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Ok, I know it breaks the fluff. BUT if the next day, GW retconned them into existence, hypothetically speaking, I know it wouldn't happen in all likely-hood. But if they did, what would the issue be? Would there be a problem? I'm just trying to figure out why it brings more hate then all the other fluff-breaks out there.

You mean...Sisters of Battle?

They've been around for a while

No. Literal female space marines. The other day someone had a dark angel with a female head and the cries of heresy were deafening.

These are literal female space marines...

 ductvader wrote:
These are literal female space marines...

Except they aren't at all in the fluff. In the slightest sense.

 curran12 wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
These are literal female space marines...

Except they aren't at all in the fluff. In the slightest sense.

Oh please do expand then.

I am interested.

They don't have the augmentations, or the same equipment besides bolters. They are just normal people with power armor and bolters.

 ductvader wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
These are literal female space marines...

Except they aren't at all in the fluff. In the slightest sense.

Oh please do expand then.

I am interested.

Well, just as a short thing, there's a lot more out there, but here are some of the basics:

Space Marines are, in effect, very much not human anymore. Between all of the gene-side and biological modification, they are made into superhuman fighting machines. Sisters, by contrast, are not modified in any of the ways Space Marines are, they are human.

In addition, the training and upbringing of Sisters and Marines varies greatly. Marines are inducted at roughly age 10-14 (apologies but I don't know the exact number) and go through graduated training where they get those biological goodies added to them over time. Sisters, by contrast, are inducted into the Schola as orphans and their entire lives are not only devoted to training, but also to acts of faith that go well beyond the extreme.

The Sisters have a level of zealous faith that puts Marines to shame. The quick example here is that there is only one instance of a Sister falling to Chaos (and that example was from a 3rd party card game), whereas Marine chapters, or groups from a Chapter, can fall pretty regularly.

This is a very, very short version, but I'm sure there will be more after me to help out further.

 ductvader wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
These are literal female space marines...

Except they aren't at all in the fluff. In the slightest sense.

Oh please do expand then.

I am interested.

Basically, space marines are beyond human in every sense of the word. Extensive genetic engineering, brainwashing, etc. Everything that makes a marine the pinacle warrior without equal.

Sisters of Battle don't have any of that. They have human sized power armour and a bolter. Even their armour is inferior to a marine's armour, as a marine is directly interfaced into his via the black carapace - giving him even greater strength.


And, technically, following the rules of genetics there could be female space marines. But they would look exactly the same as a male space marine. They are changed on a genetic level to the same DNA as their primarch, which is why most have a resemblance to their primarch, so if a girl underwent the proceedure they would come out looking like a man. Any and all female hormones would be suppressed and negated (as a marine is transformed generally waaayyyy before puberty) and you would never ever notice the difference between them.

I believe the GW explanation was that women couldn't handle the procedure due to the editing to genetic structure and insertion of male primarch genes.

Another reason people hate female marines is because it's just a desperate attempt to sexualise something blatantly never designed to be sexual. They are remorseless killing machines, a weapon of war and little else.

Von Chogg


Edit: ninja'd...

i think the problem is that to some male marines are special it signifies they aren't toy soldiers but war gaming miniatures much more respectable,
but to have female marines with all their womanly bits well that's a whole other kettle of fish their just toys and that's why people freak out or it could be a lot of gamers are in the closet and only want to play with manly men
while GW will never do it I wouldn't mind even retconing the sisters to have some augments.

 curran12 wrote:

 ductvader wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
These are literal female space marines...

Except they aren't at all in the fluff. In the slightest sense.

Oh please do expand then.

I am interested.

Well, just as a short thing, there's a lot more out there, but here are some of the basics:

Space Marines are, in effect, very much not human anymore. Between all of the gene-side and biological modification, they are made into superhuman fighting machines. Sisters, by contrast, are not modified in any of the ways Space Marines are, they are human.

In addition, the training and upbringing of Sisters and Marines varies greatly. Marines are inducted at roughly age 10-14 (apologies but I don't know the exact number) and go through graduated training where they get those biological goodies added to them over time. Sisters, by contrast, are inducted into the Schola as orphans and their entire lives are not only devoted to training, but also to acts of faith that go well beyond the extreme.

The Sisters have a level of zealous faith that puts Marines to shame. The quick example here is that there is only one instance of a Sister falling to Chaos (and that example was from a 3rd party card game), whereas Marine chapters, or groups from a Chapter, can fall pretty regularly.

This is a very, very short version, but I'm sure there will be more after me to help out further.

Off-topic, but what card game was this?

Convert and have a field day....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Lost Primarchs of the First Founding Space Marine Legions are the two Primarchs of the II and XI Legions who, for unknown reasons, were deliberately expunged from all known Imperial records and archives before the onset of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium. Referred to as "the forgotten and the purged" it is known only that the missing Primarchs and their Legions are listed as having been "deleted from Imperial records." This formal censure and erasure from official records is known as an Edict of Obliteration, also called a Damnatio Memoriae, a High Gothic phrase meaning "condemnation of memory."

Maybe they were females chapters?

A female Space Marine would be a head swap. Whoo, hoo. They aren't needed, when the Sisters of Battle fill the same niche in a way that is so much more evocative of the setting.

It would be like having female Orks, just to say they exist. Totally superfluous.

