting, but if they are the only all-male faction (and the Sisters of Battle are the only all-female faction), you then have fantastic analogues for monks and nuns - which, in fact, is what they are: warrior-monks and warrior-nuns.
Except that it totally not true. The White Scars are NOT warrior-monks. They are space mongols. The Charcarodons are NOT warrior-monks. They are canon Angry Marines. The Space Wolves are NOT warrior-monks. They are werewolves vikings with extra wolf fetish.
Do you know who is warrior-monks? The Dark Angels are warrior-monks. They wear robes and all, they have land speeder that looks like small cathedrals, they have names that sounds very biblical, …
Space Marines, as I already mentioned many times, are a blank canvas to be painted to whatever flavor you want for that specific chapter. Now just allow that flavor to include female warriors, like it should have from the beginning.
All Space Marines, regardless of Chapter, live monastic lives that are highly regimented, include hefty amounts of prayer or meditation, and belong to cult brotherhoods. They're all monks. Just like the Sisters are all nuns.
I mean, the example daily routine of a Space Marine includes three hours of prayer, and 15 minutes of optional free time... for Marines to make their own individual observances to the Emperor or to the Chapter Cult.
It is entirely possible to have a highly diverse and inclusive set of models to support a varied and diverse set of armies and factions, both human and alien, without having female Space Marines or male Sisters of Battle.
EDIT: A thought. Is it not possible that the process of becoming a Space Marine is in fact some form of gender reassignment anyway? The amount of testosterone and various other chemicals that swill around inside a Space Marine's post-human body could well take a pre-pubescent girl and prevent them from ever becoming a woman; in which case the only difference would be in external genitalia and the presence of atrophied womb and ovaries. So a Space Marine Chapter could happily recruit girls in the same way as they recruit boys, and in both cases they stop being human and become Astartes.
Regarding the Space Marine rituals, I don't know whether that's a lot of time or not. First I'd need to know how long an average day is for a Space Marine. They're spread across a thousand different planets and some don't even have a planet, so we can't just assume 24 hours is a normal length of day for them.
That said, yes, it's possible that women are recruited to Space Marine chapters and end up becoming indistinguishable from men unless you go looking at their DNA. It's also possible they remove all sex organs entirely because Space Marines don't reproduce in that way and don't have sex being a thing they have to worry about at all. I don't think it's ever been mentioned that that's the case, but it is certainly possible.
I mean, the example daily routine of a Space Marine includes three hours of prayer, and 15 minutes of optional free time... for Marines to make their own individual observances to the Emperor or to the Chapter Cult.
It is entirely possible to have a highly diverse and inclusive set of models to support a varied and diverse set of armies and factions, both human and alien, without having female Space Marines or male Sisters of Battle.
EDIT: A thought. Is it not possible that the process of becoming a Space Marine is in fact some form of gender reassignment anyway? The amount of testosterone and various other chemicals that swill around inside a Space Marine's post-human body could well take a pre-pubescent girl and prevent them from ever becoming a woman; in which case the only difference would be in external genitalia and the presence of atrophied womb and ovaries. So a Space Marine Chapter could happily recruit girls in the same way as they recruit boys, and in both cases they stop being human and become Astartes.
Regarding the Space Marine rituals, I don't know whether that's a lot of time or not. First I'd need to know how long an average day is for a Space Marine. They're spread across a thousand different planets and some don't even have a planet, so we can't just assume 24 hours is a normal length of day for them.
That said, yes, it's possible that women are recruited to Space Marine chapters and end up becoming indistinguishable from men unless you go looking at their DNA. It's also possible they remove all sex organs entirely because Space Marines don't reproduce in that way and don't have sex being a thing they have to worry about at all. I don't think it's ever been mentioned that that's the case, but it is certainly possible.
Well, the linked Lexicanum entry is taken from the 3rd Edition Codex: Space Marines (pg 19), so I think it's pretty canon that they use a standard 24 hour day - it fits, too, because, you know, Holy Terra and all that. A bit like modern Zulu Time too, because if this week you're fighting on a night world that has a two-hundred-hour day, and next week you're on a world that has a six-hour-day... well... standardised military time to the rescue!
I don't think they remove sexual organs, but they certainly cease to function as sexual organs - Space Marines don't have a sex drive (not even Noise Marines or Emperor's Children have sex drives).
EDIT: A thought. Is it not possible that the process of becoming a Space Marine is in fact some form of gender reassignment anyway? The amount of testosterone and various other chemicals that swill around inside a Space Marine's post-human body could well take a pre-pubescent girl and prevent them from ever becoming a woman; in which case the only difference would be in external genitalia and the presence of atrophied womb and ovaries. So a Space Marine Chapter could happily recruit girls in the same way as they recruit boys, and in both cases they stop being human and become Astartes.
IMO, that's actually the most realistic way to think about it. That's not how it's treated in the fiction, but it's the sort of interpretation that rings true because of how clinical the transformation into an Astartes actually is.
EDIT: A thought. Is it not possible that the process of becoming a Space Marine is in fact some form of gender reassignment anyway? The amount of testosterone and various other chemicals that swill around inside a Space Marine's post-human body could well take a pre-pubescent girl and prevent them from ever becoming a woman; in which case the only difference would be in external genitalia and the presence of atrophied womb and ovaries. So a Space Marine Chapter could happily recruit girls in the same way as they recruit boys, and in both cases they stop being human and become Astartes.
IMO, that's actually the most realistic way to think about it. That's not how it's treated in the fiction, but it's the sort of interpretation that rings true because of how clinical the transformation into an Astartes actually is.
Gen.Steiner wrote: Well, the linked Lexicanum entry is taken from the 3rd Edition Codex: Space Marines (pg 19), so I think it's pretty canon that they use a standard 24 hour day - it fits, too, because, you know, Holy Terra and all that. A bit like modern Zulu Time too, because if this week you're fighting on a night world that has a two-hundred-hour day, and next week you're on a world that has a six-hour-day... well... standardised military time to the rescue!
Well then, problem solved.
I don't think they remove sexual organs, but they certainly cease to function as sexual organs - Space Marines don't have a sex drive (not even Noise Marines or Emperor's Children have sex drives).
Basically the same thing for these purposes, I guess.
I mean, I don't think there's been much canon artwork of naked Space Marines from the front. And it's not like you need to have functioning male equipment to sexually violate people like the Noise Marines and Emperor's Children have been known to. And since that kind of thing has never been about sex anyways, just because they rape people in their planetary conquests doesn't mean they need a functioning sex drive or functioning organs.
Totally. I always liked the idea that individual marines are physically monstrous in person. Distended and strange looking "heavy" humans. Monstrous man or monstrous woman, all the same to me, honestly. They are in effect, a different race.
Totally. I always liked the idea that individual marines are physically monstrous in person. Distended and strange looking "heavy" humans. Monstrous man or monstrous woman, all the same to me, honestly. They are in effect, a different race.
Since they're essentially the descendants of the Emperor's genetically-engineered kids, that'd explain a lot.
As I recall, the Emperor's attempts to reproduce in a more natural human way resulted in the deaths of a few women before he gave up on the idea. The word "exploded" came up in the description.
Though there was also some lore about how some of those women survived and actually gave birth to superhuman beings who, some millennia later, were hunted into extinction or simply chose to hide forever by Imperials who considered their claims of being descendants of the Emperor to be blasphemy.
Totally. I always liked the idea that individual marines are physically monstrous in person. Distended and strange looking "heavy" humans. Monstrous man or monstrous woman, all the same to me, honestly. They are in effect, a different race.
Totally. I always liked the idea that individual marines are physically monstrous in person. Distended and strange looking "heavy" humans. Monstrous man or monstrous woman, all the same to me, honestly. They are in effect, a different race.
Sphess Mehreens! Todeh... Erm... Ew.
Spoiler:
Well, at least that explains how they fit all the extra organs inside them.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Great riddance, I hate sexist donkey-caves as well. For the sake of balance, let's also get rid of other extremes like feminism.
Are you saying “Okay, now that we got rid of those very sexist people, let's get rid of those very anti-sexist people, so that we can enjoy a community with just the exact right amount of sexism I am comfortable with”? That's definitely how you sound.
Since we are purging the extreme, I suggest we get rid of extremely TFG people AND extremely fair-play people too. Extreme are always bad, ain't they?
No, I'm not saying that, at all. I also don't want to get rid of anyone. I see that you're still into catching words and quoting them as out of context as possible but I also see now that you read them out of context as well.
Code wrote: I think, there are plenty of problems with that approach to fiction.
1) If you take it seriously, then every fictional work ever has to follow this rule. That means, if I create a fictional setting, no matter how far away into the future or how far away into the past, no matter how fundamentally different it is from our world, it HAS to represent 21st century US demographics. This idea alone is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
2) I'm not even sure, what the problem is.
You say, some people might not be comfortable to escape to a place with a single race and gender imbalace. So apparently they are still confortable escaping to a place, where human life has absolutely no worth and is thrown away by the millions just to have minor military victories. Where there is exactly one religion and if you don't follow it, you're going to get killed. Where people are hoarded to planet earth like animals, so the one true ruler of mankind can consume their souls... but gender imbalance really is a deal breaker!
Doesn't make sense to me.
Others have said, there should be people that look like you, so everyone feels represented. The thing is, there is nobody in 40k that looks like me! I'm 5 ft 7, 155 lbs and wear glasses. Who exactly looks like me. You pick ONE external characteristic, skin color, ignore everything else and then make representation about this one thing. That's arbitrary.
3) Building on the last point: It's a slippery slope. You want black people represented in 40k, fine. But now obviously you need hispanic, asian and arabic people as well, so you put in those. Now you've got all the big ethnicities covered, but what about the smaller ones? What about the native americans and polynesians, that don't feel represented? Ok, so we put in every possible ethnicity, that exist today and we're done right?
But what about the disabled people? Shouldn't they be represented as well? What about transgender people? And gay people? What about people with autism? What about Little People? What about amputees?
So we are not done, until we have a gay 4 ft 5 transgender autistic Space Marine, that may or may not have native alaskan heritage...
4) To me this approach to fiction KILLS immersion. And I'm convinced, that most people of the affected groups feel the same way. When you see this happening (and most of the time it's blatantly obvious) you're starting to think of real-world politics and stop thinking about the world you're trying to experience, which kills the fun.
This is one of the worst problem of "everything is political". TV shows are political, books are political, music is political, movies are political and 40k is political. Ironically the people suffering the most from this, are the ones trying to push this agenda. Can they even enjoy ANY media anymore? How can you enjoy something, when all you're thinking about is "Let's see how well everyone is represented in this"? How can you get lost in a work of fiction, when all you do, is trying to judge how well this supports your political goals?
In short: Keep politics where they belong! There are more than enough real-world issues in need of solving, where your commitment to social justice is well placed and productive (Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, etc.) But if you're taking your politics to places, that are supposed to be a fun escape from the real world, and taking them back into the real world in the process, all you're doing is alienating people and hurting your cause. (especially as it might not even be a problem, see point 2
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
1) Nope. But if there is already a huge imbalance in which some demographics are routinely underrepresented, don't you think it would be a good idea to go the other way for once, and over-represent them? Oups, sorry, you are not interested in that kind of deviation from 21st century US demographics, you are only interested in the one that is all white men…
You ofc don't know gak about what I'm interested in so stop claiming you do.
In fact I would prefer the Imperium to be all black people than this forced, target audience and demographics data driven bs of female space marines and mixed races chapters.
(don't forget to quite this out of context, ie "BS of mixed races? BS?? Are you saying that only white people are worthy?")
What imbalance are you talking about? I struggle to remember playing a quasi medieval rpg on pc last few years where half of the town guard wasn't females. Almost every show concentrates on women struggles and discrimination. Most SF movies show future of a racialy mixed society with gender equality, or strong women etc and very USA in space actualy.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
2) I am going with a total lack of empathy as the reason for why ONE external characteristic is emphasized over the other. It's because… well it's the one that gets you considered in majorly different ways irl while you have no control over it. Also explains about the escapism. It's way, way easier to escape to a place that don't mirror some actual problems you have to deal with IRL. That's also why rape victims don't usually like rape stories. Very basic amount of empathy would make that crystal-clear.
So, you would censor all rape out of the art? What about car crashes? Beatings? War? Death? Cancer? Abductions? Anything traumatic really?
I have much too much empathy, believe me but for sure 40k doesn't trigger it.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
4) Unsurprisingly, when fiction mirror problems you (and the poster) have to “deal” with IRL, it kills their immersion. Suddenly, they get it! But when other people find that fiction mirror problems they have to deal with IRL (and I am using no quotation mark this time for a reason!), suddenly they should grow a thicker skin or something.
BS. My grandfather was in the soviet camp, soviets occupied my country and driven it into poverty but I'm not crying and making threads for GW to remove commissairs shown as cool heroes because they offend me, despite the fact that it was probably much better to be a discriminated woman than a Polish man in the NKVD torture chamber or just shot in the back of the head and thrown to the ditch. 40k actualy insults religion but I'm not crying about it either.
But no it's just about women now, a silly over-reaction and sort of easy to follow intelectual fashion.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: Also lol at the idea that something that includes obvious political satire, and a whole freaking lot of it, is not political. Sure, the long description of the byzantine Administratum, or the Ecclesiarchy and its rise to power, and all that, definitely not politics! What, those obvious metaphors about racism using mutants as the discriminated class, even when perfectly free of any chaotic taint? That's not political at all!
Sure it is political, which doesn't mean you have to constantly over-analyse and demand changes for every bit that offends your sensibilities. If everyone did that, there would be no 40k because it's offensive all around.
Not to mention it was a satire in Rogue Trader era, now it's all serious and creation of mood because of it's commercial success. Nothing to fight for here and lol at the idea of female space marines.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Gen.Steiner wrote: IThey may be the poster boys (fnar) of the setting, but if they are the only all-male faction (and the Sisters of Battle are the only all-female faction), you then have fantastic analogues for monks and nuns - which, in fact, is what they are: warrior-monks and warrior-nuns.
Except that it totally not true. The White Scars are NOT warrior-monks. They are space mongols. The Charcarodons are NOT warrior-monks. They are canon Angry Marines. The Space Wolves are NOT warrior-monks. They are werewolves vikings with extra wolf fetish.
Do you know who is warrior-monks? The Dark Angels are warrior-monks. They wear robes and all, they have land speeder that looks like small cathedrals, they have names that sounds very biblical, …
Space Marines, as I already mentioned many times, are a blank canvas to be painted to whatever flavor you want for that specific chapter. Now just allow that flavor to include female warriors, like it should have from the beginning.
No they're not just canvas. They all follow and believe in the emperor of mankind, they are all male, all warrior monks. The basic idea is warrior monk, then comes the flavour that in some cases takes it further from that reference but it's 40k and not entirely coherent heh, still warrior monks though.
So, you would censor all rape out of the art? What about car crashes? Beatings? War? Death? Cancer? Abductions? Anything traumatic really?
I have much too much empathy, believe me but for sure 40k doesn't trigger it.
Done right, a cancer story can actually be a positive thing for a game's story. Just look at the Crusader Bridenbrad questline in WoW.
Rape's one of those things that affects most humans more strongly than a lot of other things. Both men and women.
I'm a guy, and at the time I'd never known anyone who was raped. But when I found out that, in Warcraft lore, the Orcs who sacked Shattrath had raped the Draenei Priestesses, dragged them to the edge of the cliff, then cut their throats and threw them off, I... well, let's just say I didn't stop killing Orc NPCs until every single one I could think of finding in the game was dead. And then a few months later I made the Orcs my first Nemesis enemy (Nemesis referring to a thing where you earn a title by killing 500 of a particular species in PvP).
BS. My grandfather was in the soviet camp, soviets occupied my country and driven it into poverty but I'm not crying and making threads for GW to remove commissairs shown as cool heroes because they offend me, despite the fact that it was probably much better to be a discriminated woman than a Polish man in the NKVD torture chamber or just shot in the back of the head and thrown to the ditch. 40k actualy insults religion but I'm not crying about it either.
But no it's just about women now, a silly over-reaction and sort of easy to follow intelectual fashion.
I dunno what 40k lore you've been reading, but IG Commissars are generally portrayed as the opposite of heroes. And Yarrick is only viewed as a hero because of his skill in defeating Orks with command strategy, not because of his Commissar stuff.
So, you would censor all rape out of the art? What about car crashes? Beatings? War? Death? Cancer? Abductions? Anything traumatic really?
I have much too much empathy, believe me but for sure 40k doesn't trigger it.
Done right, a cancer story can actually be a positive thing for a game's story. Just look at the Crusader Bridenbrad questline in WoW.
Rape's one of those things that affects most humans more strongly than a lot of other things. Both men and women.
I'm a guy, and at the time I'd never known anyone who was raped. But when I found out that, in Warcraft lore, the Orcs who sacked Shattrath had raped the Draenei Priestesses, dragged them to the edge of the cliff, then cut their throats and threw them off, I... well, let's just say I didn't stop killing Orc NPCs until every single one I could think of finding in the game was dead. And then a few months later I made the Orcs my first Nemesis enemy (Nemesis referring to a thing where you earn a title by killing 500 of a particular species in PvP).
BS. My grandfather was in the soviet camp, soviets occupied my country and driven it into poverty but I'm not crying and making threads for GW to remove commissairs shown as cool heroes because they offend me, despite the fact that it was probably much better to be a discriminated woman than a Polish man in the NKVD torture chamber or just shot in the back of the head and thrown to the ditch. 40k actualy insults religion but I'm not crying about it either.
But no it's just about women now, a silly over-reaction and sort of easy to follow intelectual fashion.
I dunno what 40k lore you've been reading, but IG Commissars are generally portrayed as the opposite of heroes. And Yarrick is only viewed as a hero because of his skill in defeating Orks with command strategy, not because of his Commissar stuff.
I know a rape victim, where the perpetrator was walking around and making her a whore, he admitted later that its her version that is correct. One of the things I noticed is that she didn't want to be treated like a victim and patronised. Anecdotal though ofc.
As for commissars, yes everyone thinks they are cool. Nowhere in the fiction is it stated that women are inferior or unworthy of command but it still doesn't stop the representarians gang to claim inherent mizogyny, discrimination etc.
Plumbumbarum wrote: As for commissars, yes everyone thinks they are cool. Nowhere in the fiction is it stated that women are inferior or unworthy of command but it still doesn't stop the representarians gang to claim inherent mizogyny, discrimination etc.
I don't think Commissars are cool. I avoid taking them in my IG armies wherever possible because I think they're awful, and it's not for gameplay reasons.
And the "representarians" generally point out that while women are equals in the lore, there have only been a handful of female IG models. That's where that sentiment comes from. Not the lore. The official models that are actually produced.
Plumbumbarum wrote: As for commissars, yes everyone thinks they are cool. Nowhere in the fiction is it stated that women are inferior or unworthy of command but it still doesn't stop the representarians gang to claim inherent mizogyny, discrimination etc.
I don't think Commissars are cool. I avoid taking them in my IG armies wherever possible because I think they're awful, and it's not for gameplay reasons.
And the "representarians" generally point out that while women are equals in the lore, there have only been a handful of female IG models. That's where that sentiment comes from. Not the lore. The official models that are actually produced.
So if the lore's not a problem, why are people asking for female Space Marines?
I'd love for more female representation in 40k, be it through female cultists, xenos (where appropriate - Tyranids, Orks, and Necrons biologically don't count) and humans. Add in more special characters, revamp the Sisters.
Regarding the point made that Sisters are inferior to men because they have less stuff than Space Marines, do please consider that Sisters have more than the Scions do. And whilst they could and should have far more in their range, Scions do have less.
