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.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
No, however you could argue that slaanesh, or tzeentch could change the sex of a marine with warp magic. Seems the kind of thing slaanesh dudes would be into.. Although gw tends to steer clear of sex and sexuality in its fiction.

Only when wants to play up the Genestealer Cults, and that’s just fade-to-black.

It's rarely mentioned because the fanbase hates it, but in cannon about 30% of space marines are female, so of course there will be female CSM!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
It's rarely mentioned because the fanbase hates it, but in cannon about 30% of space marines are female, so of course there will be female CSM!

Note sure if sarcasm or not. Really don’t believe that.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
No, however you could argue that slaanesh, or tzeentch could change the sex of a marine with warp magic. Seems the kind of thing slaanesh dudes would be into.. Although gw tends to steer clear of sex and sexuality in its fiction.

I really doubt that. Changing sex doesn't add much potential for new experiences for marines and if you're going to bother remaking them you may as well make them one of the aliens with more senses than humans.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
I'm thinking I delving into Chaos Space Marines and was toying with the idea of making an all-female group, using Necromunda Escher-gang heads

Logistically I think that'd look kinda silly, escher heads are very small. The only necromunda gang heads I think would look OK on a space marine are Goliaths, if you were making like punk marines or Emperor's Children guys. I've used Orlock heads on space marines before and even using greenstuff to build their neck up they look pretty pinheaded, and Eschers are significantly smaller than that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Animus wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm not seeing how female chaos marines are in any way non-canonical. The already "muh in-fiction science limitation" excuse kinda falls away when you're talking about a group of heretics who are more likely to actively deny standard procedures to spite the foolish followers of the corpse-emperor and who are also using magic daemon power.

Because it's not an issue of dogma, it's an issue of it physically not working.

I think in a society where you can indeterminately preserve a human brain and wire it up to run a robot, tank, gun emplacement, trash compactor, whatever, you have to conclude that any technology that cares about genitals does so at least partially because of dogma.

it's like that short story they came out with a little while ago where they had a telepathic messaging device that would only work if someone inserted a fingernail and had it ripped out.

It's a technological limitation that that particular machine can't work without a fingernail.

It's dogma that keeps them from redesigning the machine so it works without needing to eat fingernails.

Throw in crazy warpsmiths who actively reject that dogma and a helping of literal magic, and there is zero, zero reason why there are not female CSMs. I'm sure theyre rarer, because all the original traitor legionnaires are going to be male and all the renegade chapters who used to be codex-compliant are going to be male, but there is absolutely nothing about a female csm that conflicts with canon.

Again, Slaanesh isn't female. Shkle isn't male.

Shkle is genderfluid and genderfluidity is a defining characteristic of the entire Slaaneshi pantheon. Genderfluid is not female. So I don't buy that Slaanesh would presto-chango a CSM into a female, nor does same fit with the generally slap-dash ways the Gods are depicted as handing out 'favours'.

A Spawn seems vastly more likely than a Sheila.

Tzeentch, I can buy that, but I personally wouldn't use it. It's a bit thin; effectively nothing more than "a wizard did it". Not telling anyone else how to feel, this is just how I feel. Your crack, your rules.

Meh, I was just helping the guy out. I sit on the side of only male marines.

Excommunicatus wrote:Again, Slaanesh isn't female. Shkle isn't male.

Shkle is genderfluid and genderfluidity is a defining characteristic of the entire Slaaneshi pantheon. Genderfluid is not female. So I don't buy that Slaanesh would presto-chango a CSM into a female, nor does same fit with the generally slap-dash ways the Gods are depicted as handing out 'favours'.

A Spawn seems vastly more likely than a Sheila.

Tzeentch, I can buy that, but I personally wouldn't use it. It's a bit thin; effectively nothing more than "a wizard did it". Not telling anyone else how to feel, this is just how I feel. Your crack, your rules.

First off, I commend you on using the word "shkle" unironically. Strength of convictions, and all that.




