why are there no black people in 40k?

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**Erik_Morkai**

total0 wrote:
Does anyone know what happened to the black people in 41st millennium? I know salamanders technically are black but not in the context i mean. All the models shown are all white and the only time I've come across black skinned models are in a racist fashion such as panal legion in the old imperial guard book and a guardsmen army based on a foreworld based around cotton picking where the sgts and high ranking people were all white

Because it's in the FUTURE <_<

j/k

Salamanders are black as black can come by the way.

As for why so few black painted models? Maybe it has to do with the visibility of details as far as pictures are concerned. Details are easier to see on white skin and GW wants to market it's highly detailed minis. While there are a few black models there are very few ladies (I swear the IG box is sausage fest) and no asians either.

**Ascalam**

Dark skin is also an absolute git to paint so that it actually looks good.

Abaddon black with a black wash doesn't work

You have to work up from brown/yellow and it's time consuming and aggravating as hell to get right.

And then you get told it doesn't look right by someone who's skin tone doesn't exactly match that on the models, and called a racist....

True story - The models were historicals (Egyptians i think), and the guy who saw them and got all tetchy was hot on the racist trigger because they were a paler shade of brown than his skin....

**Melissia**

They're perceived tobe harder to do right anyway. But I don't really think they necessarily are, though they are easier to get wrong.

**dekinrie**

if you need a starter guide on painting skin wargames illustrated no. 326 did a painting section on skin tones with white black and some in between for roman gladiators

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
All my Sisters are black. And blonde. I know… but come on, it is the future!

Hairdye is hairesy though.

It is not a dye. They recruit from some continent where everybody is like this. Or something.

King Pariah wrote:
And like that I suddenly had an image flash in my head of 1,000's of clones of Nicki Minaj in power armor.

And now that image is in your head.

I'm not sorry.

I am not even sure who Nicki Minaj is. The Emperor protects me from the treacheries of the witch

.

Wyzilla wrote:
But there probably wouldn't be a lot of female Necron characters to begin with. Realistically if they were a Patriarchal society like ours in history (which they do as they operate on royalty), most of the leading figures in Necron society as of M41 that are actually sentient will be male. The female Pharaohs would be practically non-existent or in incredibly small numbers. Meanwhile the bulk troops probably have a male female even split, but barely any are even sentient, and they have the exact same body type because skeletons.

If all of European royalty as of 1500AD was turned into robots with only the leaders retaining their sentient, there would be very, very little female named leaders. People such as Queen Victoria or Nefertiti are the exception, not the rule.

Why would you assume a patriarcal society? Are you aware of the hundreds of species where the females are stronger than the males?

I find black skin easy to paint, actually. Maybe I should post a few pictures of my models?

**Melissia**

I hav ea harder time with brighter colors, myself.

**Great White**

Ascalam wrote:

True story - The models were historicals (Egyptians i think), and the guy who saw them and got all tetchy was hot on the racist trigger because they were a paler shade of brown than his skin....

I have a feeling this was the kind of person who just tries to find things to offend him everyday

**Psienesis**

However as the majority of named Necron sentient characters are male, the only conclusion that can be made is that they are/were a patriarchal society given our ratio of male named sentient necrons to female necrons is absurdly tiny.

Not exactly. You're making the conclusion because that's what GW has given us, which fits in neatly with GW's apparent policy that most of the galaxy is run by White Dudes, rather than an in-universe reveal that the Necrontyr were a patriarchal society.

For all we know, half the named Necrons were female prior to Bio-transference.

**Bronzefists42**

To be fair I never though of necrons as having a gender.

It seems that necrons are 1) aliens that might not even have the concept of gender and 2) soulless automatons that barely even register such things.

**Melissia**

I don't think of the Necrons as having a gender.

**Verviedi**

Melissia wrote:
I don't think of the Necrons as having a gender.

No topic, but I hate your signature and your support for brainwashing children.
On topic, it's quite obvious that all the named characters are male, and are referred to as such in the codex entries.

**Wyzilla**

Iracundus wrote:
Frozen Ocean wrote:
Yes, but the point is that GW specifically set them up to be patriarchal in a setting where the ratio of female named sentient characters next to male characters is already absurdly tiny. Necrons are already the ultimate classists, since their very minds and bodies are dependent on class - and that's cool. Why do they have to be sexist, too?

What if Pask had been a girl? What if Sergeant Telion was Asian (I say "Asian", although that is incorrect, because in the far, far future, specifics such as "Korean" probably won't exist any more, since nobody even knows what Korea is any more)?