It's less a case of men>women, but more Space Marines>everyone else.
Plumbumbarum wrote: As for commissars, yes everyone thinks they are cool. Nowhere in the fiction is it stated that women are inferior or unworthy of command but it still doesn't stop the representarians gang to claim inherent mizogyny, discrimination etc.
I don't think Commissars are cool. I avoid taking them in my IG armies wherever possible because I think they're awful, and it's not for gameplay reasons.
And the "representarians" generally point out that while women are equals in the lore, there have only been a handful of female IG models. That's where that sentiment comes from. Not the lore. The official models that are actually produced.
So if the lore's not a problem, why are people asking for female Space Marines?
I dunno. I've been away from Dakka for a couple of days. When I left, everyone was all like, "Marines can be all male, and that's fine."
I'd love for more female representation in 40k, be it through female cultists, xenos (where appropriate - Tyranids, Orks, and Necrons biologically don't count) and humans. Add in more special characters, revamp the Sisters.
Sounds good, though aren't Tyranids mostly female to begin with? Isn't that why so many of the different types of creatures have female-gendered names like harpies and harridans?
Regarding the point made that Sisters are inferior to men because they have less stuff than Space Marines, do please consider that Sisters have more than the Scions do. And whilst they could and should have far more in their range, Scions do have less.
It's less a case of men>women, but more Space Marines>everyone else.
Are the Scions actually male-only in their lore? I haven't read up much on them but I thought they were in the same situation as IG, where they can easily be female in the lore but have no female models. I'll readily admit I could very easily be wrong about that.
Plumbumbarum wrote: As for commissars, yes everyone thinks they are cool. Nowhere in the fiction is it stated that women are inferior or unworthy of command but it still doesn't stop the representarians gang to claim inherent mizogyny, discrimination etc.
I don't think Commissars are cool. I avoid taking them in my IG armies wherever possible because I think they're awful, and it's not for gameplay reasons.
And the "representarians" generally point out that while women are equals in the lore, there have only been a handful of female IG models. That's where that sentiment comes from. Not the lore. The official models that are actually produced.
I know for a fact that some of the resident feminist do field them. Should I enter a full armchair psychologist now and analyse it, "why would they escape to a place where their beloved army is led by a war criminal, murderer and a fanatic, do they dream of executing someone" etc like the representarians do over everyone not waning female sm or diverse chapters. If I am a mysogyn for not wanting female SM then all people who like commissairs are psychopaths, how about that for a cheap discussion techniques ping pong match.
If you treat FFG as lore, the number of female models is in line with it:
Dark Heresy Rulebook wrote:"The wartorn 41st millenium is not always an encouraging place to be for a female. Few get the opportunities of their male counterparts, but by the same token they do not get exposed to the danger out there in the wilder parts of the galaxy. Certain Imperial Guard regiments recruit females to fight alongside men; the Eclessiarchy and the Inquisition likewise employ females at all ranks, but again their number is not in proportion to men
Plumbumbarum wrote: As for commissars, yes everyone thinks they are cool. Nowhere in the fiction is it stated that women are inferior or unworthy of command but it still doesn't stop the representarians gang to claim inherent mizogyny, discrimination etc.
I don't think Commissars are cool. I avoid taking them in my IG armies wherever possible because I think they're awful, and it's not for gameplay reasons.
And the "representarians" generally point out that while women are equals in the lore, there have only been a handful of female IG models. That's where that sentiment comes from. Not the lore. The official models that are actually produced.
I know for a fact that some of the resident feminist do field them. Should I enter a full armchair psychologist now and analyse it, "why would they escape to a place where their beloved army is led by a war criminal, murderer and a fanatic, do they dream of executing someone" etc like the representarians do over everyone not waning female sm or diverse chapters. If I am a mysogyn for not wanting female SM then all people who like commissairs are psychopaths, how about that for a cheap discussion techniques ping pong match.
If you treat FFG as lore, the number of female models is in line with it:
Dark Heresy Rulebook wrote:"The wartorn 41st millenium is not always an encouraging place to be for a female. Few get the opportunities of their male counterparts, but by the same token they do not get exposed to the danger out there in the wilder parts of the galaxy. Certain Imperial Guard regiments recruit females to fight alongside men; the Eclessiarchy and the Inquisition likewise employ females at all ranks, but again their number is not in proportion to men
Personally I'd be willing to leave it at, "I prefer the look of female miniatures to male ones, hence I'd like for official female IG to be available in enough numbers to make an army out of."
Plumbumbarum wrote: As for commissars, yes everyone thinks they are cool. Nowhere in the fiction is it stated that women are inferior or unworthy of command but it still doesn't stop the representarians gang to claim inherent mizogyny, discrimination etc.
I don't think Commissars are cool. I avoid taking them in my IG armies wherever possible because I think they're awful, and it's not for gameplay reasons.
And the "representarians" generally point out that while women are equals in the lore, there have only been a handful of female IG models. That's where that sentiment comes from. Not the lore. The official models that are actually produced.
I know for a fact that some of the resident feminist do field them. Should I enter a full armchair psychologist now and analyse it, "why would they escape to a place where their beloved army is led by a war criminal, murderer and a fanatic, do they dream of executing someone" etc like the representarians do over everyone not waning female sm or diverse chapters. If I am a mysogyn for not wanting female SM then all people who like commissairs are psychopaths, how about that for a cheap discussion techniques ping pong match.
If you treat FFG as lore, the number of female models is in line with it:
Dark Heresy Rulebook wrote:"The wartorn 41st millenium is not always an encouraging place to be for a female. Few get the opportunities of their male counterparts, but by the same token they do not get exposed to the danger out there in the wilder parts of the galaxy. Certain Imperial Guard regiments recruit females to fight alongside men; the Eclessiarchy and the Inquisition likewise employ females at all ranks, but again their number is not in proportion to men
Personally I'd be willing to leave it at, "I prefer the look of female miniatures to male ones, hence I'd like for official female IG to be available in enough numbers to make an army out of."
But that's just me, I guess.
I have nothing against a female guard box or an upgrade sprue with heads, why not. Don't think it will happen, why not ask mr. Roundtree though, they seem to listen now.
Plumbumbarum wrote: I have nothing against a female guard or an upgrade sprue with heads, why not. Don't think it will happen, why not ask mr. Roundtree though, they seem to listen now.
Wikipedia wrote:A warrior monk is a concept found in various cultures of a person who combines aspects of being a monk, such as deep religious devotion and an ascetic lifestyle, with being a warrior, trained to engage in violent conflict.
Examples include:
Sōhei, a type of Japanese warrior.
Knights Templar, Knights Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, warriors during the Crusades.
Shaolin Monastery, a Chinese monastery renowned for monks who were experts in the martial arts.
The description of the ideal soldier in the manual of the First Earth Battalion.
Nagas, a type of shaivite monks once served under Moghul commanders.
Do you know what is funny about those? It's that none of them had long mustache as a characteristic.
So? That wasn't my point. The point was that "warrior monk" can reference a vast variety of different cultures and aren't mutually exclusive to other traits such as physical appearance.
And… so… what's your point here? That monks and nuns should be separated? But that having explicitly shamanistic monks is perfectly fine?
My point is we already have a word for a female monk, and that's a nun. We already have female monks, they're called something different, but they exist, so it's impossible to expand "monk" to include women, when women can already become de facto monks. Hence my comment about one gender called Phillip, unless you're campaigning for all things to be called the same regardless of gender involvement, in which case then I guess we can dispense with one or the other.
Azreal13 wrote: The stereotypical ancient martial arts master is invariably a monk, as most of the martial arts originated in monasteries.
That's not the question I asked. Is Mai Pei a monk?
I'll ask him next time I see him.
So, if I sum up your post:
- You don't offer any kind of hint about what makes the White Scars look or feel like monks, in any way. Neither from their look, nor from their fluff. You just say that warrior monk can take very different appearance, which, while true (WFB Warrior Priests looks nothing like Shaolin monks) is completely unrelated to my argument.
- You play semantics instead of addressing the fact that you have no problem with expanding the definition of monks as large as you want it to be, but you consider that one, and as far as I can tell only one, characteristic of traditional European monks MUST remain intact: the fact that they organize in single-gender communities. You just can't accept a chapter of Space Marines that has both “monk” and “nuns” together because… reasons. Reasons that I invite you to expand upon.
If you want to post stuff that is irrelevant to the arguments I am making, please go ahead, but also please just mention it instead of making it sounds like you are answering me.
Gen.Steiner wrote: All Space Marines, regardless of Chapter, live monastic lives that are highly regimented, include hefty amounts of prayer or meditation, and belong to cult brotherhoods. They're all monks.
Space Wolves live monastic lives of bombastic bragging, and have hefty amounts of prayers that consists of over-eating and drinking booze. Give me a break. That's nonsense and you know it.
What you are describing is merely the “average” marine chapter. But tons of them have deviation from slight to really, really major from this average.
Plumbumbarum wrote: So, you would censor all rape out of the art? What about car crashes? Beatings? War? Death? Cancer? Abductions? Anything traumatic really?
In case you didn't notice it, there are no graphic depiction of rape in 40k. That's for a reason.
And generally speaking, the universe is so over-the-top and excessive in its horror that I really don't think much people in countries that aren't at war will find anything that reminds them of their actual struggle. People don't die of cancer in 40k, they die of the terrible Nurgle plague and rise up as zombies!
Not you, then. Are you afraid that some Commissar is going to get you? If not, it's not mirroring something that you have to deal with IRL. It's something that other people had to deal with a long time ago.
If you were currently living under constant fear of being executed by the Soviets, I don't think you would enjoy Commissars .
Plumbumbarum wrote: Sure it is political, which doesn't mean you have to constantly over-analyse and demand changes for every bit that offends your sensibilities. If everyone did that, there would be no 40k because it's offensive all around.
Yeah, I agree, GW should choose the people they are okay with being offensive too. I certainly never meant that nothing should be offensive to anyone. If 40k is offensive to religious bigots, for instance, I am perfectly fine with this.
I really don't know why so many people seem to use that argument you put forward of “not being offensive to anyone” when actually I never heard anyone say that anything like that. It's a weird strawman.
Plumbumbarum wrote: No they're not just canvas. They all follow and believe in the emperor of mankind, they are all male, all warrior monks. The basic idea is warrior monk, then comes the flavour that in some cases takes it further from that reference but it's 40k and not entirely coherent heh, still warrior monks though.
Following the Emperor of Mankind is literally EVERYONE in the whole Imperium. That… doesn't really set them apart from a blank canvas. The fact they are all male is, well, the ridiculous arbitrary restriction that I want removed to make them a better blank canvas. And the warrior monk part is totally inexistent in the description, background, look, etc, of so many Chapters that constantly putting it forward is becoming tiresome.
Plumbumbarum wrote: So, you would censor all rape out of the art? What about car crashes? Beatings? War? Death? Cancer? Abductions? Anything traumatic really?
In case you didn't notice it, there are no graphic depiction of rape in 40k. That's for a reason.
And generally speaking, the universe is so over-the-top and excessive in its horror that I really don't think much people in countries that aren't at war will find anything that reminds them of their actual struggle. People don't die of cancer in 40k, they die of the terrible Nurgle plague and rise up as zombies!
As I wrote in http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/700334.page#8857374 Actually it's quite strange that their is no rule concerning infection by "genestealer kiss". Rogue Trader was very explicit about the way Genestealers were, well, using their tongues for stealing human genes to replacing by their.
"This perhaps is the greatest horror the Genestealers bring, as they can infect almost any lifeform with a "kiss," implanting some of their own genetic material into the host and taking complete control of its reproductive system."
"The Genestealer will find a suitable host and hypnotise them into passivity using an effect induced with its eyes. The Genestealer then thrusts its long, whip-like tongue (which also serves as an ovipositor) into the body of the host, where it deposits its DNA in the form of a type of virus that infects the somatic and germ line cells of the host."
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Genestealer Isn't this fitting the definition of rape using stunning effect with pregnancy result?
( article in french http://leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/925105-une-victime-de-viol-qui-ne-se-debat-pas-ca-ne-veut-pas-dire-qu-elle-consent.html )
the inspiring scenes with facehugger in Alien franchise movie are quite explicit of unwanted forced penetration for reproductive purpose...
The Genestealers are nothing else than ethnic cleansing dedicated troops
Manchu wrote: Eldar culture is highly ritualistic. Their battle armor surely reflects this. It makes sense to me that, as posted above, a male Eldar who joined the Banshee Path would conceivably cross-dress, as it were, to honor Jain Zar.
Gen.Steiner wrote: All Space Marines, regardless of Chapter, live monastic lives that are highly regimented, include hefty amounts of prayer or meditation, and belong to cult brotherhoods. They're all monks.
Space Wolves live monastic lives of bombastic bragging, and have hefty amounts of prayers that consists of over-eating and drinking booze. Give me a break. That's nonsense and you know it.
What you are describing is merely the “average” marine chapter. But tons of them have deviation from slight to really, really major from this average.
Er, no, it's not nonsense, it's the official canon background. Space Marines, even Space Wolves, are monastic cult brotherhoods. So were the Knights Templar, but that didn't stop them becoming unbelievably wealthy, and lots of real life monks in the Middle Ages brewed alcohol for their own consumption as well as for sale and trade.
Of course there are deviations, but every chapter either has a Fortress Monastery or a space-ship equivalent. They all have Chaplains (the Space Wolves, in fact, have a variety of - wait for it - Priests!) which are there to ensure their adherence to the chapter cult or Imperial Creed (or both).
They're monks. They're all monks. It says it so many times in the background I'm rather confused as to why you don't think they are.
Gen.Steiner wrote: even Space Wolves, are monastic cult brotherhoods. So were the Knights Templar,
Actually for SW, if think much more about Jomsvikings brotherhood
The Saga of the Jomsvikings relates that the Jomsvikings were highly selective in deciding whom to admit to their order. Membership was restricted to men of proven valor between 18 and 50 (with the exception of a boy named Vagn Åkesson, who defeated Sigvaldi Strut-Haraldsson in single combat at the age of 12). In order to gain admission, prospective members were required to prove themselves with a feat of strength, often taking the form of a ritual duel, or holmgang, with a Jomsviking.
Once admitted, the Jomsvikings required adherence to a strict code of conduct in order to instill a sense of military discipline among its members. Any violation of these rules could be punished with immediate expulsion from the order. Each Jomsviking was bound to defend his brothers, as well as to avenge their deaths if necessary. He was forbidden to speak ill of his fellows or to quarrel with them. Blood feuds between members were to be mediated by Jomsviking officers. Jomsvikings were forbidden to show fear or to flee in the face of an enemy of equal or inferior strength, though orderly retreat in the face of vastly outnumbering forces appears to have been acceptable. All spoils of battle were to be equally distributed among the entire brotherhood. No Jomsviking was permitted to be absent from Jomsborg for more than three days without the permission of the brotherhood. No women or children were allowed within the fortress walls, and none were to be taken captive. It is unclear, however, whether members were forbidden marriage or liaisons with women outside the walls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jomsvikings
So - a religious order of male warriors who didn't admit women and adhered to a strict and ritualised code?
SOUNDS LIKE WARRIOR MONKS TO ME!
well
No women or children were allowed within the fortress walls, and none were to be taken captive. but
It is unclear, however, whether members were forbidden marriage or liaisons with women outside the walls. pagan Vikings with chastity vows sounds strange...
However for Christian knight orders there were few exception:
The Orders of Santiago that authorised Reconquista crusaders to have a wife and children
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Order_of_Saint_James_of_the_Sword https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Santiago + Teutonic Order, during its split between Catholic & Lutherian obedience, the protestant members took wife. For a time some German Protestant Princes, fearing the Turk invasion wanted the Teutonic to remain in the bounder fortress but asked for a quota of (married) protestant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_Order Today, it welcomes both male or female members. The religious ones can be monks or nuns BUT are separated while non-religious one (aka Honorary Knights) maybe married.
Look also the Pope bodyguard regiment (aka Swiss guard) their faith have to be confirmed but their native town priest and by a 5 hours interview.
They swear devotion to God, Pope and Cardinals like a knight order but while hellebardier/gardist and corporal (enlisted for 2 years) must live in barracks WITHOUT any woman, non-commissioned officer & officer have their own apartment and can get married.
Strangely this is exactly the opposite of the early Teutonic Knight among with basic milician & sergeants (grey tunics infantry) as colonist for newly conquered Prussia were supposed to have large family to increase quickly the population in the commandry while officers (white coat knights) took chastity vows.
In many fantasy world Paladin order doesn't required celibacy. just a following code and obedience of the master.
Actually 1st Paladins, were just King (then Emperor) Charlemage most loyal lords and elite guard (link Alexander the Great elite cavalry)
Anyway I just wanted to point the difference a religion between Templars (or Hospitalier,..) that were Christian and the Jomsvikings that were Asatru (or Odinist pagan) but still likely to fight in the name of a Christian Emperor or King if paid for.
Just like SW fight for the same Imperium as the Dark Angels.
I am not denying that SoB have almost no gear, I am not denying they need a update to give them more gear, I am pointing out that a lot of the weapons they currently have are shared with Space Marines. SoB haven't had a real codex update since the turn of the century the new release was basically a copy and paste with some fixes that were needed and a few new toys though not enough. Realistically SoB are on the edge of joining Squats. But with that said if they ever did get a new codex and some plastic models you would see a lot of this complaining disappear and a lot fewer arguments for "We need Female Space Marines"
Literally SoB share Bolt pistols, Bolters, Storm bolters, Heavy bolters, Flamers, heavy flamers, Meltas, Multi-Meltas, Plasma Guns, Power Armor, Rhinos and a couple of other things with SMs thats is almost ALL of their gear that they share. It just so happens that SMs have more stuff then any other faction by a significant margin.
I am not denying that SoB have almost no gear, I am not denying they need a update to give them more gear, I am pointing out that a lot of the weapons they currently have are shared with Space Marines. SoB haven't had a real codex update since the turn of the century the new release was basically a copy and paste with some fixes that were needed and a few new toys though not enough. Realistically SoB are on the edge of joining Squats. But with that said if they ever did get a new codex and some plastic models you would see a lot of this complaining disappear and a lot fewer arguments for "We need Female Space Marines"
Literally SoB share Bolt pistols, Bolters, Storm bolters, Heavy bolters, Flamers, heavy flamers, Meltas, Multi-Meltas, Plasma Guns, Power Armor, Rhinos and a couple of other things with SMs thats is almost ALL of their gear that they share. It just so happens that SMs have more stuff then any other faction by a significant margin.
Out of curiosity, how many of those things do Sisters of Battle share with the Imperial Guard? Because by my count, the answer is "most of them."
Out of curiosity, how many of those things do Sisters of Battle share with the Imperial Guard? Because by my count, the answer is "most of them."
Many because of their history.
Before age of aposthasy Imperium clergy had standard army (imperial guard regiment), then they were compelled not to age any "man-at-arm" therfore, they just disband their (male) soldiers and gave the hardware to nuns.
Because they have fewer troops, they had to protect them with better armor managed to do it since their was only few power-armor to be acquired.
Since they did not have access to SM genetic modification, the standard SM suit was impossible to use so a new suit was to be create from nothing.
In such case, the best was to give it a female ergonomy (and make sure nobody could suspect a man to be hidden inside so boob plate was mandatory)
Out of curiosity, how many of those things do Sisters of Battle share with the Imperial Guard? Because by my count, the answer is "most of them."
Many because of their history.
