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Melissia wrote:If you REALLY insist on arguing about animals (seriously now...?)
In social settings, females in general dominate. In pure, cold biological reasoning females are more valuable to the species than males, as one male may inseminate many females, whereas females can only carry one [child / litter] at a time. It's why only one adult male is typically allowed to stay in a pride of lions. The others are kicked out and forced to live on their own. Males fight over females, not the other way around.

Um.... I was talking in context to the current discussion, as in "why are Space Marines male," or "why use males to make Space Marines over females." Not "who is more important to the survival of the species"/"which gender is dominant." That debate is kind of off topic, however, and extremely controversial.

Fact of the matter is that human males are bigger and physically more resilient than females (except perhaps to infection, where females are base better able to handle infections than males), which is why you would want to cater your technology and investment in males over females when it comes to making Space Marines.

You can try and argue that males of different families are dramatically different compared to males and females of the same family, which might be true. However, the difference between males and females when it comes to medicine is far more important than genetic relations. So if you're going to create a geneseed to be adapted to each Space Marine, one that integrates with adapted organs, chemical therapy, physical therapy, etc, which gender are you going to choose to cater to? Larger males? Or the smaller female? Does that mean you CAN'T make organs for the females? No, you can, but Space Marines are traditionally male and that is part of their culture; being male.

Melissia wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:There's a lot of reasons. The first is that it contradicts the fluff. It flat out says female Space Marines are impossible.

No it doesn't... the Space Wolves codex, a far newer (and thus more "canon") source, specifically says "These organs were designed so that they could be implanted into the body of an ordinary adolescent human." Unless you define "ordinary" as "male"... which is rather silly.

yes it does... and if you keep reading it says "Once implanted, the organs would take root and develop within the hosts's human tissues, becoming an integrated part of his body."

..."... Compared to the Primarchs.. the Space Marines are but pale shadows... but they are still the most mighty of men"...

This is the same codex that refers throughout to "the sons of Russ" and the "brotherhood of space marines", you'd think if there were any female space wolves they would be quite (in)famous and probably worthy of a mention here and there.

Good try though.

wowbagger2004 wrote:forewarning of an opponent's utter worthlessness as a person is very uselful.

Awesome.

I think it is about the same reason people are generally upset about the Blood Angels and Necron alience from the BA codex.

Except that was done by GW themselves, not by the player base.


Editing to add:
Yes I typed "Alience".

Thank you, red.

Yeah, you'd think that would end this particular 'debate' but somehow, I doubt it...

reds8n wrote:yes it does... and if you keep reading it says "Once implanted, the organs would take root and develop within the hosts's human tissues, becoming an integrated part of his body."

To most writers, "his" is assumed as a default pronoun for a group of individuals. English is not strong on gender-neutral pronouns.

Melissia wrote:

reds8n wrote:yes it does... and if you keep reading it says "Once implanted, the organs would take root and develop within the hosts's human tissues, becoming an integrated part of his body."

To most writers, "his" is assumed as a default pronoun for a group of individuals. English is not strong on gender-neutral pronouns.

Quit grasping at straws and let it die.

Melissia wrote:

reds8n wrote:yes it does... and if you keep reading it says "Once implanted, the organs would take root and develop within the hosts's human tissues, becoming an integrated part of his body."

To most writers, "his" is assumed as a default pronoun for a group of individuals. English is not strong on gender-neutral pronouns.

They, their, them....

Skinnattittar wrote:

Melissia wrote:

reds8n wrote:yes it does... and if you keep reading it says "Once implanted, the organs would take root and develop within the hosts's human7 tissues, becoming an integrated part of his body."

To most writers, "his" is assumed as a default pronoun for a group of individuals. English is not strong on gender-neutral pronouns.

They, their, them....

I haven't run into a single English professor who believed "they" could be used as a singular gender-neutral pronoun in proper English Grammar. The only such pronoun in existence in modern English is "it". This is impersonal, and therefor considered rude or offensive when talking about a sentient being. The default English pronoun is "he". This is one of the better known flaws of the English language, and has led to some major legal battles.

edit: but I think we're getting WAY off topic here...

Melissia wrote:

reds8n wrote:yes it does... and if you keep reading it says "Once implanted, the organs would take root and develop within the hosts's human tissues, becoming an integrated part of his body."

To most writers, "his" is assumed as a default pronoun for a group of individuals. English is not strong on gender-neutral pronouns.

..so we can safely assume that they meant male adolescents too then, it being the "default" gender setting of the language in use.


"Sons of Russ".. not "Sons and Daughters of Russ".

"Such is the scale of the changes wrought upon each aspirant during his transformation into one of the Sons of Russ."

