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nvm, not pertinent.

Given the marine process seems to be keyed to male puberty and you start with prepubescents presumably you’d need to spoof that to make a female marine.

In which case the end result would probably look much the same unless you went examining their crotch.

Whether similar applies to Thinder Warriors, who knows. But I think there is an implication those start with adults in which case the effects of puberty have already happened and so you’re generally going to want men.

It is pretty pointless to argue about "realism" of these enhancement processes. Marines gain ability to read people's memories by cannibalising them FFS! It is all nonsense, really. It works the way it does because GW says it does, and they can just as easily change or retcon it if they want.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:
I've been deep diving and finding as much lore as I can on Thunder Warriors in preparation for a Thunder Warriors army I'm making and it's got me curious. I know many of the individuals too old to become full Astartes would undergo gene and biochemical enhancements which sounds very similar to how Thunder Warriors are described (just probably with more stability in mind). And since Thunder Warriors don't have the limitations of Gene Seed that Astartes have I can't think of a reason why there couldn't have plausibly been female Thunder Warriors? Anyone have any more lore on the idea?

"The earlier Thunder Warriors had been crafted from adult males". First Founding, page 8

 Crimson wrote:
It is pretty pointless to argue about "realism" of these enhancement processes. Marines gain ability to read people's memories by cannibalising them FFS! It is all nonsense, really. It works the way it does because GW says it does, and they can just as easily change or retcon it if they want.

Exactly. It's all technobabble nonsense and there is no point in theorizing about how "a wizard did it" works. Marines are all-male because GW says so, if GW wanted to sell female marines tomorrow they'd throw some other "a wizard did it" stuff at the problem and suddenly female marines would be part of the setting. And you certainly can't extrapolate any of it to anything other than marines.


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the ancient wrote:
No doubt theres probably a few females out there if equally trained and equipped, could beat up a dude, but you dont double your research costs, for probably a less than, being generous, than a 1% of 2% return. When your testing and recruitment already has very low rates of success.

Literally every single female in power armor has the exact same strength as every single male in power armor. The whole point of power armor is that the armor itself provides the strength, the human inside is just pushing the button that tells the armor what to do.

Power armour, isnt just a whoever you put in it, it works the same. It amplifies their strength. Its more of a, if you can only lift a wheel barrow, you can now lift 2. But if you can drag a car, you might be able to drag a bus kinda thing. They still work just as hard inside the shell.

That is not how power armor works. If you want more strength from power armor you just increase the gain on the servos. If a female in power armor can't drag a bus then neither can a male.

Just spit balling. Maybe Emps tried. Apart from ease of use with males, The Ossmodula, could give females a pregnant type body., Haemastamen might have problems every month. Progenoids disposes of material every month, not store it. Most enhancements seem to work in combination with the base. Enhances male aggression, bulk.

Which is all technobabble nonsense like the entire marine process in general. You could pick any of those reasons if you don't want female marines to exist in the setting but there's no reason any of them must be true.


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Hecaton wrote:
That explanation of puberty is simplified to the point of error.

No, it's actually correct. Your genes contain both male and female recipes, the Y chromosome simply triggers the hormone mix that causes the body to follow the male recipe. This is why hormone treatments for transgender people are so effective, all you have to do is flip the switch on what recipe your body follows. So if you need a taller person to make a taller marine and you also need to start at a certain age point you will in fact be better off taking a tall girl over a short boy and then activating all of the marine enhancements.

More specifically it is the SRY region usually found on the Y chromosome that does it. The SRY region is sometimes found on an X chromosome and such people are XXsry but genetically male.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Not trying to open a can of worms, but could female custodes be a thing? They don't use genseed, do they? The process for their creation is about as different from astartes as astartes are from thunder warriors?

Do custodes have sex or gender? They are custom built warriors but not designed to procreate so I don’t know why the emperor would have included the chromosomes to give them sex or gender

They're male presenting regardless of whether or not they have the specific body parts.

mrFickle wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Not trying to open a can of worms, but could female custodes be a thing? They don't use genseed, do they? The process for their creation is about as different from astartes as astartes are from thunder warriors?

