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Not that a lot of people pay attention, but....

Ok, GW has disavowed Chapter Approved. Creation of a Space Marine was a Chapter Approved article with 19 space marine implants. Codex Space Marines for 5e states that Space Marines have 18 implants, some of who's descriptions have been changed to varying degrees.

Does this mean that Creation of a Space Marine has been retconned and is no longer valid?

Yes.

Alex, are you, and I say this seriously, absolutely sure?

Given GWs position on the fluff, which can be summed up as "it's all true" and "it's all a lie" then the actual case lies somewhere in between, I'd say, yes and no.

Some of us haven't moved away from the brainwiped criimnals and psychopaths in PA as marines (bugger this knightly monastic orders crapola).

GW have flip-flopped several times, cancelling out their own retcons. I'm just pre-empting it.

*Waits for them to retcon the "men only" space marine creation fluff*

I want to see people explode from nerd rage

SilverMK2 wrote:*Waits for them to retcon the "men only" space marine creation fluff*

I want to see people explode from nerd rage

Well, we havn't 'seen' female space marines around, but...


That's exactly what I'm driving at.


See, the whole thing that 'Space marines must be male' came from Chapter Approved. The article that it comes from has been largely retconned, since the original article had the Emperor touring the facility in 738, M41. This was retconned for the White Dwarf Compendium, and gets retconned again in the 5e Space Marine Codex.

If, and it's a big if, this is the case, and the article is no longer canon, then, there's no basis for the 'all space marines are male' argument.

BaronIveagh wrote:Does this mean that Creation of a Space Marine has been retconned and is no longer valid?

I say no. The 5th edition SM codex does not alter the organs it describes in any great manner, and the absence of the Melanochrome organ should not be taken as evidence that Marines no longer have a Melanochrome organ. The organ itself is of little importance, it protects the skin of a Marine (a Marine who is usually fighting in a airtight armoured suit) from radiation, and provides a convenient explanation for chapters with identical skin/hair colouration, including the Salamanders. Speaking of which, the novel Salamander, published the year after C:SM, makes mention of their "melanochromic defect". It would be difficult to have a defect in a non-existent organ.
The list of organs in Codex: Space Marines is not presented as definitive, so does not rule out the existence of omitted organs. C:SM also fails to include the order the organs are implanted in, and what age range the candidate would fall in during implantation, but this does not mean that the organs can be fitted in any order and at any time. Rather, it is indicative of the space restrictions in the codex; the original Origins of the Legiones Astartes article was 5 pages long, and the reprint in Index Astartes was 8. C:SM only devotes but 2 pages to The Making of a Space Marine.
So, in my firm opinion, the Creation of a Space Marine article has not been retconned, and is still as valid as it was two years ago.

Æscholt wrote:

BaronIveagh wrote:Does this mean that Creation of a Space Marine has been retconned and is no longer valid?

I say no. The 5th edition SM codex does not alter the organs it describes in any great manner, and the absence of the Melanochrome organ should not be taken as evidence that Marines no longer have a Melanochrome organ. The organ itself is of little importance, it protects the skin of a Marine (a Marine who is usually fighting in a airtight armoured suit) from radiation, and provides a convenient explanation for chapters with identical skin/hair colouration, including the Salamanders. Speaking of which, the novel Salamander, published the year after C:SM, makes mention of their "melanochromic defect". It would be difficult to have a defect in a non-existent organ.
The list of organs in Codex: Space Marines is not presented as definitive, so does not rule out the existence of omitted organs. C:SM also fails to include the order the organs are implanted in, and what age range the candidate would fall in during implantation, but this does not mean that the organs can be fitted in any order and at any time. Rather, it is indicative of the space restrictions in the codex; the original Origins of the Legiones Astartes article was 5 pages long, and the reprint in Index Astartes was 8. C:SM only devotes but 2 pages to The Making of a Space Marine.
So, in my firm opinion, the Creation of a Space Marine article has not been retconned, and is still as valid as it was two years ago.

