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 Grimtuff wrote:
Mod edit - removed

Oh do stop strawmanning. You've got a whole internet at your fingertips to recognise that "representation" doesn't mean what you're saying it does.

You're clearly not interested in discussing this in good faith.


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 BertBert wrote:
It is now officially official:
https://twitter.com/warhammer/status/1779544596172689822?t=5nhxgvMavfMHYWm5Ahxrdg&s=19

I'm glad they made it official.

I hope that everyone gives this the same "immutable lore" treatment that they've given every other piece of lore they've defended.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
Mod edit - removed

Keep this discussion on a respectable level, otherwise it’s going to get locked.

I'm going to be completely honest, I don't think this thread *can* survive properly - not when there's some folks who are very clearly and wilfully misinterpreting matters like "representation" and "exclusion".

Can't we just enjoy the Custodes? They're very cool.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Can't we just enjoy the Custodes? They're very cool.

To be fair, this thread IS about more than just Custodes.

There's a background subforum thread specifically for the introduction of female Custodes.

While true, I don't think it's wrong to say that the Custodes retcon has brought this thread on. Not that I disagree, but I don't see this thread going anywhere productive while we still have people claiming that representation means "if I'm not modelled on the table then representation isn't real", or "I identify as a nurgle daemon" comments.


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DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
We should add gender in 40K to the list of thread topics that won’t survive because people will inevitably ruin it

Unfortunately, if the mods aren't willing/able to properly police the thread, then, yes, I believe you're right.

 Grimskul wrote:
retcons that functionally add little to no value to the faction

To you.

The privilege thing is even dumber when this is about toy models

You're right. It *is* dumb when people get offended that their toys can now represent women. It *is* dumb that people are offended that the story behind those toys changed so that one group of toys now has women in it.

Take a moment and reflect.


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 Grimskul wrote:
If you have to bend yourself backwards to try and force a faction to be female to enjoy it, maybe the problem lies with you?

The faction isn't female. It's mixed gender. If you can't enjoy it when it's mixed gender, maybe the problem lies with you?

It would be like heckling and crying that Mario is male and that the only way you can enjoy playing Mario games is for MARIO specifically to be female and that you won't accept playing Toadette or Peach as viable alternatives and that until Nintendo affirms that Mario was really a woman all along you can have fun.

That doesn't make sense. You're playing AS Mario. The whole deal is that you play *as* him. You're not playing as "YOUR" Mario. With the Custodes, you're not playing as a single Custodian - you're collecting YOUR army of them.

Grimskul wrote:I'd love for you to explain how much is actually added by Custodes including women in their ranks in-universe besides saying "whoa Imperium is so badz, they make even wimminz genetic monsters (already done by things like Callidus Assassins)! Woo!"

Simple. Women exist, and I don't need to "justify" them existing in my fictional worlds. They just do.

I don't know why you feel the need to "justify" having women showing up in the same places men do.

You're right. It *is* dumb when people get offended that some of their toys only represent one group. It *is* dumb that people are offended that the story behind those toys stays the same so that one group of toys doesn't include all groups.

Good job that those toys are probably all going to be mixed gender one day, and this won't be a factor any more.

But I applaud your effort to deflect from your own offence about plastic toys - especially given that you were the one to mention them first.

Also, by that logic you agree that Misters of Silence is totally acceptable and should be implemented as soon as possible.

Yup. I do. Anything else?

Wayniac wrote:The custodes thing sours me because they chose to just lie and gaslight people saying "they've always been there" rather than add an actual reason.

An honest question, to both yourself and anyone else who feels strongly on the "they've always been there" comment: what would you have rather had GW do?

Let's say that they did fully want to retcon Custodes, instead of it being a development within universe, which is pretty clearly what they intend for. How should GW handle retcons?

Public announcement that they *are* retconning something (which I've never known them to explicitly do)?
Retcon and not elaborate (Necrons, Votaan)
Retcon, and explain WHY they're retconning it (again, never really known to happen)

I'm genuinely curious as to what GW "should" have done about this retcon (and before anyone suggests, I'm not going to accept "advance the narrative" - it's very clear that GW weren't going to do this approach).

Goodrich wrote:1. They want badass women in battle armor, shooting guns, fighting enemies of the Empire, and shouting about heresy.
...
The first one is filled by the Adepta Sororitas

I see this bandied around, but it missed a lot of points. The biggest one is that the Sororitas are VERY aesthetically limited. Unlike Astartes, Sororitas are locked into a very specific aesthetic design, and if you don't like that aesthetic, you're kinda shafted. Obviously, this is a problem for ANY faction (well, not all, I suppose - many factions have a variety of aesthetic approaches that they can take), but for Sisters, because of how ornate their models are, and the very strong theming they have, this is much harder than Astartes.

For instance, with Astartes, you have tacticool, Gothic knights, robes, greco-roman, viking, Mongolian, native American, lizard, celtic, mechanical, birds, etc etc - and these are just the canon choices!!
With Sisters, you have... different shades of the same Catholic/Gothic design.

Now, Custodes are ALSO fairly limited in their aesthetic design, but at least now there's at least TWO (three if you include SoS) flavours of women in cool armour. Compared to men in cool armour, that's still very limited, but hey, more choice is good!

I know that "badass women in battle armor, shooting guns, fighting enemies of the Empire, and shouting about heresy" is technically fulfilled by just Sisters of Battle, but by that same logic, we should scrap Deathwatch, Grey Knights, male Custodes, Inquisitors, and all forms of Space Marines, except for Ultramarines because "genetically enhanced men in battle armour, shooting guns, fighting enemies of the Empire and shouting about heresy" is covered by Ultramarines.
Evidently, a choice of flavour is good. If people like the flavour of Sisters of Battle, they have those. If people don't, they now have the option of Custodes.

2. The want the dogmatic, oppressive empire to somehow be a bastion of progressive values and equality.
...
and the second runs counter to what makes the Empire interesting. As a storyteller, perhaps you can make the Empire a progressive utopia, but you largely remove the pre-existing lore plot hooks by doing so. This risks making the enemies of mankind uninteresting. Part of the fun of running xenos armies is taking down the oppressive Imperium. Every sentient faction (barring the Tyranids and probably Orks) has valid criticisms of the other factions, and likewise, each has moral faults. You remove that nuance if you turn the Imperium into the unambiguous good guys.

The Imperium *already* has women at arms. Why wouldn't they have them elsewhere?