Do custodes have sex or gender? They are custom built warriors but not designed to procreate so I don’t know why the emperor would have included the chromosomes to give them sex or gender

We know that they're modified humans, so they presumably would start with a sex/gender. Not sure if the Emprah would consider it worthwhile to go out of his way to remove those traits.

But as Gert points out, we've only ever seen custodes that use masculine pronouns. Which could just be part of custodes culture or could be a sign that only male initiates are custod-ified. Or it could just be a coincidence and there actually are fem-stodes that simply haven't been "on camera" yet.

Was just a passing thought. As with astartes, there isn't really a reason not to have fem-stodes other than tradition/inertia. Astartes have doubled down on the magic space science being incompatible with afab folk, but custodes haven't been on camera nearly as much and don't use the same process. So there doesn't seem to be any canon preventing afab custodes candidates from being a thing.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Literally every single female in power armor has the exact same strength as every single male in power armor. The whole point of power armor is that the armor itself provides the strength, the human inside is just pushing the button that tells the armor what to do.

Nah. In every depiction it's been portrayed as a modifier on the user's strength - the strength of the person inside it still matters. That's why Inquisitor Coteaz doesn't have the strength of a space marine.


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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

No, it's actually correct. Your genes contain both male and female recipes, the Y chromosome simply triggers the hormone mix that causes the body to follow the male recipe. This is why hormone treatments for transgender people are so effective, all you have to do is flip the switch on what recipe your body follows. So if you need a taller person to make a taller marine and you also need to start at a certain age point you will in fact be better off taking a tall girl over a short boy and then activating all of the marine enhancements.

You're in Dunning-Kruger territory here. There are a number of other factors that affect puberty, and the Y chromosome has genes not found on the X chromosome.

Hormone treatments for transgender people have a host of complications and distinctions from a human's unaltered biology; it's not easy, it's not a matter of simply "flipping a switch," even if done during puberty.

The "age point" would be earlier for girls if they entered puberty earlier, so it wouldn't matter; moreover, the age of puberty varies differentially between male and female humans depending on a number of factors.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

mrFickle wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Not trying to open a can of worms, but could female custodes be a thing? They don't use genseed, do they? The process for their creation is about as different from astartes as astartes are from thunder warriors?

Do custodes have sex or gender? They are custom built warriors but not designed to procreate so I don’t know why the emperor would have included the chromosomes to give them sex or gender

We know that they're modified humans, so they presumably would start with a sex/gender. Not sure if the Emprah would consider it worthwhile to go out of his way to remove those traits.

But as Gert points out, we've only ever seen custodes that use masculine pronouns. Which could just be part of custodes culture or could be a sign that only male initiates are custod-ified. Or it could just be a coincidence and there actually are fem-stodes that simply haven't been "on camera" yet.

Was just a passing thought. As with astartes, there isn't really a reason not to have fem-stodes other than tradition/inertia. Astartes have doubled down on the magic space science being incompatible with afab folk, but custodes haven't been on camera nearly as much and don't use the same process. So there doesn't seem to be any canon preventing afab custodes candidates from being a thing.

I thought custodes started in a Petri dish rather than being transformed from a human body. But I’m no expert in custodes.

No Custodes are still crafted from humans. They're taken from the Terran nobility.

 Crimson wrote:
It is pretty pointless to argue about "realism" of these enhancement processes. Marines gain ability to read people's memories by cannibalising them FFS! It is all nonsense, really. It works the way it does because GW says it does, and they can just as easily change or retcon it if they want.

Memories are stored in molecules - if they can absorb those molecules, it's theoretically possible to gain access to those memories.


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 Haighus wrote:
More specifically it is the SRY region usually found on the Y chromosome that does it. The SRY region is sometimes found on an X chromosome and such people are XXsry but genetically male.

Do you mean "phenotypically male"?

In any case, humans with two X chromosomes and an active SRY gene have some male characteristics, but the degree to which they develop male characteristics is variable - they'd be best classified as intersex rather than purely "male phenotype."

mrFickle wrote:

I thought custodes started in a Petri dish rather than being transformed from a human body. But I’m no expert in custodes.

so, the they start with the children of terran nobility who are then modified, who are said to be taken much younger than the early teens that astartes are taken at (so, younger than 10, but no hard numbers), and the lore text explicitly says "sons", but its literally the one gendered reference, and the rest of it is gender neutral purals (ie "they"), until the full custodes comes out the end, who is also explicitly said to be so different form the child that went in, mentaly and physically, its impossible to link them back to any of the applicants.

