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steelhead177th wrote:
So the gaslighting continues.

If you don't like all male Marines, play a game that follows the way you think the world works, and stop trying to change the game as is
Men and women are different. They organize differently, develop differently, and have different roles that is based on biology, not ideology. If this offends you, then reality offends you. That is a you problem, not the rest of the world's problem.

Except…we’re not discussing reality, are we?

We’re discussing a fictional process by which even a scrawny, manky, mutated Baalian recruit is transfigured into a strapping, beautiful, chemically, psychically and hypnotically indoctrinated killing machine which will live for centuries if not killed in battle. Aren’t we?

Here’s quick and incomplete list of things an Astartes can do that a regular human can’t.

1. Spit acid of sufficient potency to corrode steel (and by extensions, chew through metal objects in extremis. Not Xenomorph potency of course, as it takes time. But that pretty effing far from normal)
2. Gain knowledge by eating a brain
3. Put their body into suspended animation at will (recovering only with assistance though)
4. Digest pretty much anything
5. Put alternative halves of their brain to sleep with no appreciable difference in combat efficiency
6. Survive horrendous injuries which would kill a baseline human through shock and blood loss

And so, the argument is, with all the enhancements and tinkering that goes into making a human into an Astartes, there’s no reason to believe the brain wouldn’t or couldn’t also be fundamentally altered in the same process, making any differences between average male and female brains moot.

The best you can do is raise such sexual dimorphism as something the process would have to, for want of a more accurate word if one exists, solve. The existence of sexual dimorphism in humans does not mean they can’t be overcome, worked around, compensated for etc.

Because if we’re applying only modern day science? Humanity never left its home solar system, the Emperor never came to be (psychic powers not doing a real). And we probably wiped our idiot selves out well before the era of the Great Crusade via our own gross stupidity.

steelhead177th wrote:
Men and women are different.

While I am not a fan from a lore perspective - in the same sense that i'd not be calling for male Eschers, misters of battle, or brothers of silence - I think you are barking up the wrong tree with this particular angle.

Marines are fundamentally rebuilt, a step short of full borg conversions in terms of how little of the original human remains. Some of the chapters even morph into mini-me copies of their primarch or full on dog-men. What you were before that is not the issue.


As for lore integrity vs inclusivity. It's really a issue of the marines being the big poster boy faction with all the lore built around them as the protagonists. If guard were the big #1 faction and marines were no more significant than sisters you'd probably not hear anything about it in the same way that no-one cares about the mono-sex necromunda gangs.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So for your next trick?

Show us, beyond “nuh-uh”, how the Astartes Conversion process leaves the brain entirely untouched?

Only we’re talking about a level of technology used in varying ways. Thunder Warriors, Primarchs, Astartes, Cloneskeins, Goliaths, Abhumans. All share a seemingly common ancestry in technology.

I have for one, never stated it doesn't? Because the point was the starting point which is at age 10-14 ish quite diffrent already However there was an argument made on the "supposed" basis of reality. Hence why i brought it up.


https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsptsci.3c00116
The next key issue will however be conversion and we now from pharmaceutical studies that women have a higher rate of adverse effects. Which, in combintation of beeing the "biological bottleneck" would be rather problematic.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
[
There are some physical differences in brains, yes, but that wasn't really the point being made, was it? The point was about nature vs nurture as root cause for behavior.

Sledgehammer stated that intersex brotherhood is unbelievable. This merely reveals they think it is unbelievable (note their lack of sources making this an opinion instead of a fact). So it seems like a pretty spot on reaction to me.

You're also conveniently sidestepping the fact that you're insulting someone while calling them out for ad hominem.

Yes and the problem is that nurture is not 1 and nature 0 and therefore by beeing an exclusionary institution and culture beeing an expression of the individuals carrying it that position has more merit than it lets on.

I agree i could've absolutly formulated it nicer that his position lacks the logic or backig of reality however i also pointed out as to why i didn't-

And again you’re presenting modern day, factual information as an immovable barrier against an entirely fictional, and already stupidly far fetched process in which young boys are turned into something No Longer Human.

Sorry dude, but that’s a weak argument in the face of the question. Because as I said in my previous post (I accept you probably cross posted with me)?

If we limit 40K solely to modern science? There is no 40K. No warp travel. No psykers. No Bolters. No Lasguns. No anti-grav tech. No plasma weapons. No void shields. No Mind Impulse Unit. None of it.

So why is it people get so caught up on modern science only for the prospect of female Astartes?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And again you’re presenting modern day, factual information as an immovable barrier against an entirely fictional, and already stupidly far fetched process in which young boys are turned into something No Longer Human.

Sorry dude, but that’s a weak argument in the face of the question. Because as I said in my previous post (I accept you probably cross posted with me)?

If we limit 40K solely to modern science? There is no 40K. No warp travel. No psykers. No Bolters. No Lasguns. No anti-grav tech. No plasma weapons. No void shields. No Mind Impulse Unit. None of it.

So why is it people get so caught up on modern science only for the prospect of female Astartes?