Except the obvious historical/ethnic expys (and sometimes not even then), you will be hard pressed to find a non-white artwork depiction (where excuses of modelling detail do not come into play).

The relative lack of female depiction in the Imperial Guard is also quite noticeable, despite Guard regiments being written as being the founders of a new ruling class of worlds they conquer if they survive long enough. Yet clearly either there are females in the regiment, there are already human females on the conquered planet, or they ship females in from elsewhere, else it would be a very short lived ruling class.

In short, GWs de facto policy seems to be portrayal of non-whites or females only in niche roles of expy or stereotype/archetype ("battle nuns", "scantily dressed black widow or Amazonian killers" like Wyches). If anything I think GW has gone backwards over the years, because the Deathwing used to have those feathers denoting Native American-like recruits and cultural influence. While it was admittedly a stereotypical expy, I think I preferred it to the robed knight version of the Dark Angels we have now since there are already so many other Chapters based on the knight theme.

No, Dark Angels are much better in their current role considering they have an actual, legitimate plot, along with fleshed out and interesting characters compared to previously when everyone just had a poorly written paragraph of lore on them.

Also, the IG quite obviously have a lot of females in their ranks simply because Guardsmen are expected to breed during void trips, and the Cadians specifically have a breeding program set up between the male and female soldiers where they have what's pretty much a sanctioned brothel.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
All my Sisters are black. And blonde. I know… but come on, it is the future!

Hairdye is hairesy though.

It is not a dye. They recruit from some continent where everybody is like this. Or something.

King Pariah wrote:
And like that I suddenly had an image flash in my head of 1,000's of clones of Nicki Minaj in power armor.

And now that image is in your head.

I'm not sorry.

I am not even sure who Nicki Minaj is. The Emperor protects me from the treacheries of the witch .

Wyzilla wrote:
But there probably wouldn't be a lot of female Necron characters to begin with. Realistically if they were a Patriarchal society like ours in history (which they do as they operate on royalty), most of the leading figures in Necron society as of M41 that are actually sentient will be male. The female Pharaohs would be practically non-existent or in incredibly small numbers. Meanwhile the bulk troops probably have a male female even split, but barely any are even sentient, and they have the exact same body type because skeletons.

If all of European royalty as of 1500AD was turned into robots with only the leaders retaining their sentient, there would be very, very little female named leaders. People such as Queen Victoria or Nefertiti are the exception, not the rule.

Why would you assume a patriarcal society? Are you aware of the hundreds of species where the females are stronger than the males?

I find black skin easy to paint, actually. Maybe I should post a few pictures of my models?

Because almost all of their named characters are male/masculine.

With the evidence currently had on the Necrons, the only deduciton that can be made from current information was that they had a patriarchal society given the practical non-existence of named female Necron characters save one female Necron Lord. It also is kind of a dead giveaway when their absolute ruler was crowned the Silent King.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Psienesis wrote:
However as the majority of named Necron sentient characters are male, the only conclusion that can be made is that they are/were a patriarchal society given our ratio of male named sentient necrons to female necrons is absurdly tiny.

Not exactly. You're making the conclusion because that's what GW has given us, which fits in neatly with GW's apparent policy that most of the galaxy is run by White Dudes, rather than an in-universe reveal that the Necrontyr were a patriarchal society.

For all we know, half the named Necrons were female prior to Bio-transference.

Lolwut.

All of the named Necron characters are referred to as 'he', not she. There's only one exception of a Female Necron Lord in the Imperial Armor books, otherwise everyone else we know of is male.

**nomotog**

Verviedi wrote:
Melissia wrote:
I don't think of the Necrons as having a gender.

No topic, but I hate your signature and your support for brainwashing children.
On topic, it's quite obvious that all the named characters are male, and are referred to as such in the codex entries.

The clincher is the one woman. If every necron was called male, you could make the argument that they were genderless and that GW was just being lazy with the pronouns.

**TiamatRoar**

Yea, forgeworld established/confirmed that female necrons exist. Once again one of GW's subsidiaries or partners but not GW itself is more open (egalitarian? I forget the word) than GW about various things.

**Alcibiades**

Because it's Space Dark Ages. The Dark Ages were in Europe.

Last time I checked, skeletons did not have visible genders and robots have no genders at all. Might as well demand female toasters.

**Wyzilla**

Alcibiades wrote:
Because it's Space Dark Ages. The Dark Ages were in Europe.