Hecaton wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Literally every single female in power armor has the exact same strength as every single male in power armor. The whole point of power armor is that the armor itself provides the strength, the human inside is just pushing the button that tells the armor what to do.

Nah. In every depiction it's been portrayed as a modifier on the user's strength - the strength of the person inside it still matters. That's why Inquisitor Coteaz doesn't have the strength of a space marine.

You're fully in logic bro land here. It's like saying a tank is a modifier on the driver's athleticism. An athletic driver will probably be able to perform slightly better than a non-athletic driver, but it's still an irrelevant consideration overall.

I have two questions for you. Answer 'yes' or answer 'no.'

Is Inquisitor Coteaz the same size as a Space Marine?
Does inquisitor Coteaz wear the same size armour as a Space Marine?

 Altruizine wrote:

Is Inquisitor Coteaz the same size as a Space Marine?
Does inquisitor Coteaz wear the same size armour as a Space Marine?

At the time he was released, the answer was yes to both.

In every rules depiction of power armor from GW, both tabletop and rpg, it has never invalidated the user's strength.

Hecaton wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
It is pretty pointless to argue about "realism" of these enhancement processes. Marines gain ability to read people's memories by cannibalising them FFS! It is all nonsense, really. It works the way it does because GW says it does, and they can just as easily change or retcon it if they want.

Memories are stored in molecules - if they can absorb those molecules, it's theoretically possible to gain access to those memories.


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 Haighus wrote:
More specifically it is the SRY region usually found on the Y chromosome that does it. The SRY region is sometimes found on an X chromosome and such people are XXsry but genetically male.

Do you mean "phenotypically male"?

In any case, humans with two X chromosomes and an active SRY gene have some male characteristics, but the degree to which they develop male characteristics is variable - they'd be best classified as intersex rather than purely "male phenotype."

Well, after a bunch of reading, turns out my old lecturer grossly oversimplified XX males. They are indeed intersex and I was incorrect above.

Although apparently the majority with an SRY region have a male phenotype that is generally not reliably distinguishable without genetic testing (generally shorter and less strong, but with internally and externally male sexual appearance). They are typically infertile despite that (I have not yet found out why).

Hecaton wrote:
Memories are stored in molecules - if they can absorb those molecules, it's theoretically possible to gain access to those memories.

No, memories are stored in the arrangement of cells. If you destroy that arrangement there is nothing left. It's like saying you can access the contents of a computer if you take the hard drive out, grind it into sand, and then eat the sand. It's pure "a wizard did it" magic.

The easiest answer would be to point out that the Emperors goal was to advance baseline humanity. Space Marines were designed to assist in this mission, not to replace humans. And to make this clear there are no female Marines (and the male Marines seems to lack sexual interests). The Marines need humans to get new Marines.

Thunder Warriors had the same reasoning, but less honest about it to the Warriors. I guess Big E gave the strongest/best/worst technobarbarians an offer of "a short life filled with battle, glory and plunder" by becoming Warriors and not expecting children nor retirement. Creating female Warriors would create complications, and it doesn't seem that there was a lack of manpower on pre-Unity Earth so any breeding program was unnecessary.

But if you want female Thunder Warriors it is in no way impossible. Maybe some techpriest that was involved in the Thunder Warrior project (or simply had access to the documents describing the procedure) joined Horus and started to create Thunder Warriors v 1.1. And Fabius Bile have created both New Men and glandhounds, so female "Thunder Warriors" (or female Marines) could be his next hobby project. Chaos should appreciate the ... chaos that would be the result of "original" Space Marines finding out that female "Space Marines" existed.

Hecaton wrote:
Nah. In every depiction it's been portrayed as a modifier on the user's strength - the strength of the person inside it still matters. That's why Inquisitor Coteaz doesn't have the strength of a space marine.