No. That is not how this works. You (not just you mad doc) are now switching from an argument of the basis of reality e.g. the stipulation that there "is no diffrence / the process would make any diffrence moot" which there is as the starting point would and does make a massive diffrence seemingly and a purely "nuture" anthropology is wrong into an argument on the basis of the lore which has canonised that it is "not possible".

And in that regard we can consider 40k canonised and you end up with the Toyota in Lotr area again when you change it around willy nilly and no Cawl is not a good tool to achieve that because Cawl already damaged the canon with primaris as it damaged tenants of the integrity of the canon namely tech stagnation f.e..

Gw can do it, but GW shouldn't do it in essence since it's canon of lore which makes its universe up and it's draw to it and by extention damaging the canon then is a bad idea.

I again refer you back to my clear, rooted solely in the background, observation that Astartes as we know them were the result of a salvage job, and one done against the clock.

To recap that for the umpteenth time?

Emperor began conquering Terra with the Thunder Warriors. Pound for pound more powerful than an Astartes, but shorter lived and apparently less stable.

The Emperor then takes that knowledge, and new stuff gleaned since, and creates the Primarchs as the absolute pinnacle of what he could create - At That Time.

He’d also created the custom job Custodes by this point too. These are enhanced in a tailored to the individual manner.

Up to that point, everything was going, so far as we can tell, to plan.

Then it starts falling apart. The Primarchs are abducted and lost to The Emperor, leaving him with either or both of not enough resources or time to start over.

And so what he does have left over is used to create the Astartes. By this point, the clock is running down, because as soon as the warp storms are cleared, the Great Crusade needs to be underway.

These Astartes are flawed, but Good Enough For Now, and allow The Emperor to complete his initial conquest and get everyone ready for what’s to come.

As the Great Crusade rumbles on, and the lost Primarchs recovered, some of the flaws in the Astartes Legions are rectified. So already, we’re seeing intent and ability to improve.

Then of course, the Heresy happens and everything goes horribly, hideously wrong. That war prevents The Emperor continuing his plans and projects, and he ends up pretty much dead.

For 10,000ish years? Thats about it. Except, Cawl has had the resources, remaining technology and knowledge, to continue The Emperor’s work. The end result is a superior, more sophisticated and seemingly stable, strain of Astartes, known as the Primaris. And he equips them with superior arms and armour.

But very little has been created by Cawl, if indeed he created anything. Developed it further than anyone else? Yes. But outright invented anything? Seemingly not.

And there’s no reason for us to believe that Cawl will just leave it there. The Emperor was happy enough to fold newly recovered/discovered stuff into existing forces and processes after all. And so, the potential for the Y Chromosome limitation to be overcome remains there.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:

Outside of that the culture of brotherhood cannot exist in the same way or capacity in an intersex organization. It's just quite frankly not believable. The space marines would have to change to accommodate, and thus in my opinion lose their identity in the process.

This is commentary more about you, and how you view gender, rather than objective observation about reality.

No, your commentary is indicative of someone lacking rather in the logical department and stepping to ad hominem.

The comment I was responding to was about what the poster found believable. They do not find it believable, that group composed of men and women would and could feel similar kinship as comrades in arms than a group solely composed of men would. I, on the other hand, do find that believable. I don't think men and women are inherently and essentially mentally different, nor I believe that people of different genders need to see each other as different, especially when brought up in cultures and existing in an environment where such differences are not seen as culturally significant. What we find believable is subjective, and always says something about who we are. That is not an ad hominem. Now saying that one is lacking in logic department probably is though.

That is just wrong.

https://stanmed.stanford.edu/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different/

Spoiler:

Why? There was too much data pointing to the biological basis of sex-based cognitive differences to ignore, Halpern says. For one thing, the animal-research findings resonated with sex-based differences ascribed to people. These findings continue to accrue. In a study of 34 rhesus monkeys, for example, males strongly preferred toys with wheels over plush toys, whereas females found plush toys likable. It would be tough to argue that the monkeys’ parents bought them sex-typed toys or that simian society encourages its male offspring to play more with trucks. A much more recent study established that boys and girls 9 to 17 months old — an age when children show few if any signs of recognizing either their own or other children’s sex — nonetheless show marked differences in their preference for stereotypically male versus stereotypically female toys.

Halpern and others have cataloged plenty of human behavioral differences. “These findings have all been replicated,” she says. Women excel in several measures of verbal ability — pretty much all of them, except for verbal analogies. Women’s reading comprehension and writing ability consistently exceed that of men, on average. They out­perform men in tests of fine-motor coordination and perceptual speed. They’re more adept at retrieving information from long-term memory.

Men, on average, can more easily juggle items in working memory. They have superior visuospatial skills: They’re better at visualizing what happens when a complicated two- or three-dimensional shape is rotated in space, at correctly determining angles from the horizontal, at tracking moving objects and at aiming projectiles.

Which facilitated this little project.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2024/02/men-women-brain-organization-patterns.html

So pardon, but what you "believe" doesn't match actual science or observable reality if you want it epistemologically.
And for the Ad hominem bit:

This is commentary more about you, and how you view gender, rather than objective observation about reality.

