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nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Aestas wrote:


Now the grimdark part of my brain wants a whole army of brainwashed child soldiers fighting for the Ecclesiarchy. I'll lock myself out.

LOL. I sincerely wouldn't put it past them.

"Well, it's your 9th birthday, so here's your chainsword, Little Timmy! Now, what do we say when we get a gift?"
"'Death to the heretic! The mutant! The Xenos! Death!'"
"Good boy, Timmy! You've made an old Preacher proud!"

Just to occurred to me: Maybe Emps just wanted to prevent blanks having children with other blanks? Thus the gender division? And casualty rates in training are far higher for Culexus than Null Maidens?

But... that leaves the problem of WHY he would want less blanks in the population when his goal was stopping Chaos and endings its influence on humanity!

Well... i guess the real grimdark conversation would arrive when little Timmy hit puberty...

It might be, but dependent on how the Pariah gene is inherited, it could also be a pretty smart strategy to keep the male carriers as part of the civilian, breeding population, if you wanted more blanks to pop up.

why are we talking about parity of the models in a thread about in universal headcannon? speaking of which- if the ministorum being stapled to the hip of the sisters in the codexes while now not benefitting at all from the rules counts them as a full army with no all female option in any of them, then by that token the sisters of silence ARE a full all female army, aren't they? about the only reason the ministorum is in the same book at all is they are both wings of the church, but for all it matters the ministorum is about as separate as the inquisition mechanically...

And speaking of the Sisters of Silence, while they ought to still be hanging with the Custodes as something like the Talons of the Emperor, no, currently they are their own, heavily underdone thing. a problem they should be fixing...

nataliereed1984 wrote:


It's similar to how I feel about the "no men under arms" explanation for the Sororitas. Hate it. Fine with the Sisters being women, just like I'm fine with the Space Marines being all men, but hated the in-universe explanation. Like, first of all, not all the orders really bear arms for the Ecclesiarchy anyway, just the orders militant? Secondly, and more importantly, NO COURT WOULD EVER PERMIT SUCH A BLATANT VIOLATION OF THE OBVIOUSLY INTENDED DEFINITION OF A WORD. "Men" obviously meant "human beings", not "adult male human beings", just like with lots of long-standing, older laws in the real world. Maybe Low Gothic doesn't have that ambiguity, but that leaves the even SILLIER question of why they phrased it that way!

...somehow I wouldn't be surprised if a court DID permit such a blatant definition violation. definitions are... malleable things, especially the way words get moved around even today. even though their help in taking out vandire is why they were given the latitude they were... also yay for a ruined imperium at the time to throw them at. nice to know they pushed it towards them being a general exception to the no military rule.

plus by that millenia who knows how convoluted the book of judgement even was. to much human skin.

I especially hate when this is used as a justification for the boob-plate on their armour. "It's to help SHOW they're not men-under-arms!". You really think someone being gunned down by zealous death nuns is gonna file a complaint with legal?!? The boob-plate, like THOUSANDS of other ways models are designed, is just because of the aesthetics. Yeah, it might seem silly to some players, but some players might think they're not sexy enough (I advise them to check out Raging Heroes, Wargames Exclusive, etc). Trying to argue there's some practical reason for it is just pathetic. NO ONE'S armour is practical in Warhammer! Just look at Perturabo FFS!

okay, who even made that argument, because they kinda missed the fact the sisters had to be armed in order to.. i unno.. HOLD THE IMPERIAL PALACE. i always figure Vandire requested their armor, and since they were a kind of amazonian order to begin with, the design fell in with the emperors veneration of the human form as they saw it. to say nothing of Vandire's own actions in that, by chance. but no, a religious factions armor definitely is not what i would call practical. that would be missing a LOT of purity seals. also, their vehicles wouldn't look like every single religious icon was dug out of someone attic and slapped it all on.

...that said, apparently we're up to nobodies armor, and none of the science being practical or real in any basis. starting to question why the setting is sci-fi at all.

Makes one think "the big gold dude was kind of a sexist" is more and more a viable explanation.