Not to mention that the Imperium *is not institutionally sexist*. Never has been. Them having women soldiers doesn't make them "progressive". The appearance of women doesn't mean that a faction is "good" or "progressive" within the setting, but we should remember that there ARE real world people, who might want to have women in their armies which commit awful genocides and xenophobic wars.

The existence of women in your fictional army doesn't make them "good". Women can also be part of oppressive theocratic regimes. Women can also be rebuilt on the genetic level to commit atrocities against aliens. Why shouldn't they be able to?



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 Overread wrote:
People just like their stories to "mean something" and have some sense of permeance/structure.

40k hasn't had permeance and structure since Rogue Trader. And if women being able to be super soldiers as well as men means that your story "means nothing", politely, what on earth were your priorities?

 Crimson wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Why be opposed to more options? I thought everyone here wanted more kitbashes, more ways of seeing the 40k setting. Disappointed by the forumite reaction to this, but also hopeful from the positivity and artistry I've seen on social media.

In general I don't see people opposed to more optional parts.

The dividing line isn't what people do with their own armies, its more purely what the official GW stance is on the story and lore of the 40K setting.

If GW made optional female models of every single model in their line up, but they were not "lore accurate" no one would care one bit and would use what they want. The only stickler is that the story was X (either in reality or in the impressions of people) and now the story might be Y. People just like their stories to "mean something" and have some sense of permeance/structure.

Oh, people do care! Try posting pictures of converted female marines or art of female marines on FB groups. There will be a bunch of hostile comments and good chance that moderators just delete your pictures. I used to think that it is not important for GW to canonise this, but the reactions when I did try to just model my own models how I wanted changed my mind. That toxic section of the fanbase just needs to be shut up by the GW.

And of course it would be really bizarre for GW to do non-canon conversion bits.

Unfortunately absolutely true. Any time female Marines are posted, there is very often a backlash. A picture of a woman Space Marine very often attracts people crying about it's non-canonity or making hurtful/misogynistic comments, even if no other comment by the creator is made beyond simply showing the Astartes in question.

Evidently, while YOU might not care about what other people do with their armies, there are plenty of people who do, and it's very reductionist for you, Overread, to sweep that under the rug.

If GW shouldn't make any changes to their canon, how should this issue be resolved?


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Lord Damocles wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Wayniac wrote:The custodes thing sours me because they chose to just lie and gaslight people saying "they've always been there" rather than add an actual reason.

An honest question, to both yourself and anyone else who feels strongly on the "they've always been there" comment: what would you have rather had GW do?

Let's say that they did fully want to retcon Custodes, instead of it being a development within universe, which is pretty clearly what they intend for. How should GW handle retcons?

This is a malformed question.

'How should GW do the thing that GW shouldn't do?'

Here's my suggestion for the introduction of femstodes:

Incidentally, I actually already responded to this comment in that thread, because I don't think your comment actually hits the mark.

As I said - it's clear that GW don't want to advance the narrative by having Custodes only recently be able to have women recruits. They want to have had Custodes of all genders since their inception. That means a retcon is essential. You say "how should GW do they thing they shouldn't do", but WHY shouldn't GW retcon? And, more importantly, they already have. I'm asking how they should go about it.

How do you suggest they do a *retcon*, not just an advanced narrative?

Overread wrote:Oh there's always toxic groups in ANY hobby and places like FB can allow them to congregate. However in general I've not seen it happen. It will depend what groups you join, what groups you're active in and in how things go - eg if the post devolves into a huge fight it might well get removed. Not because mods hate women in armour or something but just because its a huge headache.

That said FB's moderation systems are more limitd than normal forums and communities on FB are often far more face-less than those on forums. By their nature whilst they are highly social they are also kind of not on FB groups. You get a similar thing on Reddit as well.

And how do you propose *dealing* with that?

I'm sorry, but it's long past time for "well, you'll always find toxic groups" and "I've not seen it".

 Overread wrote:
If you mean in the hobby space then honestly I mostly covered bringing more women into the hobbyspace here:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/813538.page#11658697

Pretty sure I also made one or two further posts in the thread on this topic, which mostly rehash the same core concept.

My counterpoint is that all men, women, and non-binaries that I know also feel that the approach GW has taken with Custodes has meant more to them than the approaches you've mentioned. I'm inclined to take their word on that.

This isn't something that a few lines of lore will change or a line of women heads for space marines. The issue isn't the lore when people get hostile, its people who have a focused agenda to start with and are using the marines as an excuse to beat their chest on that agenda. Changing that agenda is far more complex.

And defanging those who use that agenda is a good place to *practically* start. Theory and abstracts are one thing - but for now, it's important to remove the tools that those folks would sek to browbeat others with.

You mention that they use the Marines as an excuse to beat their chest - so remove their ability to do so first, and then do the rest.

I do know that simply creating "female marines" as official models wouldn't "solve" it. Those with an agenda would just fixate on something else to use as their argument.

And then you remove that from them as well. Make it CLEAR to them that their argument will not be permitted. We've already seen plenty of people online announce that this is their departure from 40K. I can only hope that they're telling the truth - they will not be missed.


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 JNAProductions wrote:
I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.

Exactly - it's a step, a preventative measure. It won't suddenly make everyone get along, because those are wider societal problems - but it DOES disarm people who would seek to use misogynistic talking points. It does defang them. And it does show them that they're NOT the ones calling the shots here.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.

Bonus: if it drives away people who have tantrums about the idea of femarines, then you're less likely to end up playing a game against people who have tantrums about femarines.

Disagree. The people who have the really big, world-ending tantrums about the idea of femmarines aren't playing anyways. They're hobby tourists, there just long enough to spout outrage while dramatically quitting as publicly as possible.

Also very true.

I personally would rather have seen a third "talon" added to the overall faction(maybe a good place to rehome Militarum Tempestus or Inquisitorial Stormtroopers?), consisting of mixed genders, and a striking of the name of "Adeptus Custodes" as the codex title and instead a focus upon how it is "The Talons of the Emperor" along with an expansion of the Sisters of Silence range to parity with the Custodes.

I'd have been interested by this. Putting the Tempestus in the same "book" as the Custodes would've been a really cool move, and moved the Tempestus away from the Guard and more towards their new role as non-Guard special forces who undertake elite operations. Buff SoS more to be debuff machines and asymmetric forces (give them more than just "power armour with bolter and null powers", make them FEEL POWERFUL), and keep Custodes as the super-ultra-mega-powerful badasses.

And ultimately, GW could've done all of the above. I don't think the resources that went into making women Custodes would've been enough or even used to uplift the other elements of the Talons.