It's an exemple of browbeating. Hence why i pointed it out.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

shortymcnostrill wrote:


Insulting someone and then accusing them of ad hominem in the same sentence is certainly an interesting choice

Browbeating, denial of access to observeable reality and insinuating that reflects poorly on someone isn't an ad hominem? Even when observable reality is actually the supposed "enlightened" position of assuming equality where there is not?

The article you link points out how most of these effects are very modest and only noticeable at the extremes. Plus, it is only the effects for very young individuals prior to socialisation that separate "nature" from "nurture". This not being an academic article, it doesn't actually go into any detail on the research presented so it is hard to examine how relevant these differences actually are.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So for your next trick?

Show us, beyond “nuh-uh”, how the Astartes Conversion process leaves the brain entirely untouched?

Only we’re talking about a level of technology used in varying ways. Thunder Warriors, Primarchs, Astartes, Cloneskeins, Goliaths, Abhumans. All share a seemingly common ancestry in technology.

I have for one, never stated it doesn't? Because the point was the starting point which is at age 10-14 ish quite diffrent already However there was an argument made on the "supposed" basis of reality. Hence why i brought it up.


https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsptsci.3c00116
The next key issue will however be conversion and we now from pharmaceutical studies that women have a higher rate of adverse effects. Which, in combintation of beeing the "biological bottleneck" would be rather problematic.

That doesn't necessarily translate into an inherent susceptibility to drug adverse effects though. For example, dosing is rarely done by weight, let alone by sex. Typical body sizes and distributions of fat, muscle etc are different between sexes so you would expect drug distributions to differ, yet dosing does not typically account for that with much precision if any. Do you think an 86kg man or a 73kg woman (UK mean weights by gender) will tolerate 80mg of atorvastatin better? The dosing is the same for both, but one is 17% heavier.

Take a typical dosing regime for IV contrast (the drug discussed in your linked article):

Total amount of contrast
In many protocols a standard dose is given related to the weight of the patient:

Weight < 75kg : 100cc
Weight 75-90kg: 120cc
Weight > 90kg : 150cc
In some protocols we always want to give the maximum dose of 150cc, like when you are looking for a pancreatic carcinoma or liver metastases.

Not a lot of dose graduation, and some indications always receive the maximum dose regardless of weight. You would expect that to lead to more adverse effects in women.

It is also why drugs are often not licensed for extremes of weight, like apixaban only being licensed from 40-120kg (more research is coming out to show it works outside these ranges, but that is new).

On top of this, a lot of medical science didn't even study women as much as men and frequently assumed they would be identical for decades.

Finally, adverse effects are frequently self-reported. There are cultural reasons why women are more likely to report than men. This shouldn't affect grade 3-5 adverse effects, and grade 2 should be pretty close, but grade 1 are essentially tolerable without intervention and form the majority of adverse effects.

All of these are factors which are very likely to be solvable via better medical knowledge and cultural changes in the next couple of centuries, let alone millennia.

It's literally stanford medicine magazine from stanford haighus running the gammut in the article with a multitude of studies, not just children so no, way to show you haven't even read the article.

Not Online!!! wrote:
It's literally stanford medicine magazine from stanford haighus running the gammut in the article with a multitude of studies, not just children so no, way to show you haven't even read the article.

It is a non-academic article. There are no references, only interviews with scientists. An academic review references the studies and ideally should report on effect sizes when relevant, which the article points out they are without reporting any. But if you'd read the article, you would know this. This is an opinion piece.

Further, if you read my actual comment, you would see that I specifically said that the studies of young children are the only ones relevant to this debate of "nature" vs "nurture", i.e. genetics vs environment. Older children and adults are inextricably affected by the environment so it becomes impossible to differentiate. The young children have limited environmental influences. I made no claim about there only being articles about children. However, I think the mentions of studies in young children are the most relevant, but the article gives no references to the studies or indication of effect sizes at this age.

Studies in animals are only indicative of areas to look into for humans given that different animals have different behaviours and a study of 34 monkeys is pretty tiny too, so again, young children is more helpful.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Emperor began conquering Terra with the Thunder Warriors. Pound for pound more powerful than an Astartes, but shorter lived and apparently less stable.

The Emperor then takes that knowledge, and new stuff gleaned since, and creates the Primarchs as the absolute pinnacle of what he could create - At That Time.

Out of curiosity, are there female Thunder Warriors? What do the Horus Heresy novels have to say on that topic?

That I don’t know off the top of my head, but I’m yet to read all the Heresy novels. And we don’t know an awful lot about Thunder Warriors and what went into creating one.

But here are my thoughts on it from another, earlier thread.

Me, August last year wrote: Trouble here is we don’t know an awful lot about the Thunder Warrior and the process of turning a human into one.

However. We can look to House Goliath, which may have their genhanced origins in a similar technology.

They have three sources of new bodies. Vatborn (test tubes and rapid maturation to adult size) Natborn (babies!) and Unborn (regular humans altered, including physically adding new muscle mass).

Thunder Warriors appear closest to Unborn, as they too are definitely the result of a human conversion process. And House Goliath for one aren’t all male. They were intended to be sterile, but uhhhh, nature found a way.