GW can say it all they like but that's not how power armor works. It's like saying that if you take an olympic sprinter and a normal person and put them both in the same model of airplane the sprinter's plane will be faster.

The most charitable interpretation is that because the Imperium is a backwards theocracy run by lunatics and the admech is a cargo cult they've simply forgotten how to edit the gain value in the control software and only the strongest users are capable of reaching the maximum strength of the armor.

You're in Dunning-Kruger territory here. There are a number of other factors that affect puberty, and the Y chromosome has genes not found on the X chromosome.

No, I've just slightly simplified things for you and given the 101-level explanation since you don't seem to understand genetics. The Y chromosome is a signaling device that triggers the male recipe (with the default recipe being female). This is why you have people with chromosomes other than XX or XY who have no idea what their actual genes are unless they have some other reason to get genetic testing done.

Hormone treatments for transgender people have a host of complications and distinctions from a human's unaltered biology; it's not easy, it's not a matter of simply "flipping a switch," even if done during puberty.

Only because they can't start at birth and so some of the recipe has already been followed. But aside from not being able to undo the things that have already been done the result is pretty much indistinguishable from someone who had that hormone mix since birth.

The "age point" would be earlier for girls if they entered puberty earlier

Depends on how the magic works. If the spell requires the target to be at a certain stage of development then perhaps this is true. If the spell has to be cast on the target's 10th birthday because 10 was the sacred number of the wizard who created it then this is false, 10 will be the age regardless of chromosomes.

 Haighus wrote:

Well, after a bunch of reading, turns out my old lecturer grossly oversimplified XX males. They are indeed intersex and I was incorrect above.

Although apparently the majority with an SRY region have a male phenotype that is generally not reliably distinguishable without genetic testing (generally shorter and less strong, but with internally and externally male sexual appearance). They are typically infertile despite that (I have not yet found out why).

Their gonads are typically a mix of ovarian and testicular tissue - which doesn't have reproductive functionality, it has to be one or the other.

It's a complex topic so unless it was covered in depth there's good chance that the detail would have been lost.


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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

No, memories are stored in the arrangement of cells. If you destroy that arrangement there is nothing left. It's like saying you can access the contents of a computer if you take the hard drive out, grind it into sand, and then eat the sand. It's pure "a wizard did it" magic.

That's not a good analogy because you can't reconstruct a hard drive from sand - but you can reconstruct the structure of a brain from DNA, and re-arranging cells in a given brain doesn't produce new memories. There's a molecular basis for memory, though some of it may be stored in the extracellular matrix.

Hecaton wrote:
but you can reconstruct the structure of a brain from DNA

Lolwut. No, you very definitely can not. The connections between cells that form memory are absolutely not encoded in DNA, they are formed during your life to create those memories.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
GW can say it all they like but that's not how power armor works. It's like saying that if you take an olympic sprinter and a normal person and put them both in the same model of airplane the sprinter's plane will be faster.

No, it's more analogous to putting an olympic sprinter vs. an unathletic normie on a motor-assisted bicycle. It will make anyone faster, but the athlete will reach higher performance.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

No, I've just slightly simplified things for you and given the 101-level explanation since you don't seem to understand genetics. The Y chromosome is a signaling device that triggers the male recipe (with the default recipe being female). This is why you have people with chromosomes other than XX or XY who have no idea what their actual genes are unless they have some other reason to get genetic testing done.

See my other post that goes into a bit more detail on this. Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory on this and are vastly oversimplifying; I'm a biologist and have studied genetics, genomics, and endocrinology extensively. My knowledge isn't perfect, but I know enough to say that a human with two x chromosomes and a single copy of the SRY gene is not just "phenotypically male." It's more complex than that.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Only because they can't start at birth and so some of the recipe has already been followed. But aside from not being able to undo the things that have already been done the result is pretty much indistinguishable from someone who had that hormone mix since birth.

No, even then. The genetic influence, the body's natural sensitivity to sex hormones (including stuff like partial androgen insensitivity syndrome, or PAIS), environmental factors, xenoestrogens.... all this has an effect.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Depends on how the magic works. If the spell requires the target to be at a certain stage of development then perhaps this is true. If the spell has to be cast on the target's 10th birthday because 10 was the sacred number of the wizard who created it then this is false, 10 will be the age regardless of chromosomes.