Adrassil wrote:Female Custodes shouldn't be a thing. There, I said it: one compelling lore argument is that the big reason why the Emperor made the Astartes only male is because he was afraid that if they were made both out of males and females is the danger they might find a way to reproduce. This would mean if they could create Space Marine children, they would, in all likelihood, take control over humanity.

So, if the Emperor felt that way about the Astartes, wouldn't he have the same sentiment toward the Custodes?

This has never been written in any BL book, or GW product. This is entirely a fanon position. This is not "one compelling lore argument" or a "big reason", because it is not rooted at all in any material GW have produced.

There is no reason to suggest that Custodes and Astartes are even capable of reproduction.

Apple fox wrote:Men get to be cool, women need to justify their existence in the setting at all.

A very good post overall, but I want to highlight (and hence why I've only quoted this section) this snippet.

On the whole, people are *used* to the idea of only seeing men in their fantasy militaries and universes. It's not considered odd or out of place or even particularly noteworthy that a group appears all male. It requires no conceit, no justification, it is just... ordinary.

In contrast, a faction that is all-women or even *mostly* femme-presenting will be remarked on as being such most of the time. Them being women is a novelty, or something that needs explanation, or is otherwise pointed out. I could be very wrong here, but when people introduce the Sisters of Battle, them being all-women is usually mentioned in part of the pitch that people give. It's usually a long the lines of "they're an all-women group of warrior nuns with power armour, unshakeable faith, and love burning heretics". With Space Marines, it's never "they're an all-male group of genetically enhanced superhuman soldiers" - it's usually just the "genetically enhanced superhuman soldiers" part*.

As Apple fox says: women need to JUSTIFY their existence. I think that, for a lot of people, the idea of an all-women, or even majority femme, group is something which would be immediately noticeable in a way that an all-male group wouldn't be. There would be confusion, possibly outrage or laughs. And the group would need a *justification* to exist.
Yes, I'm aware that there are "justifications" for Space Marines being how they are, but let's not beat around the bush here - those "justifications" are not always mentioned in canon material, and can often slip notice. They're hardly front and centre requirements in the same way the Decree Passive is.
Let us not also forget that people don't tend to argue to justify the status quo - a status quo that benefits a predominantly male aesthetic. In this thread, we have plenty of folks saying "well, why should we change anything" or "justify your feelings to me" - instead of addressing the necessity of their own position, and justifying their own feelings first.

Ultimately, I've written a lot more than I need to on a very small, but incredibly salient point, and I'd like to hope that this highlights a little bit more of the "diverse gender" argument being made.

*I am making an assumption, but I don't think I'm far from the mark. When people pitch 40k factions, gender is only really noted in regards to the all-women factions and groups.

AldarionTelcontar wrote:You already have female Space Marines anyway, and they are called Sisters of Battle.

No, they aren't, and you know that.

Unless you also accept that Custodes and Space Marines were the same prior to the new retcon?

robbienw wrote:Marines are recruited from the most miniscule percentage of the toughest hardest young men on martial or extremely dangerous planets, and only a vanishingly small amount make it through the trials and the surgery to become a marine.

Not young men. Children. The language you're using is incredibly misleading here. They aren't "young men" - they are children. Even early teens is stretching it - most Astartes are recruited and begin their first stages of implantation *before they're even in their teens*.

And, as said, the standards for recruitment aren't even close to standardised. In Ultramar, recruits are from military academies, having already been raised for this in schools. On Baal, recruits are irradiated wretches. On Fenris, they're tribal boys from death worlds.
Why would Catachan girls not also be capable of these same feats?

The idea that any young women in any kind of numbers would be able to make it when so few boys can stretches credibility.

So, genetically engineering children into superhuman warriors isn't incredulous to you?

robbienw wrote:Cadians suffer from the problem of having all male bodies which then look odd with the female heads placed on, especially if you have a mixed squad. They should have done some slighter shorter bodies that were recognisably female.

I don't know if you've seen what women look like in modern military armour, but they don't look too different - and not enough to look different at the scale of 40k.

Not to mention that in male bodies there's plenty of difference already. Are you also calling for male bodies that are slightly shorter and taller, so that we have recognisably different male bodies?

There's simply no need. They aren't "male bodies" - they fit fine for both, and don't look odd at all.

robbienw wrote:SoB are all female because of the decree passive, and they are no equal to marines

So, you agree that everyone claiming that "YOU ALREADY HAVE WOMEN SPACE MARINES, IT'S THE SISTERS OF BATTLE" are wrong?

You perfectly hit the point - Sisters ARE NOT equal to Space Marines, and so efforts to compare them are futile.

robbienw wrote:The community is not toxic to women.

I'm sorry, I don't know if you missed it in one of these threads, but there are quite literally screenshots of people being toxic to people on their womanhood.

The fact is this kind of hobby doesn't and never will appeal to the majority of women no matter how much you change it.

This hobby also doesn't appeal to the majority of men and non-binaries either. No-one's trying to appeal to ALL women here.

I'm also sure that there were people who claimed that video games or roleplaying games like D&D, or even LARPing wouldn't appeal to women either. And how wrong they were.

robbienw wrote:A random non-BA chapter using female recurits because BA use sickly ones makes absoloutely no logical sense.

If the BA were concerned with only recruiting the best of the best of their child soldiers, why are they recruiting at all from Baal Secundus? Why not literally any other world in their fief?

robbienw wrote:

Not young men. Children. The language you're using is incredibly misleading here. They aren't "young men" - they are children. Even early teens is stretching it - most Astartes are recruited and begin their first stages of implantation *before they're even in their teens*.

Young men is fair, we often refer to older boys/teens as young men in the UK.

I'm from the UK too, and no, we don't - not with pre-teens.

When you read a newspaper and see an article talking about a ten year old getting stabbed, they're not a "young man". They're a child.

(Well, unless the child happens to be from a group that the media happens to have a bias against, to say nothing of foreign children being bombed.)

Regardless, as the implantation and training procedures progress they are growing into adult body structures with the commensurate huge skeletal and muscle structure differences between men and women.

Not as huge as the differences that having a bunch of artificial hormones and organs implanted will force.

You also have huge general differences in mentality between boys and girls at the pre-teen/early teen stage. In general boys are far more aggressive, physical and combative. The small amount of girls that mirror boys in this regard arent going to give you the numbers required to get a women through to full marine stage (if it was possible for a woman to become a marine).

Source.

Why would Catachan girls not also be capable of these same feats?

Because Catachan boys would be better.