So we can make limited inferences from that. If, and it’s such a big if were it a but it’d be of such proportions Sir Mix-A-Lot might say “steady on, La!”, House Goliath are indeed derived from the same base technology as Thunder Warriors? Then yes. Female Thunder Warriors are absolutely possible.

This is just speculation though, and I don’t offer a particular conclusion.

The brotherhood, self sacrifice and monastic inspiration inherent to the cultural makeup of space marines is exactly what makes them space marines.

I'm still amazed that there's people here arguing that, because I'm not a man, I can't have close sibling-platonic bonds, self-sacrifice, and can't engage in a quasi-religious lifestyle.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:
The brotherhood, self sacrifice and monastic inspiration inherent to the cultural makeup of space marines is exactly what makes them space marines. To remove them from that is to make them no different than other power armored super soldiers from other franchises. The Adeptus Sororiatas is your foil to them. It is all in service to the thematic image of a society built on the bones of outmoded and archaic ways of thinking. "Progress" is at odds with the core themes of the franchise.


"Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods." It kind of spells it out here....

40k is in many ways directly at odds with our sensibilities and moral compass, which has helped to insulate it from some of the broader cultural discourse ongoing in media. Please stop interjecting these issues into a setting that is in its essence diametrically opposed to that kind of discourse.

So if sexism is appropriate to the Imperium in 40k, why isn't racism?
Or homophobia?
Or transphobia?

I mean, I wouldn't consider any of those inappropriate to the Imperium.

I would think some degree of racism would make perfect sense, even if it didn't quite align with the current usage. e.g. I could well imagine people being looked down on if they've come from particular planets (or because they haven't come from particular planets).

I could see a degree of hatred towards gays as being less Homophobia and more a failure of duty. The Imperium relies on throwing billions of lives into the meat-grinder every year to keep itself alive, so it needs to secure a constant supply of children to replace them. I doubt they'd want to encourage anything that went against that - be it gays, abortions or any other such.

As for Transphobia, it's one of those things that could probably go either way. If someone declared themselves to be Trans, an Inquisitor might think they'd come under the influence of Chaos and light the flamethrower. Alternatively, a Tech-Priest might "solve" the problem by replacing most of their body with cybernetics to the point that they no longer have any recognisable gender. Or hormones. Or emotions.

Sledgehammer wrote:It is all in service to the thematic image of a society built on the bones of outmoded and archaic ways of thinking. "Progress" is at odds with the core themes of the franchise.

And yet, the society in question (the Imperium) isn't nearly as "outmoded and archaic" as you're claiming (IN CERTAIN AREAS).

The Imperium is awful, yes, but it is *also*:
- Not institutionally sexist (no restriction on gender in HLOT, Mechanicus are often depicted as post-gender, gender is irrelevant within the Astra Militarum and other civilian branches)
- Not institutionally racist (no mention of race being a hinderance to any IoM characters, and people of multiple ethnicities presented across a range of social strata)
- Not institutionally transphobic (multiple trans characters mentioned, without any hint of prejudice towards them on basis of their transition)
- Not institutionally homophobic/biphobic (gay/lesbian characters presented without question, tactical pansexuality taught to Inquisitorial agents)

The Imperium is nonsensically bureaucratic, fascistic, theocratic, xenophobic, wasteful, dogmatic, and inhuman, but it's not sexist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:

So if sexism is appropriate to the Imperium in 40k, why isn't racism?
Or homophobia?
Or transphobia?

I mean, I wouldn't consider any of those inappropriate to the Imperium.

Except that we see absolutely no indication of it present. There is no institutional sexism, racism, or transphobia.

If GW changed that, then this argument would have legs, but *at present* this isn't true. And, honestly, I think the setting is better for that - the Imperium being so vast and uncaring that it simply doesn't care what your sexual orientation, gender identity or skin colour is, you're going to put on the one-size-fits-all flak jacket, grab the standard issue lasgun with one, maybe two magazines, and die like all the other people who came before you.

 vipoid wrote:
As for Transphobia, it's one of those things that could probably go either way. If someone declared themselves to be Trans, an Inquisitor might ...

...not care about the opinions of the peons as long as they loyal to the Imperium, or at least not loyal to something other than the Imperium.
'Purity' in the imperium is defined by how much you worship the Emperor, genetic purity (at birth and later), and cybernetic purity (both ways depending on group). I can't recall anything offhand in the source material outside of those three groups unless you include classism and declared purity (i.e. someone suitably powerful announces that you are pure, therefore you are regardless).

Sex - female marines, (trans)Gender - marines who identify as female.

 vipoid wrote:
I would think some degree of racism would make perfect sense, even if it didn't quite align with the current usage. e.g. I could well imagine people being looked down on if they've come from particular planets (or because they haven't come from particular planets).

There is a distinct difference between a Cadian not having a high opinion of a Guardsman from a cushy Segmentum Solar world a billion miles away from the frontiers of Imperial space, and hating someone because of the colour of their skin.
The latter is shown in 40k as a form of cultural drift between the various worlds of humanity where some think they are better than others due to classism or martial pride. We don't see people in the Imperial segregating those who are of a different race than them because humanity has moved beyond that specific concern.
Who cares if Brian has darker skin than Greg? There's literally a dude with a third arm over there.

