Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Psienesis wrote:
Citation required for all of the Cadian women being the Joy Division.

Cadian Blood makes reference to reproduction camps/brothels for downtime when there's no fighting going on. I also don't remember there being any female soldiers in combat, so it's probably they were all in the brothels.

More likely ti's just gakky writing. Bad writer thinks "soldier" and assumes "oh, must be male", never thinks about the reality of Cadian soldiers, writes only male soldiers. Because they're bad writers.

I wouldn't say bad. Just unimaginative or unfamiliar with the source.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I wouldn't say bad. Just unimaginative or unfamiliar with the source.

Or just plain lazy, I suppose.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I wouldn't say bad. Just unimaginative or unfamiliar with the source.

For a writer of fiction to be unimaginative is fething terrible.

 Melissia wrote:
More likely ti's just gakky writing. Bad writer thinks "soldier" and assumes "oh, must be male", never thinks about the reality of Cadian soldiers, writes only male soldiers. Because they're bad writers.

Not really. Logistically it would actually make sense to simply use the female soldiers to breed more guardsmen from the Imperium's point of view. While in the short run more guns would be useful (IE committing all of the female soldiers to the field along with the males), but keeping them behind to ensure you constantly will have self-replenishing ranks over multiple campaigns is more sensible.

Remember, from the Commander's point of view, everyone's cattle in the Guard. It's not like it's a surprising idea either, I'm fairly certain it's been practiced in previous human history in real life, what with the Nazis especially coming to mind considering they had an actual breeding program.

No it doesn't, because that takes trained soldiers out of military circulation. The bizarre "army of prostitutes that are soldiers on the side" idea people keep pushing breaks down when looked at any deeper than face value-- it's very wasteful, and seems little more than some bizarre fantasy.

 Melissia wrote:
No it doesn't, because that takes trained soldiers out of military circulation. The bizarre "army of prostitutes that are soldiers on the side" idea people keep pushing breaks down when looked at any deeper than face value-- it's very wasteful, and seems little more than some bizarre fantasy.

You do know women have children and it makes them useless for 9+ months right?

So it would make more sense to have women and children work the factories (when they arent pregnant) and then when the males are of age they join the military full time while the women continually have babies and work the factories until death.

They all die in the end. Otherwise you have women in battle not contributing more soldiers. Like in soviet russia the women would be given medals etc for having more children too, so that all the men who had died could be replaced in the future. Babies are important, especially if you are sending all the males off to die at every opportunity.

Explain why it doesnt make sense to have breeding factory women? In a total war situation?

A woman's child bearing age exceeds the age where she would be effective in combat. She could fight and still bear children.

Also, children born into that environment are likely to have enough issues to make them more Penal Legion material than shock troops. Most likely the author had just watched a bit too much hentai.

We all know that there are no women in 40K because the fluff writers and many of the players have never seen one closer than one meter and have know nothing about them they didn't learn from porn.

 LordBaronVonVaderham wrote:
A woman's child bearing age exceeds the age where she would be effective in combat. She could fight and still bear children.

Also, children born into that environment are likely to have enough issues to make them more Penal Legion material than shock troops. Most likely the author had just watched a bit too much hentai.

We all know that there are no women in 40K because the fluff writers and many of the players have never seen one closer than one meter and have know nothing about them they didn't learn from porn.

Im fairly sure most of them are married (writers )

I mean women could probably have children before going to combat but then nobody is there to raise the kids.

The problem is not that GW hates women (I hope) but more that they havent thought about any of the fluff. Its all ill thought out, so we are left with questions on how most of the society actually functions, like how a planet functions with a 100% conscription rate and has a steady population etc.

In my opinion its a theme in both the fluff and quality of the fluff, simply a lack of thought.

Also how will they bear children and fight, since fighting is a one way trip for many, the population would decline. Also who will man the factories and keep the infrastructure up to date etc. Its just a stupid situation really, that could not exist.

Wyzilla wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Psienesis wrote:
And that is the problem... especially with the Cadian miniatures, because Cadia's conscription rate is 100%, so where are the female Cadian soldiers?

Well, they're most likely in the military run procreation, childcare and schooling units that would so obviously have to exist for a planet to have a mandatory conscription rate of 100% among its child-bearing age females and churn out new recruits at the rate they do. I mean, you can't support a mutation-free population if you remove all the ideal aged child-bearing females from the population. So instead, you institutionalize reproduction. I mean, the fluff pretty much suggests it. Total military indoctrination, on a planet where the military runs everything.