Source.
But that's not even what I asked - are you suggesting that irradiated waifs from Baal would be just as, if not more, capable than Catachan girls? Do you deny that the conditions of living on each world has more to play than the sex of the children they're recruiting from?

So, genetically engineering children into superhuman warriors isn't incredulous to you?

We can accept some fantastical premises in sci-fi, but we still have to remain with the realms of believability.

So, child soldiers being implanted with "geneseed" from "Primarchs" made from "warp stuff", to serve in an empire that fights "Tyranids", "Orks" and Chaos Daemons" is in the realm of believability for you, but it's unbelievable that some of those soldiers could be women?

Come on.

I don't know if you've seen what women look like in modern military armour, but they don't look too different - and not enough to look different at the scale of 40k.

Someone always come out with this tired 'women in military gear look excatly the same as men' arguments, but they never match reality.

Except that they literally do.

In all but exceptional cases in the modern military women look shorter and slighter than male troops.

I can think of plenty of men who are also shorter and slighter than other men and women. You seem to be implying that women are all shorter than men, and that men are all the same size and shape.

The Cadian bodies all look male.

What about them looks male?

You perfectly hit the point - Sisters ARE NOT equal to Space Marines, and so efforts to compare them are futile.

They aren't physically equal.

The models are great though, technically equal to the marine kits on a design level.

That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it. They aren't physically equal, they aren't equal in terms of focus, they aren't equal in terms of unit quantity and depth, they aren't equal in terms of media representation, they aren't equal in terms of aesthetic range, they aren't equal in terms of creative freedom.

You know this. I ask again - do you disagree then with people who claim "you have FSM, they're called Sisters of Battle"?

I'm sorry, I don't know if you missed it in one of these threads, but there are quite literally screenshots of people being toxic to people on their womanhood.

Exceptions on anonymous forums don't reflect the community overall, particularly not in real life.

These aren't anonymous forums. Women content creators, like Louise Sugden, are REGULARLY hit with those sorts of messages. And you have the gall to say that their experiences aren't worth considering?

This hobby also doesn't appeal to the majority of men and non-binaries either. No-one's trying to appeal to ALL women here

The hobby appeals far more per capita to men than it does to women.

And how much of that is because of self-perpetuating mindsets like your own?

If the BA were concerned with only recruiting the best of the best of their child soldiers, why are they recruiting at all from Baal Secundus? Why not literally any other world in their fief?

You'd have to ask them that.

Difficult, considering that they're fictional war dolls. You're not doing well to justify this idea that they apparently HAVE to recruit the strongest children for their space crusades.

Karol wrote:That is actualy not true. BA gene seed has this specific trait unique to it, that it does not care for the purity of the aspirant. BA could and still do, in universe, recruit from the mutated population of Baal Secondus, because if the implantation is succesful the aspirant is transformed.

Oh, I am quite aware that purity isn't the issue here. I'm referring to the idea that the population of Baal Secundus would be HORRENDOUSLY unfit compared to a Catachan or Fenrisian. We're talking irradiated and wasteland dwelling waifs here - hardly the picture of "strong young men" that has mentioned earlier.

So, evidently, if these irradiated wastelanders are fit enough to be considered Astartes, what about the women on other death worlds who would be far healthier and stronger?

Again - apparently geneseed is good enough to turn an irradiated waif from the wasteland into a strong, powerful killing machine, who is arguably STRONGER than those of other Chapters in melee combat, but it would be useless to use on women from arguably more stable and stronger stock, because... reasons?

AldarionTelcontar wrote: "Culture and traditional views" are product of society responding to reality.

Culture also says that men correspond with blue, and women with pink, and- oh. Hang on, pink used to be a masculine colour.

Uh, let's see, culture dictated that men wore stockings and skirts? Oh, but now, that's just supposed to be women.

How about cultures around the proliferation of slavery? And those "traditional views"?

No. Culture and tradition are not based in "reality". They are artificial. They are made up by people.

And while part of the reason why women were kept out of the military is that it is slowed to sacrifice the childbearing portion of your population in war when you don't know how long any of you will live, part of it is the simple fact that women are, on average, less physically capable than men.

And yet, still capable enough in 40k. Evidently so.

But as I said - major part of appeal of 40k are its pseudo-medieval aesthetics and attitudes. Adeptus Custodes and Space Marines in particular are akin to medieval religious orders, and you will not have found women in any medieval religious military order, for a large number of disparate reasons.

So why are Sisters of Battle, a religious military order who take stronger aesthetic cues from medieval periods than most Chapters of Space Marines, okay in the setting then? If "pseudo-medieval aesthetics and attitudes" are a "major part of the appeal of 40k", then why are Sisters of Battle, a medieval religious military order, all okay if apparently that's something "you will not have found"?

Like, do you see the problem in your argument there? If 40k is apparently slaved to this idea that "we must accurately portray historical armies to be true to the appeal of 40k" (ignoring the fact that Custodes and Space Marines are actually technologically augmented supersoldiers in powered armour with firearms and come from all manner of ethnicities and cultures, none of which are accurate to any real world culture or history), then Sisters of Battle shouldn't be permitted either.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:To fulfill their roles, Marines and Custodes must be physically massive, and it is an indisputable fact that human males are taller and stronger than females.

But Space Marines and Custodes are neither: they are superhuman, and are only ABLE to be physically massive not because they're male, but because they're genetically modified, or in the case of Custodes, genetically rewritten.

Lest I remind you, they are recruited as pre-pubescent CHILDREN. They are not physically massive when recruited. They are, in fact, very weak, because they are children.

That's not true of the other professions you named. It's anti-logical to assume that because women can fulfill the very specific skillset of fighter pilot they can also hump 100 pounds of gear through the mountains. Totally different tasks.

When was the last time you saw Custodes humping 100 pound of gear through the mountains?

Overread wrote:We do have racial segregation - Gangs in Necromunda.

That's not the same thing, and you know it. That's factionalism, not racism. Segregation, possibly, but even that isn't segregation as we know it, from a dominant power oppressing others - the Helmawrs' don't care about the underhivers, and certainly aren't saying "Escher can sit at the front of the bus, Goliaths have to sit at the back".

Institutionally, the Imperium isn't internally racist. The racism and intolerance of the Imperium that apes fascist ideology is transposed and xenos races and Chaos rebels are used to replicate the same point.

Note: the Imperium being internally egalitarian on issues of sexuality, gender, sex, and race *does not make them Good.* They are STILL classist, xenophobic, imperialist, colonial, uncaring and theo-fascist.