Before age of aposthasy Imperium clergy had standard army (imperial guard regiment), then they were compelled not to age any "man-at-arm" therfore, they just disband their (male) soldiers and gave the hardware to nuns.
Because they have fewer troops, they had to protect them with better armor managed to do it since their was only few power-armor to be acquired.
Since they did not have access to SM genetic modification, the standard SM suit was impossible to use so a new suit was to be create from nothing.
In such case, the best was to give it a female ergonomy (and make sure nobody could suspect a man to be hidden inside so boob plate was mandatory)
Oh.
I thought I was making a counterpoint to someone who was arguing that Sisters of Battle and Space Marines are actually very similar because of their equipment.
Apparently that was not even being discussed.
I think I mixed up the thread I was posting in with another.
Well if SW are based on Jomsvikings - Nordic warrior monks - rather than Christian warrior monks, it functionally has no bearing on Space Wolves vs any other Space Marines. A warrior monk by any other name would smell as sweet.
Well if SW are based on Jomsvikings - Nordic warrior monks - rather than Christian warrior monks, it functionally has no bearing on Space Wolves vs any other Space Marines. A warrior monk by any other name would smell as sweet.
I'm kinda wondering how this is even relevant to the possibility of female Space Marines, since everything I read says that members might have intimate relationships with women, but none of it says women were monks themselves.
Wikipedia wrote:A warrior monk is a concept found in various cultures of a person who combines aspects of being a monk, such as deep religious devotion and an ascetic lifestyle, with being a warrior, trained to engage in violent conflict.
Examples include:
Sōhei, a type of Japanese warrior.
Knights Templar, Knights Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, warriors during the Crusades.
Shaolin Monastery, a Chinese monastery renowned for monks who were experts in the martial arts.
The description of the ideal soldier in the manual of the First Earth Battalion.
Nagas, a type of shaivite monks once served under Moghul commanders.
Do you know what is funny about those? It's that none of them had long mustache as a characteristic.
So? That wasn't my point. The point was that "warrior monk" can reference a vast variety of different cultures and aren't mutually exclusive to other traits such as physical appearance.
And… so… what's your point here? That monks and nuns should be separated? But that having explicitly shamanistic monks is perfectly fine?
My point is we already have a word for a female monk, and that's a nun. We already have female monks, they're called something different, but they exist, so it's impossible to expand "monk" to include women, when women can already become de facto monks. Hence my comment about one gender called Phillip, unless you're campaigning for all things to be called the same regardless of gender involvement, in which case then I guess we can dispense with one or the other.
Azreal13 wrote: The stereotypical ancient martial arts master is invariably a monk, as most of the martial arts originated in monasteries.
That's not the question I asked. Is Mai Pei a monk?
I'll ask him next time I see him.
So, if I sum up your post:
Here's a hint, don't sum up other people's posts, they've said what they meant to say, you rephrasing them to better straw man their arguments is a waste of time
- You don't offer any kind of hint about what makes the White Scars look or feel like monks, in any way. Neither from their look, nor from their fluff. You just say that warrior monk can take very different appearance, which, while true (WFB Warrior Priests looks nothing like Shaolin monks) is completely unrelated to my argument.
Your point was a picture of a White Scar didn't look very monk like, how does showing that a warrior monk can look like anything any other human can look like unrelated to your argument?
- You play semantics instead of addressing the fact that you have no problem with expanding the definition of monks as large as you want it to be, but you consider that one, and as far as I can tell only one, characteristic of traditional European monks MUST remain intact: the fact that they organize in single-gender communities. You just can't accept a chapter of Space Marines that has both “monk” and “nuns” together because… reasons. Reasons that I invite you to expand upon.
I don't need to expand on anything, monks are men, nuns are women, both historically and within the totally fictional construct of the 40K universe. The fact that you can't accept that diversity doesn't require the intermingling of the two concepts into one genderless order because reasons. Reasons that I really don't care to hear any more about.
If you want to post stuff that is irrelevant to the arguments I am making, please go ahead, but also please just mention it instead of making it sounds like you are answering me.
Sounds to me you don't understand your own argument if you think my responses were irrelevant.
SolarCross wrote: There is so much speciesist anthropomorphocentric bigotry in this thread I think I might vomit. "Hey let's make all the aliens look human, because da humies iz da bestest". No! let's have some real diversity, as in aliens that actually look alien.40k only has the tyranids as genuinely alien aliens, that's speciesist anthropomorphic bigotry right there.
In solidarity with our brain slug overlords.
To my knowledge, the Eldar and Humans look alike because they were both created by the same race who got lazy and re-used parts from one in the other.
Maybe there is some in universe reason, but the main reason is because Eldar are basically elves in SPACE!!!
At this point, this thread has clearly shown in its constant back-and-forth arguments, that statement "more gender diversity in wh40k would be beneficial to everyone and would clearly increase sales" is false and needs at least an extensive marketing study to prove. Most opinions in this thread are personal belief at most, not accounting in any way for huge cultural diversity amongst the current playerbase.
Also, the complete highjacking of this thread in favour of endless gender disputes over "we need more nonhumanoid xenos" or even "we need more playstyle specific factions" disputes clearly shows, that there is huge confusion about what is really drawing anyone to any particular game and what the word "diversity" means depending on cultural and geographical context.
And if I were GW CEO myself, I would stay away from any drastic change in gender lore and product range, simply because this is such a nest of vipers and very, very slippery ground for a GLOBAL company. Current state clearly sells well enough.
[And just on a tiny little margin: apart from Banshees and Guardians mentioned at first pages of this thread, Eldars have also a female Shining Spear torso. And the fact that there is no female torsos in other aspects is not caused by lore or any other mysoginistic reasons, but because sculpts of all other aspects were designed in times of metal casting, which imposed huge restrictions on possible poses. Especially models with armour holding a two-handed gun were much more difficult to design for old process with a pair of breasts. You can clearly see this difficulty in Necromunda Esher gang, where sculptors had to use any and all possible accents on the model, to make it distinctively feminine. Eldars, because of their light body frame and ritualistic helmets/armour patterns, have very few opportunities other than boobs to accent female models. And as said, plastic Harlequins are 50/50, because there are no such restrictions and all Harlequins look somehow genderless apart from two small bumps on the chest.]
Gen.Steiner wrote: Of course there are deviations, but every chapter either has a Fortress Monastery or a space-ship equivalent. They all have Chaplains (the Space Wolves, in fact, have a variety of - wait for it - Priests!) which are there to ensure their adherence to the chapter cult or Imperial Creed (or both).
So, they are monks because… they have an head quarter whose generic name sound religious and they have religious officers.
Damn, so many IG regiments are monks too!
Seriously, what do you even? Do you believe that every priest is a monk, or that priest only cater to monks, or what?
You should give that whole page a long, hard read :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_chaplain Military chaplains and 40k chaplains are not monks. They are priests.
Also, give that page a read too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monk Notice how while monk was originally someone taking specific vows in Christianity, it was expended to other religious groups that shared, well, asceticism. The catholic (and anglican apparently) vows are : “vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity.” Asceticism, obedience, …sounds like the Space Wolves? Nope. Poverty, sounds like the Ultramarines? LOLNOPE NEED MOAR BLING!
The Space Marines are all religious (like pretty much everyone in the Imperium) warriors. That doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, make them monks. Well, they also do all share in common being secluded from the rest of the “secular” world. Oh, wait, no, scratch that, forgot about the Salamanders and the Ultramarines!
Kriegspiel wrote: Actually it's quite strange that their is no rule concerning infection by "genestealer kiss".
I am going to assume you are not serious about that whole message.
I thought I was making a counterpoint to someone who was arguing that Sisters of Battle and Space Marines are actually very similar because of their equipment.
Apparently that was not even being discussed.
I think I mixed up the thread I was posting in with another.
My bad, sorry.
Can't tell if sarcastic or not ^^.
Azreal13 wrote: Your point was a picture of a White Scar didn't look very monk like, how does showing that a warrior monk can look like anything any other human can look like unrelated to your argument?
My point was that White Scars are not related in any meaningful way to monks, and I put the picture to illustrate one of the many aspects in which they don't. I explicitly mentioned the other aspects in the very same post.
I am going to sum up again, because you like it so much. I wrote that White Scars aren't like monk in either their background or their visual aspect. I illustrated the visual aspect part. You answered by a picture of a character that ISN'T a monk (as far as we know, and we have no reason to suspect otherwise). And that was supposed to prove… what? If the White Scars looked like this :
then they would definitely evokes real-world monks, though not European ones. As a matter of fact, they do NOT look like this. If the White Scars had a background that had them take vows of asceticism, and seclude themselves into monasteries, they would be reminiscent of monks. But they have a more (explicitly, iirc) shamanistic view of religion, and rather than seclude themselves away, they are more the “ride in the wind” kind.
Gen.Steiner wrote: Of course there are deviations, but every chapter either has a Fortress Monastery or a space-ship equivalent. They all have Chaplains (the Space Wolves, in fact, have a variety of - wait for it - Priests!) which are there to ensure their adherence to the chapter cult or Imperial Creed (or both).
So, they are monks because… they have an head quarter whose generic name sound religious and they have religious officers.
Damn, so many IG regiments are monks too!
Seriously, what do you even? Do you believe that every priest is a monk, or that priest only cater to monks, or what?
You should give that whole page a long, hard read :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_chaplain Military chaplains and 40k chaplains are not monks. They are priests.
Also, give that page a read too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monk Notice how while monk was originally someone taking specific vows in Christianity, it was expended to other religious groups that shared, well, asceticism. The catholic (and anglican apparently) vows are : “vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity.” Asceticism, obedience, …sounds like the Space Wolves? Nope. Poverty, sounds like the Ultramarines? LOLNOPE NEED MOAR BLING!
The Space Marines are all religious (like pretty much everyone in the Imperium) warriors. That doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, make them monks. Well, they also do all share in common being secluded from the rest of the “secular” world. Oh, wait, no, scratch that, forgot about the Salamanders and the Ultramarines!
Kriegspiel wrote: Actually it's quite strange that their is no rule concerning infection by "genestealer kiss".
I am going to assume you are not serious about that whole message.
I thought I was making a counterpoint to someone who was arguing that Sisters of Battle and Space Marines are actually very similar because of their equipment.
Apparently that was not even being discussed.
I think I mixed up the thread I was posting in with another.
My bad, sorry.
Can't tell if sarcastic or not ^^.
Azreal13 wrote: Your point was a picture of a White Scar didn't look very monk like, how does showing that a warrior monk can look like anything any other human can look like unrelated to your argument?
My point was that White Scars are not related in any meaningful way to monks, and I put the picture to illustrate one of the many aspects in which they don't. I explicitly mentioned the other aspects in the very same post.
I am going to sum up again, because you like it so much. I wrote that White Scars aren't like monk in either their background or their visual aspect. I illustrated the visual aspect part. You answered by a picture of a character that ISN'T a monk (as far as we konow, and we have no reason to suspect otherwise). And that was supposed to prove… what? If the White Scars looked like this :
then they would definitely evokes real-world monks, though not European ones. As a matter of fact, they do NOT look like this. If the White Scars had a background that had them take vows of asceticism, and seclude themselves into monasteries, they would be reminiscent of monks. But they have a more (explicitly, iirc) shamanistic view of religion, and rather than seclude themselves away, they are more the “ride in the wind” kind.
You're just hung up on what your idea of a monk should be, once you've put aside your prejudices you'll find the whole thing makes a lot more sense.
Ambiguously so on purpose. I'm not actually sure what the topic was.
My point was that White Scars are not related in any meaningful way to monks, and I put the picture to illustrate one of the many aspects in which they don't. I explicitly mentioned the other aspects in the very same post.
I am going to sum up again, because you like it so much. I wrote that White Scars aren't like monk in either their background or their visual aspect. I illustrated the visual aspect part. You answered by a picture of a character that ISN'T a monk (as far as we know, and we have no reason to suspect otherwise). And that was supposed to prove… what? If the White Scars looked like this :
then they would definitely evokes real-world monks, though not European ones. As a matter of fact, they do NOT look like this. If the White Scars had a background that had them take vows of asceticism, and seclude themselves into monasteries, they would be reminiscent of monks. But they have a more (explicitly, iirc) shamanistic view of religion, and rather than seclude themselves away, they are more the “ride in the wind” kind.
nou wrote: Current state clearly sells well enough.
I think I might've choked on my drink if I'd been sipping it at this part.
Have you seen their financials in recent years?
There's absolutely no justification or evidence that any perceived lack of diversity has had a negative impact on their sales, nor that an increase would have a positive one.
The change of edition and subsequent apparent decline in popularity would much more closely track any negative financial performance, although it's important to note they are still making a profit, and the introduction of some female models would likely do zero to reverse the declining trend.
What does, in this image, sets the character apart from a simple warrior? Well, mostly our knowledge that his general look, and especially the insignia on his torso, is very very reminiscent of an actual warrior monk order. Just like the Diablo 3 monk above is really recognizable as a monk so easily because it is reminiscent of another very famous order of warrior monks. The White Scar look is reminiscent of… a Mongol warrior that is not a monk.
nou wrote: Current state clearly sells well enough.
I think I might've choked on my drink if I'd been sipping it at this part.
Have you seen their financials in recent years?
There's absolutely no justification or evidence that any perceived lack of diversity has had a negative impact on their sales, nor that an increase would have a positive one.
The change of edition and subsequent apparent decline in popularity would much more closely track any negative financial performance, although it's important to note they are still making a profit, and the introduction of some female models would likely do zero to reverse the declining trend.
And if they actually did market research of any kind they might begin to have an answer on whether more female miniatures would improve sales at all.
Though generally I think that if they started having, you know, sales? Like when they temporarily decrease the price of some products to encourage more people to buy it for the limited time of the sale? That would probably increase their sales volume and profits more than changing what their models look like.
What does, in this image, sets the character apart from a simple warrior? Well, mostly our knowledge that his general look, and especially the insignia on his torso, is very very reminiscent of an actual warrior monk order. Just like the Diablo 3 monk above is really recognizable as a monk so easily because it is reminiscent of another very famous order of warrior monks. The White Scar look is reminiscent of… a Mongol warrior that is not a monk.
I dunno. I look at that knight and think two things.
1. He's a crusader on his way to Jerusalem in one of the Crusades.
2. He hasn't figured out that his full plate armor will protect him as much as that shield will, so he's still using a shield and a longsword instead of a two-handed weapon.
nou wrote: Current state clearly sells well enough.
I think I might've choked on my drink if I'd been sipping it at this part.
Have you seen their financials in recent years?
There's absolutely no justification or evidence that any perceived lack of diversity has had a negative impact on their sales, nor that an increase would have a positive one.
The change of edition and subsequent apparent decline in popularity would much more closely track any negative financial performance, although it's important to note they are still making a profit, and the introduction of some female models would likely do zero to reverse the declining trend.
@Pouncey - As Azreal wrote: do you seriously think, that gender diversity or lack of it has more influence on sales than general trend of entertainment industry towards simple board games, computer games, mobile entertainment and so on? My statement is written clearly in a gender context so please, do read with assumption, that I'm not an utter idiot. Compare complexity of 2nd ed WH40k, RPG games from '90 (both classic and computer) classic vs modern x-com games etc… And then tell me, if my "sells well enough" is still hilarious. Decline in sales after 6th ed has more to do with market shifting to mobile entertainment than it has with the actual wh40k ruleset (as clearly most of GW consumer base do not even play the game, just collect the models and play not more than couple of times a year if ever). There is a poll here, clearly showing a spectrum of frequency of playing within dakaa comunity, and dakka comunity itself groups most involved hobbyists...
What does, in this image, sets the character apart from a simple warrior? Well, mostly our knowledge that his general look, and especially the insignia on his torso, is very very reminiscent of an actual warrior monk order. Just like the Diablo 3 monk above is really recognizable as a monk so easily because it is reminiscent of another very famous order of warrior monks. The White Scar look is reminiscent of… a Mongol warrior that is not a monk.
He's a Templar, Templars are warrior monks.
But sure, nobody can be a monk unless they look like what you think a monk can look like, correct? Everyone should be a visual representation of what they believe, as set down by.. you?
The fact that the creators of the thing have said what that thing is should be the end of the argument, but apparently not.
But sure, nobody can be a monk unless they look like what you think a monk can look like, correct? Everyone should be a visual representation of what they believe, as set down by.. you?
Who are you arguing against? A version of me that exists only in your head?
I just wrote that we identify him as a warrior monk because he looks just like the Templar and we know that Templars are warrior monks. Now you tell me about how I am wrong for not admitting he is a warrior monk? I can't even.
nou wrote: but because sculpts of all other aspects were designed in times of metal casting, which imposed huge restrictions on possible poses. Especially models with armour holding a two-handed gun were much more difficult to design for old process with a pair of breasts. You can clearly see this difficulty in Necromunda Esher gang, where sculptors had to use any and all possible accents on the model, to make it distinctively feminine. Eldars, because of their light body frame and ritualistic helmets/armour patterns, have very few opportunities other than boobs to accent female models. And as said, plastic Harlequins are 50/50, because there are no such restrictions and all Harlequins look somehow genderless apart from two small bumps on the chest.]
So instead of Esher ugly armored silicon implant
what about using nice tinny tits?
perhaps because of 40K "epic" body proportions compared to Infinity (and sometimes even to their "Inquisitor" counterpart) due to the fact GW minis (basic Orks or IG) shall pass the "50 minis travel to & back from GW local retailer all mixed in shoebox" test
(just look how 2nd hand mini are shown on e-bay)
Anyway the big Rambo like torso of the Catachan are as big as the Esher ones and changing "meat to milk" was not a problem in old time
I also liked the "Imperial Army" female trooper Vaskez of Rogue Trader
gun at hips and helmet on belt "for the picture" was a good way to show blond middle-left hair and 90C breasts avoiding "female commissar" meme
Why don't we get such mini anymore?
Anyway if GW doesn't do it for the Tau, Wargame Exclusive does:
http://wargameexclusive.com/product-category/greater-good/ just has Prodos does for Space Marines oups sorry Crusaders
(see http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/698524.page#8847810 )
In fact actually none of mini I bought for W40K since the beginning of this year are GW ones,
Sorry for GW, since I wanted only to increase my human armies and was fed up with this male only conversion because metallic SoB are to hard to convert, I found what I wanted elsewhere.
50 minis bought for W40K universe and not a single GW one!
nou wrote: Current state clearly sells well enough.
I think I might've choked on my drink if I'd been sipping it at this part.
Have you seen their financials in recent years?
There's absolutely no justification or evidence that any perceived lack of diversity has had a negative impact on their sales, nor that an increase would have a positive one.
The change of edition and subsequent apparent decline in popularity would much more closely track any negative financial performance, although it's important to note they are still making a profit, and the introduction of some female models would likely do zero to reverse the declining trend.
@Pouncey - As Azreal wrote: do you seriously think, that gender diversity or lack of it has more influence on sales than general trend of entertainment industry towards simple board games, computer games, mobile entertainment and so on? My statement is written clearly in a gender context so please, do read with assumption, that I'm not an utter idiot. Compare complexity of 2nd ed WH40k, RPG games from '90 (both classic and computer) classic vs modern x-com games etc… And then tell me, if my "sells well enough" is still hilarious. Decline in sales after 6th ed has more to do with market shifting to mobile entertainment than it has with the actual wh40k ruleset (as clearly most of GW consumer base do not even play the game, just collect the models and play not more than couple of times a year if ever). There is a poll here, clearly showing a spectrum of frequency of playing within dakaa comunity, and dakka comunity itself groups most involved hobbyists...
