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BaronIveagh wrote:Actually the Thorians would probably try just that. In fluff they've been trying to replicate the Primarchs and the Living Saints of the SoB. I can't imagine that it's much of a stretch for one of them to say 'What if we combine the two?'

It actually is a stretch. There's no reason to start with the Sororitas saints - there have been plenty of male saints in the Imperial creed (both living and posthumous), so if they were going to decide to combine Primarch and Saint, then that would be the place to start.

The problem is that they tend to also tend be short lived. Most assassins are placed in stasis between missions for this reason.

I'm pretty sure it's only the Eversors that have to be kept in stasis, and that's because they're frothing psychopaths who would murder everyone if they weren't locked up.

While this does mean that the process would allow for women to be enhanced, it would take decades if not centuries to build 1000 of them to make a chapter sized force.

I'd say that's a fairly normal time span for the foundation of a chapter. Candidates aren't the easiest to come by (they tend to get only a handful per year), it's several years to implant, some time to train... decades or centuries after the start of creation sounds an entirely likely time to take to reach full fighting strength.

The problem is sufficiently boosting someone. So far, the Imperium hasn't really produced anything else that's both equivalent and viable in terms of cost to produce.

I agree that it's not entirely practical. However, it is more plausible than a cop-out "geneseed mutation" answer. The chance that such a mutation would do something like that and they'd then think "Shoot. This geneseed doesn't work. You know what, before we incinerate it for being impure, let's see if it works it in women instead. Well, dang - whadda you know? We've got a woman who's so incredibly bulky and muscular that she looks like a man".

And I'm not sure it's a good idea to go with "The geneseed turned them into women", because the idea of a transgender Space Marine chapter is only going to get even weirder looks.

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:It turns out Space Marines are chaste not because of infertility, but because they choose not to. A space Marine (obviously a Space Wolf) impregnates a woman, and the child is a female-astartes hybrid, being about 6'10 and stronger than any human, but weaker than "standard" space marines.

That would work about as much as a guy with a pacemaker and a hip replacement impregnating a woman and the baby being born with a pacemaker and a hip replacement.

It's all implants (albeit organic ones), and wouldn't have any effect on the genetics of the Marine's gametes. Lamarckian evolution has long since been disproven!

BaronIveagh wrote: Remember that women can be every bit as strong as a man, without bulging like one, so to speak. I'll phrase this carefully so that I don't have the 'bulging breastplate' crowd crowing, but just like some space marines are taller or larger than others (just becasue the minis are all the same size does not translate into the SM all being the same size) there will likely be women who retain more female characteristics than others.

I don't know about this.

Remember we're dealing biologically with the physical peak of the human body, minus augmetics/daemonic influence/etc. Even female bodybuilders here in 2012 lose many of what many consider 'feminine' characteristics (breasts, swell of the hips, narrowing of the waist and neck, facial features, etc) as they become more muscular. In fact, the body of a female bodybuilder can often be mistaken for a male at times (minus the obvious) and this is within the bounds of our technology. Throw in the progenoid mutations and vastly accelerated muscle/bone growth and I think you'll be hard pressed to see any 'feminine' characteristics at all.

Steelmage has it right. Nothing wrong with female Space Marines as long as you realize they'll just look like more masculine versions of Sanguinius.

DoW

In 40k, the difference between the strength of a male and female human, whether on average or at peak physical condition, is trivial and unimportant.

I'm inclined to agree with DogOfWar. Most female weightlifters and bodybuilders end up very masculine.

And the statement that women can be as strong holds very little water. The best female weightlifting performance at the 2008 Olympics was a total weight of 326 kg. That year's performance in the appropriate bodyweight category for the men was 461 kg, over 40% more.

If you want feminine supersoldiers, you need to approach methods that don't hyper-masculinise the individual. And if you want them to match the men, you need to do something different, more radical.

@Melissia: In statline, yes. But we're talking in fluff, not the abstracted numbers of gameplay that don't have the granularity to show the difference.

BaronIveagh wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
That's noting near the same thing as "a female Space Marine". It's a woman possessed by a Daemon within a suit of armor.

Kan, you and I have been over this one a dozen times. You insist because there was no implantation that it's not, I insist that walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, dupes every CSM in the room that it's a duck, then you might as well call it a duck.