The Imperium is already awful and intolerant. Nothing is *gained* by them being sexist or racist as well.

Lord Damocles wrote:There is also the matter of how GW have implemented (ie not even bothering to attempt an in-universe justification)

They don't owe you one, for a start.

and discussed (ie not answering the question as to why the change was made from out-universe reasoning,

I've asked this question several times, but what explanation *would you have accepted from GW?*

You mention that they didn't discuss the change from an out of universe reasoning - what would you have accepted as a response from them?

and blocking people who quote GW's own previous background to them) this particular retcon..

Yes, because those people are usually following those messages up with sexist or misogynistic comments. That, or they're trolling.

Hd404 wrote:The divide seems to be some fans who are passionate about the setting, the characters, the Game and it's consistent if somewhat deranged internal logic. And the people who support this change and don't.

Interesting choice of language there. You're implying that people who want women Custodes' aren't "fans who are passionate about the setting, the characters, the game" there.

I am one such fan. I've been doing 40k since before I was in double digits. I'm evidently passionate about the setting and characters and game. And I want women Custodes.

If it was really just about girl custodes, the people who wanted them would've made the models and played with their friends and nobody would've cared.

You're the umpteenth person to claim this, and you're just as wrong as all the others.

No, people were not able to do this without people caring. As Crimson has posted several times in several threads, their art has been criticised repeatedly for portraying women Astartes, *despite it being posted without any other context*.

Evidently, there are people who *do* care when people post images of their women Custodes and Astartes. What would your reaction be to those people?

madtankbloke wrote:Previous retcons have in general being consistent with the previously established rules of the setting

The Imperium didn't have atmospheric aircraft until the Thunderhawk in Epic.
Primarch was a rank.
Half-Eldar Ultramarines Astropaths
Knights used to be all male.
Omegon didn't exist until Legion.
Guilliman and the Lion were KIA/MIA.
Space Marines were convicts and unaugmented.
Eldrad died.
Abaddon failed.
Primaris.
Votaan.
Tau.
Necrons.
C'tan.
Tyranid diplomats.
Enslavers.
Zoats.
Riptides and the Ta'unar.
The Startide Nexus.
Necron Pariahs.
Admech not needing transports.

the rules that allow people to willfully suspend their disbelief, and immerse themselves into it.

How does women Custodes break your immersion?

Hd404 wrote:I'd say too much representation is when you start changing established characters and factions to other demographics.

No Custodes character has changed, and their lore which established them as male is barely five years old. Hardly "established", is it?

And I'd say it's a problem because apart from breaking the immersion of the setting,

I ask again, why does having women Custodes break your immersion?

the rationale behind it seems to invariably be, "we don't like the demographic this character or group was originally and would prefer it if he/she or they were the demographic we are overtly prejudiced in favour of".

Two things:
Women existing isn't "prejudice". It's normal. Having women exist isn't "overtly prejudiced".

Coming off of that, would it be a problem if GW turned around and said "yeah, we aren't happy that our lore in some previous books indicated that Custodes were all male, we recognise that this was a shortsighted view, and we want to change this to reflect the story we want to tell."
Would that be a problem for you?

Hd404 wrote:Well the entire affair in brief seems to have been,

*Custodes are female now. They've always been female.

* Huh? No they've always been men. There's literally hundreds of textual citations.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Hundreds?? There's not even ten. There are *two* I can think of off the top of my head, and it's offhanded comments like "the sons of noble houses". Hundreds, what hogwash.

Hd404 wrote:Also, you do understand that transphobic, sexist etc. isn't actually any better?

I don't know if you noticed, but at least one user has been banned from the site for 70 years over *actually transphobic comments*. We also have people in this thread claiming that "women just aren't intellectually engaged enough to get into 40k", or words to that effect.

So, I'd be a bit more wary before you start claiming that people calling out sexism and transphobia are just dogwhistles. Or, are you claiming that those people don't exist, or that they didn't make transphobic comments?

Master of mankind has the custodes, refer to 'their brothers' , the codex explicitly calls them a brotherhood recruited entirely from the noble sons of terra.

The Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout is mixed gender. The Brotherhood in Assassins Creed are mixed gender. "Brotherhood" hasn't meant "only men" for some time.

Also, on the subject of Black Library, but in Echoes of Eternity, Sanguinius remarks on seeing men and women in golden armour as his father's bodyguard. The text is ambiguous on what he's referring to, but it's not a stretch with modern understanding to recognise that perhaps some of those Custodians were women.

Every custodes ever depicted until now is a man.

They've also all been white.

Does that imply that all Custodes are white?

Overread wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Overread wrote:We do have racial segregation - Gangs in Necromunda.

That's not the same thing, and you know it. That's factionalism, not racism. Segregation, possibly, but even that isn't segregation as we know it, from a dominant power oppressing others - the Helmawrs' don't care about the underhivers, and certainly aren't saying "Escher can sit at the front of the bus, Goliaths have to sit at the back".

The Helmawrs don't care, but you can bet a regular Escher Ganger is not going to join the Orlocks or vis versa. In fact males from anywhere outside of Escher aren't getting in.
The Gangs themselves segregate themselves and have huge internal political fights over territories.

Yes, agreed - but that is *very* different to the racial segregation which we're talking about in the real world, where racial segregation is a result of *dominant socio-political groups enforcing those divides over marginalised groups*.

Or, to put another way: would you call gang wars IRL a case of "segregation"? No - they're gang wars.

They are as segregated and as racist to each other as nations are in the real world. I'm fairly sure in many of the books there's even terms they use as slurs against each other

Still not racism though. Gangs calling eachother slurs isn't inherently racist.

The Helmawrs don't care about that. They DO care about keeping the Gangers and the Middleclasses out of the upper regions of the Hive. It's a whole separate system of class. Heck the upper classes will done powersuits and go hunt the in the Underhive. They will literally use the underhivers for sport like the Upper Classes of old would hunt Foxes*. As I noted many Imperial societies operate a strict hierarchy within society and many of those groups will be insulting, hostile, antagonistic and all to those in different classes.

Yes - that's *classism*. Not racial segregation, which is what I was talking about.

Where the Imperium differs is that things like gender and skin colour appear to have very little meaning; however your social position and class as well as parts of your racial background are very important. Heck how much mutation you have is also another very key element in your social position within many social groupings.

Yes, like I said - that's not RACIAL segregation though, is it? That's social stratification and classism, not racism or sexism.

It's more complex though because each world is a thing unto itself. Some will be insanely tolerant; some will just be hostile to anything; some will be highly class run; some less so; some feudal some class etc...