After all, in the Cadian fluff sections in C:IG and C:AM use male pronouns overwhelmingly when describing the line soldiers of the Cadian Shock Troops, indicating most of the females go elsewhere, leaving only sterile females to serve in their line units. Every Cadian must know how to fight. Doesn't mean everyone actually does. I mean, the USMC has the phrase "Every Marine a Rifleman." Doesn't mean it deploys the admin personnel at Battalion HQ alongside the infantry. It just means, should they have to, the admin guy should be able to fire his rifle effectively and man a crew served weapon. Such is Cadia.

Grimdark.

We also know for certain that female Cadian soldiers are used as a sanctioned brothel for breeding. Cadian military camps have brothel tents for both parties to relieve stress and reproduce during down-time.

I've never seen that bit of fluff. Was it in a novel or something? Either way it's somewhat irrelevant as that kind of function only scratches the surface of the kind of support structure a planet like Cadia would have.

The question was just posed "Where are the female soldiers?" The answer being that if there is a 100% conscription rate and a 72% military service rate, then that means that "military service" has a far broader term on Cadia than the real world. But it's a simple biological fact that the ideal breeding ages for human females are essentially identical to the ideal military ages, meaning there's an obvious overlap. And if 100% of the population is conscripted, it means that the military runs everything. Meaning childcare, childrearing, schooling, everything. Food service, waste disposal, etc. The idea that only 28% of the military is non-military, it's likely only the old, infirm, and smallest of children who aren't counted in that number. Given the nature of Cadia, it's also fairly likely they have a young population. Their rate of conscription into the Guard and subsequent redeployment and casualty rates would mean they aren't carrying a large number of pensioners. So who is producing all these small children, and who is raising them and turning them into more soldiers? The military. And at 100% conscription rate, we're talking about a massive apparatus to take these children from the age of 0 to 13/14 given the lack of traditional family units that would be forced by circumstance. Enter the ranks of Caregiver Sergeant and Educator Corporal.

Not even the modern military functions with a 100% infantry ratio. Even in the modern USMC, the leanest of the US branches in terms of support personnel, only approximately 18% of the force is Infantry. If you add in armor and artillery, you get 23%. Just under a quarter. Sprinkle in the comms and motor transport guys that those combat units require and we'll say an even 25% are in dedicated combat units. Which means the Marine Corps, which has an entire civilian populace to sustain the rest of the country's operations, still fields approximately three support personnel for each direct warfighter.

Cadia needs a massive civil-military infrastructure. The nature of their situation means they're probably running a higher percentage of direct combatants, but they'd still need to be able to feed and clothe and shelter and arm and supply and move these troops, meaning you're not going to have anywhere close to 100% direct combatants and still be able to sustain basic services on the planet. Sure, the cooks and nannies and garbage truck drivers will be able to grab a lasgun and man the wall in when needed. But that's not going to be their sole job.

People like to imagine Cadia as some meritocratic bastion of egalitarianism, but the reality is that Cadia is probably only surpassed in Grimdarkness by Krieg. On Cadia, you're born, live, and die within a giant social mechanism designed solely to produce more fighting troops for the Departmento Munitorum. It's going to take the absolute strongest and fittest for the product, and use the rest of the populace to keep the machine running. Why are the Cadian Shock Troops supposed to be so good? Because they are literally the cream of the crop of an entire planet.

 Swastakowey wrote:
You do know women have children and it makes them useless for 9+ months right?

No it doesn't. Sometimes it's not even noticed for months before they realize they're pregnant, unless they're constantly testing. And even afterwards, many mothers stay active doing normal duty up until birth; depending on their own personal level of fitness and what their job is, some request light duty at various points in the pregnancy, and some take off from work entirely.

Unfortunately, given that so many people work part time these days and thus have no benefits, many are also back to work very quickly after birth, sometimes even back to work immediately the day after-- the recommended time is six weeks, but that's also dependent on the idea that the woman who gives birth is the primary caretaker of the child, which is not a situation that makes sense for Cadia (communal nurseries make more sense, as they would foster a sense of military community from birth-- physically, without concern for caring for the child, many women need only a few days of rest at most after birth, or more if they needed surgery).

So... no. I do not "know" that women who have children become "useless for 9+ months", because I'm not massively ignorant.

Perhaps you should forget that "fact" so you are likewise not ignorant.

 LordBaronVonVaderham wrote:
We all know that there are no women in 40K because the fluff writers and many of the players have never seen one closer than one meter and have know nothing about them they didn't learn from porn.

I am very tired of these kinds of assumptions.