I know that even Call of Duty lets you play a female character in some of their more recent games.
I know that even Halo has female Spartans now.
I know that the most popular subscription-based MMORPG in history has lasted 12 years and counting, still has millions of people paying to play it, and when it first came out in 2004 it altered pre-existing lore that said things like Night Elf men couldn't be hunters, priests or warriors and Night Elf women couldn't be Druids in favor of more gender equality.
I know that if you take the same game and make two different advertisements for it, one with women in the ad and one without women in the ad, women who see the ad with women in it are more likely to buy the game.
I know that eventually the tabletop wargaming hobby is going to stop being a boys club and have to include women, and a lot of women introduced to 40k have their first question being, "Where are all the women?"
I know that the Assassin's Creed game that offered the ability to make a custom character for online play suffered harsh criticism for not being designed to let you play a female character if you wanted to.
I know that one of the things 40k is founded upon is making your own custom army to your own specifications.
So no, I'm not seeing that there's no market for more female characters in gaming or even 40k in particular.
Let's take a look at how well women are represented in those categories.
- female xenos: The Dark Eldar do okay with female representation. I don't know what the percentages are, but there are female minis across the range rather than having them pigeonholed into one unit, like their craftworld cousins. Speaking of which, the Eldar have one female unit. The Tau have one demonstrably female mini. The other xenos species are kind of irrelevant physically.
- female daemons: One unit. Though, I suppose Nurgle's daemons would be indistinguishable one way or another.
- female Inquisitors: One mini that dates back to the release of Codex: Witchhunters.
- female super-elite, power-armored warriors: An army with an entirely pewter range, a limited number of minis, substandard rules, and can only be bought online.
- female cultists: none that I've noticed
- female IG: none currently in the range, unless Shaeffer's Last Chancers are still being sold, in which case there's 2 female minis in that set.
Not doing so well with the representation there.
Plumbumbarum wrote:
Yes I did understand your point, but you also used terms like tokenism or sth and then proceeded to say how it only highlights the female underrepresentation and just those terms show that you are at least a bit ideologicaly involved, because only ideologicaly involved, 50/50 or nothing people see "tokenism" as a problem. So, you're not attracting female gamers, you're attracting ideologicaly involved female gamers who are offended by tokenism in games. Not to mention that the you have absolutely no proof that it's tokenism and it highlighting the female underrepresantation that keeps female gamers off 40k, even the feminist ones as we have a few girls/ women here with strong views on the subject but they seem to be playing/ collecting anyway.
The first line in Wikipedia's entry on tokenism is as follows:
Tokenism is the policy and practice of making a perfunctory gesture towards the inclusion of members of minority groups.
So, even setting aside the whole debate on whether there should or should not be female Space Marines, in the setting there is little-to-no reason for the other factions to not have strong female representation, particularly within the Imperial Guard, the Eldar, the Inquisition, and the Tau. No one can argue this is the case. Within those factions, there is one all-female unit, one female IC, and one female special character. Oh, and I suppose there is a smattering of female torsos in the Guardian kit, whch is at least proof the concept can work. There is also one mostly-female force that GW can barely be bothered to support. If the current state of the game doesn't represent tokenism, I don't know what does.
Plumbumbarum wrote:Great riddance, I hate sexist donkey-caves as well. For the sake of balance, let's also get rid of other extremes like feminism.
Yes it indeed seems like you're not coming from high moral grounds and it again sounds a bit like the female rights warriors, they're the same as those hardcore misogyns just on the other side of the barricade, they want to get rid of females and female rights warriors want to get rid of them.
Again, what of the number of leaving misogyns exceeds the number of the incoming females? Your prediction is as good as mine and you said that It would be smart. How would it be smart, if it lost money.
Get real. A lot of sexists may make noise about quitting the game over the inclusion of female Space Marines, but given the time, energy, and money that goes into acquiring, assembling, and painting a 40K army, almost none actually will, because they have too much invested in it to actually do so. Even if they do, so what? GW has made their money off them already.
Plumbumbarum wrote:Oh yes, it's hilarious. What makes it even more hilarious is that I didn't think you're a girl.
Well, you did call me a girl player. So, either that means you thought I was a girl, or you thought calling me a girl player was a put-down. I went with the more generous assumption.
Plumbumbarum wrote:What about this documentary https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask ? They cut the funding for Nordic Gender Institute soon after the showing. I'm not saying the documentary is 100% right but it raises a strong case for such differences in sexes and the debate is not as settled as you think it is.
That you highly doubt sth doesn't mean it's not true.
Did you really go looking for a documentary to back your argument?
20 years ago, gamers were arguing that video games and RPGs don't appeal to girls either. Look where we are now.
Plumbumbarum wrote:Listen man, this setting and game is not "exclusionary". There are SoB for anyone who wants to play Imperial girls and that btw includes me if only they're ever released in plastic and reasonably priced.
Exclusionary is another politicaly involved term in this context btw.
Here's an imo great post about the exclusion issue from some old thread:
Code wrote: I think, there are plenty of problems with that approach to fiction.
1) If you take it seriously, then every fictional work ever has to follow this rule. That means, if I create a fictional setting, no matter how far away into the future or how far away into the past, no matter how fundamentally different it is from our world, it HAS to represent 21st century US demographics. This idea alone is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
2) I'm not even sure, what the problem is.
You say, some people might not be comfortable to escape to a place with a single race and gender imbalace. So apparently they are still confortable escaping to a place, where human life has absolutely no worth and is thrown away by the millions just to have minor military victories. Where there is exactly one religion and if you don't follow it, you're going to get killed. Where people are hoarded to planet earth like animals, so the one true ruler of mankind can consume their souls... but gender imbalance really is a deal breaker!
Doesn't make sense to me.
Others have said, there should be people that look like you, so everyone feels represented. The thing is, there is nobody in 40k that looks like me! I'm 5 ft 7, 155 lbs and wear glasses. Who exactly looks like me. You pick ONE external characteristic, skin color, ignore everything else and then make representation about this one thing. That's arbitrary.
3) Building on the last point: It's a slippery slope. You want black people represented in 40k, fine. But now obviously you need hispanic, asian and arabic people as well, so you put in those. Now you've got all the big ethnicities covered, but what about the smaller ones? What about the native americans and polynesians, that don't feel represented? Ok, so we put in every possible ethnicity, that exist today and we're done right?
But what about the disabled people? Shouldn't they be represented as well? What about transgender people? And gay people? What about people with autism? What about Little People? What about amputees?
So we are not done, until we have a gay 4 ft 5 transgender autistic Space Marine, that may or may not have native alaskan heritage...
4) To me this approach to fiction KILLS immersion. And I'm convinced, that most people of the affected groups feel the same way. When you see this happening (and most of the time it's blatantly obvious) you're starting to think of real-world politics and stop thinking about the world you're trying to experience, which kills the fun.
This is one of the worst problem of "everything is political". TV shows are political, books are political, music is political, movies are political and 40k is political. Ironically the people suffering the most from this, are the ones trying to push this agenda. Can they even enjoy ANY media anymore? How can you enjoy something, when all you're thinking about is "Let's see how well everyone is represented in this"? How can you get lost in a work of fiction, when all you do, is trying to judge how well this supports your political goals?
In short: Keep politics where they belong! There are more than enough real-world issues in need of solving, where your commitment to social justice is well placed and productive (Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, etc.) But if you're taking your politics to places, that are supposed to be a fun escape from the real world, and taking them back into the real world in the process, all you're doing is alienating people and hurting your cause. (especially as it might not even be a problem, see point 2
1: No setting has to be representative of anything anywhere on an artistic level. However, if you want to sell a product, you want to make good faith efforts to appeal to the broadest audience possible, or appeal to an under-served audience (which is why Twilight exploded the way it did). 40K doesn't do either - the art and the minis are almost all white guys, with few to no women.
2: The fictional aspects of the 40K universe are clearly fictional, whereas racism and sexism aren't, thus people not having a problem with the Emperor of Mankind eating souls to stay alive does not de-legitimize people's issues with the lack of non-white/non-male representation in the setting and range.
3: As far as ethnicity goes, one can do a lot with the paint scheme. It's not perfect, as it doesn't get facial features, but it's something the individual has some control over. I'd encourage GW to use some non-white facial sculpts for minis that show faces, and for their artwork and studio paint schemes to depict some non-white people in their armies.
Some of those examples are clearly ridiculous, as a gay person or an autistic person wouldn't physically look any different from anybody else, for instance.
The issue here isn't whether GW is doing a good enough job representing non-whites or females in the setting. The issue is that they're hardly trying at all. I don't expect them to get it exactly right all the time, but I do think they should start making good-faith efforts.
4: That's an easy attitude to cop when one is a part of the population that is over-represented.
Insectum7 wrote:
Now I'm not necessarily advocating it, but just to float the idea: What if, going forward beyond the 41st Millenium, the number of high level threats in the galaxy puts sufficient pressure onto the Imperium that they decide they must swell the numbers of Space Marines, and they have discovered/engineered/modified ye-olde geneseed to accept women into the ranks?
People have often chaffed at the notion that only 1,000,000 Space Marines are enough to secure the galaxy, so on the one hand we swell the number of marines, and on the other, begin accepting female recruits.
None of the past history is wiped away, none of the original chapter histories change, but the setting begins to evolve. This is not to say the Imperium has a new period of enlightenment (though it could, but I like my grimdark), just that the High Lords have decided to risk Great Crusade numbers of Space Marines again out of desperation. Chapters remain restricted, there are no new Primarchs, the "lost legions" remain lost, etc. There are just more marines, and some are female.
Personally, this is something I could get behind if it was handled well.
That could work. Assassins start off as normal humans, as far as I know, but are S4 T4 like Space Marines. So, clearly there are other ways to achieve the same effect.
Gen.Steiner wrote:I understand, from a business perspective, and also from the point of view that the background is mutable, that there is no good argument against female Space Marines.
However. I don't think they're necessary. They may be the poster boys (fnar) of the setting, but if they are the only all-male faction (and the Sisters of Battle are the only all-female faction), you then have fantastic analogues for monks and nuns - which, in fact, is what they are: warrior-monks and warrior-nuns. Meanwhile, the rest of the Imperium is happily gender-mixed, because it clearly is in the background.
I suppose that could also work. If GW improved the female representation in the armies where such is relevant and supported the Sisters of Battle at least as well as, say, the Craftworld Eldar, then that would probably satisfy most people. Sort of in the same vein as Title IX law here in the USA, where public high schools generally don't have a girl's (American) football team, but offer a roughly equivalent alternative (usually field hockey). They'd have to increase the relevance of the Sisters of Battle in the background to go along with it. Wouldn't need too much though, as the Age of Apostasy is almost as major an event as the Horus Heresy.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:That Sisters are inferior to men because they have less stuff than Space Marines, do please consider that Sisters have more than the Scions do. And whilst they could and should have far more in their range, Scions do have less.
I don't think that's a very legitimate counterpoint. It was kind of ridiculous to blow up the Militarum Tempestus into a separate army list. They could have just had a formation detachment in the Astra Militarum book.
nou wrote: but because sculpts of all other aspects were designed in times of metal casting, which imposed huge restrictions on possible poses. Especially models with armour holding a two-handed gun were much more difficult to design for old process with a pair of breasts. You can clearly see this difficulty in Necromunda Esher gang, where sculptors had to use any and all possible accents on the model, to make it distinctively feminine. Eldars, because of their light body frame and ritualistic helmets/armour patterns, have very few opportunities other than boobs to accent female models. And as said, plastic Harlequins are 50/50, because there are no such restrictions and all Harlequins look somehow genderless apart from two small bumps on the chest.]
So instead of Esher ugly armored silicon implant
what about using nice tinny tits?
perhaps because of 40K "epic" body proportions compared to Infinity (and sometimes even to their "Inquisitor" counterpart) due to the fact GW minis (basic Orks or IG) shall pass the "50 minis travel to & back from GW local retailer all mixed in shoebox" test
(just look how 2nd hand mini are shown on e-bay)
Anyway the big Rambo like torso of the Catachan are as big as the Esher ones and changing "meat to milk" was not a problem in old time
I also liked the "Imperial Army" female trooper Vaskez of Rogue Trader
gun at hips and (like reconnaissance trooper Kai) helmet on belt "for the picture" was a good way to show blond middle-left hair and 90C breasts
Or you could just look at the Dark Eldar revamp to show how GW's ability to model women has improved?
But sure, nobody can be a monk unless they look like what you think a monk can look like, correct? Everyone should be a visual representation of what they believe, as set down by.. you?
Who are you arguing against? A version of me that exists only in your head?
I just wrote that we identify him as a warrior monk because he looks just like the Templar and we know that Templars are warrior monks. Now you tell me about how I am wrong for not admitting he is a warrior monk? I can't even.
Your logic completely contradicts itself.
"This looks like a Templar. We know this Templar is a monk because we know Templars to be monks."
"We can't possibly tell the White Scar is a monk, because he doesn't look like a monk."
But we know he's a fething monk because he's a fething Space Marine and the lore says they're monks!
Or you could just look at the Dark Eldar revamp to show how GW's ability to model women has improved?
In fact actually none of minis I bought for W40K since the beginning of this year are GW ones,
Sorry for GW, since I wanted only to increase my human armies and was fed up with this male only conversion because metallic SoB are to hard to convert, I found what I wanted elsewhere.
50 minis bought for W40K universe and not a single GW one!
Or you could just look at the Dark Eldar revamp to show how GW's ability to model women has improved?
In fact actually none of minis I bought for W40K since the beginning of this year are GW ones,
Sorry for GW, since I wanted only to increase my human armies and was fed up with this male only conversion because metallic SoB are to hard to convert, I found what I wanted elsewhere.
50 minis bought for W40K universe and not a single GW one!
Okay.
But we're talking about GW's official models here.
Femarines - we're supposed to believe that making this concept canon would result in a more inclusive hobby and higher sales. But as my learned colleagues have pointed out, not once over the years has anyone shown this to be the case. The fact is, this is just a rationalization for either (a) forcing everyone else to ride your personal hobbyhorse (rare) or (b) making snide remarks about people who recognize how dumb the concept is (common). If we really want to talk about female models in 40k, there is no need to talk about Space Marines at all:
Anyone who actually cares about whether/how GW could introduce more female figures into their ranges ought to be discussing IG and, secondarily, "mortal" Chaos worshippers. The problem with that discussion is, there is nearly unanimous agreement that women should be better represented in those lines; i.e., there's no opportunity to sneer at "misogynists." The only thing to argue about is whether there should be specifically female sculpts or whether there should just be head swaps. Paradoxically, the same people who rabbit on about female Space Marines actually oppose the idea that GW should actually make female IG sculpts.
Manchu wrote: Femarines - we're supposed to believe that making this concept canon would result in a more inclusive hobby and higher sales. But as my learned colleagues have pointed out, not once over the years has anyone shown this to be the case. The fact is, this is just a rationalization for either (a) forcing everyone else to ride your personal hobbyhorse (rare) or (b) making snide remarks about people who recognize how dumb the concept is (common). If we really want to talk about female models in 40k, there is no need to talk about Space Marines at all:
Anyone who actually cares about whether/how GW could introduce more female figures into their ranges ought to be discussing IG and, secondarily, "mortal" Chaos worshippers. The problem with that discussion is, there is nearly unanimous agreement that women should be better represented in those lines; i.e., there's no opportunity to sneer at "misogynists." The only thing to argue about is whether there should be specifically female sculpts or whether there should just be head swaps. Paradoxically, the same people who rabbit on about female Space Marines actually oppose the idea that GW should actually make female IG sculpts.
All of this ten times over.
The thing is, everyone in this thread is in agreement on this.
From what i can see, no one wants female space marines because its only going to end up pissing off people and the only real reason that it would happen, would be a change for changes sakes thing.
Everyone wants Female guard option, no one is questioning that.
Everyone wants female cultists, no one is arguing there.
So at this point.....What the Gak are we even arguing about? We are on.....26? Yeah 26 pages of everyone reaching the same agreements and arguing about the technicalities of templars and monks and non GW models.
Does this thread still have a point? Or are we just running in circles here?
Let's take a look at how well women are represented in those categories.
- female xenos: The Dark Eldar do okay with female representation. I don't know what the percentages are, but there are female minis across the range rather than having them pigeonholed into one unit, like their craftworld cousins. Speaking of which, the Eldar have one female unit. The Tau have one demonstrably female mini. The other xenos species are kind of irrelevant physically.
- female daemons: One unit. Though, I suppose Nurgle's daemons would be indistinguishable one way or another.
- female Inquisitors: One mini that dates back to the release of Codex: Witchhunters.
- female super-elite, power-armored warriors: An army with an entirely pewter range, a limited number of minis, substandard rules, and can only be bought online.
- female cultists: none that I've noticed
- female IG: none currently in the range, unless Shaeffer's Last Chancers are still being sold, in which case there's 2 female minis in that set.
Not doing so well with the representation there.
To be fair, a lot of these arent quite as one sided here. With respect to the Eldar, they have female HQ's and mixed gender Guardians as well, and some of the other units you probably wouldnt be able to tell under the armor. Likewise with Tau, gender could be anything underneath carapace armor or in a Suit of some sort. Daemons have several units with female characteristics (Daemonettes, Seekers, Keeper of Secrets) but most really aren't gendered at all. Nurglings, Horrors, Furies, Screamers, etc dont reall have a gender. There's not much more clearly "male" daemon stuff mainly Bloodthirsters, GuO's, maybe Bloodletters and Plague Bearers (though they appear to lack anything distinctively male or female, mainly they just have a more "male" physical upper body build)
Azreal13 wrote: But we know he's a fething monk because he's a fething Space Marine and the lore says they're monks!
The White Scars argument is bad faith from top to bottom. There is more than one level of Space Marine culture. At the highest level, they are brotherhoods of warrior monks. At the Chapter-level, they are pretty varied based on a number of factors, not to mentoin that the White Scars, being a legion, are a special case. Jaghatai landed on Planet Mongolia; therefore he was not exposed to the pseudo-Catholic institutions of the Imperium until after the Emperor found him. Even so - there is no evidence that women served in the Khan's force before the Emperor arrived. Gee, it's almost like more than one culture might have a tradition of excluding women from certain military roles. Anyhow, once the Khan and the Emperor were reunited, the Khan would have at that point adopted whatever Imperial customs went along with having a Space Marine legion. Now whether the Khan previously recruited female soldiers and could not after taking command of his Legion is immaterial. The point is that, Mongolian overlay or no, White Scars are Space Marines. As you say, they are warrior monks no matter whether they wear Christian-esque priestly vestments, wolf pelts, or the Khan's fur-trimmed high heels (not that anyone bothers to mention those in these threads).
I know that eventually the tabletop wargaming hobby is going to stop being a boys club and have to include women, and a lot of women introduced to 40k have their first question being, "Where are all the women?"
This would explain how Imperium can handle so many losses (Armageddon War, Abbadon black Crusade,...)
They literary produce people (like in Brave New World or as for clone trooper in Star Wars or 40K miniatures in GW factory )
Sister of Battle are an exception since they represent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bene_Gesserit
All the other female on battlefield maybe transgender.
(If not why they say CallidUS and not CallidA for the female assassin looking like a BDSM fetichist drag-queen? since in Latin US suffix is masculine and A feminine: Marius/Maria, Claudius/Claudia)
This also explain why you don't see any children (except perhaps ratskins born "naturally") even within cultist, rebel etc. while in the real world there are (too) many soldier-children
(around 250.000 in 2015 http://www.slideshare.net/chrisrhyss/good-reasons-to-kill-global-data-on-homicide-intentional-violence-2015 )
Manchu wrote: . Paradoxically, the same people who rabbit on about female Space Marines actually oppose the idea that GW should actually make female IG sculpts.