Right, but the references to the process imply it has more to do with the stage of development than 10 being a sacred number.

The "magic" could also say it only works with male souls in which case girls are out, trans boys are in.


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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Lolwut. No, you very definitely can not. The connections between cells that form memory are absolutely not encoded in DNA, they are formed during your life to create those memories.

The process that creates the brain is. All the information you need to construct a human brain is in human DNA. The process whereby neurons make connections is encoded in DNA, etc.

Hecaton wrote:
No, it's more analogous to putting an olympic sprinter vs. an unathletic normie on a motor-assisted bicycle. It will make anyone faster, but the athlete will reach higher performance.

No, because power armor is not merely an assist. Machine strength is far stronger than human strength, it's like suggesting the professional athlete's jet could be faster because you could hook up a little propeller to some bicycle pedals and add a bit of extra thrust.

It's more complex than that.

Yes, I already said it's more complicated and that I gave you the simple version because you, like GW, are describing something that is nonsense from a scientific point of view.

(And based on your comments about reading memories from DNA I really have to question your supposed professional qualifications here.)

Right, but the references to the process imply it has more to do with the stage of development than 10 being a sacred number.

The references are technobabble nonsense. You can't extrapolate anything from it because none of it makes any sense whatsoever.

The "magic" could also say it only works with male souls in which case girls are out, trans boys are in.

Exactly! It's all magic and completely arbitrary. A trans man with XX chromosomes may very well make a perfect space marine because the magic requires a male soul, not XY chromosomes, and the Imperium is a cargo cult that doesn't understand its own process beyond "grab a bunch of boys and see if any of it works".

Or maybe the reality is that the marine process only works on XX chromosomes and all marines are trans men. All XY males die in the attempt to create a marine, only trans men can survive the process. Cis women could also work, of course, but the Imperium is a cargo cult and never bothers to try.

The process that creates the brain is. All the information you need to construct a human brain is in human DNA. The process whereby neurons make connections is encoded in DNA, etc.

And, once again: memories are not encoded in DNA. DNA can, at best, get you to the raw structure of the brain before it starts making connections during your life. It's like suggesting you can read the contents of a hard drive by looking at the engineering documents from the factory that made it.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
No, because power armor is not merely an assist. Machine strength is far stronger than human strength, it's like suggesting the professional athlete's jet could be faster because you could hook up a little propeller to some bicycle pedals and add a bit of extra thrust.

Given that it enhances the strength of the user, but the user's strength is still relevant, it is, by definition, an assist. So... you're wrong.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Yes, I already said it's more complicated and that I gave you the simple version because you, like GW, are describing something that is nonsense from a scientific point of view.

(And based on your comments about reading memories from DNA I really have to question your supposed professional qualifications here.)

Given I never said that memories were encoded in DNA, I question your supposed knowledge of the English language. Go read it again.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


The references are technobabble nonsense. You can't extrapolate anything from it because none of it makes any sense whatsoever.

It's fantasy tech but it references real-world biological phenomena, so yes, you can extrapolate out what's going on.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Exactly! It's all magic and completely arbitrary. A trans man with XX chromosomes may very well make a perfect space marine because the magic requires a male soul, not XY chromosomes, and the Imperium is a cargo cult that doesn't understand its own process beyond "grab a bunch of boys and see if any of it works".

Well, no, it's not arbitrary within the setting. The setting *does* have internal rules. There's third-person omniscient writing saying it only works on boys/male humans.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

And, once again: memories are not encoded in DNA. DNA can, at best, get you to the raw structure of the brain before it starts making connections during your life. It's like suggesting you can read the contents of a hard drive by looking at the engineering documents from the factory that made it.

You should read what I wrote again. DNA holds information, this is not the same thing as saying DNA carries memories.

Hecaton wrote:
Given that it enhances the strength of the user, but the user's strength is still relevant, it is, by definition, an assist. So... you're wrong.

Or GW, once again, has a very poor understanding of the concept. It wouldn't be the first time GW published stupid lore.