I'll just go with "big gold dude is an ass that is vastly different than most can grasp, and the writing has no better a clue."... i don't see why this thought would improve anything.

Bdrone wrote:


okay, who even made that argument, because they kinda missed the fact the sisters had to be armed in order to.. i unno.. HOLD THE IMPERIAL PALACE. i always figure Vandire requested their armor, and since they were a kind of amazonian order to begin with, the design fell in with the emperors veneration of the human form as they saw it. to say nothing of Vandire's own actions in that, by chance. but no, a religious factions armor definitely is not what i would call practical. that would be missing a LOT of purity seals. also, their vehicles wouldn't look like every single religious icon was dug out of someone attic and slapped it all on.
.

No, no, I don't mean there's anything wrong with the sisters being armoured! I mean shaping the chest of their cuirass to exhibit breasts, even though (in the real world) this is an INCREDIBLY bad way to design armour. It guides attacks *towards* your vital organs. And breasts are squishy! They don't need a cuirass to be moulded around them! So boob-plate (armour with boobs moulded into it) os ALWAYS silly and impractical. But in a setting like 40k, where MOST aesthetics are silly and impractical, it's silly to complain. You know what I mean?

I wasn't saying you thought there was something wrong with the sisters being armored.

I was wondering who made the arguement that "it's to help show they aren't men-under-arms!" because not only is it stupid, it directly ignores the creation of the sisters order when it was still under vandire, which would likely include armor and weaponry. they certainly didn't help hold the palace unarmored and unarmed, and the decree passive occurs after that.

yeah, the armor design is wrong, but i figure considering the whole "I can deflect tank shells with faith thing" on top of "religious faction" especially in this setting, impractical is a given.

but people will complain all the same about just about anything. *shrug*

Bdrone wrote:
I wasn't saying you thought there was something wrong with the sisters being armored.

I was wondering who made the arguement that "it's to help show they aren't men-under-arms!" because not only is it stupid, it directly ignores the creation of the sisters order when it was still under vandire, which would likely include armor and weaponry. they certainly didn't help hold the palace unarmored and unarmed, and the decree passive occurs after that.

yeah, the armor design is wrong, but i figure considering the whole "I can deflect tank shells with faith thing" on top of "religious faction" especially in this setting, impractical is a given.

but people will complain all the same about just about anything. *shrug*

I haven't heard that argument, but I have heard people complain the new sculpts are too butch... you win some, you loose some. I'm pretty sure their armour pattern is said to be created specially for them by order of Vandire, yes.

now see i did hear that one. I don't like the new sculpts the more i look at them, but that isn't why if i can be allowed to wander off topic a bit. with the Repentia specifically my issue among other things is the fact i wanted robes as an option, and the "plugs" bothered the tar out of me, and would be one of who knows how many things id have to edit about my collection if i got them.

im more annoyed in how much more stuff has been added onto the kits from the metals and how much i wouldn't use id have to pay for along with the scale change if we're talking general stuff.

Nobody was complaining about the way the Sororitas armour is designed. Just like nobody was saying 40k isn't diverse enough, and nobody was saying the ranges should have more parity, until other people started claiming it was fine and didn't need any improvement and suggesting it's silly to be unsatisfied with it. People keep seeming to want to defend against arguments that aren't being made, and thereby create those arguments!

All I said was that I think it's silly when I see people use the "no men under arms" thing to justify the shape of the armour, which doesn't even need a realistic justification anyway, because it's 40k.

*sigh*

nataliereed1984 wrote:
Nobody was complaining about the way the Sororitas armour is designed. Just like nobody was saying 40k isn't diverse enough. People keep seeming to want to defend against arguments that aren't being made!

All I said was that I think it's silly when I see people use the "no men under arms" thing to justify the shape of the armour, which doesn't even need a realistic justification anyway, because it's 40k.