I could see a degree of hatred towards gays as being less Homophobia and more a failure of duty. The Imperium relies on throwing billions of lives into the meat-grinder every year to keep itself alive, so it needs to secure a constant supply of children to replace them. I doubt they'd want to encourage anything that went against that - be it gays, abortions or any other such.

This has never been shown in any Warhammer book. The Imperium's population is so massive that it's statistically impossible not to have people popping out sprogs all over the place. The planet loses people to war? Baby boom because people survived the war and if not then the Imperium just ships a billion people from a Hive World with an overpopulation problem.
The Imperium doesn't care about the personal lives of its citizen as long as they go to work and worship the God Emperor.

As for Transphobia, it's one of those things that could probably go either way. If someone declared themselves to be Trans, an Inquisitor might think they'd come under the influence of Chaos and light the flamethrower. Alternatively, a Tech-Priest might "solve" the problem by replacing most of their body with cybernetics to the point that they no longer have any recognisable gender. Or hormones. Or emotions.

Poor taste making transphobia into a "Heresy!" joke chief.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That I don’t know off the top of my head, but I’m yet to read all the Heresy novels. And we don’t know an awful lot about Thunder Warriors and what went into creating one.

But here are my thoughts on it from another, earlier thread.

Me, August last year wrote: Trouble here is we don’t know an awful lot about the Thunder Warrior and the process of turning a human into one.

However. We can look to House Goliath, which may have their genhanced origins in a similar technology.

They have three sources of new bodies. Vatborn (test tubes and rapid maturation to adult size) Natborn (babies!) and Unborn (regular humans altered, including physically adding new muscle mass).

Thunder Warriors appear closest to Unborn, as they too are definitely the result of a human conversion process. And House Goliath for one aren’t all male. They were intended to be sterile, but uhhhh, nature found a way.

So we can make limited inferences from that. If, and it’s such a big if were it a but it’d be of such proportions Sir Mix-A-Lot might say “steady on, La!”, House Goliath are indeed derived from the same base technology as Thunder Warriors? Then yes. Female Thunder Warriors are absolutely possible.

This is just speculation though, and I don’t offer a particular conclusion.

Thanks. I only made it a few pages into the first novel, so I have to rely on others to learn how much the Warhammer 40.000: What Really Happened series says on any given topic. I figured there might be some depiction of Thunder Warriors from off-hand comments here and there.

 Gert wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I would think some degree of racism would make perfect sense, even if it didn't quite align with the current usage. e.g. I could well imagine people being looked down on if they've come from particular planets (or because they haven't come from particular planets).

There is a distinct difference between a Cadian not having a high opinion of a Guardsman from a cushy Segmentum Solar world a billion miles away from the frontiers of Imperial space, and hating someone because of the colour of their skin.
The latter is shown in 40k as a form of cultural drift between the various worlds of humanity where some think they are better than others due to classism or martial pride. We don't see people in the Imperial segregating those who are of a different race than them because humanity has moved beyond that specific concern.
Who cares if Brian has darker skin than Greg? There's literally a dude with a third arm over there.

40k does explore themes of racism and bigotry, but for the most part quite conspicuously avoids real-world ethnic differences or religions that form the basis for racism in the modern world.

Instead mutants and abhumans and aliens or fictional religions are used as a stand in, which makes it "safe" to explore the bigotry without being so miserable for actual marginalised minorities to engage with.

 Haighus wrote:

 Gert wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I would think some degree of racism would make perfect sense, even if it didn't quite align with the current usage. e.g. I could well imagine people being looked down on if they've come from particular planets (or because they haven't come from particular planets).

There is a distinct difference between a Cadian not having a high opinion of a Guardsman from a cushy Segmentum Solar world a billion miles away from the frontiers of Imperial space, and hating someone because of the colour of their skin.
The latter is shown in 40k as a form of cultural drift between the various worlds of humanity where some think they are better than others due to classism or martial pride. We don't see people in the Imperial segregating those who are of a different race than them because humanity has moved beyond that specific concern.
Who cares if Brian has darker skin than Greg? There's literally a dude with a third arm over there.

40k does explore themes of racism and bigotry, but for the most part quite conspicuously avoids real-world ethnic differences or religions that form the basis for racism in the modern world.

Instead mutants and abhumans and aliens or fictional religions are used as a stand in, which makes it "safe" to explore the bigotry without being so miserable for actual marginalised minorities to engage with.

Yeah I agree with this. It operates like classic episodes of Star Trek, using stand-ins to make it's narrative points.

And I think it's important to remember that while the grand institutions of the Imperium generally don't care as long as any planet pays it's tithes, supplies guardsmen, purges and gives up it's psykers to the Black Ships, and worships the Emperor, everything else is fine. "Everything else" meaning any form of barbarism one can imagine, really. Classicism, slavery and religious persecution are explicitly mentioned, and the assumption that racism and sexism wouldn't/couldn't exist on any of the wildly diverse array of a million or so worlds is pretty wild, imo.

My interpretation of the Grimdark is the following: Imperium isn't itself racist or sexist, but it will totally tolerate racism or sexism as long as it's tithes are paid.