Storm Vermin wrote:
And the black people in 40k are Orks. Big guns, souped up vehicles, kinda feral...

Reported.

In the imperium different races are spread out in the whole universe . So they only bother to say which planet are they from


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In the imperium different races are spread out in the whole universe . So they only bother to say which planet are they from

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 LordBaronVonVaderham wrote:
We all know that there are no women in 40K because the fluff writers and many of the players have never seen one closer than one meter and have know nothing about them they didn't learn from porn.

I am very tired of these kinds of assumptions.

It wasn't really an assumption, more of a casual insult with more than little truth to it.

Cadian military service starts at 14 and I just read several posts trying to argue that sending 14 year old girls to serve as prostiitutes and baby machines was perfectly justifiable in a total war scenario. Even leaving age aside, the notion that the best thing a woman can do is please a man and have babies is apalling. I find it hard to believe that someone with those beliefs is a normal well adjusted adult with a healthy relationship with the opposite sex.

If you were to run a planet on the premise that you wanted to create the highest capability soldiers, you would take the best canidates, male or female, and assign them to the role that suits them best. There will be women at their best in the infantry, not 50% because men have a higher top end for physical strength, but there would be some. There will be men who are better off as non combat soldiers.

 LordBaronVonVaderham wrote:
It wasn't really an assumption, more of a casual insult with more than little truth to it.

I am very tired of those casual insults, then. And I disagree with the claim there is more than little truth to them.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 LordBaronVonVaderham wrote:
It wasn't really an assumption, more of a casual insult with more than little truth to it.

I am very tired of those casual insults, then. And I disagree with the claim there is more than little truth to them.

Re-read this thread and see if that changes your mind. Go to your LGS and watch the reaction when an attractive woman walks in. I can understand you not liking the stereotypes, but they didn't appear out of nowhere. Whenever I begin to think that maybe that will change, I see things like this thread.

For the abscence of black people in 40K, we can assume its mostly due to the predominence of white artist drawing more familiar faces which tries to reproduce the sculpts who all have the same face when it comes to cadians, catashans and SoB. Its litteraly the same person over and over again. The fluff have some ethnic variety for exemple White Scar, Vitrionic Dragoons or Rough Riders. Of course, some of these exemple are very much stereotypes but its sometimes harder than you think to avoid falling into one. I do think its still possible to represent black or asian persons with some painting skills (you just won't have a nice afro or cool curlie hairs).

The only minority that would need more representation would be women (the «minority» that makes for 53% of the world population). You can't really go around this one. Its especially true for Cadians who would have around 50% to 60% females in their ranks. The idea of using women as a form of cattle is ridiculous in a sci-fi setting like 40K. Have you never heard of the much more efficient and easy technics like cloning (which I think is illegal in the Imperium) or artificial incubators. That way, one or two person can care for hundreds of fetus and infants in optimal condition, much better and safer than the natural way, without putting women in danger or out of productive occupations. Than imagine a form of education similar to the clones in Star Wars. Thats how you make an army out of a planet population in a efficient way. Plus, it has the advantage of allowing women to fully integrate your army (so you have twice more soldiers) and lets face it, women have many physiological advantages that makes them superior to men when it comes to modern or futuristic warfare like the one described in 40K.

epronovost wrote:
For the abscence of black people in 40K, we can assume its mostly due to the predominence of white artist drawing more familiar faces which tries to reproduce the sculpts who all have the same face when it comes to cadians, catashans and SoB. Its litteraly the same person over and over again. The fluff have some ethnic variety for exemple White Scar, Vitrionic Dragoons or Rough Riders. Of course, some of these exemple are very much stereotypes but its sometimes harder than you think to avoid falling into one. I do think its still possible to represent black or asian persons with some painting skills (you just won't have a nice afro or cool curlie hairs).

The only minority that would need more representation would be women (the «minority» that makes for 53% of the world population). You can't really go around this one. Its especially true for Cadians who would have around 50% to 60% females in their ranks. The idea of using women as a form of cattle is ridiculous in a sci-fi setting like 40K. Have you never heard of the much more efficient and easy technics like cloning (which I think is illegal in the Imperium) or artificial incubators. That way, one or two person can care for hundreds of fetus and infants in optimal condition, much better and safer than the natural way, without putting women in danger or out of productive occupations. Than imagine a form of education similar to the clones in Star Wars. Thats how you make an army out of a planet population in a efficient way. Plus, it has the advantage of allowing women to fully integrate your army (so you have twice more soldiers) and lets face it, women have many physiological advantages that makes them superior to men when it comes to modern or futuristic warfare like the one described in 40K.