The whole book, especially the Rites of Initiation section constantly refers to "he", "his" throughout. And every single piece of artwork, astonishingly enough, shows males.

Frankly of all the codices to pick to try and back your argument, this is almost the worst one to use.

Melissia wrote:

Skinnattittar wrote:

Melissia wrote:

reds8n wrote:yes it does... and if you keep reading it says "Once implanted, the organs would take root and develop within the hosts's human7 tissues, becoming an integrated part of his body."

To most writers, "his" is assumed as a default pronoun for a group of individuals. English is not strong on gender-neutral pronouns.

They, their, them....

I haven't run into a single English professor who believed "they" could be used as a singular gender-neutral pronoun in proper English Grammar. The only such pronoun in existence in modern English is "it". This is impersonal, and therefor considered rude or offensive when talking about a sentient being. The default English pronoun is "he". This is one of the better known flaws of the English language, and has led to some major legal battles.edit: but I think we're getting WAY off topic here...

And most English professors will disagree with most English professors about many (often important) rules in the English language. The correct/acceptable genderless word you are looking for is "he/she." "He" is explicitly male, always has been, probably always will be, otherwise use "he/she" or as the military prefers "they," "them," or "their" which works perfectly well.

reds8n wrote:..so we can safely assume that they meant male adolescents too then

Yes, that it meant them as well, as they are ordinary human adolescents. However, the rest of your argument doesn't entirely work in my eyes.

Let's look at Dark Heresy for a moment, or really any roleplay system-- actually, let's look at DnD, to give an example that isn't tied to 40k. The description for many classes lists (for example, Rogues IIRC) "she" and "her" for them. Others use "he" and "him". This is not because the classes are restricted to those genders, rather, the reason is simply because using single consistent pronoun is less confusing than mixing them together (as explained in the beginning of Dark Heresy's core rulebook). So when writers use "he" it doesn't necessarily indicate a male, as "he" is often used in place of a gender-neutral pronoun. Society refers to "firemen" and "policemen" as a group, but this does not necessarily disclude female members of those organizations.

Dark Heresy and indeed 40k in general has this same issue. When writing about Guardsmen, "he" is often used-- yet female Guardsmen are well known to exist (indeed, "guardsman" refers to either male or female soldiers). Similarly, the highest rank for Inquisitors is "Inquisitor Lord" regardless of gender. Same with the High Lords of Terra-- the Abbess Sanctorum was referred to as one of the High Lords of Terra. Yet the Abbess is female. So unless it specifically indicates male, it can't really be successfully argued to mean it.

English is weird and frustrating that way.

@ Melissia : But (a) you stated that "he" and "she" were said beforehand to be genderless in those rule books and (b) mixing antiquated title systems in with modern political correctness. Even in those times, however, when a female might be present to those courts they were called "X Lords and Ladies" or "Lords and Ladies of X." The fact we have dropped them from out lexicanum is simply due to the fact that these were rare or people didn't really care.

Firemen and Policemen and Mailmen are slowly being replaced with phrase like Firefighter, Police Officer, Mail-Delivery Personell, etc... Historically these were male exclusive jobs and their titles are currently being changed.

However, to avoid you dragging us further off topic with shadow-boxing and straw"people" arguments I will return to the fact that every Space Marine that has existed in the current fluff has been female with not a single female Space Marine being shown as a norm. Every reference to Space Marines has been male, every background for Space Marines has been male, and all fluff for them is male. The fact that in a codex they repetedly say "he" does not insinuate the possibility of a "she," in fact it says the opposite. It says "he." So despite the poor foresight of (hopefully) subconscious gender bias in other codices where females are possible, Space Marines are male. Always have been, probably always will be (though I have no problem if they had a more Space Marine-esque female Adeptus, it would be interesting, if not amusing).

ha, I actually had a little paragraph about RPgs and the like and deleted it. You're correct that they do this, but they also have a nice little disclaimer, usually right near the beginning of the book, explaining that whilst the male pro noun is defaultly used in the book this should not be taken as indicative etc etc yadda yadda. DH has this on page 30, as well as the little bit about how on some planets being a woman will present its own challenges and that "he" can be considered shorthand and can be read as "she". NONE of the marine codices have this disclaimer at all.

You'll note that the Deathwatch RPG doesn't have this, and goes so far as to say..

Due to the special nature of the zygotes that make up a Space Marine’s geneseed, all Space Marines are male.

Which is a fairly conclusive statement IMO.

The fluff has been created this way, so Marines are Male only, as Sisters are female only.

I really whished, the IG-Sprues (Cadia, Catachan...) would contain female troopers.