 Haighus wrote:

 Gert wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I would think some degree of racism would make perfect sense, even if it didn't quite align with the current usage. e.g. I could well imagine people being looked down on if they've come from particular planets (or because they haven't come from particular planets).

There is a distinct difference between a Cadian not having a high opinion of a Guardsman from a cushy Segmentum Solar world a billion miles away from the frontiers of Imperial space, and hating someone because of the colour of their skin.
The latter is shown in 40k as a form of cultural drift between the various worlds of humanity where some think they are better than others due to classism or martial pride. We don't see people in the Imperial segregating those who are of a different race than them because humanity has moved beyond that specific concern.
Who cares if Brian has darker skin than Greg? There's literally a dude with a third arm over there.

40k does explore themes of racism and bigotry, but for the most part quite conspicuously avoids real-world ethnic differences or religions that form the basis for racism in the modern world.

Instead mutants and abhumans and aliens or fictional religions are used as a stand in, which makes it "safe" to explore the bigotry without being so miserable for actual marginalised minorities to engage with.

Which is exactly why it's so conspicuous that "gender segregation" is explored this way through Space Marines, when it is so interestingly done through Sisters.

With Sisters, it explores the idea of gendered armed forces as a product of a legal loophole, and subverts the idea of war as a a "male" endeavour (which, obviously, it is not). It adds to the Imperium by demonstrating the absurd bureaucracy and legal/religious loopholes that are allowed to persist within it. It inverts the trope of "holy warriors on crusade" which is a historically male field, by making the church militant army an all-women force (minus the male leaders and auxiliaries which exist within it). The only issue with Sisters is that their aesthetic representation and methods of war are restricted, but this isn't inherently an issue: they occupy their own niche and design space, and that is "holy religious order with close ranged firepower".*

Space Marines being all male doesn't subvert anything, it only reinforces the idea that "the strong ubermensch must be male" (again, Custodes are stronger, but weren't a tabletop faction for decades, and aren't anywhere close to the real world market dominance of Space Marines), and selectively apes off of real-world organisations and tropes (not all Space Marine Chapters are based off of religious orders or monastic behaviours, ie. White Scars and Space Wolves are very clearly more centred on Mongolian and Norse aesthetics and behaviours respectively than the more monastic Chapters like Dark Angels and Black Templars - not to mention that mixed gender and all-female monastic orders also exist IRL). It doesn't demonstrate anything interesting about the Imperium: because the Imperium *isn't* institutionally sexist, the dogmatic creed is represented without needing to bring gender into it, and it would be perfectly easy to hone in on the "no-one really understands how geneseed works and how selective it is" by emphasising just how few people survive becoming a Space Marine, and that no-one has been able to fix the defects (not even Cawl!). Gender doesn't change anything intrinsic about what all Space Marines have in common.

The idea that 40k engages in "safe" bigotry is genuinely very interesting and helps them portray an Imperium which, I repeat, is awful and backwards and "the cruellest regime imaginable" without also perpetuating those behaviours and attitudes IRL. This is why Space Marines are so conspicuous in this: them being mono-gendered doesn't subvert or say anything interesting about Space Marines or 40k in general, it's either couched in made-up pseudoscience which perpetuates RL myths of bioessentialism (in *prepubescent children*, I might add) or directly perpetuates IRL sexist attitudes from history.

The other elements of bigotry in 40k are translated into non-human forms, except this one.


*I mention this simply to ward off comments along the lines of "Sisters are the same as Space Marines" - Sisters are an army defined by a certain aesthetic and gameplay design. Space Marines are, if anything, defined by their variety of aesthetics and gameplay choices, as a blank slate faction which no other faction matches. And that is okay! But they aren't the same thing, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Not Online!!! wrote:


That is just wrong.

https://stanmed.stanford.edu/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different/

I can link to science articles too. Nature's article about neurological gender differences being a myth:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x

Now whilst I have actually studied developmental psychology a moderate amount and even neuropsychology a bit, I certainly am not an any sort of an expert in the field, and I'd wager neither are you, so we probably are not going to conclusively solve this matter here on a wargaming forum.

But none of this was even my point. It is about how one views gender, whether you view the another gender as some sort of essentially different other or not. And to me the claim that men and women could not have similar bonds of comradeship than just men can, is utterly ludicrous. We are all just people in the end, and every individual is different, and those differences between individuals are far greater than any statistical differences between genders that might or might not exist.

 Insectum7 wrote:
My interpretation of the Grimdark is the following: Imperium isn't itself racist or sexist, but it will totally tolerate racism or sexism as long as it's tithes are paid.

Agreed, with the addendum that this also includes bigotry towards groups which typically wouldn't be on the receiving end IRL (ie. worlds where being male is considered negatively, and women occupy the highest roles in the social strata).

 Haighus wrote:

 Gert wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I would think some degree of racism would make perfect sense, even if it didn't quite align with the current usage. e.g. I could well imagine people being looked down on if they've come from particular planets (or because they haven't come from particular planets).