Using women in combat - especially in a world like the 40k universe where millions die in groves is totally not in humanities interest. Assuming that women birthing children is the predominant method of reproduction the number of child bearing females a population has determines how quickly it can replenish losses and therefore a women life is more valuable than a mans. That's just common sense. Not to mention the fact that men just make better soldiers anyways. Stronger, faster, easier to strip individualism, stronger mental fortitude. If you were going to clone soldiers per say - why would you clone anything but your largest and strongest soldiers (which would almost certainly be males.) This is all really just common sense.

There are different levels of variety. You can paint your miniatures however you want.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Using women in combat - especially in a world like the 40k universe where millions die in groves is totally not in humanities interest.

There is a person there. There is a spare lasgun. Give said lasgun to said person, tell them to fire it at the enemy on pain of death. Doesn't matter whether or not the person has a penis or a vagina. It matters that they're firing the fething lasgun at the fething enemy.

 Xenomancers wrote:
That's just common sense.

"Common sense" has always been the excuse of people who assert nonsense, see also:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Not to mention the fact that men just make better soldiers anyways. Stronger, faster, easier to strip individualism, stronger mental fortitude.

People are individuals, not stereotypes. I'm stronger than most of the people on this forum. Also more physically fit, too. Grab the average player out of a GW store and I would likely beat them in almost any physical contest. Hell, most people here couldn't even do one chin-up.

"But Melissia!" I hear you say, "Cadian men wouldn't be like that!" But neither would Cadian women be like the average American woman. Don't forget that women in modern society are constantly pushed AWAY from physical exercise. Mocked for having muscles ("only a dyke would be that strong", for example). Cadian women have raised since birth as soldiers; to the point where the legend goes that Cadians are taught how to aim a lasgun before they're taught how to walk. Even though training doesn't officially begin until 14, they are in a culture that values military prowess more than anything. The average Cadian girl isn't playing with dolls, they're playing with a "build your own lasgun" kit and target shooting. Rather than playing "house" or "doctor", they're playing "Orks and Guardsmen" or "Leman Russ Crew".

And then they officially join the Cadian military, and are instilled with training and discipline to combat the foul minions of Chaos and the horrors of the Warp.

 LordBaronVonVaderham wrote:
Re-read this thread and see if that changes your mind.

It will not. I have taken part in dozens of threads like this.

 LordBaronVonVaderham wrote:
Go to your LGS and watch the reaction when an attractive woman walks in.

Sadly this basically never even happens.

 LordBaronVonVaderham wrote:
I can understand you not liking the stereotypes, but they didn't appear out of nowhere. Whenever I begin to think that maybe that will change, I see things like this thread.

The thing is, I am pretty sure you would be surprised by the marital status of a bunch of people in those threads. Certainly if being sexist prevented one from getting girlfriends and then wives, less people would be. But it is not the case. Similarly, being feminist does not mean one will get girlfriends (and it is not supposed to anyway).

 Melissia wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Using women in combat - especially in a world like the 40k universe where millions die in groves is totally not in humanities interest.

There is a person there. There is a spare lasgun. Give said lasgun to said person, tell them to fire it at the enemy on pain of death. Doesn't matter whether or not the person has a penis or a vagina. It matters that they're firing the fething lasgun at the fething enemy.

 Xenomancers wrote:
That's just common sense.

"Common sense" has always been the excuse of people who assert nonsense, see also:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Not to mention the fact that men just make better soldiers anyways. Stronger, faster, easier to strip individualism, stronger mental fortitude.

People are individuals, not stereotypes. I'm stronger than most of the people on this forum. Also more physically fit, too. Grab the average player out of a GW store and I would likely beat them in almost any physical contest. Hell, most people here couldn't even do one chin-up.

"But Melissia!" I hear you say, "Cadian men wouldn't be like that!" But neither would Cadian women be like the average American woman. Don't forget that women in modern society are constantly pushed AWAY from physical exercise. Mocked for having muscles ("only a dyke would be that strong", for example). Cadian women have raised since birth as soldiers; to the point where the legend goes that Cadians are taught how to aim a lasgun before they're taught how to walk. Even though training doesn't officially begin until 14, they are in a culture that values military prowess more than anything. The average Cadian girl isn't playing with dolls, they're playing with a "build your own lasgun" kit and target shooting. Rather than playing "house" or "doctor", they're playing "Orks and Guardsmen" or "Leman Russ Crew".