Second, with as much "a wizard did it" (Christ, I just threw up blood. Why did I have to quote TVTropes?!??!) as there is in GW fiction already, why is it suddenly a stretch here?

Make whatever you want with your toys. It's your property.

I don't like the idea of female marines of either loyalist or heretic flavor, but that's my opinion (and a lot of peoples' opinions, and pretty much the canon) but overall that doesn't matter.

Sure, even if it bothers me, I'll be honest-

It would bother me more that you bought something and didn't enjoy it, or that you felt like you were wasting your money, or that you couldn't make something because random people on the internet disapprove of it.

Your property. Have fun and make what you like.

 Just Tony wrote:

Excommunicatus wrote:Again, Slaanesh isn't female. Shkle isn't male.

Shkle is genderfluid and genderfluidity is a defining characteristic of the entire Slaaneshi pantheon. Genderfluid is not female. So I don't buy that Slaanesh would presto-chango a CSM into a female, nor does same fit with the generally slap-dash ways the Gods are depicted as handing out 'favours'.

A Spawn seems vastly more likely than a Sheila.

Tzeentch, I can buy that, but I personally wouldn't use it. It's a bit thin; effectively nothing more than "a wizard did it". Not telling anyone else how to feel, this is just how I feel. Your crack, your rules.

First off, I commend you on using the word "shkle" unironically. Strength of convictions, and all that.




Second, with as much "a wizard did it" (Christ, I just threw up blood. Why did I have to quote TVTropes?!??!) as there is in GW fiction already, why is it suddenly a stretch here?

It is always a stretch, IMO.

The difference is that I am somewhat forced to accept it in the official canon, whereas I'm saying in the above that I wouldn't use it as part of the fluff for my army.

I would think up a reason more convincing to me personally.

On the Slaanesh side of things, they tend to enjoy the wearing of obnoxious/exotic/regal colors and do tend towards the various arts. And female eyes are more perceptive to color. Ergo, in the name of visual excess, a female physiology allows for greater pleasure in those exotic colors that they adorn themselves with. Also a shrill female voice would make for one hell of a noise marine voice, especially once it is distorted like I would imagine it would be either from the warp, helmet, or the surgical replacement of their mouths with a speaker I’ve seen in some of the art. Thematically, it could be interesting in those regards. By virtue of pure slaaneshi corruption, though, the biological differences between a man and woman’s eyes could be completely reversed, or with Slaanesh’s blessings. Gender identity could also represent itself in a Slaanesh war band; such concepts could be very counterintuitive to the imperium and transgenders in this universe could find themselves heretics. Such things would be very welcome by Slaanesh’s followers, as they tend to pursue more individualistic pursuits and such deviances would be something a Slaanesh follower would pursue.

Female Chaos Space Marines aren't a thing, unless Black Library conjures up some experiment conducted by Fabius Bile or others. Why? Because the gene-seed and other organs/implants are keyed to the genetics in males. Yes, you could add extra organs and implants, but they still would technically be a non-Chaos Space Marine.

 Psionara wrote:
Female Chaos Space Marines aren't a thing, unless Black Library conjures up some experiment conducted by Fabius Bile or others. Why? Because the gene-seed and other organs/implants are keyed to the genetics in males. Yes, you could add extra organs and implants, but they still would technically be a non-Chaos Space Marine.

to be honest most 'new' chaos space marines aren't space marines either. The progenoid glands become degenerate and unusable in chaos hosts, so many recruits become 'chaos space marines' though warpspace technosorcery rather than the traditional route. No reason a girl couldn't be used for that. If you dismiss a girl turned chaos marine because it didn't use the progenoid method then you've also got to dismiss many, many othrr (male) chaos space marines too.

nareik wrote:

 Psionara wrote:
Female Chaos Space Marines aren't a thing, unless Black Library conjures up some experiment conducted by Fabius Bile or others. Why? Because the gene-seed and other organs/implants are keyed to the genetics in males. Yes, you could add extra organs and implants, but they still would technically be a non-Chaos Space Marine.

to be honest most 'new' chaos space marines aren't space marines either. The progenoid glands become degenerate and unusable in chaos hosts, so many recruits become 'chaos space marines' though warpspace technosorcery rather than the traditional route. No reason a girl couldn't be used for that. If you dismiss a girl turned chaos marine because it didn't use the progenoid method then you've also got to dismiss many, many othrr (male) chaos space marines too.