From what I read in this thread, those who rabbit on about female Space Marine actually think that female IG sculpts and decent support of the Sister woudn't be enough. They don't oppose it, on the contrary. They want it and some more. Please show me where I might be wrong on this issue.
@Vaktathi - so in other words, even where gender could be a non-issue/impossible to visually discern, GW has even so gone out of its way to include obviously female sculpts
now, more could and should be done - and the most relevant categories are IG and Chaos/Genestealer Cultists
Plumbumbarum wrote: So, you would censor all rape out of the art? What about car crashes? Beatings? War? Death? Cancer? Abductions? Anything traumatic really?
In case you didn't notice it, there are no graphic depiction of rape in 40k. That's for a reason.
And generally speaking, the universe is so over-the-top and excessive in its horror that I really don't think much people in countries that aren't at war will find anything that reminds them of their actual struggle. People don't die of cancer in 40k, they die of the terrible Nurgle plague and rise up as zombies!
It's not the first time you seem to have trouble following conversation. It's you who brought rape as an example and I asked about your stance on other heavy content in art in general. It would help you maybe if you quoted a few sentences back instead of quoting the way that makes your answers look as good as possible.
Not you, then. Are you afraid that some Commissar is going to get you? If not, it's not mirroring something that you have to deal with IRL. It's something that other people had to deal with a long time ago.
If you were currently living under constant fear of being executed by the Soviets, I don't think you would enjoy Commissars .
Lol. I'd love to see you expand your point on Jewish descendants of concentrations camps prisoners, I guess they can't be ever offended because it's not them. Ridiculous, by that logic a cool portrayal concentration camp guard who loves shooting Jews is ok, why don't you go to Israel and ask them if they are afraid that Adolf will get them or what. Btw nice example of you having zero empathy for others, something you tirelessly accuse your disputants of.
Also, I'd like to politely point you to one of my sentences above, just imagine that quoted alone, the possibilities. I think I start to understand why you like it so much heh.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Sure it is political, which doesn't mean you have to constantly over-analyse and demand changes for every bit that offends your sensibilities. If everyone did that, there would be no 40k because it's offensive all around.
Yeah, I agree, GW should choose the people they are okay with being offensive too. I certainly never meant that nothing should be offensive to anyone. If 40k is offensive to religious bigots, for instance, I am perfectly fine with this.
I really don't know why so many people seem to use that argument you put forward of “not being offensive to anyone” when actually I never heard anyone say that anything like that. It's a weird strawman.
Thank you man, I always claimed that all those leftist sensibilities are super selective and they are just as bigoted and hateful as all those facists, racists etc just against different groups, and now you're so beautifuly shameless about it. You just made my day.
So, why is it okay now for 40k to be offensive to religious bigots, but not okay to be offensive to leftist fanatic? Because you say so? You just confirmed that your case is worthless as long as it's about discrimination etc.
=Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl 699785 8857311 ce18907f2b7467dbc35bca704e1f0dff.jpg]
Plumbumbarum wrote: No they're not just canvas. They all follow and believe in the emperor of mankind, they are all male, all warrior monks. The basic idea is warrior monk, then comes the flavour that in some cases takes it further from that reference but it's 40k and not entirely coherent heh, still warrior monks though.
Following the Emperor of Mankind is literally EVERYONE in the whole Imperium. That… doesn't really set them apart from a blank canvas. The fact they are all male is, well, the ridiculous arbitrary restriction that I want removed to make them a better blank canvas. And the warrior monk part is totally inexistent in the description, background, look, etc, of so many Chapters that constantly putting it forward is becoming tiresome.
Yes, they are warrior monks no matter how strongly you will hang on to your space wolves example. The basic idea, the structure it's all there, just GW apparently sees nothing wrong with this guys being monks and crazy vikings the same time, just like they don't see a problem with Dark Angels being both monks and native americans in space etc. It's not super coherent but it will only get worse with female SM, further diluting any identity there.
So I'm just going to avoid the proverbial minefield that is some of the discussion in this thread and just say that I'd like to see more diversity in the factions that are noted to have such diversity (Guard, Eldar, Dark Eldar, and mortal Chaos followers come to mind).
Dark Eldar are actually pretty ok though in terms of diversity, with many of their kits, barring Incubi, Wracks and a few of their HQ choices (although the HQ's can be for the most part kitbashed with other kits to change the gender if one so chooses).
Eldar, Guard, and mortal Chaos followers could use more though. Especially Eldar with how both males and females are supposedly equally represented in their military. And with Guard there are noted regiments that are mixed gender (Tanith First and Only and the Valhallan 397th come to mind), and even some that are all female.
War Kitten wrote: Dark Eldar are actually pretty ok though in terms of diversity
In terms of including female sculpts, Deldar are a great example of why GW should have no trouble whatsoever including female sculpts in an updated "Cadian" kit.
Manchu wrote: Femarines - we're supposed to believe that making this concept canon would result in a more inclusive hobby and higher sales. But as my learned colleagues have pointed out, not once over the years has anyone shown this to be the case. The fact is, this is just a rationalization for either (a) forcing everyone else to ride your personal hobbyhorse (rare) or (b) making snide remarks about people who recognize how dumb the concept is (common). If we really want to talk about female models in 40k, there is no need to talk about Space Marines at all:
Anyone who actually cares about whether/how GW could introduce more female figures into their ranges ought to be discussing IG and, secondarily, "mortal" Chaos worshippers. The problem with that discussion is, there is nearly unanimous agreement that women should be better represented in those lines; i.e., there's no opportunity to sneer at "misogynists." The only thing to argue about is whether there should be specifically female sculpts or whether there should just be head swaps. Paradoxically, the same people who rabbit on about female Space Marines actually oppose the idea that GW should actually make female IG sculpts.
I think we can call the first half of this thread an argument between a misogynist and people in favor of female models, actually...
You can go read it if you want, but believe me, the only two explanations are that that guy was trolling this thread hard, or deliberately being heavily misogynistic. Either way, it ended when a moderator threatened him with a ban.
I lean toward the former explanation on the grounds that it felt more like he was just arguing to incite a reaction than actually advocating the things he was saying, but... Poe's Law...
Plumbumbarum wrote: Sure it is political, which doesn't mean you have to constantly over-analyse and demand changes for every bit that offends your sensibilities. If everyone did that, there would be no 40k because it's offensive all around.
Yeah, I agree, GW should choose the people they are okay with being offensive too. I certainly never meant that nothing should be offensive to anyone. If 40k is offensive to religious bigots, for instance, I am perfectly fine with this.
I really don't know why so many people seem to use that argument you put forward of “not being offensive to anyone” when actually I never heard anyone say that anything like that. It's a weird strawman.
Thank you man, I always claimed that all those leftist sensibilities are super selective and they are just as bigoted and hateful as all those facists, racists etc just against different groups, and now you're so beautifuly shameless about it. You just made my day.
So, why is it okay now for 40k to be offensive to religious bigots, but not okay to be offensive to leftist fanatic? Because you say so? You just confirmed that your case is worthless as long as it's about discrimination etc.
Can we just leave the politics out of it and say that offending bigots of all types is something we shouldn't be afraid of doing as a species?
I know that eventually the tabletop wargaming hobby is going to stop being a boys club and have to include women, and a lot of women introduced to 40k have their first question being, "Where are all the women?"
This would explain how Imperium can handle so many losses (Armageddon War, Abbadon black Crusade,...)
They literary produce people (like in Brave New World or as for clone trooper in Star Wars or 40K miniatures in GW factory )
Sister of Battle are an exception since they represent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bene_Gesserit
All the other female on battlefield maybe transgender.
(If not why they say CallidUS and not CallidA for the female assassin looking like a BDSM fetichist drag-queen? since in Latin US suffix is masculine and A feminine: Marius/Maria, Claudius/Claudia)
This also explain why you don't see any children (except perhaps ratskins born "naturally") even within cultist, rebel etc. while in the real world there are (too) many soldier-children
(around 250.000 in 2015 http://www.slideshare.net/chrisrhyss/good-reasons-to-kill-global-data-on-homicide-intentional-violence-2015 )
Or you could just realize that there are probably 20 quadrillion people in the Imperium, 200 billion in the IG, and only 1 in 100,000 humans is actually in the IG so replenishing millions of casualties every day isn't a big deal if you just let those quadrillions of people form normal sexual relationships on their own.
In the 40k universe, a planet like modern day Earth could get totally wiped out and no one would even really notice or care.
@Pouncey - I don't doubt that there are people with misogynistic attitudes playing 40k and posting on Dakka Dakka. To the extent that someone argues that the existing 40k setting is wrong or bad or unbelievable, etc., because women serve in the IG as a matter of canon, they may very well be evincing such attitudes. But proposing that XYZ must be added to the canon, and if it isn't added then the setting is misogynistic, or that anyone who opposes adding XYZ is misogynistic, I think those are presumptively bad faith arguments at best and thinly disguised personal attacks at worst. And when I say "presumptively," I really mean "based on seeing these 'arguments' on a regular basis over the past seven years."
Manchu wrote: @Pouncey - I don't doubt that there are people with misogynistic attitudes playing 40k and posting on Dakka Dakka. To the extent that someone argues that the existing 40k setting is wrong or bad or unbelievable, etc., because women serve in the IG as a matter of canon, they may very well be evincing such attitudes. But proposing that XYZ must be added to the canon, and if it isn't added then the setting is misogynistic, or that anyone who opposes adding XYZ is misogynistic, I think those are presumptively bad faith arguments at best and thinly disguised personal attacks at worst. And when I say "presumptively," I really mean "based on seeing these 'arguments' on a regular basis over the past seven years."
Hm. Maybe my perception on those arguments has been altered by being a person in favor of more female models who only wants to add them where they make sense for the lore.
Like, the DKoK, for example, shouldn't have any female minis. They've got lore about being a male-only Regiment. Space Marines have tons of lore involving being male only, so they should stay male only. And I wouldn't personally call anyone who opposes changing the existing lore to make women appear in the lore where the existing lore says they don't, misogynistic, any more than I would call someone who opposes making male Sororitas a misandrist.
I mean, the entire argument for having more common female Eldar and IG models is that they exist in the lore already, so wanting to create lore to justify things that aren't currently justified would be... I think disingenuous would be the best term, really.
Manchu wrote: Anyone who actually cares about whether/how GW could introduce more female figures into their ranges ought to be discussing IG and, secondarily, "mortal" Chaos worshippers. The problem with that discussion is, there is nearly unanimous agreement that women should be better represented in those lines; i.e., there's no opportunity to sneer at "misogynists." The only thing to argue about is whether there should be specifically female sculpts or whether there should just be head swaps. Paradoxically, the same people who rabbit on about female Space Marines actually oppose the idea that GW should actually make female IG sculpts.
I don't think I can take that at face value. I think I'm going to need you to quote actual posts in a way that allows me to see the post is genuine before I can believe it.
I find it hard to believe anyone seriously thinks GW shouldn't do female minis for ranges like the Eldar, Tau, and Guard. It's actually baffling that they haven't done so already, even if only to add a little visual variety to armies where the player is going to have massive amounts of visually identical minis (ie, Guard). Increasing female representation in those armies is not controversial at all.
The question is, is that enough? Can GW afford to keep Space Marines male-only while offering Sisters as a counter-balancing alternative? Sure, if GW is willing to put in the effort. Give the Sisters an updated set of rules making them as good to play as Space Marines. Update the range to plastic and expand it, including a greater variety of units. Feature Sisters more prominently in the fluff. Maybe have Sisters come to the aid of a beleaguered Space Marine force in a campaign. Have a starter box that features Sisters as the Imperial army.
The thing is, GW's past behavior doesn't inspire a lot of confidence they're going to do any of those things. There are currently 6 full Space Marine dexes (SMs, BAs, DAs, SWs, GKs, and now Deathwatch) with fully supported plastic ranges, while Sisters have a sub-par set of rules and an overpriced, limited all-metal range that GW doesn't even bother to stock in their stores. It doesn't take a genius to look at these things and see they're unequal. As for starter sets, so far there's been SMs vs DE, then SMs vs Orks, and now SMs vs Chaos. I don't think there's even been a Guard-based starter set, much less a SoB-one.
Pouncey wrote:
Can we just leave the politics out of it and say that offending bigots of all types is something we shouldn't be afraid of doing as a species?
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote: I don't think I can take that at face value. I think I'm going to need you to quote actual posts in a way that allows me to see the post is genuine before I can believe it.
Um .. who are you and why do I care if you can believe XYZ? Folks ITT have argued against GW making female IG sculpts instead of just doing headswaps. I think I'm going to need you to follow the thread for yourself. For my part, I think headswaps are a terrible idea. If you want more women in the line, then scultp some figures of women. Simple as that. Already put into practice with Deldar.
Pouncey wrote: wanting to create lore to justify things that aren't currently justified would be... I think disingenuous would be the best term, really
I agree in the context of Femarines, but not generally. Take the Necron example, where there was a lot of push back. But what made that feasible is that, as it was, the Necrons really lacked extensive background information - they were sold as a mysterious threat. But being mysterious doesn't provide much grist for the mill when it comes to designing new models. So the Necrons were given a whole raft more fluff and lots of new models to go with it. Best of all, if you like your Crons mindless killing machines then you can still do that with 100% fluff justification as some Tombs just lose their minds over the aeons.
A note about Tau. They actually have less sexual dimorphism than either Eldar or Humans. I've heard the only apparent difference between a male and female Tau of the same Caste, if fully clothed even in a bodysuit, is the shape of a slit on the Tau's forehead.
A headswap would be just fine for them, and I've heard that the revamped Fire Warriors kit even comes with bare heads with the female slit instead of the male slit. And with helmets you'd never be able to tell the difference even if the armor were completely form-fitting.
So... does that mean, if what I heard about the Fire Warriors kit is true, that the issue of female Tau is... already solved?
Pouncey wrote: I've heard the only apparent difference between a male and female Tau of the same Caste, if fully clothed even in a bodysuit, is the shape of a slit on the Tau's forehead.
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote: I don't think I can take that at face value. I think I'm going to need you to quote actual posts in a way that allows me to see the post is genuine before I can believe it.
Um .. who are you and why do I care if you can believe XYZ? Folks ITT have argued against GW making female IG sculpts instead of just doing headswaps. I think I'm going to need you to follow the thread for yourself. For my part, I think headswaps are a terrible idea. If you want more women in the line, then scultp some figures of women. Simple as that. Already put into practice with Deldar.
Pouncey wrote: wanting to create lore to justify things that aren't currently justified would be... I think disingenuous would be the best term, really
I agree in the context of Femarines, but not generally. Take the Necron example, where there was a lot of push back. But what made that feasible is that, as it was, the Necrons really lacked extensive background information - they were sold as a mysterious threat. But being mysterious doesn't provide much grist for the mill when it comes to designing new models. So the Necrons were given a whole raft more fluff and lots of new models to go with it. Best of all, if you like your Crons mindless killing machines then you can still do that with 100% fluff justification as some Tombs just lose their minds over the aeons.
Well, with Necrons, if the species that became them had females, which I think became canon at some point because there's a female Necron character somewhere, and their mechanical selves recall their past lives at all and retain any of their personality, it's well within lore that they might have their female members have a more feminine robot form and their male members have a more masculine robot form.
I mean, if IRL, we find a way to transfer our consciousness into robot bodies, we're probably going to be making those bodies appear not only generally humanoid, but include human sexual dimorphism as well.
Pouncey wrote: I've heard the only apparent difference between a male and female Tau of the same Caste, if fully clothed even in a bodysuit, is the shape of a slit on the Tau's forehead.
Pouncey wrote: Well, with Necrons, if the species that became them had females, which I think became canon at some point because there's a female Necron character somewhere, and their mechanical selves recall their past lives at all and retain any of their personality, it's well within lore that they might have their female members have a more feminine robot form and their male members have a more masculine robot form.
There's a female Cryptek in one of the books, yeah.
Desubot wrote: The tau ghost keel kit has a female head.
shadowsun obviously has a alt bare head as well.
i dont recall the new firewarrior/breacher squad having one but a quick gander at the sprue could yield an answer.
I haven't bought a Tau kit in years...
Nether have i. i just see the sprue pics when they come up in news and rumors.
also you should probably not be taking in fluff and lore from dakka dakka only. the various books do a lot of flesh things out and is a direct source over opinions and bits and pieces tainted by bias
Desubot wrote: The tau ghost keel kit has a female head.
shadowsun obviously has a alt bare head as well.
i dont recall the new firewarrior/breacher squad having one but a quick gander at the sprue could yield an answer.
I haven't bought a Tau kit in years...
Nether have i. i just see the sprue pics when they come up in news and rumors.
also you should probably not be taking in fluff and lore from dakka dakka only. the various books do a lot of flesh things out and is a direct source over opinions and bits and pieces tainted by bias
And if I found any joy in reading books anymore and felt like spending hundreds of dollars on dozens of overpriced 40k books to learn about the lore, I would happily learn about the lore from the books.
But I don't, so... I kinda have to rely on Dakka and Lexicanum. And Lexicanum doesn't go into much detail or even cover everything.
Lexicanum is the only source outside of the books themselves that I credit as trustworthy. Even when you post a personal theory on Dakka, it doesn't always come across as just a personal theory. For example, I have seen a poster here discussing a fluff point as if one of my own theories, which had come down to them one way or another, was canon.
Er ... no reason. Don't tell the commissar I asked!
In all seriousness, I just wondered if there was any citation for the idea that clothed but unarmored male and female Tau are indistinguishable apart from their facial slits.
Manchu wrote: Lexicanum is the only source outside of the books themselves that I credit as trustworthy. Even when you post a personal theory on Dakka, it doesn't always come across as just a personal theory. For example, I have seen a poster here discussing a fluff point as if one of my own theories, which had come down to them one way or another, was canon.
And Lexicanum's only real reference to female IG is a vague reference to the offspring of Guardsmen being used to reinforce their own numbers a couple of decades after being born.
They don't even mention the female-only IG regiments in particular.
Er ... no reason. Don't tell the commissar I asked!
In all seriousness, I just wondered if there was any citation for the idea that clothed but unarmored male and female Tau are indistinguishable apart from their facial slits.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Sure it is political, which doesn't mean you have to constantly over-analyse and demand changes for every bit that offends your sensibilities. If everyone did that, there would be no 40k because it's offensive all around.
Yeah, I agree, GW should choose the people they are okay with being offensive too. I certainly never meant that nothing should be offensive to anyone. If 40k is offensive to religious bigots, for instance, I am perfectly fine with this.
I really don't know why so many people seem to use that argument you put forward of “not being offensive to anyone” when actually I never heard anyone say that anything like that. It's a weird strawman.
Thank you man, I always claimed that all those leftist sensibilities are super selective and they are just as bigoted and hateful as all those facists, racists etc just against different groups, and now you're so beautifuly shameless about it. You just made my day.
So, why is it okay now for 40k to be offensive to religious bigots, but not okay to be offensive to leftist fanatic? Because you say so? You just confirmed that your case is worthless as long as it's about discrimination etc.
Can we just leave the politics out of it and say that offending bigots of all types is something we shouldn't be afraid of doing as a species?
Sure, I used "leftist fanatic" as an equivalent of "religious bigot" and it was all to highlight how, after all the preaching about empathy, it turns out the particular poster's crusade is not out of concern but just political agenda and how arbitrarily the discriminated group is chosen. It can offend religion (bigots! by default apparently), descendants of genocide victims (not them) but women are no go, hurts too much.