Hence why I said that the Imperium is not institutionally sexist or racist. Individual Imperial worlds could be anything.

odinsgrandson wrote:

Master of mankind has the custodes, refer to 'their brothers' , the codex explicitly calls them a brotherhood recruited entirely from the noble sons of terra.

The Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout is mixed gender. The Brotherhood in Assassins Creed are mixed gender. "Brotherhood" hasn't meant "only men" for some time.

I feel you missed "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" which was never all men from the start (and for a while was led by Mistique).

Good catch! I would be remiss not to also mention the Dark Brotherhood of the Elder Scrolls, who's founding member was a woman!

BertBert wrote:Is there even a neutral equivalent in English? Siblinghood?

Not really! I don't really think we even have a -hood which is gender neutral - the closest is still "brotherhood", simply because the masculine is considered "neutral" (again, problematic, but that's language for ya!)

madtankbloke wrote:Marines were convicts, but their bodies were toughened with bio-chem. i.e, they were always augmented, just not super soldier augmented. (again, RT)

So, a retcon.

Abaddon is and always has been a failure.

In denial about a retcon.

Votaan are squats, squats are in the RT book

Never been called the Votaan, appearance has changed, their whole lore is different, and the Squats were "killed" by the Tyranids (until that was retconned). So, another series of retcons.

Tau are a minor xenos race, xenos races have existed since RT

And the Tau never had FTL, didn't have the ability to travel through the warp, didn't have Knight or Titan-grade suits because they relied on aircraft for anti-Titan duty. A retcon.

Necrons are a Xenos race, Xenos races have existed since RT

Necrons USED to be Chaos Androids. And then they used to be slaves of the C'tan with no personality beyond "eldritch Terminators". A retcon.

Admech don't NEED transports, they have legs, or tracks, or whatever.

The previous lore stated that the Skitarii had no ground transports, because they had robotic legs. Another retcon.

I didn't respond to others, since i'm not intimate with those tidbits of lore. but your argument seems to be, essentially, that since GW has added things, or clarified things since the very rough outline that RT was in 1987, then any retcon is acceptable, and any retcon should be welcomed.

No, my argument was in response to you claiming that al previous retcons had been consistent with the "previously established rules of the setting".

What a nebulous phrase! Surely, by virtue of being a retcon, a "previously established rule of the setting" is being broken! But, I made that list to showcase a series of retcons that broke "previously established rules".

So, I ask again - what it is about women Custodes that breaks "previously established rules of the setting", but that these others do not?

What I would consider instead is whether the change is consistent with the established facts about the Imperium of man, or the universe in general, and if so, how has it been justified.

Okay, sure - we know that the Imperium is not institutionally sexist. We know that women are called on to serve in all echelons of Imperial life (with the exception of the Astartes, for "reasons"). Women serving in the Custodes changes nothing fundamental about the Custodes, or the Imperium, or the wider universe.

The Tau being introduced changed nothing about the imperium of man, or the universe, nothing. If the change was. 'The Tau empire is second only in power to the Imperium of man and possess millions of worlds, and they have observed a tense ceasefire for the past 10,000 years' that would be a MAJOR retcon, and challenge all the lore that had come before it. as it stands, Minor xenos race, scheduled for extermination? records lost? perfectly in keeping with what has been established.

You misunderstand the Tau retcon - it isn't from them existing, it's what happened after. The Tau were established as only being relegated to a single region of space. Now, they have FTL. The Tau were established as not falling into the trap of building titanic bipedal war machines, and "intelligently" used aircraft like Barracudas to deal with Imperial Titans. Now, they have Riptides and the Ta'unar suit. And we STILL have conflicted sources about what Tau do with their human vassals.

With regards to Femstodes, are they something the imperium of man would do? you know, a Reactionary Xenophobic, genocidal, authoritarian dogmatic autocratic theocratic dictatorship?? you think they would be progressive?

Having women in your army =/= progressive.

I say again - HAVING WOMEN SOLDIERS DOESN'T MAKE YOU THE GOOD GUYS. And NOT having them also doesn't make you the good guys either! The Imperium is awful because it's a xenophobic, genocidal, authoritarian dogmatic theocracy - NOT because it's racist or sexist or transphobic or homphobic. Textually, it is *none of those things*, despite what you might claim.

And they're STILL evil!

you think the person proposing a progressive outlook wouldn't find themselves immediately being executed for heresy??

Having women in your army doesn't make you progressive. Otherwise, someone should be executed for having all those women in the Guard.

Lack of representation in the imperium is a feature, not a bug, because the imperium of man is just absolutely awful.

No, it isn't.

The Imperium is awful, yes. It's awful because of what it does to fictional aliens. It's awful because of the sheer scale of its disregard for ALL human life. It's awful because it is a world which doesn't care about you, or your family, or even your planet.

It is NOT awful because of real world bigotry. Never has been. Textually, the Imperium *is not institutionally sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic*. You're making up a headcanon here.

Lord Zarkov wrote:
The Clan Houses, especially in modern Necromunda, are very much different ethnic groups though with in some cases radically different phenotypes and each House is very much supremacists for their own ethnicity and absolutely segregate the others. The conflicts very much are ethnic/racial and are comparable to sectarian violence.

Of course the differences between the Clan Houses are not skin tone based and have very different markers from the more visible (to the West) irl racism/segregation (for good meta reasons) and are at a top level battles between peers, not one dominant group oppressing others (though that does very happen at the minor levels (e.g. an individual settlement).

That is one specific world and set of circumstances though. As you say the Imperium at the top level really does not care, individual humans are just parts of the machine, but there’s all sorts of discrimination for every conceivable reason going on within individual sub groups.

I think we're saying the same things here - they're not segregated as a result of a hegemonic power or dominant socio-political power. They are separate groups, and live separately and come into conflict, but... that's just the same as gang warfare on this planet, which isn't always racial.

As you say - they're conflicts from peer against peer. That's not really the same as racial segregation, which is what I was highlighting. And, as you again point out, this is a specific instance on one world - it's not *institutional*.

madtankbloke wrote:
Expect said trans person to be swiftly dealt with unless you want a bloodbath on your hands. The author probably didn't think it through.

Oh, hang on, who's arguing against the "established rules of the setting" now?

Lest we remind you, according to the lore, trans folks aren't a problem.

Yes, some of the high lords are women, inquisitors too, well done, your point??

The Imperium is not institutionally sexist. That's the point.

and as to your last point, you phrased it in such a way as to suggest that your stance is that for there to not be women in the custodes would go against the central themes of the imperium. Its clear where you stand on the political spectrum, very clever comrade.