*sigh*

The important detail about the "no men under arms" law is that it was passed after the creation of the Sisters of Battle and it has never been respected to the letter. At the end of the Reign of Blood, before the decree Passive was passed, the Sisters of Battle, then known as the Daughters of the Emperor, were active. They just had turned coat and killed Vandire and decided to launch themselves in redemption Crusade to reunite the Imperium broken by the civil war. The decree Passive was used to disarm the Church, but the Daughters were needed and too useful to be disarmed or killed. The formulation was such that the Sisters being all women wouldn't be considered as affected by the law all the while it's traditionnal formulation would let people think that drastic measures were taken to prevent another civil war. The Decree Passive is a propaganda shot about as much as an actual law.

Beside the Sisters of Battle, the Ecclesiarchy does maintain a Frateris Militia of male soldiers who get examption from the law as they are "temporary soldiers" even though they are armed, trained and commanded by the Chruch and more than capable of suppressing small rebellions or start one. They also have the Crusaders, elite warriors with exceptionnal equipment and nearly superhuman training, but they get a pass as simple bodyguards. Priests themselves can also bear arms and fight in wars. The trick with the Sisters is that there are other decrees and laws that surround their creation. They aren't only the sword of the Church, they also serve the Inquisition and with the special mission of keeping the Church in line.

epronovost wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
Nobody was complaining about the way the Sororitas armour is designed. Just like nobody was saying 40k isn't diverse enough. People keep seeming to want to defend against arguments that aren't being made!

All I said was that I think it's silly when I see people use the "no men under arms" thing to justify the shape of the armour, which doesn't even need a realistic justification anyway, because it's 40k.

*sigh*

The important detail about the "no men under arms" law is that it was passed after the creation of the Sisters of Battle and it has never been respected to the letter. At the end of the Reign of Blood, before the decree Passive was passed, the Sisters of Battle, then known as the Daughters of the Emperor, were active. They just had turned coat and killed Vandire and decided to launch themselves in redemption Crusade to reunite the Imperium broken by the civil war. The decree Passive was used to disarm the Church, but the Daughters were needed and too useful to be disarmed or killed. The formulation was such that the Sisters being all women wouldn't be considered as affected by the law all the while it's traditionnal formulation would let people think that drastic measures were taken to prevent another civil war. The Decree Passive is a propaganda shot about as much as an actual law.

Beside the Sisters of Battle, the Ecclesiarchy does maintain a Frateris Militia of male soldiers who get examption from the law as they are "temporary soldiers" even though they are armed, trained and commanded by the Chruch and more than capable of suppressing small rebellions or start one. They also have the Crusaders, elite warriors with exceptionnal equipment and nearly superhuman training, but they get a pass as simple bodyguards. Priests themselves can also bear arms and fight in wars. The trick with the Sisters is that there are other decrees and laws that surround their creation. They aren't only the sword of the Church, they also serve the Inquisition and with the special mission of keeping the Church in line.

Yes, I know what the canonical explanation is (or used to be), I just think it's a dumb explanation, much like I think "girls reject astartes geneseed" is a dumb explanation. I think it's dumb because laws and the interpretation of words within them don't work like malicious genies in cartoons do.

The current canon in which the Daughters of the Emperor just happened to be given special dispensation by Thor to remain as a military defender of the faith - albeit a greatly reduced, and much more specialized one, in comparison to the prior Ecclesiarchal force - is much, much, much less grating and immersion-breaking, IMO.

I'd like a similar shift towards something more reasonable in how the Astartes' gender homogeneity is reasoned.

Or, ya know, Astartes could remain male only because that is what the creators of 40k wanted. Are you also going to tell Joseph Whedon he isn't allowed to make Slayers all female too?

Weird. Did you read the posts BaconCatBug or did you come in here just to snark? I thought your thing was reading comprehension.

nataliereed1984 wrote:

epronovost wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
Nobody was complaining about the way the Sororitas armour is designed. Just like nobody was saying 40k isn't diverse enough. People keep seeming to want to defend against arguments that aren't being made!

All I said was that I think it's silly when I see people use the "no men under arms" thing to justify the shape of the armour, which doesn't even need a realistic justification anyway, because it's 40k.