Let's take a look at how well women are represented in those categories.
- female xenos: The Dark Eldar do okay with female representation. I don't know what the percentages are, but there are female minis across the range rather than having them pigeonholed into one unit, like their craftworld cousins. Speaking of which, the Eldar have one female unit. The Tau have one demonstrably female mini. The other xenos species are kind of irrelevant physically.Tau women are, to my knowledge, only identified by a different groove on the face, making Tau indistinguishable when in full armour/battlesuit. Eldar females should have more representation.
- female daemons: One unit. Though, I suppose Nurgle's daemons would be indistinguishable one way or another.Daemons are embodiments of warp stuff. They may appear a certain way, but are ungendered.
- female Inquisitors: One mini that dates back to the release of Codex: Witchhunters.There aren't exactly many Inquisitor models anyways, so the female model makes a large proportion of all Inquisitor models.
- female super-elite, power-armored warriors: An army with an entirely pewter range, a limited number of minis, substandard rules, and can only be bought online.Which should have an update, which no-one disagrees with. The potential is still there.
- female cultists: none that I've noticedAnd there's only five Cultist models anyway. Hardly a major unit.
- female IG: none currently in the range, unless Shaeffer's Last Chancers are still being sold, in which case there's 2 female minis in that set.Valid point, which also should be fixed.
Not doing so well with the representation there.But the potential is there, eliminating the need for femarines.
My points in red.
Plumbumbarum wrote:Listen man, this setting and game is not "exclusionary". There are SoB for anyone who wants to play Imperial girls and that btw includes me if only they're ever released in plastic and reasonably priced.
Exclusionary is another politicaly involved term in this context btw.
Here's an imo great post about the exclusion issue from some old thread:
Code wrote: I think, there are plenty of problems with that approach to fiction.
1) If you take it seriously, then every fictional work ever has to follow this rule. That means, if I create a fictional setting, no matter how far away into the future or how far away into the past, no matter how fundamentally different it is from our world, it HAS to represent 21st century US demographics. This idea alone is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
2) I'm not even sure, what the problem is.
You say, some people might not be comfortable to escape to a place with a single race and gender imbalace. So apparently they are still confortable escaping to a place, where human life has absolutely no worth and is thrown away by the millions just to have minor military victories. Where there is exactly one religion and if you don't follow it, you're going to get killed. Where people are hoarded to planet earth like animals, so the one true ruler of mankind can consume their souls... but gender imbalance really is a deal breaker!
Doesn't make sense to me.
Others have said, there should be people that look like you, so everyone feels represented. The thing is, there is nobody in 40k that looks like me! I'm 5 ft 7, 155 lbs and wear glasses. Who exactly looks like me. You pick ONE external characteristic, skin color, ignore everything else and then make representation about this one thing. That's arbitrary.
3) Building on the last point: It's a slippery slope. You want black people represented in 40k, fine. But now obviously you need hispanic, asian and arabic people as well, so you put in those. Now you've got all the big ethnicities covered, but what about the smaller ones? What about the native americans and polynesians, that don't feel represented? Ok, so we put in every possible ethnicity, that exist today and we're done right?
But what about the disabled people? Shouldn't they be represented as well? What about transgender people? And gay people? What about people with autism? What about Little People? What about amputees?
So we are not done, until we have a gay 4 ft 5 transgender autistic Space Marine, that may or may not have native alaskan heritage...
4) To me this approach to fiction KILLS immersion. And I'm convinced, that most people of the affected groups feel the same way. When you see this happening (and most of the time it's blatantly obvious) you're starting to think of real-world politics and stop thinking about the world you're trying to experience, which kills the fun.
This is one of the worst problem of "everything is political". TV shows are political, books are political, music is political, movies are political and 40k is political. Ironically the people suffering the most from this, are the ones trying to push this agenda. Can they even enjoy ANY media anymore? How can you enjoy something, when all you're thinking about is "Let's see how well everyone is represented in this"? How can you get lost in a work of fiction, when all you do, is trying to judge how well this supports your political goals?
In short: Keep politics where they belong! There are more than enough real-world issues in need of solving, where your commitment to social justice is well placed and productive (Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, etc.) But if you're taking your politics to places, that are supposed to be a fun escape from the real world, and taking them back into the real world in the process, all you're doing is alienating people and hurting your cause. (especially as it might not even be a problem, see point 2
1: No setting has to be representative of anything anywhere on an artistic level. However, if you want to sell a product, you want to make good faith efforts to appeal to the broadest audience possible, or appeal to an under-served audience (which is why Twilight exploded the way it did). 40K doesn't do either - the art and the minis are almost all white guys, with few to no women.
Mostly because most art is of Space Marines, who are all male, and specifically Ultramarines, who are generally white.
Now, in factions where there should be different ethnicities (non-Cadian guard regiments) and discernibly different genders (Eldar, Dark Eldar, Guardsmen, Inquisition, Scions, Cultists), there *should* be more variety, as per the lore.
2: The fictional aspects of the 40K universe are clearly fictional, whereas racism and sexism aren't, thus people not having a problem with the Emperor of Mankind eating souls to stay alive does not de-legitimize people's issues with the lack of non-white/non-male representation in the setting and range.
But they're in a fictional universe?
The argument for Sisters getting extra treatment in the form of models is absolutely correct, IMO.
The argument for femarines? It's an IN UNIVERSE trait that Astartes are male only.
Some of those examples are clearly ridiculous, as a gay person or an autistic person wouldn't physically look any different from anybody else, for instance.
What about the issue with, say, Polynesian heritage?
Disability?
Being abnormally short/tall?
Why can't these be represented in my Space Marines - if being able to identify with my tabletop models is that sancrosant that you'll rewrite canon to do it, why can't I have my tall polynesian disabled Space Marines? (Apologies to any tall polynesian disabled guys/gals reading)
Insectum7 wrote:
Now I'm not necessarily advocating it, but just to float the idea: What if, going forward beyond the 41st Millenium, the number of high level threats in the galaxy puts sufficient pressure onto the Imperium that they decide they must swell the numbers of Space Marines, and they have discovered/engineered/modified ye-olde geneseed to accept women into the ranks?
People have often chaffed at the notion that only 1,000,000 Space Marines are enough to secure the galaxy, so on the one hand we swell the number of marines, and on the other, begin accepting female recruits.
None of the past history is wiped away, none of the original chapter histories change, but the setting begins to evolve. This is not to say the Imperium has a new period of enlightenment (though it could, but I like my grimdark), just that the High Lords have decided to risk Great Crusade numbers of Space Marines again out of desperation. Chapters remain restricted, there are no new Primarchs, the "lost legions" remain lost, etc. There are just more marines, and some are female.
Personally, this is something I could get behind if it was handled well.
That could work. Assassins start off as normal humans, as far as I know, but are S4 T4 like Space Marines. So, clearly there are other ways to achieve the same effect.
Except that innovation is heresy of the highest order.
I have a headcanon that the Emperor *could* have created female Astartes and Primarchs. He chose not to, as an in-universe decision. Henceforth, he referred to Astartes as his sons. When it came to recruiting, the Emperor's edict was followed, and only boys were chosen. When he ascended to the Golden Throne, people used boys still, because they are the Emperor's sons. Stagnation overcame a possibility.
I completely disagree with the premise put forward - anything involving the Lost Legions is something I want to steer clear from. Not to mention the heresy of gene-seed tampering.
Gen.Steiner wrote:I understand, from a business perspective, and also from the point of view that the background is mutable, that there is no good argument against female Space Marines.
However. I don't think they're necessary. They may be the poster boys (fnar) of the setting, but if they are the only all-male faction (and the Sisters of Battle are the only all-female faction), you then have fantastic analogues for monks and nuns - which, in fact, is what they are: warrior-monks and warrior-nuns. Meanwhile, the rest of the Imperium is happily gender-mixed, because it clearly is in the background.
I suppose that could also work. If GW improved the female representation in the armies where such is relevant and supported the Sisters of Battle at least as well as, say, the Craftworld Eldar, then that would probably satisfy most people. Sort of in the same vein as Title IX law here in the USA, where public high schools generally don't have a girl's (American) football team, but offer a roughly equivalent alternative (usually field hockey). They'd have to increase the relevance of the Sisters of Battle in the background to go along with it. Wouldn't need too much though, as the Age of Apostasy is almost as major an event as the Horus Heresy.
This. The SoB don't NEED to be marine-ified. They just need more attention, and the SM less.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:That Sisters are inferior to men because they have less stuff than Space Marines, do please consider that Sisters have more than the Scions do. And whilst they could and should have far more in their range, Scions do have less.
I don't think that's a very legitimate counterpoint. It was kind of ridiculous to blow up the Militarum Tempestus into a separate army list. They could have just had a formation detachment in the Astra Militarum book.
True, but they exist now, and have a grand total of what, five units to their entire army? What about Knights?
The argument that SoB have the least units based on GW's misogyny is not accurate at all. Do they need more units, in order to expand the force as the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus, a la Deathwatch and Grey Knights? Yes. Should they get a model overhaul? Yes. Should they get a paperback codex at least? Yes.
What does, in this image, sets the character apart from a simple warrior? Well, mostly our knowledge that his general look, and especially the insignia on his torso, is very very reminiscent of an actual warrior monk order. Just like the Diablo 3 monk above is really recognizable as a monk so easily because it is reminiscent of another very famous order of warrior monks. The White Scar look is reminiscent of… a Mongol warrior that is not a monk.
So, because it doesn't look like a monk to you, say it shouldn't be a monk?
Okay.
I'm just going to ignore the implications of that (genderfluidity, gender identity, sexuality, and profession) and just say I disagree with that train of thought.
It SAYS flat out in the lore that the Adeptus Astartes are a monastic band of warrior-monks. If you're going to ignore that, then I ignore all Sisters lore and say that Sisters of Battle are just a fevered dream in the mind of an impressionable girl accused of heresy being taken to slaughter.
Plumbumbarum wrote: As for commissars, yes everyone thinks they are cool. Nowhere in the fiction is it stated that women are inferior or unworthy of command but it still doesn't stop the representarians gang to claim inherent mizogyny, discrimination etc.
I don't think Commissars are cool. I avoid taking them in my IG armies wherever possible because I think they're awful, and it's not for gameplay reasons.
And the "representarians" generally point out that while women are equals in the lore, there have only been a handful of female IG models. That's where that sentiment comes from. Not the lore. The official models that are actually produced.
So if the lore's not a problem, why are people asking for female Space Marines?
I dunno. I've been away from Dakka for a couple of days. When I left, everyone was all like, "Marines can be all male, and that's fine."
I think certain vocal users pushed their views on that somewhat recently.
I'd love for more female representation in 40k, be it through female cultists, xenos (where appropriate - Tyranids, Orks, and Necrons biologically don't count) and humans. Add in more special characters, revamp the Sisters.
Sounds good, though aren't Tyranids mostly female to begin with? Isn't that why so many of the different types of creatures have female-gendered names like harpies and harridans?
Tyranids are pretty much asexual. They breed asexually, and most Tyranid bioforms never actually need to reproduce.
The female names is just a naming trope of GW, using mythical beast names. I mean, there's no evidence or reason that the Swarmlord is male, yet "lord" implies it. So I think that's just a naming convention.
Regarding the point made that Sisters are inferior to men because they have less stuff than Space Marines, do please consider that Sisters have more than the Scions do. And whilst they could and should have far more in their range, Scions do have less.
It's less a case of men>women, but more Space Marines>everyone else.
Are the Scions actually male-only in their lore? I haven't read up much on them but I thought they were in the same situation as IG, where they can easily be female in the lore but have no female models. I'll readily admit I could very easily be wrong about that.
I think there's been a misunderstanding.
Scions are mixed gender, at least, in my knowledge, and can't see a reason they shouldn't be.
The reason I brought Scions up is irrespective of their gender - some people say that the Sisters are proof of GW's misogyny because they have very little as a model line, compared to Space Marines. However, this argument falls flat when one considers Scions, who have very few kits, and mixed gender. Therefore, the Sister's lack of stuff is regrettable, but not because of misogyny.
Manchu wrote:@Pouncey - I don't doubt that there are people with misogynistic attitudes playing 40k and posting on Dakka Dakka. To the extent that someone argues that the existing 40k setting is wrong or bad or unbelievable, etc., because women serve in the IG as a matter of canon, they may very well be evincing such attitudes. But proposing that XYZ must be added to the canon, and if it isn't added then the setting is misogynistic, or that anyone who opposes adding XYZ is misogynistic, I think those are presumptively bad faith arguments at best and thinly disguised personal attacks at worst. And when I say "presumptively," I really mean "based on seeing these 'arguments' on a regular basis over the past seven years."
I can't find my last post. I don't know where I was.
So I'll just say that, as somebody else said earlier (I think), with what they managed to achieve with the dark eldar kits, I'm sure it's possible to have cadain and catachan females in any new ones. Along with the option for either lasguns or shotguns but that's a different matter. Especially because the multi parts of today are not like the ones of yesterdecade. They're more adavanced. For both cadains and catachans there's no reason why you couldn't fit two-three female bodies into the kit with like six different female heads as well. I'm sure it could be done.
I would say no, generally. Physical disabilities have a tendency of hampering battlefield capability, so you wouldn't likely see them on the battlefields the tabletop represents, at least not as soldiers on either side. Though now that I think about it, some disabilities actually do have lore and even model representation. The Iron Hands Chapter makes a habit of amputating their own limbs and replacing them with high-tech prosthetics called bionics. Some models have bionic eyes, like Commissar Yarrick and a variety of generic Space Marine parts. There's an Imperial Guard bit on one of the Command Squad sprues with an arm in a sling though, and one bit with a bionic arm with a power sword. Wheelchairs are extremely poorly-suited to the battlefield, as are crutches and being blind in general.
Mental disabilities you can't really see either way, and some of them would likely exclude military service too. For example, a schizophrenic lacks the ability to bond with fellow soldiers (and most people in general), even though he or she may be physically capable of performing the duties required, so schizophrenics, even properly medicated and treated ones, are generally excluded from military service entirely. At least in real life.
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
- female super-elite, power-armored warriors: An army with an entirely pewter range, a limited number of minis, substandard rules, and can only be bought online.Which should have an update, which no-one disagrees with. The potential is still there.
Not doing so well with the representation there.But the potential is there, eliminating the need for femarines.
My points in red.
I disagree with your conclusion. Sisters could even up the representational gap if GW properly supported them. However, GW doesn't properly support them. There is only one faction we know GW is not going to neglect in any edition, and that's Space Marines. So, to even up the represenational gap, GW could properly support Sisters, which to wildly understate matters they haven't reliably done in the past, or they could alter the fluff to allow female Space Marines. Heck, they altered the fluff to get rid of them, so I don't see why the current fluff against them is considered so sacrosanct.
But, OK, IF Sisters were properly supported and given some love in the fluff, then yes, they could work. That is a monumental IF, though.
1: No setting has to be representative of anything anywhere on an artistic level. However, if you want to sell a product, you want to make good faith efforts to appeal to the broadest audience possible, or appeal to an under-served audience (which is why Twilight exploded the way it did). 40K doesn't do either - the art and the minis are almost all white guys, with few to no women.
Mostly because most art is of Space Marines, who are all male, and specifically Ultramarines, who are generally white.
Now, in factions where there should be different ethnicities (non-Cadian guard regiments) and discernibly different genders (Eldar, Dark Eldar, Guardsmen, Inquisition, Scions, Cultists), there *should* be more variety, as per the lore.
On a related question, why should Ultramarines and Cadians be all-white? Did only white Europeans make it to the space colonization game? Even if you accept the idea that there are mono-ethnicity planets (which is kind of ridiculous, but okay), the Ultramarines recruit from multiple planets. You'd think at least some of them would have a different color skin.
Some of those examples are clearly ridiculous, as a gay person or an autistic person wouldn't physically look any different from anybody else, for instance.
What about the issue with, say, Polynesian heritage?
Disability?
Being abnormally short/tall?
Why can't these be represented in my Space Marines - if being able to identify with my tabletop models is that sancrosant that you'll rewrite canon to do it, why can't I have my tall polynesian disabled Space Marines? (Apologies to any tall polynesian disabled guys/gals reading)
I think 40,000 years in the future, we can reasonably expect to have developed technological work-arounds to virtually all disabilities. Paint your mini with a Polynesian skin tone. Talk to GW about the height and facial sculpts - I've argued for a broader range of face sculpts.
The fact that it would be inordinately difficult for one company to represent every possible ethnic variation doesn't excuse said company making no effort at all to represent any ethnic variation outside of white Europeans. Good faith efforts to represent at least the planet's major ethnicities would make good business sense, be fairly easy to do, and even give some aesthetic variety to armies that are otherwise rather monotonous.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:That Sisters are inferior to men because they have less stuff than Space Marines, do please consider that Sisters have more than the Scions do. And whilst they could and should have far more in their range, Scions do have less.
I don't think that's a very legitimate counterpoint. It was kind of ridiculous to blow up the Militarum Tempestus into a separate army list. They could have just had a formation detachment in the Astra Militarum book.
True, but they exist now, and have a grand total of what, five units to their entire army? What about Knights?
The argument that SoB have the least units based on GW's misogyny is not accurate at all. Do they need more units, in order to expand the force as the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus, a la Deathwatch and Grey Knights? Yes. Should they get a model overhaul? Yes. Should they get a paperback codex at least? Yes.
Knights are another faction that should never have been made a full 40K army in the first place. However, point in fact, Knights have been getting a lot more attention since their introduction than Sisters have in the same time period.
If GW had kept the Sisters up with the Space Marines over the editions, I don't think we'd be having this conversation. Their 3rd/4th ed lists were fairly equivalent. Lately though, SMs have had an explosion of new units, whereas Sisters have not kept up. In order for Sisters to serve as a legitimate counterpoint, they'd need to be brought up to speed.
GW missed an opportunity to revamp Sisters instead of bringing us Deathwatch. Really, Deathwatch didn't need a whole army list either. A detachment formation with Sternguards and Vanguards would have worked just fine. Plus, GW could have replaced the Storm Raven model with that Deathwatch flyer - or not bothered and just let Deathwatch use the Storm Raven. If it's good enough for the Grey Knights, it ought to be good enough for the Deathwatch.
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote: Hey, my argument can be boiled down to this: Hey GW! There are underserved audiences! Serving them would make you more money!
I don't see how that's very political.
Sorry, not you.
I was referencing the conversation about... you know what, it's not important. Let's move on and pretend I said nothing.
Manchu wrote: Anyone who actually cares about whether/how GW could introduce more female figures into their ranges ought to be discussing IG and, secondarily, "mortal" Chaos worshippers. The problem with that discussion is, there is nearly unanimous agreement that women should be better represented in those lines; i.e., there's no opportunity to sneer at "misogynists." The only thing to argue about is whether there should be specifically female sculpts or whether there should just be head swaps. Paradoxically, the same people who rabbit on about female Space Marines actually oppose the idea that GW should actually make female IG sculpts.
I don't think I can take that at face value. I think I'm going to need you to quote actual posts in a way that allows me to see the post is genuine before I can believe it.
I find it hard to believe anyone seriously thinks GW shouldn't do female minis for ranges like the Eldar, Tau, and Guard. It's actually baffling that they haven't done so already, even if only to add a little visual variety to armies where the player is going to have massive amounts of visually identical minis (ie, Guard). Increasing female representation in those armies is not controversial at all.