So, hang on, when shown evidence of how the Imperium isn't sexist/racist/transphobic/homophobic, you then claim that it has to do with our own political spectrum?

Sounds like you're just scalp deep in denial that the Imperium isn't what you thought it was. I suggest reading up more of those "established rules of the setting" you mentioned earlier.

Lord Zarkov wrote:
Sectarianism is very much a problem across the Imperium, including ethnic sectarianism like on Necromunda (though GW is generally careful not to write about skin colour racism for obvious and sensible reasons). But the top level institutions are by necessity so large and diverse (not to mention well disconnected from concerns of the people) that any of the things people fight over at the planetary level are just not relevant.

Hence there’s pretty much no discrimination in the actual Imperial institutions, other than a small number of bodies (3?) that are gender-segregated for in-universe historical reasons.

Yeah, absolutely agreed. (obviously, we mustn't forget that things which are gender segregated for in universe reasons are still ultimately fabricated and subject to potential change or external justification, but yes, there are a *few* areas where gender is a factor - and of all of them, only one is for "biological" reasons).

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 BertBert wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

I think if they wanted more women in the Talons of the Emperor they should have focused more on the Sisters of the Silence fluff, really. I don't think there's much about them, is there?

There is a good chunk in the Talons of the Emperor novel with Aleya's chapters filling a good third of it. But more on that front would've been nice in any case. That being said, I also don't see how female Custodes preclude that from happening in the future.

Well, did the Sisters of Silence get anything new and noteworthy in the new codex? Because if not, then evidently it does preclude them from getting new stuff, because they already made that decision.

Well, not "evidently" at all - it's only "evidently" if you can prove that GW choosing to write about a woman Custodian directly prevented them from adding material for the Sisters of Silence specifically.

Otherwise, you might as well claim that GW choosing to write about women Custodes also evidently precludes them from writing Eldar Exodite lore.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


The Imperium is awful, yes. It's awful because of what it does to fictional aliens. It's awful because of the sheer scale of its disregard for ALL human life. It's awful because it is a world which doesn't care about you, or your family, or even your planet.

It is NOT awful because of real world bigotry. Never has been. Textually, the Imperium *is not institutionally sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic*. You're making up a headcanon here.

One of the things I would like to point out is that this particular piece of headcanon is common as a reaction to actual sexism/racism/etc. contained in the lore.

Pardon me for asking, but what instances are you referring to?

It should surprise no one that science fiction from 40+ years ago overlooks the roles of women and minorities. The creators had a blind spot that they shared with most of their culture (40k is far from alone in this)

Oh, certainly - that's why we're only now just getting women Custodes or Ultramarines who aren't pasty white dudes.

 Segersgia wrote:
I do want to make the argument that the Imperium is a racist institution, however not to the extend that exists in the real world.

Abhumans; Ogryns, Squats, Ratlings, Beastmen...

All of these individuals share our ancestry, and became something else through natural, artificial, or even warp-based circumstances.

Abhumans are treated as a novelty or second-class citizen at best, and are eradicated at worst, with military conscription, slavery, and other restrictive positions being the norm most of the time. Some forms of abhuman, like the Felinids and beastmen aren't even allowed to leave their planet.

Abhumans also aren't represented in any leadership roles. You don't see an Ogryn being the Planetary governor of their home planet, or a Ratling being the general of an army, or a squat inquisitor. Abhuman-only worlds are ruled by humans, and abhuman regiments are lead by human generals. The only model we ever saw of a abhuman in a high-ranking position was Tech-priest Grombrindal (whose canonicity in 40k is peculiar at best). Nork Deddog on the other hand I don't even recall having a rank; he's more a very famous bodyguard than anything else.

I do understand that there is a big difference between abhumans, and the way we differentiate between race and ethnicity, but as with a lot of things, racism is a spectrum of tolerancy, and it is heavily based upon how different we percieve each other. This is something we actually see in 40k as well. The status of Beastmen as abhumans is constantly debated by Imperial institutions, and we have plenty of stories that involve Battle Sisters treating Space Marines as abhumans. The same thing has happened in our own history and is still happening to this day. I'm not going into specifics, since I don't want to misrepresent something I only have moderate knowledge of.

Last note. It is not a coincidence that this discussion can happen in a fantasy setting like this, since speculative fiction has been the playing ground for stories based around racism and discrimination for decades now. Species like gnomes, dwarves and elves are perfect allegories for different cultures, countries, ideologies and even race. The same with aliens in science fiction, with Star Trek being a very good example of that. This is also the reason why some storytelling in other settings has shifted its depiction of monsters, species, or aliens into something more as the creature of the week.

I do apologise if this is derailing the thread, but I saw posters bring up this point and wanted to give my two cents on it.

I agree with this! I think it's definitely worth emphasising that it's a very different sort of racism/bigotry that the Imperium has, and that abhumans such as Ogryns/Ratlings/etc are used as a signifier of race, without actually having to refer to any *actual* race.

Again, this is how GW can show the Imperium as being awful and backwards - without having to resort to perpetuating any real world bigotry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 stonehorse wrote:
GW said that there have always been female Custodians (no problem with female Custodians), however they haven't done anything to even show this. Things should be shown, not told. Until we see female Custodian models, it seems like someone got a bit carried away at Warhammer Community, and the end result is the fandom turns a bit toxic.

I mean, we might not have any models yet, but they *are* shown to exist in prose in the Codex. I'd personally say that's a "shown, not told", myself.

stonehorse wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

stonehorse wrote:GW said that there have always been female Custodians (no problem with female Custodians), however they haven't done anything to even show this. Things should be shown, not told. Until we see female Custodian models, it seems like someone got a bit carried away at Warhammer Community, and the end result is the fandom turns a bit toxic.

I mean, we might not have any models yet, but they *are* shown to exist in prose in the Codex. I'd personally say that's a "shown, not told", myself.

That is quintessentially tell don't show. A single piece of fluff text is not enough to establish a full lore. Especially when we have all 529 books of the Horus Heresy go into exhaustive detail and not once in these 634 (more were written during my message, got to churn that Bolter p0rn) have we heard about a female Custodian. Not once, if they have been there from the start, we would have heard about them.