I totally agree with you! I was even planning to post called "They Are Not Once We Were: A Chaos Space Marine Thread", which would have talked about how the newest Chaos Space Marines now are not true Chaos Space Marines due to the warp-exposure, entropy, decay of certain particular augmentations, whether organic and/or mechanical.

Fluff wise there are no female marines, so no female chaos marines; you can justify traitor sisters or female inquisitors in power armor.

Model wise you can take a look at AoS sigmarines, there are some female models that may be suitable for conversions, they’re more likely to be in the same scale.

I'll side with the warp on this one, who knows how things started, but I'm sure at least one chaos marine refers to them self as she by this point.

And between the marine-ification process and the warp, I'm not sure we'd be particularly able to tell what happened unless explicitly told.

Male imperial marines is a hill I'll die on because it's part of how patriarchal the imperium is and one of the many signs of it's blatant inequalities. Chaos, Fabius has probably done the same thing I've got sitting around to annoy people, put a female head on a marine body and watch people twitch because of it.

 Apple Peel wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
It's rarely mentioned because the fanbase hates it, but in cannon about 30% of space marines are female, so of course there will be female CSM!

Note sure if sarcasm or not. Really don’t believe that.

As I said, it's not a very well-known fact, most people don't know about it!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
It's rarely mentioned because the fanbase hates it, but in cannon about 30% of space marines are female, so of course there will be female CSM!

Note sure if sarcasm or not. Really don’t believe that.

As I said, it's not a very well-known fact, most people don't know about it!

This is the part in which you give the source, you ding-dong.

 Apple Peel wrote:
This is the part in which you give the source, you ding-dong.

He's sitting on it.

"There are no female marines" is not actually canon.

"Geneseed can only be successfully implanted into pre-pubescent male humans" is canon. Space Wolves get to play fast and loose with the "pre-pubescent" bit, of course.

There's no reason any such biological limitations should still apply to geneseed that's been marinating in the Eye of Terror for 10,000 years.

There's no reason such limitations should apply to geneseed that's been mucked about with by Fabius Bile, or to whatever custom CSM-equivalents Random Chaos Warlord #3617 is using.

Also, if we assume Iskandar Khayon is correct about what causes Chaos 'gifts' (i.e. that the Warp changes your body to match the truth of your soul), then all it would take would be an originally-biologically-male CSM who identified as female, and her biology would eventually change to fit.

That would probably be rare, though, as Astartes in general identify very strongly as male. (And Slaaneshi CSM tend to identify as genderfluid, which by Khayon's theory would lead their biology towards either hermaphroditism or constant change between male and female).

FWIW, my Night Lords don't have any female CSM-equivalents, because they don't hang out in the Eye and they kill any of their number who start mutating too radically. (Although they did stick a captive SoB canoness in a modified hellbrute, because they felt her over-use of penitent engines deserved some poetic justice). My Black Legion warband's warpsmith is a female member of the Dark Mechanicum, and they probably have a few (helmeted) female CSMs. The Black Legion only care that you swear fealty to Abaddon and fight the Long War against the Imperium; they don't care whether you're a 'real' Astartes or what you keep in your pants. The Ezekarion canonically has at least a couple of female members, after all.

Primaris exists... if toying with the formula can produce even better space marines during a time when scientific though and progress are at a nearly grinding halt, then why can’t chaos retool chaos space marine creation processes to create female chaos space marines? It would explain the spike tax on the table top if they are just making the female form work with something it isn’t meant to...cawl can’t be the only one qualified to mess with it. Besides, there was the Honsou debacle... which in canon meant that they were able to bypass the entire genetic portion of the marine manufacturing process by birthing the, from females...