There is a distinct difference between a Cadian not having a high opinion of a Guardsman from a cushy Segmentum Solar world a billion miles away from the frontiers of Imperial space, and hating someone because of the colour of their skin.
The latter is shown in 40k as a form of cultural drift between the various worlds of humanity where some think they are better than others due to classism or martial pride. We don't see people in the Imperial segregating those who are of a different race than them because humanity has moved beyond that specific concern.
Who cares if Brian has darker skin than Greg? There's literally a dude with a third arm over there.

40k does explore themes of racism and bigotry, but for the most part quite conspicuously avoids real-world ethnic differences or religions that form the basis for racism in the modern world.

Instead mutants and abhumans and aliens or fictional religions are used as a stand in, which makes it "safe" to explore the bigotry without being so miserable for actual marginalised minorities to engage with.

This right here is extremely important for the setting. One of the most consistent features of the setting is the use of allegorical -isms instead of (or to satirize) real bigotries. The big exception being Space Marines, which is part of why the boys only restriction feels out of place in the setting compared to every other faction, even more so since the SM are the poster er, boys for the whole 40k universe.

This one real world -ism feels as jarring in “you will not be missed” Warhammer as Star Trek would feel jarring following up their black/white aliens episode with an episode about Earth Jews not being admitted to Starfleet.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
My interpretation of the Grimdark is the following: Imperium isn't itself racist or sexist, but it will totally tolerate racism or sexism as long as it's tithes are paid.

Agreed, with the addendum that this also includes bigotry towards groups which typically wouldn't be on the receiving end IRL (ie. worlds where being male is considered negatively, and women occupy the highest roles in the social strata).

100% agree. That should all be fair play.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
My interpretation of the Grimdark is the following: Imperium isn't itself racist or sexist, but it will totally tolerate racism or sexism as long as it's tithes are paid.

Agreed, with the addendum that this also includes bigotry towards groups which typically wouldn't be on the receiving end IRL (ie. worlds where being male is considered negatively, and women occupy the highest roles in the social strata).

100% agree. That should all be fair play.

We see this very thing in House Escher, essentially a matriarchal nation state with a population that probably dwarfs modern Earth several times over.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

 Gert wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I would think some degree of racism would make perfect sense, even if it didn't quite align with the current usage. e.g. I could well imagine people being looked down on if they've come from particular planets (or because they haven't come from particular planets).

There is a distinct difference between a Cadian not having a high opinion of a Guardsman from a cushy Segmentum Solar world a billion miles away from the frontiers of Imperial space, and hating someone because of the colour of their skin.
The latter is shown in 40k as a form of cultural drift between the various worlds of humanity where some think they are better than others due to classism or martial pride. We don't see people in the Imperial segregating those who are of a different race than them because humanity has moved beyond that specific concern.
Who cares if Brian has darker skin than Greg? There's literally a dude with a third arm over there.

40k does explore themes of racism and bigotry, but for the most part quite conspicuously avoids real-world ethnic differences or religions that form the basis for racism in the modern world.

Instead mutants and abhumans and aliens or fictional religions are used as a stand in, which makes it "safe" to explore the bigotry without being so miserable for actual marginalised minorities to engage with.

This right here is extremely important for the setting. One of the most consistent features of the setting is the use of allegorical -isms instead of (or to satirize) real bigotries. The big exception being Space Marines, which is part of why the boys only restriction feels out of place in the setting compared to every other faction, even more so since the SM are the poster er, boys for the whole 40k universe.

This one real world -ism feels as jarring in “you will not be missed” Warhammer as Star Trek would feel jarring following up their black/white aliens episode with an episode about Earth Jews not being admitted to Starfleet.

I totally appreciate this observation, but I still feel like it's appropriately chalked up to being a product aimed at teenage boys and young men, and having lore that's resonant with the historical precedent of male soldiery and modern day segregation in sports. I think we can argue all day about nature vs. nurture, but the "art" is still imitating "life" for whatever reason, and I feel it has a right to do so.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
This right here is extremely important for the setting. One of the most consistent features of the setting is the use of allegorical -isms instead of (or to satirize) real bigotries. The big exception being Space Marines, which is part of why the boys only restriction feels out of place in the setting compared to every other faction, even more so since the SM are the poster er, boys for the whole 40k universe.

This one real world -ism feels as jarring in “you will not be missed” Warhammer as Star Trek would feel jarring following up their black/white aliens episode with an episode about Earth Jews not being admitted to Starfleet.

I totally appreciate this observation, but I still feel like it's appropriately chalked up to being a product aimed at teenage boys and young men, and having lore that's resonant with the historical precedent of male soldiery and modern day segregation in sports. I think we can argue all day about nature vs. nurture, but the "art" is still imitating "life" for whatever reason, and I feel it has a right to do so.

Honest question, but do you think the same should be said of race in the same regard?

If 40k is aimed at a majority white demographic (I don't have any data to confirm this, I might add, but the majority of 40k fans appear to be white-identifying), then should it cater to a white audience, and have "rules" in place which mean that the poster faction should be all-white, even if there are other factions which have non-white representation?

Because that's the situation happening with gender in Space Marines: the product (Space Marines) is "aimed" at a certain demographic (young men), which means that it should only feature that demographic (only male Space Marines), and have other demographics (women) represented in other, less prominent, products.