If you didn't go through the Astartes creation process, then you aren't an Astartes. Kor Phaeron was enhanced to be [more than] a physical match for any of the Word Bearers, and is one of the two highest-ranking members of the Legion. He uses Astartes armor, Astartes weapons, and Astartes tactics, but he himself is not an Astartes.

I still say it ultimately comes down to necessity. The primary advantage of recruiting both sexes is that it roughly doubles the number of available soldiers. This is a good idea for the Imperial Guard or the PDF, which require strength of numbers to deal with most of the major powers in the galaxy. On the same token creating female space marines would only ever be done if there was a need for more bodies, and quite frankly throwing meat into the grinders until they jam is not what the Space Marines do. And there is no real sign that the supply of hard boys in the imperium is going to be running out any time soon. The Imperium has nothing if not large supplies of manpower and it would have to be in truly dire straits to need to funnel resources into trying to make female space marines work, and even then, wouldn't said resources be better funnelled towards creating more tried and tested weapons?

MarcoSkoll wrote:I'm inclined to agree with DogOfWar. Most female weightlifters and bodybuilders end up very masculine.

And the statement that women can be as strong holds very little water. The best female weightlifting performance at the 2008 Olympics was a total weight of 326 kg. That year's performance in the appropriate bodyweight category for the men was 461 kg, over 40% more.

If you want feminine supersoldiers, you need to approach methods that don't hyper-masculinise the individual. And if you want them to match the men, you need to do something different, more radical.

@Melissia: In statline, yes. But we're talking in fluff, not the abstracted numbers of gameplay that don't have the granularity to show the difference.

In addition, female weightlifters/bodybuilders end up masculine because of a mix of different steroids like Test, Anavar, and also I believe some IGF-1. Basically stuff that increases testosterone produced. However, even with those additions the best (biggest) women bodybuilders wouldn't even place in a male bodybuilding competition and that's saying a lot.
But yeah, women and men are very different on the physical scale.

In any case, I always saw the Sisters of Battle as the feminine super soldiers.

Melissia wrote:Bah, and here I was hoping you were going to ask us to say extra heretical things.

Like "I think Lorgar was right, he just went about being right in the wrong way."

I don't know, I think Lorgar went the only way about being right. That statement would fit Magnus pretty well, though.

Omegus wrote:

Melissia wrote:Bah, and here I was hoping you were going to ask us to say extra heretical things.

Like "I think Lorgar was right, he just went about being right in the wrong way."

I don't know, I think Lorgar went the only way about being right. That statement would fit Magnus pretty well, though.

I'd agree with that...

MarcoSkoll wrote:@Melissia: In statline, yes. But we're talking in fluff, not the abstracted numbers of gameplay.

So was I.

Kain wrote:I still say it ultimately comes down to necessity. The primary advantage of recruiting both sexes is that it roughly doubles the number of available soldiers. This is a good idea for the Imperial Guard or the PDF, which require strength of numbers to deal with most of the major powers in the galaxy. On the same token creating female space marines would only ever be done if there was a need for more bodies, and quite frankly throwing meat into the grinders until they jam is not what the Space Marines do. And there is no real sign that the supply of hard boys in the imperium is going to be running out any time soon. The Imperium has nothing if not large supplies of manpower and it would have to be in truly dire straits to need to funnel resources into trying to make female space marines work, and even then, wouldn't said resources be better funnelled towards creating more tried and tested weapons?

THe only time i can see it being nessacary to recruit females and try to implant them is if the sm chapter is terribly mauled and can't get home. and then land on a planet where only women exist.


NOm

nomsheep wrote:

Kain wrote:I still say it ultimately comes down to necessity. The primary advantage of recruiting both sexes is that it roughly doubles the number of available soldiers. This is a good idea for the Imperial Guard or the PDF, which require strength of numbers to deal with most of the major powers in the galaxy. On the same token creating female space marines would only ever be done if there was a need for more bodies, and quite frankly throwing meat into the grinders until they jam is not what the Space Marines do. And there is no real sign that the supply of hard boys in the imperium is going to be running out any time soon. The Imperium has nothing if not large supplies of manpower and it would have to be in truly dire straits to need to funnel resources into trying to make female space marines work, and even then, wouldn't said resources be better funnelled towards creating more tried and tested weapons?