 Big Mac wrote:
Fluff wise there are no female marines, so no female chaos marines; you can justify traitor sisters or female inquisitors in power armor.

Model wise you can take a look at AoS sigmarines, there are some female models that may be suitable for conversions, they’re more likely to be in the same scale.

You're only considering the route space marine becomes chaos, which is not the route most chaos marines generated in the eye are created. The more common route is chaos becomes space marine, and as discussed earlier, these chaos 'space marines' are barely marines by imperial standards. Created through warp shenanigans, sorcery and forbidden tech due to a lack of access to clean gene seed.

Sure you 'can't' create female space marines the imperial way, but why not the eye of terror way? Once you're roid/warp jacked them, slapped on a half functional suit of mk V and mind wiped them, whose to know?

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:
This is the part in which you give the source, you ding-dong.

He's sitting on it.

No, it's on the book with the rules, but like almost last paragraph, few people read up to there.
And I'm not sitting on the book .

[Citation Needed]

I read the last twenty pages of the Rulebook, nothing even remotely like what you're selling here exists there.

Dude, there is some lost in translation here, he is playing! Pulling your leg!

Oh. I was confused, 'cause normally jokes have some sort of punchline.

---------------------------------

There is only one way to create a Space Marine. Chaos forces may well be able to jury-rig something that looks and acts to all intents and purposes exactly like a Space Marine, but it is not a Space Marine.

You cannot be a Chaos Space Marine unless you were once a Space Marine. You cannot be a female Space Marine without first being a Space Marine, who are all male because toxic masculinity. So, no female Chaos Space Marines excepting the use of actual magic to genderswap a Space Marine.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

However, obviously, from a TT perspective, "looks and acts... ...like a [Chaos] Space Marine" is perfectly sufficient.

 Excommunicatus wrote:

You cannot be a Chaos Space Marine unless you were once a Space Marine

That's not strictly true. In Dead Sky Black Sun the warsmith Honsou was clearly making chaos marines using a combination of demonic energy and weird biological experiments by placing aspirants into a corrupted womb thing. They went from being human straight to being chaos marines.

I'm sure Fabius Bile probably has cloning or other techniques to just make chaos marines as well.

]

 Excommunicatus wrote:

You cannot be a Chaos Space Marine unless you were once a Space Marine

pelicaniforce wrote:
Patriarchal imperium makes it seem like a cartoon a but.

Yes, that is the point.

In the Imperium there’s industrial scale oppression and to me it’s more convincing that everyone is a cog, especially space marines the living weapons, and every amount of individual identity is stripped away and all that matters is if they can be trained to hate and if they can pull the trigger. It also is more brutal because women have always played roles in genocide, even if it is a little less dramatized than roving bands of troops.

Damn, the point just left.

40k is heroic legend perverted authoritarian demands of a million sacrifices made in the name of security or necessity. And all it takes to make either of those to be considered true is for captain authoritarian, the emperor, to say so. So if the emperor is an ancient misogynistic prick, you don't get female space marines.

And really, this is the guard. They're the average foot sloggers that hold ground and eventually grind the entire population to dust. Space marines are your ... actually having trouble deciding who I want to offend here, so let's go generic, they are your photo op special forces. They are a force crafted for an image, which was selected by a really old man with a minor god complex and a major chip up his butt. It only makes sense that the decision is far from purely practical, he made that image and little of what he does is particularly practical. The imperium isn't practical, it's a nightmare. It's the image of where you get when you follow someone like the emperor, and all his follow up cronies once the original is stuck in the golden can.

Misplaced decimals devastate planets for missing tithe and leave armies to starve in the field. It's far from some functional, logical super state that people kinda have to make it be in their minds to actually like the imperium.

There may well be a ton of fallen Sisters, but knowledge of them might be even more classified than that of Chaos Marines. This may be due to the Sisters' connection to the Ecclesiarchy, since if it got out that the most zealous defenders of the Church were able to be swayed by the whispers of crazy space monsters, faith in the Imperial Creed and the entire Imperium as a whole might take a serious hit.