The question is, is that enough? Can GW afford to keep Space Marines male-only while offering Sisters as a counter-balancing alternative? Sure, if GW is willing to put in the effort. Give the Sisters an updated set of rules making them as good to play as Space Marines. Update the range to plastic and expand it, including a greater variety of units. Feature Sisters more prominently in the fluff. Maybe have Sisters come to the aid of a beleaguered Space Marine force in a campaign. Have a starter box that features Sisters as the Imperial army.
The thing is, GW's past behavior doesn't inspire a lot of confidence they're going to do any of those things. There are currently 6 full Space Marine dexes (SMs, BAs, DAs, SWs, GKs, and now Deathwatch) with fully supported plastic ranges, while Sisters have a sub-par set of rules and an overpriced, limited all-metal range that GW doesn't even bother to stock in their stores. It doesn't take a genius to look at these things and see they're unequal. As for starter sets, so far there's been SMs vs DE, then SMs vs Orks, and now SMs vs Chaos. I don't think there's even been a Guard-based starter set, much less a SoB-one.
If you aren't a feminist, you cannot be an egalitarian. Posts like this are utter garbage.
*The More You Know*
There is a fad of zealotry that, without effort at understanding, throws accusations of sexism around at the drop of a hat. ("If you're not supportive of the Ghostbusters remake, you're sexist!") It's immature, and ultimately destructive to dialogue. But please, don't let that behavior define/redefine for you what feminism actually means. Feminism and egalitarianism are effectively the same thing.
Manchu wrote: The problem with that discussion is, there is nearly unanimous agreement that women should be better represented in those lines; i.e., there's no opportunity to sneer at "misogynists."
That's just a a silly thing to say. If there's unanimous (or near enough unanimous for the context of an internet forum) agreement about a set of issues, it's only logical to move on to the place where people continue to disagree, and explore the space. Poke the bear. Find out where the lines are and why the lines are there. See if there's any flex, etc.
Plumbumbarum wrote:
Yes I did understand your point, but you also used terms like tokenism or sth and then proceeded to say how it only highlights the female underrepresentation and just those terms show that you are at least a bit ideologicaly involved, because only ideologicaly involved, 50/50 or nothing people see "tokenism" as a problem. So, you're not attracting female gamers, you're attracting ideologicaly involved female gamers who are offended by tokenism in games. Not to mention that the you have absolutely no proof that it's tokenism and it highlighting the female underrepresantation that keeps female gamers off 40k, even the feminist ones as we have a few girls/ women here with strong views on the subject but they seem to be playing/ collecting anyway.
The first line in Wikipedia's entry on tokenism is as follows:
Tokenism is the policy and practice of making a perfunctory gesture towards the inclusion of members of minority groups.
So, even setting aside the whole debate on whether there should or should not be female Space Marines, in the setting there is little-to-no reason for the other factions to not have strong female representation, particularly within the Imperial Guard, the Eldar, the Inquisition, and the Tau. No one can argue this is the case. Within those factions, there is one all-female unit, one female IC, and one female special character. Oh, and I suppose there is a smattering of female torsos in the Guardian kit, whch is at least proof the concept can work. There is also one mostly-female force that GW can barely be bothered to support. If the current state of the game doesn't represent tokenism, I don't know what does.
Well Imperial Guard and Inquisition don't have strong female representation in 40k universe according to FFG.
Anyway, if we set aside the female SM debate, I don't really care tbh. I'm not against adding more female models to Eldar, DE etc by default but if it was because of bs like demographic, new markets or representation then I'd rather not, I prefer them doing things out of creative ideas. On the other hand, if there's demand from the existing players then they shouldn't ignore it and should add more female models to existing units where it makes sense, sure.
I wouldn't like for example mixed IG squads ~50/50 making it to the art though, it would look lame like High Lords of Terra just decided to take a vote and pass parity.
"Tokenism" is not really a problem though. You don't know if it's a real reason for the number of female models (and GW are basicaly old punkish nerds so I doubt it) and even if so, it's their universe and that's how they choose to deal with the issue and cover women and other races, for better or worse. Freedom babe.
Plumbumbarum wrote:Great riddance, I hate sexist donkey-caves as well. For the sake of balance, let's also get rid of other extremes like feminism.
Yes it indeed seems like you're not coming from high moral grounds and it again sounds a bit like the female rights warriors, they're the same as those hardcore misogyns just on the other side of the barricade, they want to get rid of females and female rights warriors want to get rid of them.
Again, what of the number of leaving misogyns exceeds the number of the incoming females? Your prediction is as good as mine and you said that It would be smart. How would it be smart, if it lost money.
Get real. A lot of sexists may make noise about quitting the game over the inclusion of female Space Marines, but given the time, energy, and money that goes into acquiring, assembling, and painting a 40K army, almost none actually will, because they have too much invested in it to actually do so.
Are they really sexists or maybe they just don't want the diluted, 50/50 correct, driven by marketing polls and current political agenda crap. More data please.
Plumbumbarum wrote:Oh yes, it's hilarious. What makes it even more hilarious is that I didn't think you're a girl.
Well, you did call me a girl player. So, either that means you thought I was a girl, or you thought calling me a girl player was a put-down. I went with the more generous assumption.
Let's look at the quote in question
Plumbumbarum wrote: I find all this cheap, stats and polls induced marketing tricks insulting anyway, no matter towards women or me, hey we have awesome girly space marinette just for you our special super stronk girl player.
Now, read with the bolded in quotation marks. But yes sexist put-down. GamerGate.
Plumbumbarum wrote:What about this documentary https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask ? They cut the funding for Nordic Gender Institute soon after the showing. I'm not saying the documentary is 100% right but it raises a strong case for such differences in sexes and the debate is not as settled as you think it is.
That you highly doubt sth doesn't mean it's not true.
Did you really go looking for a documentary to back your argument?
20 years ago, gamers were arguing that video games and RPGs don't appeal to girls either. Look where we are now.
Yes I really used a documentary to back my argument. You on the other hand said that you "doubt it's in our DNA", which is clearly a wildguess and I'd rather go for the biologist there in the movie. Maybe watch it and come with some proper counter arguments because vaguely extrapolating what was 20 years ago on now is not a strong argument either.
Plumbumbarum wrote:Listen man, this setting and game is not "exclusionary". There are SoB for anyone who wants to play Imperial girls and that btw includes me if only they're ever released in plastic and reasonably priced.
Exclusionary is another politicaly involved term in this context btw.
Here's an imo great post about the exclusion issue from some old thread:
Code wrote: I think, there are plenty of problems with that approach to fiction.
1) If you take it seriously, then every fictional work ever has to follow this rule. That means, if I create a fictional setting, no matter how far away into the future or how far away into the past, no matter how fundamentally different it is from our world, it HAS to represent 21st century US demographics. This idea alone is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
2) I'm not even sure, what the problem is.
You say, some people might not be comfortable to escape to a place with a single race and gender imbalace. So apparently they are still confortable escaping to a place, where human life has absolutely no worth and is thrown away by the millions just to have minor military victories. Where there is exactly one religion and if you don't follow it, you're going to get killed. Where people are hoarded to planet earth like animals, so the one true ruler of mankind can consume their souls... but gender imbalance really is a deal breaker!
Doesn't make sense to me.
Others have said, there should be people that look like you, so everyone feels represented. The thing is, there is nobody in 40k that looks like me! I'm 5 ft 7, 155 lbs and wear glasses. Who exactly looks like me. You pick ONE external characteristic, skin color, ignore everything else and then make representation about this one thing. That's arbitrary.
3) Building on the last point: It's a slippery slope. You want black people represented in 40k, fine. But now obviously you need hispanic, asian and arabic people as well, so you put in those. Now you've got all the big ethnicities covered, but what about the smaller ones? What about the native americans and polynesians, that don't feel represented? Ok, so we put in every possible ethnicity, that exist today and we're done right?
But what about the disabled people? Shouldn't they be represented as well? What about transgender people? And gay people? What about people with autism? What about Little People? What about amputees?
So we are not done, until we have a gay 4 ft 5 transgender autistic Space Marine, that may or may not have native alaskan heritage...
4) To me this approach to fiction KILLS immersion. And I'm convinced, that most people of the affected groups feel the same way. When you see this happening (and most of the time it's blatantly obvious) you're starting to think of real-world politics and stop thinking about the world you're trying to experience, which kills the fun.
This is one of the worst problem of "everything is political". TV shows are political, books are political, music is political, movies are political and 40k is political. Ironically the people suffering the most from this, are the ones trying to push this agenda. Can they even enjoy ANY media anymore? How can you enjoy something, when all you're thinking about is "Let's see how well everyone is represented in this"? How can you get lost in a work of fiction, when all you do, is trying to judge how well this supports your political goals?
In short: Keep politics where they belong! There are more than enough real-world issues in need of solving, where your commitment to social justice is well placed and productive (Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, etc.) But if you're taking your politics to places, that are supposed to be a fun escape from the real world, and taking them back into the real world in the process, all you're doing is alienating people and hurting your cause. (especially as it might not even be a problem, see point 2
1: No setting has to be representative of anything anywhere on an artistic level. However, if you want to sell a product, you want to make good faith efforts to appeal to the broadest audience possible, or appeal to an under-served audience (which is why Twilight exploded the way it did). 40K doesn't do either - the art and the minis are almost all white guys, with few to no women.
2: The fictional aspects of the 40K universe are clearly fictional, whereas racism and sexism aren't, thus people not having a problem with the Emperor of Mankind eating souls to stay alive does not de-legitimize people's issues with the lack of non-white/non-male representation in the setting and range.
3: As far as ethnicity goes, one can do a lot with the paint scheme. It's not perfect, as it doesn't get facial features, but it's something the individual has some control over. I'd encourage GW to use some non-white facial sculpts for minis that show faces, and for their artwork and studio paint schemes to depict some non-white people in their armies.
Some of those examples are clearly ridiculous, as a gay person or an autistic person wouldn't physically look any different from anybody else, for instance.
The issue here isn't whether GW is doing a good enough job representing non-whites or females in the setting. The issue is that they're hardly trying at all. I don't expect them to get it exactly right all the time, but I do think they should start making good-faith efforts.
4: That's an easy attitude to cop when one is a part of the population that is over-represented.[/spoiler]
1. Yeah broadest audience possible, let's just try to appeal to pacifists then. Not every product has to be for everyone. And no I'm not saying it should be exclusively for white males, just that the obsession with perfect product is silly.
2. Bloodshed is not fictional, nuclear weapons are not fictional, tyranny is not fictional etc yet it's sexism that is a problem.
3. Sure, wherever it makes sense.
4. I had fun of my life playing GTA San Andreas, where I was heavily under represented. I have fun in games where I can't play men. I would have heaps of fun playing exclusively female SoB army. It's just normal attitude, sorry but it seems like you would find cop outs, tokenisms, under representations and white elitism in a bag of tomatoes. You're not alone though, if that's any consolation.
This shouldn't even be a argument. No % of the actual 40k fanbase wants female space marines. It wouldn't cause people who actually like the lore to buy it, rather it would cause them to go away.
But more than that, it is just plain arrogance that a subset of people can come forward and say indirectly that I'm a misogynist. If I disagree with you I'm one, if I agree I'm selling out my own belief (not that I ever would). No, you don't like how a game is played? You don't like this made up setting? Go make your own. Raziel you need to cool it with your accusations, you are doing nothing but deliberately antagonizing an non-issue. No one CARES about the non-existent female space marines, people actually CARE about the nearly non-existent Sisters of Battle. The fact mods haven't closed this thread is quite amazing, it is a subject that has been retread by trolls for trolls for years. I can only imagine it has been able to continue as long as it has because of it's masquerade as a topic of true diversity.
If female space marines ever happen it would make sense to have it occur in a new IP, one whose selling point isn't lore but rather about the characters they introduce within it. Outside of that Sisters of Battle is going to remain the only hope of a female space marine analogue anyone is going to likely get, yes they're hamstrung five different ways but anyone who likes 40k knows about them and wants to see them come back in some form.
I've said it once before this thread I'll say it again, why aren't you attacking similar all-male warrior societies? The Witcher has only male witchers for the same exact reason as 40k. No one can address this as it is simple artistic vision, it is part of a coherent narrative that explains the world. It is one of the most popular series of recent times, its success encompassing traditional and digital media in multiple cultures.
Quickjager wrote: This shouldn't even be a argument. No % of the actual 40k fanbase wants female space marines.
I think the frequent questions about it on every 40k forum that discusses Marines at all says otherwise. You might say the percent is small. But it's there.
I would say no, generally. Physical disabilities have a tendency of hampering battlefield capability, so you wouldn't likely see them on the battlefields the tabletop represents, at least not as soldiers on either side. Though now that I think about it, some disabilities actually do have lore and even model representation. The Iron Hands Chapter makes a habit of amputating their own limbs and replacing them with high-tech prosthetics called bionics. Some models have bionic eyes, like Commissar Yarrick and a variety of generic Space Marine parts. There's an Imperial Guard bit on one of the Command Squad sprues with an arm in a sling though, and one bit with a bionic arm with a power sword. Wheelchairs are extremely poorly-suited to the battlefield, as are crutches and being blind in general.
Mental disabilities you can't really see either way, and some of them would likely exclude military service too. For example, a schizophrenic lacks the ability to bond with fellow soldiers (and most people in general), even though he or she may be physically capable of performing the duties required, so schizophrenics, even properly medicated and treated ones, are generally excluded from military service entirely. At least in real life.
So you're telling me that because there is an IN-UNIVERSE reason why disabilities wouldn't be represented, I can't be represented? (And no, I'm not counting prosthetics. I'm talking about wheelchairs, crutches, etc)
Huh. Swap out "disabilities" with "female Astartes", and that's an argument against femarines.
Again, the points about IRL don't matter - 40k is an entirely different beast, and I wouldn't be surprised if schizophrenics were sent into combat.
(I'll be honest, I'm sure most people have moved past the femarine issue, but seeing as we're pretty much all in agreement that other races should get more variety, it's a decent point to bring up.)
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
- female super-elite, power-armored warriors: An army with an entirely pewter range, a limited number of minis, substandard rules, and can only be bought online.Which should have an update, which no-one disagrees with. The potential is still there.
Not doing so well with the representation there.But the potential is there, eliminating the need for femarines.
My points in red.
I disagree with your conclusion. Sisters could even up the representational gap if GW properly supported them. However, GW doesn't properly support them. There is only one faction we know GW is not going to neglect in any edition, and that's Space Marines. So, to even up the represenational gap, GW could properly support Sisters, which to wildly understate matters they haven't reliably done in the past, or they could alter the fluff to allow female Space Marines. Heck, they altered the fluff to get rid of them, so I don't see why the current fluff against them is considered so sacrosanct.
But, OK, IF Sisters were properly supported and given some love in the fluff, then yes, they could work. That is a monumental IF, though.
I would ask you to read my notes again.
I used the word "potential" a lot - potential representing that GWcan do things with the Sisters, but have not yet. Literally, your entire point is agreeing with mine - if Sisters were treated better, which they have the potential to be, femarines don't need to exist.
Also, where did you get that female marines were once a thing? I'm curious to know.
1: No setting has to be representative of anything anywhere on an artistic level. However, if you want to sell a product, you want to make good faith efforts to appeal to the broadest audience possible, or appeal to an under-served audience (which is why Twilight exploded the way it did). 40K doesn't do either - the art and the minis are almost all white guys, with few to no women.
Mostly because most art is of Space Marines, who are all male, and specifically Ultramarines, who are generally white.
Now, in factions where there should be different ethnicities (non-Cadian guard regiments) and discernibly different genders (Eldar, Dark Eldar, Guardsmen, Inquisition, Scions, Cultists), there *should* be more variety, as per the lore.
On a related question, why should Ultramarines and Cadians be all-white? Did only white Europeans make it to the space colonization game? Even if you accept the idea that there are mono-ethnicity planets (which is kind of ridiculous, but okay), the Ultramarines recruit from multiple planets. You'd think at least some of them would have a different color skin.
The reason they're white is the same reason that Space Wolves are Viking Marines and White Scars are Mongol Marines - because GW designed them that way.
They made the Cadians an analogue for the American military (assumed, at least) and guess what most American soldiers are? White and male.
The Ultramarines are Greco-Roman inspired. In pop-culture, both empires are typically represented by white men (inaccurately, some might say).
Cadians are probably descended from a common ancestor base - a single ethnic group who colonised Cadia. It may have just happened to be white. Because Cadia probably keeps itself rather insular regarding breeding, there would be little race mixing and result in Cadians looking similar generation after generation.
You bring up the point of UM recruiting from different worlds, and should have recruits of different colour skin.
So, I bring the point of the Raven Guard and Salamanders. Both Chapters cause the skin pigmentation of the gene-sees host to become more like that of their Primarch. Who is to say that UM don't have a similar effect?
Again, you dismiss the idea of a mono-race society, but it's been thousands of years. Literally. Who is to say that only White Europeans went to the stars? Other ethnicities may all have been wiped out, save for a handful of others (White Scars, Space Wolves). Or, perhaps all races have simply merged together so much over time there ceases to be a real difference in ethnicity? We don't know what happened, so why are you so quick to dismiss that?
Some of those examples are clearly ridiculous, as a gay person or an autistic person wouldn't physically look any different from anybody else, for instance.
What about the issue with, say, Polynesian heritage?
Disability?
Being abnormally short/tall?
Why can't these be represented in my Space Marines - if being able to identify with my tabletop models is that sancrosant that you'll rewrite canon to do it, why can't I have my tall polynesian disabled Space Marines? (Apologies to any tall polynesian disabled guys/gals reading)
I think 40,000 years in the future, we can reasonably expect to have developed technological work-arounds to virtually all disabilities. Paint your mini with a Polynesian skin tone. Talk to GW about the height and facial sculpts - I've argued for a broader range of face sculpts.
See my point above regarding the timespan and ethnicities simply being all bred together.
Also - reasonably cannot apply to an empire which throws men into meat grinders as a standard way of war.
The fact that it would be inordinately difficult for one company to represent every possible ethnic variation doesn't excuse said company making no effort at all to represent any ethnic variation outside of white Europeans. Good faith efforts to represent at least the planet's major ethnicities would make good business sense, be fairly easy to do, and even give some aesthetic variety to armies that are otherwise rather monotonous.
Cue slippery slope.
If one group is portrayed, why didn't you do the other group?
Business sense only matters if it improves sales. And I can't provide statistics to support nor contest that point.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:That Sisters are inferior to men because they have less stuff than Space Marines, do please consider that Sisters have more than the Scions do. And whilst they could and should have far more in their range, Scions do have less.
I don't think that's a very legitimate counterpoint. It was kind of ridiculous to blow up the Militarum Tempestus into a separate army list. They could have just had a formation detachment in the Astra Militarum book.
True, but they exist now, and have a grand total of what, five units to their entire army? What about Knights?
The argument that SoB have the least units based on GW's misogyny is not accurate at all. Do they need more units, in order to expand the force as the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus, a la Deathwatch and Grey Knights? Yes. Should they get a model overhaul? Yes. Should they get a paperback codex at least? Yes.
Knights are another faction that should never have been made a full 40K army in the first place. However, point in fact, Knights have been getting a lot more attention since their introduction than Sisters have in the same time period.
If GW had kept the Sisters up with the Space Marines over the editions, I don't think we'd be having this conversation. Their 3rd/4th ed lists were fairly equivalent. Lately though, SMs have had an explosion of new units, whereas Sisters have not kept up. In order for Sisters to serve as a legitimate counterpoint, they'd need to be brought up to speed.