Yes, but that BL novel was probably written and submitted before C: SM (5e) was released, given how the publishing buisness works.

IIRC the word from GW was that nothing from CA is still valid if it's not on GW's website. Creation of a Space Marine was removed and replaced with little blurb about the history of space marines. Besides, if it was still valid, why not save money and not devote two pages at all?

"Nothing from CA is still valid if it's not on GW's website" applies only to their rules, not the fluff.

Kanluwen wrote:"Nothing from CA is still valid if it's not on GW's website" applies only to their rules, not the fluff.

Sorry, was reading what he said, not what he might have meant. (And my interpretation would seem to be borne out by subsequent events)

BaronIveagh wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:"Nothing from CA is still valid if it's not on GW's website" applies only to their rules, not the fluff.

Sorry, was reading what he said, not what he might have meant. (And my interpretation would seem to be borne out by subsequent events)

"Creation of a Space Marine" was never on the GW website, so by your statement it was never valid to begin with.


It's also important to remember that each time, it's entirely likely these "Space Marine Creation" articles are being written dealing with a different Chapter. Quite a few Chapters no longer have all the random wacky organs(acid-spitting anyone?) as functioning, so there's going to be a different number for each Chapter.

BaronIveagh wrote:
Well, we havn't 'seen' female space marines around, but...


That's exactly what I'm driving at.


See, the whole thing that 'Space marines must be male' came from Chapter Approved. The article that it comes from has been largely retconned, since the original article had the Emperor touring the facility in 738, M41. This was retconned for the White Dwarf Compendium, and gets retconned again in the 5e Space Marine Codex.

If, and it's a big if, this is the case, and the article is no longer canon, then, there's no basis for the 'all space marines are male' argument.

No basis?

This is much like saying that if Triceratops is found to be the juvenile form of another dinosaur, then there's no basis for the "dinosaurs are extinct" argument, so Nessie must be a plesiosaur*

This single article is not the only article which talks about the creation of Space Marines. The changes in the article alter the number of organs by one. There are still other sources from GW which talk about the necessity of male aspirants. There are still acres of GW source material which contain no female space marines.

GW once had an article about the orks and their green blood, and another about their red blood, and another about their black blood. This doesn't mean that there is now a possibility that Orks are blue, feathered, and love to pet kittens.


*Fellow nerds, I am aware that many consider modern birds to be dinosaurs and that plesiosaurs are not dinosaurs per se.

Da Butcha wrote:

BaronIveagh wrote:
Well, we havn't 'seen' female space marines around, but...


That's exactly what I'm driving at.


See, the whole thing that 'Space marines must be male' came from Chapter Approved. The article that it comes from has been largely retconned, since the original article had the Emperor touring the facility in 738, M41. This was retconned for the White Dwarf Compendium, and gets retconned again in the 5e Space Marine Codex.

If, and it's a big if, this is the case, and the article is no longer canon, then, there's no basis for the 'all space marines are male' argument.

No basis?

This is much like saying that if Triceratops is found to be the juvenile form of another dinosaur, then there's no basis for the "dinosaurs are extinct" argument, so Nessie must be a plesiosaur*

This single article is not the only article which talks about the creation of Space Marines. The changes in the article alter the number of organs by one. There are still other sources from GW which talk about the necessity of male aspirants. There are still acres of GW source material which contain no female space marines.

GW once had an article about the orks and their green blood, and another about their red blood, and another about their black blood. This doesn't mean that there is now a possibility that Orks are blue, feathered, and love to pet kittens.


*Fellow nerds, I am aware that many consider modern birds to be dinosaurs and that plesiosaurs are not dinosaurs per se.

Um... the blue orks and kittens wouldn't be new, but the feathers would be a new one... (Some clans of WHFB orks wear blue war paint)

Creation of a Space Marine was available from GW's site for quite a while. It's where I downloaded it from originally. (Lexicanium still had the original link: http://uk.games-workshop.com/spacemarines/initiation/2/)

Please point me to a non-retconned source that has not been replaced with a new edition, and is not written by CS Goto, and is published by GW or BL, that says that all aspirants must be male or the process will not work.