THe only time i can see it being nessacary to recruit females and try to implant them is if the sm chapter is terribly mauled and can't get home. and then land on a planet where only women exist.


NOm

And even if they try, they'd need some awfully lenient techmarines and apothecaries to even consider this course of action. Being hide-bound to tradition sucks like that.

And even then I'm pretty sure they'd become the laughing stock of the rest of the Adeptus Astartes if not outright declared exocommunicatus traitoris.

Melissia wrote:So was I.

I wouldn't call a one third lesser upper body strength and a 20% reduction in cardiac volume "trivial and unimportant".

The Imperial commanders might not care very much - just an extra body to throw into the breach - but it still represents a very significant difference in a soldier's performance. Women can't run as far or fast, and they can't carry as much equipment while doing so. The concept I've seen around the place that "lesser strength doesn't matter, the gun's doing all the damage" is very misguided.

MarcoSkoll wrote:

Melissia wrote:So was I.

I wouldn't call a one third lesser upper body strength and a 20% reduction in cardiac volume "trivial and unimportant".

It is when compared to the strength of a rampaging Ork, for example, a very common enemy.

If we're talking about soldiers, they're not going to have that big of a difference to begin with. If we're talking about supersoldiers, then it's irrelevant because the implants change the way the body grows to begin with.

I have to agree with Melissia, the difference after transformation and in power armor would be very slight.

Melissia wrote:

MarcoSkoll wrote:

Melissia wrote:So was I.

I wouldn't call a one third lesser upper body strength and a 20% reduction in cardiac volume "trivial and unimportant".

It is when compared to the strength of a rampaging Ork, for example, a very common enemy.

In gameplay terms, sure. S3, T3 for both women and men, no difference.

However, while 40k fluff does a great job of equalling the sexes in terms of combat, the realism of such equality is unlikely. Unless you subject the females to testosterone injections, genetic modification or some kind of augmetic surgery, they are going to be less effective in combat, physically.

There's nothing that says they can't be just as good of a shot as a male with any weapon, but the reality is that you have to lug that weapon, plus your pack, plus whatever else to the firefight before you can start shooting. And while modern soldiers don't usually get into swirling melees, the physical limitations of female soldiers would be immediately apparent in terms of exhaustion and upper body strength, even compared to male soldiers of equal body mass. Again, we're talking averages. There are probably quite a few women who can keep up with the average Marine, but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

Long story short, yes, the physical differences matter greatly, regardless of the situation (charging Ork or not), but it's possible (and would be almost essential for an effective 50/50 fighting force) that the Imperium has negated those differences via biological or chemical means.

DoW

Or 38,000 years of evoloution has done that for us.

Nom

BaronIveagh wrote:Further, we neglect the possibility that the geneseed was otherwise normal (or, more interesting, had some other unusual property that made it seem worthwhile), save that it had an inversion of the gender requirement for successful implantation. As someone earlier commented, no one would wish to waste all that geneseed...

That someone else is allowed to be confused as well.

Let's be realistic. The precedent has been pretty firmly carved in stone that gene seed is only precious to Space Marines, not to the Imperium's various agencies. The Inquisition doesn't care about how much geneseed is lost if they feel that seed represents heresy, corruption, or other tangible or intangible threat to the Imperium. The excommunicate entire chapterson occasion. Suffer not the unclean to live and all that. The AdMech isn't going to care either. They can always get more from the Ultramarines and their successors and know that it's probably going to be good. The Salamanders being black is one thing. And honestly, you only reinforce my point by saying the Black Dragons are too chaosy. The Inquisition is incredibly suspicious of them, but at least they are otherwise normal Space Marines.