Last time I checked, skeletons did not have visible genders and robots have no genders at all. Might as well demand female toasters.

Their consciousness remains, and it identifies as a gender.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Wyzilla wrote:
Because almost all of their named characters are male/masculine.

So
- Almost all the named necrons are male because the necrontyr were a patriarchy
- The necrontyr were a patriarchy because almost all the named necron are male
Seems a bit circular. I will go for “GW was lazy and therefore gave in to their unconscious bias”.

Alcibiades wrote:
Last time I checked, skeletons did not have visible genders

You are no coroner, are you?

**CthuluIsSpy**

Yeah, you can identify a skeleton's gender.
Female skeletons tend to have wider pelvis bones than male skeletons, iirc.
These are aliens though, so their biology might be different. Who knows, perhaps the necrons gave birth via spawning or eggs instead of live young, and the male-female ratio was something like 10-1 as opposed to ~50-50
Or perhaps they were like snails, and had both sexes, or alternating sexes.

There should really be an expansion that explores necrontyr culture pre-biotransference. Like a xeno version of FW's Horus Heresy series.

**Wyzilla**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:
Because almost all of their named characters are male/masculine.

So
- Almost all the named necrons are male because the necrontyr were a patriarchy
- The necrontyr were a patriarchy because almost all the named necron are male
Seems a bit circular. I will go for “GW was lazy and therefore gave in to their unconscious bias”.

Alcibiades wrote:
Last time I checked, skeletons did not have visible genders

You are no coroner, are you?

You can work only off the evidence you have. As 99% of all Necron characters are male, the only possible deduction is that most of the ruling class was male due to the selection we have. Plus their made leader, the Silent King, was male as well.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, you can identify a skeleton's gender.
Female skeletons tend to have wider pelvis bones than male skeletons, iirc.
These are aliens though, so their biology might be different. Who knows, perhaps the necrons gave birth via spawning or eggs instead of live young, and the male-female ratio was something like 10-1 as opposed to ~50-50
Or perhaps they were like snails, and had both sexes, or alternating sexes.

There should really be an expansion that explores necrontyr culture pre-biotransference. Like a xeno version of FW's Horus Heresy series.

Their bodies are still humanoid. If you have a large braincase, the females simply will have to have wider hips to birth babies with large brains.

**CthuluIsSpy**

Assuming they gave birth to live young. Or were even mammals.
Has it been confirmed they were mammals? I do not recall.

**Wyzilla**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Assuming they gave birth to live young. Or were even mammals.
Has it been confirmed they were mammals? I do not recall.

Well they seem to take an interest in using humans for bio-transfers at some point.

Although if they were reptiles, that would even be worse for them.

**CthuluIsSpy**

I always thought that was due to sentience and accessibility rather than biology.

Whilst it would have been deliciously ironic to use Eldar, their minds are probably too sophisticated to accept biotransference, not to mention that they are a real pain to capture.
Ork minds are too simple, and the Tau are not as numerous as humans.

Humans are plentiful, just sentient enough and easier to capture.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
These are aliens though, so their biology might be different. Who knows, perhaps the necrons gave birth via spawning or eggs instead of live young, and the male-female ratio was something like 10-1 as opposed to ~50-50
Or perhaps they were like snails, and had both sexes, or alternating sexes.

Wyzilla wrote:
You can work only off the evidence you have. As 99% of all Necron characters are male, the only possible deduction is that most of the ruling class was male due to the selection we have. Plus their made leader, the Silent King, was male as well.

You are both looking for plausible in-universe explanations/justifications for GW. I am looking for why GW did make 98% of the necron characters male. Obviously they did not make them 98% male because they believed a race with alternating sexes where something super-duper cool, else they would have mentioned the Necrontyr were of alternating sex. Similarly, I do not think they made them male because they thought having yet one more patriarchal society was cool, else they would have even alluded to the fact Necrontyr society was patriarchal (and also because, let us acknowledge it, there is literally nothing cool about a patriarchal society, it is just boring and uninspired…).
I am pretty sure it is a case of GW not even thinking about it, and therefore letting their unconscious bias do the gender part of the character design for them.

**Wyzilla**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
These are aliens though, so their biology might be different. Who knows, perhaps the necrons gave birth via spawning or eggs instead of live young, and the male-female ratio was something like 10-1 as opposed to ~50-50
Or perhaps they were like snails, and had both sexes, or alternating sexes.

Wyzilla wrote:
You can work only off the evidence you have. As 99% of all Necron characters are male, the only possible deduction is that most of the ruling class was male due to the selection we have. Plus their made leader, the Silent King, was male as well.