And then they officially join the Cadian military, and are instilled with training and discipline to combat the foul minions of Chaos and the horrors of the Warp.

This is a fantasy game - feel free to play it or model it to your own fashion. Female guardsmen will have the same stats as the male ones. You mistake my statements for misogyny, when in fact it's just the logical way to run a military culture.

 Melissia wrote:
Don't forget that women in modern society are constantly pushed AWAY from physical exercise. Mocked for having muscles ("only a dyke would be that strong", for example).

Reminds me of that tweet from Maddelisk.

Point of note here also, for the 'women can't be soldiers' crowd.

Speaking of general trends here. Either gender has members that step outside the trend, which is why it's a trend not a natural law...

Men, as a whole and given equal training do tend to outmass and outmuscle women. Sheer dumb aggression and force leans towards the men.

Women have higher pain thresholds and better endurance under adverse situations. The female soldiers i've met also tended to be more pragmatic and generally calmer in a bad spot than the men. When reasoned thought and creativity are called for under pressure i'd look to a woman.

Men are better at single-minded 'get this specific thing done' type of orders.

Women are better, far far better, at multitasking and organisation.

I have several friends of both genders in various parts of the service. On the whole (personal experience) the women would make better officers, strategists and logistics/intelligence than the men.

Both sets of traits are valuable in soldiers. you aren't always looking for a Brawny McBiceps to get things done.

YMMV of course

 Xenomancers wrote:
This is a fantasy game

Which doesn't stop me from saying your fantasy is inferior to my fantasy.

 Melissia wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
You do know women have children and it makes them useless for 9+ months right?

No it doesn't. Sometimes it's not even noticed for months before they realize they're pregnant, unless they're constantly testing. And even afterwards, many mothers stay active doing normal duty up until birth; depending on their own personal level of fitness and what their job is, some request light duty at various points in the pregnancy, and some take off from work entirely.

Unfortunately, given that so many people work part time these days and thus have no benefits, many are also back to work very quickly after birth, sometimes even back to work immediately the day after-- the recommended time is six weeks, but that's also dependent on the idea that the woman who gives birth is the primary caretaker of the child, which is not a situation that makes sense for Cadia (communal nurseries make more sense, as they would foster a sense of military community from birth-- physically, without concern for caring for the child, many women need only a few days of rest at most after birth, or more if they needed surgery).

So... no. I do not "know" that women who have children become "useless for 9+ months", because I'm not massively ignorant.

Perhaps you should forget that "fact" so you are likewise not ignorant.

The baby must be breast feed and raised. Which adds months on the end which can be shaved off the front. If a women gets pregnant while deployed they aren't getting a special ship home, which means they need to terminate a precious fighting body through abortion. If you send half the population off to die on a regular basis you will have to have a lot of breeding or it wont be sustainable.

How will sending people regardless of gender be a sustainable system of constant warfare.

Babies are a "burden" during pregnancy and after. Likely when they are off breastmilk they will go to schools/training and the mother will have to have another one or Cadia will not exist for very long. It will have to be a giant farm really. With soldiers as the produce.

 Swastakowey wrote:
The baby must be breast feed and raised.

So what? None of that means that the soldier in question must do either one or both of those things.

 LordBaronVonVaderham wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 LordBaronVonVaderham wrote:
We all know that there are no women in 40K because the fluff writers and many of the players have never seen one closer than one meter and have know nothing about them they didn't learn from porn.

I am very tired of these kinds of assumptions.

It wasn't really an assumption, more of a casual insult with more than little truth to it.

Cadian military service starts at 14 and I just read several posts trying to argue that sending 14 year old girls to serve as prostiitutes and baby machines was perfectly justifiable in a total war scenario. Even leaving age aside, the notion that the best thing a woman can do is please a man and have babies is apalling. I find it hard to believe that someone with those beliefs is a normal well adjusted adult with a healthy relationship with the opposite sex.

If you were to run a planet on the premise that you wanted to create the highest capability soldiers, you would take the best canidates, male or female, and assign them to the role that suits them best. There will be women at their best in the infantry, not 50% because men have a higher top end for physical strength, but there would be some. There will be men who are better off as non combat soldiers.

You're assuming the Imperium gives a damn about human rights. It doesn't. All the Imperium cares about logistics, and that which would provide it with a continuous stream of soldiers for future campaigns. Considering these are the same people that consider genocide just another Tuesday, "justified' has nothing to do with the Imperium.

These are also the same people who toss human lives away like pies at a clown convention and don't really care whether or not said lives are male or female. You're way too obsessed with gender to be a good Inquisitor.