I will have to go find my spacewolf novels, iirc there is a mention of something of the sort in there.

But, given the nature of the game we play, can you site a source (that follows your needs) that says females are viable subjects for the process?

kirsanth wrote:I will have to go find my spacewolf novels, iirc there is a mention of something of the sort in there.

But, given the nature of the game we play, can you site a source (that follows your needs) that says females are viable subjects for the process?

In one of the Blood Angels novels, IIRC, a woman is given the blood and (while she does not undergo the whole process) it does make her extremely long lived (more so then usual in 40k), which is a trait normally associated with Blood Angels and their successor chapters. Since blood angels don't actually do implantation (according to C: BA) but rather grow the organs while interred in their sarcophagi, this would imply that, while it might not work 'out of box' their method might work on women with very little tweaking.

Admittedly, I do not recall this with real clarity, so take it with a grain of salt.

BaronIveagh wrote:Yes, but that BL novel was probably written and submitted before C: SM (5e) was released, given how the publishing buisness works.

Quite possible, but I would have thought that if GW was making a change to marine physiology they would have a sent a memo to BL, who would have then make sure that they didn't reference 'non-canon' material. And the decision, if there was one, to remove the Melanochrome would have been made while C:SM was still being written, it's not like BL had to wait for it to hit the shelves before they'd find out.

BaronIveagh wrote:IIRC the word from GW was that nothing from CA is still valid if it's not on GW's website. Creation of a Space Marine was removed and replaced with little blurb about the history of space marines. Besides, if it was still valid, why not save money and not devote two pages at all?

So is the entirety of Index Astartes no longer valid, since it's not on the website? And I don't know why they put the Making of a Space Marine in instead of another two pages about how awesome the Ultramarines are, you'd have to ask Matt Ward that. It might have been that, knowing that the Rites of Initiation article was being removed from the website during the redesign, they stuck a cut-down version in the codex to try and compensate.

Didn't they retcon:

Before:
Scout -> Tatical ->Assault or Dev.

After:
Scout -> Dev ->Assault or Tac.

Æscholt wrote:
Quite possible, but I would have thought that if GW was making a change to marine physiology they would have a sent a memo to BL, who would have then make sure that they didn't reference 'non-canon' material. And the decision, if there was one, to remove the Melanochrome would have been made while C:SM was still being written, it's not like BL had to wait for it to hit the shelves before they'd find out.

There are days I read BL's stuff and get the feeling that communication between the two has been questionable on occasion. (See Goto)

Æscholt wrote:
So is the entirety of Index Astartes no longer valid, since it's not on the website? And I don't know why they put the Making of a Space Marine in instead of another two pages about how awesome the Ultramarines are, you'd have to ask Matt Ward that. It might have been that, knowing that the Rites of Initiation article was being removed from the website during the redesign, they stuck a cut-down version in the codex to try and compensate.

Sadly, that's actually a good question, considering these last two SM codecies. It's entirely possible, as they seem to want to make a lot of changes to fluff in each new codex.

And they've tightened up editing and background since Goto, specifically to counteract it. He had a contract that they'd ended up having paid him far, far, far more if they'd just broke it off with him--so he got to stay and finish out his crap.

Kanluwen wrote:And they've tightened up editing and background since Goto, specifically to counteract it. He had a contract that they'd ended up having paid him far, far, far more if they'd just broke it off with him--so he got to stay and finish out his crap.

Granted, however, things still slip past editors on a regular basis. The note might have said something like 'don't change anything from current codex' and the editor simply not noticed. Heck, I had to go down through and check the implants one by one to spot which one was missing.

It is, however, possible that the retcon came about in the "Marvel Fashion", being that the editors simply didn't notice one had been left out of the codex until the last minute and decided instead of trying to recall the 1st print run, simply to run with it.