You are both looking for plausible in-universe explanations/justifications for GW. I am looking for why GW did make 98% of the necron characters male. Obviously they did not make them 98% male because they believed a race with alternating sexes where something super-duper cool, else they would have mentioned the Necrontyr were of alternating sex. Similarly, I do not think they made them male because they thought having yet one more patriarchal society was cool, else they would have even alluded to the fact Necrontyr society was patriarchal (and also because, let us acknowledge it, there is literally nothing cool about a patriarchal society, it is just boring and uninspired…).
I am pretty sure it is a case of GW not even thinking about it, and therefore letting their unconscious bias do the gender part of the character design for them.

Because it is. Nothing is surprising at all in any fiction about most characters being male, if not a massive majority or even all.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Wyzilla wrote:
Nothing is surprising at all in any fiction about most characters being male, if not a massive majority or even all.

Surprising, no. Sad, yes, imo.

**Mr Morden**

Lolwut.

All of the named Necron characters are referred to as 'he', not she. There's only one exception of a Female Necron Lord in the Imperial Armor books, otherwise everyone else we know of is male.

Latest BL novel about Necrons has a female Cryptek and her female guards..................

from the free preview:

Valnyr, High Cryptek to the Kehlrantyr Dynasts, stepped from the sarcophagus and onto the obsidian floor. She resisted the urge to stretch. Valnyr had gone to the Great Sleep in glory, in a chamber rich with carvings and light. She awoke from that sleep in the same chamber. She emerged from her sarcophagus into ruins

Shaudukar’s, fittingly, was the first casket to open. The lychguard was her friend from the time before biotransference. Armoured in thick plates of metal, spine overarched to shelter her head, Shaudukar was a fearsome sight. Poblaaur’s casket opened next, followed by ten more, until her lychguard surrounded her. They hung, crucified in the sleep of eons. Cables and circuits were attached all over their bodies, snaking through their metal bones. Green lights flickered around them, shining through the steam. The canoptek spyder behind her chattered and broadcast the frequency of awakening.

Shaudukar said nothing as her sentience resumed control of her body, as she shrugged off the Great Sleep. She reached for her weapons from behind her casket, arming herself with her warscythe and shield. No nonsense and no fuss, as she had been in life. Valnyr felt relief to see her unchanged by sixty million years of dormancy.Poblaaur kept his eyes dim, facing towards the wall. My mistress,’ Shaudukar said. She stared at her hands. Valnyr approached her, standing nearly uncomfortably close. For the status-obsessed necrons, where distance often indicated hierarchy and respect, it was an expression of great affection. ‘Shaudukar,’ Valnyr whispered the name. ‘I am glad you are awake.

**Furyou Miko**

Which one's that, Mr. M?

(for some reason I keep trying to call you Dr. Morden. Damn Bioware...)

I'm with Oxy on this one, anyway... never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence, after all, or as I like to say, 'cock-ups before conspiracies'.

**Mr Morden**

the novel is "Devourer"

don;t know Bioware - mine is taken from Babylon 5

**Furyou Miko**

Dr. Mordin. Mass Effect character.

Devourer. I must acquire this book.

**Wyzilla**

Mr Morden wrote:

Shaudukar’s, fittingly, was the first casket to open. The lychguard was her friend from the time before biotransference. Armoured in thick plates of metal, spine overarched to shelter her head, Shaudukar was a fearsome sight. Poblaaur’s casket opened next, followed by ten more, until her lychguard surrounded her. They hung, crucified in the sleep of eons. Cables and circuits were attached all over their bodies, snaking through their metal bones. Green lights flickered around them, shining through the steam. The canoptek spyder behind her chattered and broadcast the frequency of awakening.

Shaudukar said nothing as her sentience resumed control of her body, as she shrugged off the Great Sleep. She reached for her weapons from behind her casket, arming herself with her warscythe and shield. No nonsense and no fuss, as she had been in life. Valnyr felt relief to see her unchanged by sixty million years of dormancy.Poblaaur kept his eyes dim, facing towards the wall. My mistress,’ Shaudukar said. She stared at her hands. Valnyr approached her, standing nearly uncomfortably close. For the status-obsessed necrons, where distance often indicated hierarchy and respect, it was an expression of great affection. ‘Shaudukar,’ Valnyr whispered the name. ‘I am glad you are awake.

Well then. I'm not certain of anything, but lesbian Necrons confirmed