*sigh*

The important detail about the "no men under arms" law is that it was passed after the creation of the Sisters of Battle and it has never been respected to the letter. At the end of the Reign of Blood, before the decree Passive was passed, the Sisters of Battle, then known as the Daughters of the Emperor, were active. They just had turned coat and killed Vandire and decided to launch themselves in redemption Crusade to reunite the Imperium broken by the civil war. The decree Passive was used to disarm the Church, but the Daughters were needed and too useful to be disarmed or killed. The formulation was such that the Sisters being all women wouldn't be considered as affected by the law all the while it's traditionnal formulation would let people think that drastic measures were taken to prevent another civil war. The Decree Passive is a propaganda shot about as much as an actual law.

Beside the Sisters of Battle, the Ecclesiarchy does maintain a Frateris Militia of male soldiers who get examption from the law as they are "temporary soldiers" even though they are armed, trained and commanded by the Chruch and more than capable of suppressing small rebellions or start one. They also have the Crusaders, elite warriors with exceptionnal equipment and nearly superhuman training, but they get a pass as simple bodyguards. Priests themselves can also bear arms and fight in wars. The trick with the Sisters is that there are other decrees and laws that surround their creation. They aren't only the sword of the Church, they also serve the Inquisition and with the special mission of keeping the Church in line.

Yes, I know what the canonical explanation is (or used to be), I just think it's a dumb explanation, much like I think "girls reject astartes geneseed" is a dumb explanation. I think it's dumb because laws and the interpretation of words within them don't work like malicious genies in cartoons do.

The current canon in which the Daughters of the Emperor just happened to be given special dispensation by Thor to remain as a military defender of the faith - albeit a greatly reduced, and much more specialized one, in comparison to the prior Ecclesiarchal force - is much, much, much less grating and immersion-breaking, IMO.

I'd like a similar shift towards something more reasonable in how the Astartes' gender homogeneity is reasoned.

What about the fact that Astartes are made from the scavenged bits of Primarchs who were all male? That explains why the original Legions were males and since the Heresy nobody tried changing it because they genuinely think the way it is is divinely ordained.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Or, ya know, Astartes could remain male only because that is what the creators of 40k wanted. Are you also going to tell Joseph Whedon he isn't allowed to make Slayers all female too?

I LITERALLY SPENT LIKE TWO THIRDS OF MY ORIGIANL POST SAYING I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THEM BEING ALL-MALE.

FOR 'S SAKE. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???

You know what? Screw this place. Y'all are seriously not worth the effort…

*hops on reaver jetbike, disappears into the webway*

The only reason IMHO to make a big tl;dr post is if you have a problem with it.

The long and short of it is that it doesn't matter in the slightest either way.

Observation: Astartes are all male.
Conclusion: There is a reason why Astartes are all male.
Whether you use an out of universe or in universe explanation, that's the end of it really.

For what it's worth, I do actually wish GW would at the very least make a female head sprue for Astra Copywritum, but there are plenty of 3rd party alternatives.

I apologise if I came off as harsh, text is hard and whatnot.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Observation: Astartes are all male.
Conclusion: There is a reason why Astartes are all male.
Whether you use an out of universe or in universe explanation, that's the end of it really.

What's your problem? The OP mentionned that the reason for Astartes to be all male is lame because it sounds idiotic. That's called "criticism". Criticism doesn't warrant a solution by necessity. Some people feel like a solution is mandatory, but that's not always the case. The OP does wish for a solution and that solution doesn't need to be a retcon that makes female Space Marine a thing. It would be a solution, but it's not the only solution. The OP suggested changes to the narrative for example making the Emperor more obviously sexist for example. You seem to be trying to shut down any conversation about headcanon as well as any attempt at criticism this particular bit of lore. What do you like so much about it that you feel like shutting down this conversation?

The geneseed origins from the (all male) primarchs. It likely incorporates stuff that interferes with the y-chromosome of the aspirants, which contains some genes such as the SRY gene, which result in the development of hormone (e.g. testosterone) producing glands ultimately resulting in more muscle growth and higher aggression in XY compared to XX. This process is enhanced by the geneseed. Biological women lack the y-chromosome, so any geneseed parts messing with this chromosome will not work. At least that is how I imagine it.