If the same were to be applied to the race demographic, it would look like this: the product (Space Marines) being "aimed" at a certain demographic (white), which means that it should only feature that demographic (only white Space Marines) and have other demographics (non-white ethnicities) represented in other, less prominent, products.

I just want to see that this is a consistent belief - that GW should have a "right" to "imitate life" (even if that imitation of life is couched in misleading and exclusionary beliefs), across all things, and not just gender?


Or, to put it more simply, why is gender allowed to be used as a tool to reflect fictional bigotry, but not race?


(And, just to be clear, I am not suggesting that 40k is only for white people, is only played by white people, or anything of the sort - just like how 40k isn't "for" men, or is only played by men. And to be clear, I do not want race to be used to reflect fictional bigotry - I just also don't want sex or gender to be used for it as well).

Also? Why would largely helmeted models potentially being ladies under the skidlid reduce the appeal to young men?

In other words, how does greater representation of the global demographic impact the majority?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also? Why would largely helmeted models potentially being ladies under the skidlid reduce the appeal to young men?

In other words, how does greater representation of the global demographic impact the majority?

Right. What is being asked, is for the lore to say that it is possible for marines to be women, and have some female heads for people who want to model them that way. It seems wild to me that this would be something that would alienate significant number of players. No one would be even required to have lady marines in their army if they didn't want to.

shortymcnostrill wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:

Outside of that the culture of brotherhood cannot exist in the same way or capacity in an intersex organization. It's just quite frankly not believable. The space marines would have to change to accommodate, and thus in my opinion lose their identity in the process.

This is commentary more about you, and how you view gender, rather than objective observation about reality.

No, your commentary is indicative of someone lacking rather in the logical department and stepping to ad hominem.

The comment I was responding to was about what the poster found believable. They do not find it believable, that group composed of men and women would and could feel similar kinship as comrades in arms than a group solely composed of men would. I, on the other hand, do find that believable. I don't think men and women are inherently and essentially mentally different, nor I believe that people of different genders need to see each other as different, especially when brought up in cultures and existing in an environment where such differences are not seen as culturally significant. What we find believable is subjective, and always says something about who we are. That is not an ad hominem. Now saying that one is lacking in logic department probably is though.

That is just wrong.

https://stanmed.stanford.edu/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different/

Spoiler:

Why? There was too much data pointing to the biological basis of sex-based cognitive differences to ignore, Halpern says. For one thing, the animal-research findings resonated with sex-based differences ascribed to people. These findings continue to accrue. In a study of 34 rhesus monkeys, for example, males strongly preferred toys with wheels over plush toys, whereas females found plush toys likable. It would be tough to argue that the monkeys’ parents bought them sex-typed toys or that simian society encourages its male offspring to play more with trucks. A much more recent study established that boys and girls 9 to 17 months old — an age when children show few if any signs of recognizing either their own or other children’s sex — nonetheless show marked differences in their preference for stereotypically male versus stereotypically female toys.

Halpern and others have cataloged plenty of human behavioral differences. “These findings have all been replicated,” she says. Women excel in several measures of verbal ability — pretty much all of them, except for verbal analogies. Women’s reading comprehension and writing ability consistently exceed that of men, on average. They out­perform men in tests of fine-motor coordination and perceptual speed. They’re more adept at retrieving information from long-term memory.

Men, on average, can more easily juggle items in working memory. They have superior visuospatial skills: They’re better at visualizing what happens when a complicated two- or three-dimensional shape is rotated in space, at correctly determining angles from the horizontal, at tracking moving objects and at aiming projectiles.

Which facilitated this little project.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2024/02/men-women-brain-organization-patterns.html

So pardon, but what you "believe" doesn't match actual science or observable reality if you want it epistemologically.
And for the Ad hominem bit:

This is commentary more about you, and how you view gender, rather than objective observation about reality.

It's an exemple of browbeating. Hence why i pointed it out.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

shortymcnostrill wrote:


Insulting someone and then accusing them of ad hominem in the same sentence is certainly an interesting choice

Browbeating, denial of access to observeable reality and insinuating that reflects poorly on someone isn't an ad hominem? Even when observable reality is actually the supposed "enlightened" position of assuming equality where there is not?

There are some physical differences in brains, yes, but that wasn't really the point being made, was it? The point was about nature vs nurture as root cause for behavior.

Sledgehammer stated that intersex brotherhood is unbelievable. This merely reveals they think it is unbelievable (note their lack of sources making this an opinion instead of a fact). So it seems like a pretty spot on reaction to me.

You're also conveniently sidestepping the fact that you're insulting someone while calling them out for ad hominem.

Let me be clearer.

Brotherhood by the definition I was using can only be obtained from the close fraternal bonds between men. The same can be said for sisterhood. Mutually respectful relationships between groups of people in an intersex organization can and do occur regularly, however the dynamic and culture of how they operate are inherently different.

Space marines are a brotherhood and thus to add female space marines would completely destroy the relationship and culture that only a group of men can share together. The same can be said for the Sororitas.

The speech before Againcourt in Henry the Vth is a great example.