I just don't think the majority of people including female players care in the slightest.

I don't think female marines are needed. I am female myself yet I have no issues playing as an all-male army. It's part of their style, their design, their 'feel', and I am happy as it is.

And if you really want girls with bolters and PA, just go SoB.

I think Marines are far cooler though, but that's just me.

 thepowerfulwill wrote:

Off-topic, but what card game was this?

Dark Millennium, if memory serves, circa 2005.

 thepowerfulwill wrote:
Off-topic, but what card game was this?

Dark Millenium. By Sabretooth Games, IIRC.

@curran
Some other differences I can think of are the fact that the Sisters are the army of the Ecclesiarchy, while Marine Chapters are (usually) mostly independent. Sisters also specialise more as soldiers, with them starting as standard Battle Sisters and then possibly specialising as something else if they're found to have the aptitude, whilst Marines try to be more general with their combat training. Sisters also uniformly believe in the Imperial Creed, but only some Marine Chapters do.

Notably, their aesthetics are also quite different.

 Von Chogg wrote:
Basically, space marines are beyond human in every sense of the word[....] brainwashing[...]Sisters of Battle don't have any of that.

Ohoho, the Sisters have that. Their whole angle is that they're all, in a sense, utterly brainwashed.

 Von Chogg wrote:
Even their armour is inferior to a marine's armour

Not wholly. It is just as protective as Marine Armour.

 Von Chogg wrote:
Another reason people hate female marines is because it's just a desperate attempt to sexualise something blatantly never designed to be sexual. They are remorseless killing machines, a weapon of war and little else.

Why are female characters attempts to sexualise something? Female characters needn't be characterised by sexuality.

Wouldn't putting a woman into an entirely form concealing armor be less sexualizing than the battle high heels and the battle corsets?

I also play Tau and Kroot, so I could technically say my entire army is modeled as females and nobody would be able to say otherwise.

High heels are only in that Blanche, mind you. The models and most other artwork has them without heels.

I would grab a jumbo size popcorn and enjoy the ensuing chaos.

There would be so much rage not at the retcon itself but the audacity to allow women into their special little boys club. Political correctness gone wrong, stop sexing up my space marines, women can't fight as good as men because reasons!

Don't believe me? Look at this thread and any other thread about women in combat, fictional or otherwise. I recall in the making of film for Diablo 3 they talked about Leah and the issue of making Diablo's appearance more feminine. Apparently when the idea was initially thrown around in a meeting, the developers raged, stormed out, threw tantrums. Could you imagaine 40k fans behaving any better?

 dekinrie wrote:

but to have female marines with all their womanly bits...

I don't imagine female Space Marine bits being more than just a few unique female heads with facial scars and short hair, maybe longer hair for Blood Angels or Space Wolves. Their bodies would be altered by the surgical parts of initiation so their features wouldn't be as noticeable if noticeable at all due to being further obscured in power armor.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
A female Space Marine would be a head swap. Whoo, hoo. They aren't needed, when the Sisters of Battle fill the same niche in a way that is so much more evocative of the setting.

It would be like having female Orks, just to say they exist. Totally superfluous.

This is pretty on point. Also, the majority of players who actually do convert up Space Marines to be women tend to be on the creepy side, sculpting giant breasts on the models and the like. I wish there was more representation of women in the game, but Sisters are a good alternative to Space Marines for that. They just need a model line that's up to snuff.

Get a SOB army, get SOB codex & marine codex (es), and play test the army different ways! 1 army, several codexes!

Just to clarify, the female marines in this hypothetical ret-con The armor might be a bit slimmer, but still very bulky, no boob-plate, no heels, helmeted you would barely be able to tell at all (Just like the dark angel in question). I have nothing against them, I am just trying to why people hate them so much..

Because many people dislike things that violate the established "canon" of the setting, and one of those things is that, for whatever reason, Space Marines are male (the "science" explanation behind it is terribly stupid, and wrong, but if we consider 40K to be an alternate reality, then maybe genes work differently there.). That's the most common reason that I see.

The less-common (and far worse) reason I see given is that "women don't belong in/cannot be allowed in/are not physically capable of combat occupations" whether this is SM, Guard, Arbites, whatever.

Welp, even if they did exist... They'd look manlier than you and I. And that makes me shrug.

Please, the female Space Marines are right in front of all of us.

The Blood Angels, who suffer from the 'curse'. Think about it...

Now I will never get it out of my head that the BA went crazy when they could all psychically tell that their husbando Primarch had been slain in combat.

Thank you. Thanks for that. Really.

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Welp, even if they did exist... They'd look manlier than you and I. And that makes me shrug.

Ya, probably...

And I'm finding this thread to have some disturbing ideas.

The setting of 40k is supposed to show the darker aspects of humanity and put them in the spot light. The whole "purge the alien/mutant" thing is eugenics and racism yet it's a common thing in the setting. People will even justify that.

But having the setting also have a sexist aspect where they won't let women into the Marine club is what people have a problem with? Or suggesting that it's the fault of the gaming community for not wanting a such a retcon to the fluff for the seemingly sole purpose of trying to make the grimdark setting more PC? Or the game developers for establishing a setting where genocide on planet wide scale happens along side inequality in the work place? I don't know, it might just be me.