Remember that women can be every bit as strong as a man, without bulging like one

Heh. That's a funny story. Tell us another one. Are we talking about at 125 pounds? Okay, maybe. If we're talking actual men with real man strength and size, not a chance. At the size and bulk of Space Marines? Absolutely impossible. The process which creates Space Marines make normal men look tiny and weak by comparison. It's going to absolutely obliterate any kind of feminine proportions and features, and the training regimen will eliminate any that sneak through. Unless we're giving all the Ladymarines boob jobs like the big time female bodybuilders get so people aren't confused. If you thought Sisters of Battle were ugly, brutish women in everything but the fantasies of 40K artists, female Space Marines will be downright hideous, at least from a sexual attractiveness standpoint. "That" demographic exempted, lol. The process of being a Space Marine involved a broadening and deepening of the chest cavity, as well as denser bones, and more squared facial features as the cranium gets wider and thicker. At what point do you think any "feminine" characteristics are going to survive that, lol. I mean, I guess unless you like brutish looking, square faced women with barrel chests and no boobs and shaved heads. In that case, then yes, I guess they will be feminine.

Melissia wrote:It is when compared to the strength of a rampaging Ork, for example, a very common enemy.

That's a total strawman. The fact they're both feeble compared to an Ork does not mean that the differences are not still significant.
The difference between the mass of a cocker spaniel and an elephant might be trivial compared to the mass of the Earth, but I know that getting sat on by each would be significantly different.

I've explained why the physical differences between men and women are significant, and this applies 40k as it does today - the requirement to lug around as much combat gear as far and fast as possible will remain relevant in the future.
While after augmentation, things might be different - but that brings the caveat of less physical performance difference also meaning less gender dimorphism (as it's that dimorphism that causes the performance difference), and that's not something that the proponents of lady Marines want.

nomsheep wrote:Or 38,000 years of evoloution has done that for us.

That's not how evolution works. You need an evolutionary pressure to cause changes like that to happen, and if there were an evolutionary pressure that against the physically weak, it would affect both genders. Even if the specifics were so fine tuned that the evolutionary pressure was much more lethal to women than to men, those women would be passing on their genetic advantages to both their male and female offspring.

Also, 38kY is pitiful on an evolutionary timescale for a species that takes as long to reach sexual maturity as humans. That's only about 2000 generations, assuming some degree of taste as far as what you consider breeding age.

DogOfWar wrote:[... ] 40k fluff does a great job of equalling the sexes in terms of combat, the realism of such equality is unlikely.

Uh.

Wait.

What?

Kain wrote: wouldn't said resources be better funnelled towards creating more tried and tested weapons?

This is really the nuts and bolts of it.

Nobody in the Imperium really knows how the process works anymore. And there's no incentive to "test" the process on women just to see if it is possible. There's no shortage of male babies being born, and even with the low compatibility rate, the sheer numbers are still sufficient. The classic "if it ain't broke" philosophy. And the Imperium has no reason to have some kind of silly equal opportunity program.

Say 14 is breeding age (since it gets lower every year :/

With focus shifting from women being in the home (cooking etc ) and to them doing exactly what men do, then surely the difference between the strengths of the genders would eventually begin to even out.

Nom

If this is true, imagine a woman in power armour in the kitchens of fire, purging the heretical sandwich and serving it to the almighty emperor!

This is just a joke haha.

It's funny because I've just been arguing in the next thread down about the sandbox nature of 40k versus lots of other "closed" sci fi universes, and this is THE primary example of the 40k sandbox in action: the female space marine. Sure it contradicts a LOT of stuff in the fluff, and it's pretty roundly shouted down whenever it's brought up. But if somebody really wanted to, they could make an army and whatever backstory they want, and it's not like I wouldn't still play a match against them.

As for the actual topic of the thread, there are two ways I could see it going:

First, Fabius bile alters the geneseed to such an extent that female aspirants are viable. Total heresy, but what does he care? And Slaanesh loves it, and favors them, and a whole warband is slowly formed where the "women" rise to the top and eventually exclude the male marines. Et voila, female CSM warband. Not only do I find this plausible, it could be kind of awesome if well executed.

Second, the missing primarch route. I know there's a line dropped in a Horus Heresy novel that sorta rules this out, but if someone makes the army, I'm willing to overlook it. I personally don't buy it, but I also don't like all the recent hemming in of the mystery surrounding the missing primarchs. Pushback against that is welcome if you ask me, even if I think it's totally ridiculous lol.

nomsheep wrote:Say 14 is breeding age (since it gets lower every year)

I said "Some degree of taste". Dividing 38kY down into a round two thousand generations gives a reasonable-ish generation of 19 years. It's shorter than I think is quite right, as this has to allow for the average breeding age (taking into account how second, third, etc children affects that), not just how young it's possible to have children.