Really, in the end, it wouldn't matter, because they'd be pretty much unidentifiable anyway. When you consider the hormone therapy used, and the early age it is applied, a male and female Space Marine would be mostly indistinguishable. There'd be no breasts, that's for sure, and the only recognizable parts would really be a slightly different bone structure (although the hormones and bone surgery used would probably mitigate much of this), and an alternate set of shriveled up, useless genetalia.

The whole argument about female Space Marines is pretty pointless, because when you think about it, male Space Marines couldn't even qualify as men.

meh, dumb debate.

They're your plastic man dollies. Give them vaginas if you want.

Vaginas? On MY space marines? It's more likely than you think.

kronk wrote:

They're your plastic man dollies. Give them vaginas if you want.

Lets not bring The Emperor's Children into this...

Skinnattittar wrote:I will return to the fact that every Space Marine that has existed in the current fluff has been female

I assume you meant male when you said this, to which I point this out:

Melissia wrote:There is no evidence of them existing, and so canonically they probably don't. But that doesn't mean they couldn't exist given the right situation.

Dark Scipio wrote:The fluff has been created this way, so Marines are Male only, as Sisters are female only.

I really whished, the IG-Sprues (Cadia, Catachan...) would contain female troopers.

Now that you mention it, it isn't physically impossible to create male sisters of battle. Politically, yes, but not physically.

Maybe if enough people write in to Forgeworld they'll release some female guardsmen.

Come on now!

Zealotry can get you so far - but relying on the rules of grammar to prove a background point in 40K borders on the insane!

I'll chime in with my usual note that the IA article that explained that zygotes only work on males, like most GW fluff, is not written in a 3rd person omniscient. The sentence quoted is true, to the best knowledge of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

GW has told us for 20 years that technology moves glacially slow,if at all, for the Imperium, yet there are always massive leaps conveniently discovered when a new kit needs to be sold. 15 years ago, all Landraiders had lascannons. Stormravens weren't around. Blood Angels didn't use patently superior engines in their Rhino Hulled vehicles.

I mean, if a chapter can figure out how to build a clearly superior rhino with no discernible down side, why couldn't a chapter figure out how to get around the mystery of the zygote?

And that is the frustrating element of the debate for me. I think FSMs are a gimmicky and played out, but to see these pronouncements that they're "impossible according to fluff" to me is a case of missing the forest for the trees.

No, I argued that because of the rules of grammar the wording is unclear-- and I was right (the English language is very imperfect). Afterwards, though, Reds8n provided a very good counter point with the Deathwatch roleplay, and I have no way to respond to that (it's very clear cut indeed). That's a very recent fluff source, and as far as I'm concerned the Dark Heresy / Rogue Trader / Deathwatch roleplays are good source material for fluff.

And let's ease up a touch with the accusations of zealotry. One poster in this thread says about FSMs : "It seriously kills the whole fluff about SM's. They are designed to be male only. "

I think there's enough wiggle room to admit the possibility of renegade or secret FSMs. To deny even that possibility seems to equally dogmatic about a handful of canonical statements.

Fafnir wrote:In the grim dark future of the 41st millenium, there is only sexual discrimination!

this made me laugh - Its true though - WH40k is meant to be grim, sadistic, nihilistic, pessimistic(cept orks - they always enjoy themselves) and a little bit macho
i have to say it never stopped me enjoying it - s better than dolls

Oh I don't know, I think there's a lot of undue or excessive zeal and fanaticism in this thread in particular and in 40K in general, so in many ways, I think it is a more than appropriate usage of the word.

And when we're down to leaning on the slender reeds of impersonal pronouns opening up a door for female Space Marines when all of the background has clearly said that they are male only...

weetyskemian44 wrote:
this made me laugh - Its true though - WH40k is meant to be grim, sadistic, nihilistic, pessimistic(cept orks - they always enjoy themselves) and a little bit macho

... and that's how we like it !

Melissia wrote:

Melissia wrote:There is no evidence of them existing, and so canonically they probably don't. But that doesn't mean they couldn't exist given the right situation.

Sure, that line does not confirm that they couldn't exist.

What confirms 100% forever that they cannot exist is the fact that the fluff says so. It flat out says that SM organs don't work on women.

Don't like it? Too bad. There is literally no argument possible against "The definitive source says that it is impossible" other than "making gak up".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:It's the players that are sexist, not the Imperium.

Neither the players nor the Imperium are sexist. To think so is pretty ridiculous.

T-Marines

Home world: Genderous Confusicom

Battle cry: 'It's a trap!'

Special Rules: 'And they shall have no Beards': The T-Marines are rather sensitive about facial hair, anyone foolish enough to point it out shall meet their unholy fury. T-Marines are fearless and gain an extra attack when charged.