From a logistical point of view it also seems smarter to let women have babies instead of throwing them into the meat grinder of eternal war. The SoB and the in part female guard show this is not considered by the administratum, so human material does not seem to be a limiting factor, which is supported by the rather bad gear of the guard.

epronovost wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
...Trying to make a girl into Astartes you'd end up with a beefy, muscular, bearded lady with narrow hips and almost no breasts...

This is the bit that always puzzled me. Take a teenager of either gender and then give them new hormonal glands to grossly inflate bone and muscle growth, add in an extra stomach, graft a bunch of extra bits onto the brain, completely replace the lungs and ears with artificial better versions, implant subdermal plating to plug the power armour into, chemically castrate them, and shave them, and would you really be able to tell whether they started as a man or a woman?

That's the thing that always surprise me. Take a teenager, shoot him up with all sorts of drugs and hormone, replace some organs, add some new one and in the end, you end up with a large man. Space Marines look pretty much just like slightly oversized muscular men. Some of them are handsome, some meh and some are ugly. It all depends on the artist who represent them. They look pretty much just like any other human male in the Imperium. Space Marine look like humans. They are impossible to mistake for humans and human men for that matter.

Considering all of this, I don't see why potential Space Marine women world look any different than any other soldier-like women except slightly oversized. Space Marines don't look like mutated human freaks closer to the Ogryn than to the normal human form even though there are good arguments that they should. I find this idea that a woman who does a man's job must take upon the traits of a man (and the better she is the more like a man she must look and act) a little bit sexist and unrealistic. Tall and strong women don't look like men anymore than small and weak men look like women. Each of them "look like their own thing".

That's because some nerds can't get off unless their Space Marines have overly big tits on the models. Theoretically we already had Sisters of Battle for that but they weren't in plastic and that's much harder to work with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

locarno24 wrote:
Your point (2) is probably closest. Remember the Astartes were made by bolting stuff engineered from leftovers from the primarch project into 'normal' humans, and the primarchs were all male (in so far as they had gender). If you've read Scars, Malcador had an opinion on that.....

Malcador smiled. 'You brothers - such a nest of rivalries. I warned him to make you sisters, that it would make things more civilised. He thought I was joking. I wasn't.'

Pfft, women are MUCH worse with rivalries. Besides with chaos being involved in half of them it wouldnt matter.

Kind of reminds me of console gaming in the 90s.
Females had way more effort put into them than males did because making them look sexy was more important than making males look human, especially buff macho men - they took the expression 'chiselled' to the extreme and looked like boxes moving together.
Women by contrast had round legs, arms and bodies.
Fun times.

Forgive the lack of insight into the matter, I like most Xenos players don't see myself as a member of my army I play Space Wolves and don't really see myself as a drunken savage who has been brainwashed to know how to handle current military warfare and get the palm-off on the issue of gender by the fact that they get to live a life before being recruited so they aren't preteens in selection camps and usually get selected for recruitment as a stand out survivor after savage melee warfare then survive the trials of the geneseed and on the simple fact that no woman has ever done both they just don't bother selecting them in the first place.
Considering the current state of Fenris it might be a good time for the Wolves to give the females a shot at the geneseed.
Only drama there is Bjorn the Fell-Handed is likely to destroy anything he considers meddling with the Emperor's holy work - Should be fun when he meets the new Space Wolf Primaris at the Great Feast.

Back to normal Space Marines the reason females just don't get the attempt at geneseed implantation could be as simple as they just never made it past the physical fitness screening back in the days of the Thunder Warriors. Space Marines and Thunder Warriors aren't like the Guard who are screened by the local average they're the top of the top of the top, biological freaks who make the average look pitiful in comparison.
Look at olympic records and you'll see female records hover around 90% of male records and both demands to accomplish a record keep growing. Successful Space Marine screens take the top 5% and the number of successful geneseed implantations is more exclusive again.

Alternatively palm it off as Chaos dropped their tweaks to prevent that 1-5% of females who could have made the 10% cut during the Great Crusades just fell short to prevent the Emperor having an easy time of things and they never got another shot post Heresy when the standard of male only became religious commandment styled fact.

Clearly Tzeentch is a fan of 2nd Edition ADnD.