With focus shifting from women being in the home (cooking etc ) and to them doing exactly what men do, then surely the difference between the strengths of the genders would eventually begin to even out.

No. As I've already said, there is no such thing as Lamarckian evolution. Traits that were gained in life do NOT get passed on to offspring, only genetics do.

Evolution is the process of natural selection, and requires something affecting the likelihood of successfully passing on genetics. This usually tends to be "dying because you weren't good enough". And in practice, there aren't a lot of women horribly dying because they aren't physically up to doing traditionally male jobs.
And even if they were, their genetics get passed to both genders of their children - an evolutionary pressure that targets just women would affect men too.

Also, you think that moving out of the kitchen will make life tough enough to evolve humans? We've got millions of years of ancestry where every single day was a struggle against predators and you think that not being housewives is going to beef up women where that couldn't?

Ultimately, it's completely physically impossible for women and men to do the same thing. We cannot evolve to a state of physical gender parity, as women have to be anatomically capable of childbirth, which puts them at a distinct performance advantage. Humans have already evolved to a point that best ensures the continuation of our genetic heritage under much harsher conditions than even the 41st millennium offers. Trying to rebuild women in a way to improve their performance as soldiers (at best, a minor evolutionary pressure) would dramatically hinder them in bearing children (the ultimate evolutionary pressure, as if you can't give birth, you can't pass on your genetics) and overall worsen the chance of their genetics being passed on. Hence, humans will not evolve in that direction.

Okay, in theory, the childbirth requirement could be removed with artificial wombs, but we know these (while possible) are not at all common in the 41st millennium, and are thus far too insignificant to have an effect on the overall genome of the human race.

The last thing to say is that if you could evolve to this point, you'd just end up with the women looking like men, negating everything that people want from this discussion.

Anyway, we know from the rare occurrence of females in GW model ranges and art that human gender dimorphism still exists in the 41st millennium, and thus the performance differences that are a consequence of that will remain in kind.

TL;DR: Humans cannot evolve (and, based on the art, haven't) to a state of equal gender performance at all, let alone in so pitifully few generations.

Evolution has nothing to do with Astartes. They are a created race. And honestly with combat drugs, enhanced systems and Power armor and the selection process itself, the difference really does not amount to a whole hell of a lot.

Yes, but the important thing to say is "no gender performance difference = no gender dimorphism". So if your lady Marines have the same physical performance as male Marines, they'll also look exactly like them.

Hunterindarkness wrote:Evolution has nothing to do with Astartes. They are a created race. And honestly with combat drugs, enhanced systems and Power armor and the selection process itself, the difference really does not amount to a whole hell of a lot.

Apparently everyone missed my post.

However, even with those additions the best (biggest) women bodybuilders wouldn't even place in a male bodybuilding competition and that's saying a lot.

Here's the deal; women bodybuilders take a crap-ton of AAS and hormones. So do male bodybuilders. But even though women take a fairly comparable amount, even the most amazing female bodybuilder wouldn't even have a snowball's chance in hell of placing in a Mr. Olympia.

Also, the problem is that there's still a difference, just as you mentioned. Even if it's a small difference, why bother? Why not just get a male who's actually capable of becoming an Astartes and then go with that? Why get something that is weaker, even if only by a tiny bit?

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

Vladsimpaler wrote:

Also, the problem is that there's still a difference, just as you mentioned. Even if it's a small difference, why bother? Why not just get a male who's actually capable of becoming an Astartes and then go with that? Why get something that is weaker, even if only by a tiny bit?

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

Because you want soldiers, not strong men. Soldier is not all grunt lifting, they can do the same job, they may not be a strong, but are likely to be cunning, more agile, faster and with a far better grasp of small details. The SM are take the very best, not just the very strongest.

I don't know why people are still arguing against Marco's iron-clad logic. I'm starting to think they don't understand all the big words. Perhaps a Cliff's Notes version?

Women + Geneseed = lots of work to create women with no boobs, that look just like the men, and only match the men's performance or just slightly underperform. Why?