GW missed an opportunity to revamp Sisters instead of bringing us Deathwatch. Really, Deathwatch didn't need a whole army list either. A detachment formation with Sternguards and Vanguards would have worked just fine. Plus, GW could have replaced the Storm Raven model with that Deathwatch flyer - or not bothered and just let Deathwatch use the Storm Raven. If it's good enough for the Grey Knights, it ought to be good enough for the Deathwatch.
Well, Knights are here to stay, I'm fairly sure. So regardless of if you think they shouldn't exist, they do. And they have less models than even the Sisters. Plus, what attention have Scions had since their codex release? Nothing. They're worse than SoB if we rule out the (very legitimate and totally agreeable) point that they haven't been treated for far less time than the poor SoB.
Deathwatch are a nice addition, and make sense if GK are a thing, seeing as they represent the same thing for different Ordos. They should exist.
Now, this just goes more reason that SoB should come.
DW should be an army of their own, much like how the Sisters should be.
If you're going to say that DW shouldn't exist because they could just be Van/Sternguatd Veterans, Grey Knights shouldn't have a codex either, and should only be Terminators with some CCW Tactical Squads.
And hell, CSM shouldn't exist - they should just use the SM book.
And if you want to use the "it's good enough for X" argument, then why don't Guardsmen carry bolters? I mean, it's good enough for the Sisters. Or, maybe, there's production or simply preference issues - the Blackstar might suit the DW better than the Stormraven.
*some points made above are purely for the sake of Devil's Advocate, and do not represent any personal views*
Grand.Master.Raziel wrote: [There are currently 6 full Space Marine dexes (SMs, BAs, DAs, SWs, GKs, and now Deathwatch) with fully supported plastic ranges
7, you forgot the Chaos Marines.
Azreal13 wrote: But we know he's a fething monk because he's a fething Space Marine and the lore says they're monks!
I already addressed that.
Manchu wrote: As you say, they are warrior monks no matter whether they wear Christian-esque priestly vestments, wolf pelts, or the Khan's fur-trimmed high heels
They are warrior-monk despite not having none of the traits of a monk because, duh, reasons! No need to go beyond saying “It's true because I tell you it's true”!
Plumbumbarum wrote: It's not the first time you seem to have trouble following conversation.
.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Lol. I'd love to see you expand your point on Jewish descendants of concentrations camps prisoners, I guess they can't be ever offended because it's not them. Ridiculous, by that logic a cool portrayal concentration camp guard who loves shooting Jews is ok, why don't you go to Israel and ask them if they are afraid that Adolf will get them or what.
It's funny that you would take that route, because it just so happen that my own grand-mother was German and Jewish and had to flee all over Europe, and had family members that died during the holocaust.
Great job buddy, trying to shame the descendant of a Jewish victim of the Nazis using the descendants of other victims of the Nazi parti .
And yet you don't see me cry offensive anytime Nazi or Nazi-like figures are portrayed in the media, do you?
(And actually, you would get surprised at the kind of stuff that was made and sold in Israel just after WW2.)
Plumbumbarum wrote: Thank you man, I always claimed that all those leftist sensibilities are super selective and they are just as bigoted and hateful as all those facists, racists etc just against different groups, and now you're so beautifuly shameless about it. You just made my day.
So, why is it okay now for 40k to be offensive to religious bigots, but not okay to be offensive to leftist fanatic? Because you say so? You just confirmed that your case is worthless as long as it's about discrimination etc.
That's quite a long way to write “If anti-sexism is okay, then sexism must be okay” lol. I believe it's okay to be offensive to religious bigots but not to “leftist fanatics” because I believe the reasons the “leftist fanatics” have to be offended are valid and relevant, while those of the religious bigots are not, and are often used to enforced unjust and harmful stuff. And you are doing the very exact same “double standard” every day, are you not? Pushing for your ideas rather than those of people you strongly disagree with? Nah, sure, you treat every one's opinion as exactly equivalent in merit as your own. You perfectly demonstrated that in this discussion .
Plumbumbarum wrote: It's not super coherent but it will only get worse with female SM, further diluting any identity there.
That seems like a super-important problem . It's nice to see that even you would agree that “It's not coherent” (which is putting it lightly to the least, but at least it's an acknowledgment).
Plumbumbarum wrote: It can offend religion (bigots! by default apparently), descendants of genocide victims (not them) but women are no go, hurts too much.
Ah it's funny how you are trying to distort words! I said it can offend “religious bigots”, you suddenly decided I said “religious people, that are by definition bigot”. And then you'll tell me how I distort your words. Also, care to show me all the descendant of genocide victim that are offended by GW's commissar? I mean, really offended, not just using this as a rhetorical device to score points in debates on internet forums? Because, yeah, it's harder to get compassion for people pretending to be hurt by something, but only, literally only when it serves their rhetorical needs.
Hybrid, if your refuse to accept what the fluff tells you, and has told you for several editions, simply because you won't accept it, then why even care about lore?
There's no reason not to dismiss the Sisters as ever existing in the lore. There no reason I can't say the Emperor is fine and just having a bad dream. Nothing to stop me saying that Calgar is a frog in TDA plate.
But the lore actually tells us otherwise. If you're ignoring that piece of lore, what makes any other piece of it any more valuable?
nou wrote: Current state clearly sells well enough.
I think I might've choked on my drink if I'd been sipping it at this part.
Have you seen their financials in recent years?
There's absolutely no justification or evidence that any perceived lack of diversity has had a negative impact on their sales, nor that an increase would have a positive one.
The change of edition and subsequent apparent decline in popularity would much more closely track any negative financial performance, although it's important to note they are still making a profit, and the introduction of some female models would likely do zero to reverse the declining trend.
@Pouncey - As Azreal wrote: do you seriously think, that gender diversity or lack of it has more influence on sales than general trend of entertainment industry towards simple board games, computer games, mobile entertainment and so on? My statement is written clearly in a gender context so please, do read with assumption, that I'm not an utter idiot. Compare complexity of 2nd ed WH40k, RPG games from '90 (both classic and computer) classic vs modern x-com games etc… And then tell me, if my "sells well enough" is still hilarious. Decline in sales after 6th ed has more to do with market shifting to mobile entertainment than it has with the actual wh40k ruleset (as clearly most of GW consumer base do not even play the game, just collect the models and play not more than couple of times a year if ever). There is a poll here, clearly showing a spectrum of frequency of playing within dakaa comunity, and dakka comunity itself groups most involved hobbyists...
I know that even Call of Duty lets you play a female character in some of their more recent games.
I know that even Halo has female Spartans now.
I know that the most popular subscription-based MMORPG in history has lasted 12 years and counting, still has millions of people paying to play it, and when it first came out in 2004 it altered pre-existing lore that said things like Night Elf men couldn't be hunters, priests or warriors and Night Elf women couldn't be Druids in favor of more gender equality.
I know that if you take the same game and make two different advertisements for it, one with women in the ad and one without women in the ad, women who see the ad with women in it are more likely to buy the game.
I know that eventually the tabletop wargaming hobby is going to stop being a boys club and have to include women, and a lot of women introduced to 40k have their first question being, "Where are all the women?"
I know that the Assassin's Creed game that offered the ability to make a custom character for online play suffered harsh criticism for not being designed to let you play a female character if you wanted to.
I know that one of the things 40k is founded upon is making your own custom army to your own specifications.
So no, I'm not seeing that there's no market for more female characters in gaming or even 40k in particular.
Where the heck in mine or Azreal post did you read that we claim, that there is no market for more female characters in games? I clearly wrote, that in the particular case of 40K there is just absolutely no proof whatsoever (at least in this thread or any available and verifiable marketing data regarding 40K), that gender diversity of 28mm figures has any meaningfull impact on sales. I have provided more viable possible reasons for sales decline, yet you have ignored all of them. And after reading your previous posts, you make some quite bold comparisons between mostly virtual, enormous market of computer gaming industry and limited, physical market of miniature wargaming… And fail to understand the nature of economic viability of making new sculpts - even such popular and in-game powerfull army as Eldar has only 5% market share within GW product line (according to dakka poll) and this is not enough to update Aspect Warriors, which have 15 year old sculpts… And Eldrad got an update after what - 20 years? From economic standpoint it is much more possible for you to see Femarine accesory/head sprue added to every Space Marine box than to see an all-female IG box… Simply because sales volumes of those two factions.
And Warhammer operates on entirely different market than Overwatch or Halo. Compare the sole number of existing, actively produced wargames to the number of (even only) AAA computer games released each year and their combined budgets and maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about… We have only a handfull of succesfull miniature gaming companies around the world, almost all new kickstarter startups fail to deliver anything and those who do and almost all small companies live off producing accesories for already succesfull games of large companies and not from their own game systems. And reasons for that are simply market volume and saturation.
And to be crystal clear, as this thread has seen all sorts of false mysogynism accusations - I do not claim, that it would be disastrous for GW to introduce new female sculpts anywhere and anywhen they want, or anywhere majority of buyers want, or anywhere "significant minority" of buyers want. My wife play Tyranids (obviously gender indifferent) and I'm largely indifferent to breastplates on my 28mm Eldar/Harlequin figures. And I'm completely indifferent about what happens to Space Marines or IG, as I do not play with or against them. But I do claim, that forced resculpting of existing product line only to satisfy demands of a miniscule minority within wargaming community, driven by politcal correctness and not hard numbers of market demand would certainly be disastrous from economical standpoint. And yes, I do think that this gender representation problem is miniscule and that women are driven away from 40K not because gender imbalance within miniature range, but because of particular setting, playstyle, hobby aspect and existing male-dominant (and ideed largely and trully mysoginistic and/or sexist) community of this game all combined.
If, as you claim, I am completely wrong, and there is a strong market demand for female models, or that there is in fact any substance to claim, that (US centric) demographically correct gender and racial representation in miniature wargaming plays any significant role in sales, then we will see GW adapt in years to come, at a rate justifiable from technical cycle standpoint. Or otherwise they will collapse in a few years if they won't, which will be ultimate proof that you are right. But I wholeheartedly doubt it.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Lol. I'd love to see you expand your point on Jewish descendants of concentrations camps prisoners, I guess they can't be ever offended because it's not them. Ridiculous, by that logic a cool portrayal concentration camp guard who loves shooting Jews is ok, why don't you go to Israel and ask them if they are afraid that Adolf will get them or what.
It's funny that you would take that route, because it just so happen that my own grand-mother was German and Jewish and had to flee all over Europe, and had family members that died during the holocaust.
Great job buddy, trying to shame the descendant of a Jewish victim of the Nazis using the descendants of other victims of the Nazi parti .
And yet you don't see me cry offensive anytime Nazi or Nazi-like figures are portrayed in the media, do you?
(And actually, you would get surprised at the kind of stuff that was made and sold in Israel just after WW2.)
It's even weirder then tbh that you so easily dismiss it yet care so much for sexism that's not even there, and don't understand how positive portrayal of totalitarian regime is worse than females being under represented.
I care for neither btw, just don't get that selective overreaction.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Thank you man, I always claimed that all those leftist sensibilities are super selective and they are just as bigoted and hateful as all those facists, racists etc just against different groups, and now you're so beautifuly shameless about it. You just made my day.
So, why is it okay now for 40k to be offensive to religious bigots, but not okay to be offensive to leftist fanatic? Because you say so? You just confirmed that your case is worthless as long as it's about discrimination etc.
That's quite a long way to write “If anti-sexism is okay, then sexism must be okay” lol. I believe it's okay to be offensive to religious bigots but not to “leftist fanatics” because I believe the reasons the “leftist fanatics” have to be offended are valid and relevant, while those of the religious bigots are not, and are often used to enforced unjust and harmful stuff.
Yeah that's called bias and it runs strong with you.
Plumbumbarum wrote: It's not super coherent but it will only get worse with female SM, further diluting any identity there.
That seems like a super-important problem . It's nice to see that even you would agree that “It's not coherent” (which is putting it lightly to the least, but at least it's an acknowledgment).
That's exactly the problem, diluting and ruining the main themes of 40k with made up bs.
That something is not super coherent doesn't mean you have to go make it ridiculous and run it to the ground.
Plumbumbarum wrote: It can offend religion (bigots! by default apparently), descendants of genocide victims (not them) but women are no go, hurts too much.
Ah it's funny how you are trying to distort words! I said it can offend “religious bigots”, you suddenly decided I said “religious people, that are by definition bigot”. And then you'll tell me how I distort your words. Also, care to show me all the descendant of genocide victim that are offended by GW's commissar? I mean, really offended, not just using this as a rhetorical device to score points in debates on internet forums? Because, yeah, it's harder to get compassion for people pretending to be hurt by something, but only, literally only when it serves their rhetorical needs.
I said that 40k is offensive to religion, you answered that it's not a problem for you that it's offensive to religious bigots. Not that much of a leap then when religious people I know take offence just hearing about worshipping a rotten corpse.
Plenty of people around here hate any positive portrayal of soviets with a passion, the trend might have passed your intricate empathy though because it's quite limited to countries actualy enslaved by them.
Plenty of people around here hate any positive portrayal of soviets with a passion, the trend might have passed your intricate empathy though because it's quite limited to countries actualy enslaved by them.
My dad's military buddies in the late 70s to early 80s had a saying, "Better dead than Red, and better dead than Red, White and Blue."
The general impression I got was that the Canadian military was not, in fact, delighted at the idea of America and the Soviet Union trading volleys of city-ending nuclear weapons with each other over Canadian territory.
More to the point though... Can we start talking about 40k lore again? Or should I just check out of this this thread if everyone agrees that the official minis need to start matching the official canon in terms of the factions that should have women, and we're just gonna argue about irrelevant real life stuff until the thread gets locked?
Plenty of people around here hate any positive portrayal of soviets with a passion, the trend might have passed your intricate empathy though because it's quite limited to countries actualy enslaved by them.
My dad's military buddies in the late 70s to early 80s had a saying, "Better dead than Red, and better dead than Red, White and Blue."
The general impression I got was that the Canadian military was not, in fact, delighted at the idea of America and the Soviet Union trading volleys of city-ending nuclear weapons with each other over Canadian territory.
More to the point though... Can we start talking about 40k lore again? Or should I just check out of this this thread if everyone agrees that the official minis need to start matching the official canon in terms of the factions that should have women, and we're just gonna argue about irrelevant real life stuff until the thread gets locked?
No one ever debated that, the only reason it got this far was because people started pulling politics in why the GW company is misogynistic. There is no lore left to talk about.
If you aren't a feminist, you cannot be an egalitarian. Posts like this are utter garbage.
Well, yeah. Posts like them are what I swapped out my sig for. >.>
So basically you can't believe or endorse equal rights unless you support and further the feminist movement? Cool story, so does that mean we get to turn golf clubs like Formby, Lundin, and others co-ed? Because standards should be even across the board. I just bet that would be the case right?
Plenty of people around here hate any positive portrayal of soviets with a passion, the trend might have passed your intricate empathy though because it's quite limited to countries actualy enslaved by them.
My dad's military buddies in the late 70s to early 80s had a saying, "Better dead than Red, and better dead than Red, White and Blue."
The general impression I got was that the Canadian military was not, in fact, delighted at the idea of America and the Soviet Union trading volleys of city-ending nuclear weapons with each other over Canadian territory.
More to the point though... Can we start talking about 40k lore again? Or should I just check out of this this thread if everyone agrees that the official minis need to start matching the official canon in terms of the factions that should have women, and we're just gonna argue about irrelevant real life stuff until the thread gets locked?
No one ever debated that, the only reason it got this far was because people started pulling politics in why the GW company is misogynistic. There is no lore left to talk about.
So the thread is done then. There's nothing left to discuss anymore.
Good. See you guys in other threads when you're done in here.
More to the point though... Can we start talking about 40k lore again? Or should I just check out of this this thread if everyone agrees that the official minis need to start matching the official canon in terms of the factions that should have women, and we're just gonna argue about irrelevant real life stuff until the thread gets locked?
e·gal·i·tar·i·an iˌɡaləˈterēən/ adjective 1. of, relating to, or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities. "a fairer, more egalitarian society"
fem·i·nism ˈfeməˌnizəm/ noun 1. the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.
If you do not believe that women deserve equality in the political, social, and economic fields, then by definition you are not an egalitarian because you do not believe that all people deserve to be equal.
By saying "I'm an egalitarian not a feminist", all you're really saying is "I'm neither of these things, I'm just too ashamed to admit it publicly." And conversations like this is why I said "I'm done" earlier, but the asinine, ignorant quote I responded to earlier couldn't be allowed to slide by unnoticed.
e·gal·i·tar·i·an
iˌɡaləˈterēən/
adjective
1. of, relating to, or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.
"a fairer, more egalitarian society"
fem·i·nism
ˈfeməˌnizəm/
noun
1. the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.
If you do not believe that women deserve equality in the political, social, and economic fields, then by definition you are not an egalitarian because you do not believe that all people deserve to be equal.
By saying "I'm an egalitarian not a feminist", all you're really saying is "I'm neither of these things, I'm just too ashamed to admit it publicly." And conversations like this is why I said "I'm done" earlier, but the asinine, ignorant quote I responded to earlier couldn't be allowed to slide by unnoticed.
I have yet to run across a Feminist who doesn't take the opportunity to mention the Definition of Feminism. It is a great definition. The problem with it though is that it described the feminist movement back in the 50s-90s ish. After that though Feminism quickly turned away from equal rights to become "Woman need more rights then men". Case and point would be Harvard's new policy that forces all mens clubs to become open to women while at the same time telling women's clubs its ok to not have men so long as you change your description/charter to say something else. http://louderwithcrowder.com/harvard-all-male-club-members-to-be-banned-from-student-leadership-roles-and-receiving-scholarship-endorsements/#.V75H4zUu9RA
the gender wage gap is a myth as has been proven by numerous ACTUAL economists. Rape Culture is also a Myth, the 1 in 5 or 1 in 4 as reported by multiple feminist websites is actually a complete fabrication and the real number is closer to 1 in 50-100 which is still WAY to high!. But realistically 1-2% is very different from 20-25%.
I could keep going on but there is very little point. As far as this effects GW and specifically SMs and other factions including more female characters and armies? I don't give a feth so long as they are productive for GW and the game in general. I could understand Eldar/DE and IG taking a look at new female models. Add in an extra sprue that has female heads and torso's and call it a day, nobody would really care. However the idea that we have to completely change the fluff surrounding Space Marines to fit into your idea of Feminism is ridiculous. After 30-40 years of Fluff stating that SMs are all men you want to change that because it will make you feel more included, forgetting the fact that GW has a 99% female faction already, something most Strategy games DONT have.
SemperMortis wrote: The problem with it though is that it described the feminist movement back in the 50s-90s ish.
It also describes the feminist movement today, in spite of your asinine and failed attempt to argue otherwise.
Feminism is a massive, global movement, with a large amount of internal debate on the best methods to obtain the goal of equality. Pretending like an ignoramus that all feminism must be the same even after you, yourself, argued that it's not is shameful and stupid. And that's the problem with arguments like yours. You're so quick to say "feminists are all the same" when it suits your hypocritical, inherently contradictory arguments.
decided not to go there, On the subject of actual models and shenanigans, How about Orks, how about you get some female orks would that assuage your anger?
SemperMortis wrote: decided not to go there, On the subject of actual models and shenanigans, How about Orks, how about you get some female orks would that assuage your anger?
Orks are actually genderless in terms of their physical bodies. Technically they're not even male, they just use masculine gendered language and terms for themselves. They reproduce through spores.
It makes the adult fan artwork of them weird when you know that in the lore, they probably don't even have the organs they're depicted making use of.
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Don't tell the commissar I asked!
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