I mean, as much as I find the amount of HH books funny (can you believe I genuinely thought for a moment that there were actually 529 HH books?? madness!), the Custodes don't appear in *that* many. As for those books, we don't see *all the Custodes*. Sure, retroactively, having some non-male Custodes in Master of Mankind or beyond would have been *great*, but we also have a reason for that (no models, no fluff!). Not that I really think having women Custodes really *needs* that much lore. I mean, they're Custodes with different pronouns. I don't think they need much more than that. And I can live with knowing that those previous Custodes texts are products of their time - I can fill in the blanks and assume that there were women Custodes who were simply unnamed in the story who were doing cool stuff off screen.

Ultimately, we're shown two women Custodians. We're told there's more than just those two. I don't mind that so much, however.

Again no issue with female Custodians, what makes me go 'hang on', is the very 1984esque 'we have always been at war with Oceania' way of doing this. Yes, it could have been a way to reference that 40k is a authoritarian nightmare that Geaorge Orwell's book no doubt influenced. Just the way it was handled comes off as a bit amateurish. If they had gone with something like, 'due to the on going wars the Custodians need to bolster their ranks, so now include daughters of nobles along side their sons, it wouldn't have got half the response it had received I imagine.

I'll ask the same question I have earlier - if we're to assume that GW want to retcon Custodes to have *always* had women (aka, no "due to XYZ change in universe, Custodes now have women" excuse), how would you have liked them to do it?

Would you have liked a piece of lore essentially saying "hey, here's some of the Custodes you missed in the Horus Heresy, they were always there, and here's a story about one of them!"?

Would you have liked GW to say "yeah, we're retconning that because this was a product of its time and we're correcting our mistake"?

Or something else?

Miguelsan wrote:Or worse, GW could take notes from Amazon/Netfilx, and start suplanting core characters by female versions. I don't know who that Marneus Calgar fellow you keep mentioning is, there is a Marneix Calgarix, and it's always been that way.

I'd say that's a direct detriment to the game, and it would matter a lot.

Marneus Calgar has already been changed. He no longer wears Terminator Armour, and his name's not even Marneus Calgar. It's Tacitus.

Formosa wrote:this is why its always about the space marines because its not about "representation" "diversity" or whatever, its about taking away what you have, removing one more barrier to force people to engage in politics, such is living in a post Marcusean world.

huh???

Formosa wrote:Men should have control over their own space in the same manner as woman have control over their own space, both should, do and can fight for that space in an appropriate manner, there are also plenty of shared spaces. Now if we are talking about the lore then this is a male represented space and as such people have every right to advocate for it to remain that way.

There'd be nothing wrong with an all-male faction - IF they didn't happen to be the main face of the setting, with the lions' share of treatment, the most stories, a whole spinoff setting focused on them, the most easily accessible variation of aesthetics, the most beginner friendly, and have the entire weight of GW's cultural inertia behind them. You talk about "plenty of shared spaces", but none of those "shared spaces" have the same clout as Space Marines, do they?

Also, why would having women Space Marines threaten your own all-dudes Space Marines?

And what of the men who want to hand over "their space" to include women?

Crimson wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
40K also benefits from those being “Othered” actually being a quantifiable threat. Not just to the wealth of the powerful, but to planets and systems as a whole.

I disagree that is a benefit. I think it actually serves to render the satire toothless and makes fascists find 40k more welcoming as they see the others they wish to exterminate as just as much of a quantifiable threat as the imperium does its others.

So, the othering in 40k is not actually satirising the othering of groups by totalitarian regimes. It is just depicting it completely straight from the point of view of the fascists, making them justified in their crimes.

Yep, fully agreed. "Imperium is horrible, but it is so by necessity" is not something I want to be taken seriously. It of course is what the Imperials in the setting beleive, but it should be shown to be misguided. This is not to say that there cannot be genuine treats, but the narrative should be that by being xenophobic totalitarian pricks the Imperium actually makes the situation worse.

Strongly agreed. If GW are to lean into the "psykers can't be trusted/mutants represent a threat", then they should/could include some fluff about how, on one planet, psykers are treated well and have no risk of Perils, and that those with mutations are treated or welcomed into their culture - and then have them get destroyed by the Imperium who can't understand how such a thing is possible. Make it clear that the psyker-mutant culture *is stable, thriving, and is having no problems* - and then show that the Imperium is working against the ethical survival of humankind.

Formosa wrote:what is YOUR motivation as we know its certainly not representation or inclusion as you are seeking to exclude those who do not want a change and deny them their representation.

You're still represented. You're just not just represented *at the cost of everything else*.

as to your question, for decades the Custodes were a male organisation, many liked this for various reasons, now by changing it you are excluding those people who do not like the change when their views are just as valid as yours, are you ok with excluding people in such a manner or will you just label them with some epithet to justify it?

For decades, the Custodes weren't even on the tabletop, and were oiled up shirtless cone-heads. Them being "male" was predicated simply on the assumption that there were no women. It was only in the 8th ed Custodes codex that anything implied with any clarity that they were all male.

And, more to the point - if you or others like Custodes as a male group of sweaty oiled up homoerotic bodybuilders, then you can still do that! Your own collection can be their own scpcial sausage party. Who cares what other people do with their models, am I right?

robbienw wrote:Of course its justifiable. The imperium is the only thing standing in the way of mankinds extinction, its extremisn is entirely neccessay.

Only because the Imperium *destroys everything else that could provide an alternative*.

The Interex.
The Auretian Technocracy.
Gue'vesa.
Countless other human group destroyed in the Great Crusade.

The Imperium is even *actively* welcomed for negotiation with the Tau, and guess what? The Imperium tries to wipe them out.

The Imperium are not the good guys, and are not justified to do what they do. They never have been. If, for a moment, you think the Imperium are justified, I kindly remind you that even GW disagrees with you, and have told you that you should not be idolising the Imperium in any way.

robbienw wrote: Its a ridiculous position to take. Its a fictional setting, the main threats in which are highly unrealistic aliens and magically corrupted humans which bear no relation to anything in real life.

But women soldiers are a step too far?

robbienw wrote:I'm saying how the imperium in 40k works and why it does what it does, because the other 'alternative' societies have already been proven not to work in pre-imperial times, and the imperium doesn't have time to waste.

The Tau disprove that. Humans live in the Tau Empire without a problem.
Plus, you say "were proven not to work" - yes, because the Imperium *killed them*.
The Imperium are not justified, nor as they the "only chance" for humanity's survival.

There are plenty of women soldiers in 40k.

But only where they're "allowed" to be, right?

 vipoid wrote:
Surely Cadians being racist towards Catachans or Vostroyans would amount to fictional racism?

Do you have any examples of this? Not to mention that it's likely less "racist" as we know it, but more likely "cultural".