It's fantasy tech but it references real-world biological phenomena, so yes, you can extrapolate out what's going on.

It "references" them in a stupid way that has nothing to do with the real phenomena. It's no different than "reverse the polarity of the graviton singularity to modulate the phase of the plasma beam". Yes, those are all real words that reference things that exist. No, it doesn't make any sense. No, you can not extrapolate anything from that word salad.

You should read what I wrote again. DNA holds information, this is not the same thing as saying DNA carries memories.

Memories are stored in molecules - if they can absorb those molecules, it's theoretically possible to gain access to those memories.

and

The process that creates the brain is. All the information you need to construct a human brain is in human DNA.

Are you willing to admit that the concept of eating a brain to access memories, as space marines are capable of doing, is utter ing nonsense and any attempt to explain it as anything other than magic is laughably wrong?

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Or GW, once again, has a very poor understanding of the concept. It wouldn't be the first time GW published stupid lore.

No. Of all the things GW says, the idea that there's a body frame system built into the armor that works as a strength assist sounds completely plausible.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

It "references" them in a stupid way that has nothing to do with the real phenomena. It's no different than "reverse the polarity of the graviton singularity to modulate the phase of the plasma beam". Yes, those are all real words that reference things that exist. No, it doesn't make any sense. No, you can not extrapolate anything from that word salad.

It's less weird than what you just described in terms of physics.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Memories are stored in molecules - if they can absorb those molecules, it's theoretically possible to gain access to those memories.

and

The process that creates the brain is. All the information you need to construct a human brain is in human DNA.

Are you willing to admit that the concept of eating a brain to access memories, as space marines are capable of doing, is utter ing nonsense and any attempt to explain it as anything other than magic is laughably wrong?

Let's back up and talk about those two sentences there - the "information" I was describing was the information about how to construct a brain, which should have been obvious in context. The idea that memories are stored chemically has some strong bases in research. Any other questions before we move on?

I have to interject here, we have literally zero science on what "makes" memories. We have evidence that areas of the brain light up with electrical energy when sensory organs recognize something, but we can't point to a substance, and hold a pound of memory in a jar. It's also why people with severe brain trauma can literally become a different person. Entirely different mannerisms, moods, triggers, ticks, likes, dislikes, accents, etc.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I have to interject here, we have literally zero science on what "makes" memories. We have evidence that areas of the brain light up with electrical energy when sensory organs recognize something, but we can't point to a substance, and hold a pound of memory in a jar. It's also why people with severe brain trauma can literally become a different person. Entirely different mannerisms, moods, triggers, ticks, likes, dislikes, accents, etc.

No, there are people investigating this right now.

Hecaton wrote:
No. Of all the things GW says, the idea that there's a body frame system built into the armor that works as a strength assist sounds completely plausible.

Only if you don't understand the vast disparity between human strength and machine strength. Even light industrial machinery that isn't designed to maximize strength can easily rip you in half if you aren't careful with it. Adding human muscle strength to that would be about as useful as adding the bicycle-driven prop to an F-22.

It's less weird than what you just described in terms of physics.

Only if you don't understand biology. GW uses the terms but they have no connection to reality.

Let's back up and talk about those two sentences there - the "information" I was describing was the information about how to construct a brain, which should have been obvious in context. The idea that memories are stored chemically has some strong bases in research. Any other questions before we move on?

Yes, let's look at what that context is. This is what I said:

No, memories are stored in the arrangement of cells. If you destroy that arrangement there is nothing left. It's like saying you can access the contents of a computer if you take the hard drive out, grind it into sand, and then eat the sand. It's pure "a wizard did it" magic.

To which you replied:

That's not a good analogy because you can't reconstruct a hard drive from sand - but you can reconstruct the structure of a brain from DNA, and re-arranging cells in a given brain doesn't produce new memories. There's a molecular basis for memory, though some of it may be stored in the extracellular matrix.

It's very clear from context this is about the information content of the brain, not the recipe to construct a blank brain, because that's what my original analogy explicitly referred to. If you didn't understand and thought you were talking about something else that's fine, but don't condescendingly talk about "context" when the context is so very clearly against you.