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Offshoot from this thread.

I don't want to summarize the information and arguments presented to avoid incorrectly stating anyone's positions.

Just making a preemptive mod post here, if this thread goes the same way as the last dozen or do we will look very unkindly upon the posters doing so.
So keep it civil, keep it polite and remember you are speaking to other human beings not random avatars on the internet.

 Tyran wrote:

My point isn't that the IoM is sexist.

My point is that the Emperor was sexist. The non-sexist nature of the IoM is a happy accident, just like how its theocratic nature is a blatant deviation from the Emperor's blatant radical and violent atheism.

Expanding on the above, the core lore reason is that FSM cannot exist is because the geneseed doesn't work on women for "reasons". Those reasons aren't technological limitations, as all other trans-human augmentations work on women just fine. FSM doesn't exist because the Emperor didn't want FSM to exist.

And the Emperor does have a documented preference of men over women, I mean all the Primarchs, who were literally custom built down to their genetic level if not even deeper, are male.

 Tyran wrote:

Expanding on the above, the core lore reason is that FSM cannot exist is because the geneseed doesn't work on women for "reasons". Those reasons aren't technological limitations, as all other trans-human augmentations work on women just fine. FSM doesn't exist because the Emperor didn't want FSM to exist.

That's a reason for there to be no female Space Marine at the time of the Horus Heresy. In an Imperium where the will of the Emperor is subject to creative interpretation where necessary, and where in the older background at least the Emperor was never perceived as divine by the Marines anyway, it's not a particular impediment to having female marines in the 'current' timeline.

 Tyran wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

My point isn't that the IoM is sexist.

My point is that the Emperor was sexist. The non-sexist nature of the IoM is a happy accident, just like how its theocratic nature is a blatant deviation from the Emperor's blatant radical and violent atheism.

Expanding on the above, the core lore reason is that FSM cannot exist is because the geneseed doesn't work on women for "reasons". Those reasons aren't technological limitations, as all other trans-human augmentations work on women just fine. FSM doesn't exist because the Emperor didn't want FSM to exist.

And the Emperor does have a documented preference of men over women, I mean all the Primarchs, who were literally custom built down to their genetic level if not even deeper, are male.

^Expanding on that, an entertaining framework for interpreting the Imperium is as the very faulty product of a hyoer-patriarchy.

But as for Space Marines in particular, I think it's fine to
A: make products/product lines aimed at young men/boys
B: make products that draw upon historical/real world precedents

But make no mistake, I'm sympathetic to the pro-FSM side as well. I like that Custodes are both, and was pro-female Custodes before it happened/was officially acknowledged.

 insaniak wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

Expanding on the above, the core lore reason is that FSM cannot exist is because the geneseed doesn't work on women for "reasons". Those reasons aren't technological limitations, as all other trans-human augmentations work on women just fine. FSM doesn't exist because the Emperor didn't want FSM to exist.

That's a reason for there to be no female Space Marine at the time of the Horus Heresy. In an Imperium where the will of the Emperor is subject to creative interpretation where necessary, and where in the older background at least the Emperor was never perceived as divine by the Marines anyway, it's not a particular impediment to having female marines in the 'current' timeline.

The Emperor is so obnoxious and autocratic that I wouldn’t put it past him to hardcode in ‘no gurlz allowed!’ into the geneseed if that was his design…

Though the Cursed Founding and Primaris both show that suitably motivated tech priests are not above trying to brute force past the Emperor’s design of it takes their fancy.

The Imperium is a big place, I’m sure someone’s done it somewhere.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

My point isn't that the IoM is sexist.

My point is that the Emperor was sexist. The non-sexist nature of the IoM is a happy accident, just like how its theocratic nature is a blatant deviation from the Emperor's blatant radical and violent atheism.

Expanding on the above, the core lore reason is that FSM cannot exist is because the geneseed doesn't work on women for "reasons". Those reasons aren't technological limitations, as all other trans-human augmentations work on women just fine. FSM doesn't exist because the Emperor didn't want FSM to exist.

And the Emperor does have a documented preference of men over women, I mean all the Primarchs, who were literally custom built down to their genetic level if not even deeper, are male.

^Expanding on that, an entertaining framework for interpreting the Imperium is as the very faulty product of a hyoer-patriarchy.

But as for Space Marines in particular, I think it's fine to
A: make products/product lines aimed at young men/boys
B: make products that draw upon historical/real world precedents

But make no mistake, I'm sympathetic to the pro-FSM side as well. I like that Custodes are both, and was pro-female Custodes before it happened/was officially acknowledged.

The issue isn't the existence of an all-male faction.
The issue is that the only all-male faction is the poster faction, getting the lion's share of releases, promotional work, exposure, etc.

If GSC could only be male, that'd be dumb, but also not nearly the issue that Marines being a boys-only club is.

 JNAProductions wrote:
The issue isn't the existence of an all-male faction.
The issue is that the only all-male faction is the poster faction, getting the lion's share of releases, promotional work, exposure, etc.

If GSC could only be male, that'd be dumb, but also not nearly the issue that Marines being a boys-only club is.

Exactly this. Also, one the big strengths and selling points of marines is their thematic flexibility. There are Viking marines, Mongol marines, knightly marines, vampire marines etc. and you're allowed to invent your own... as long as that is not girl marines!

 insaniak wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

Expanding on the above, the core lore reason is that FSM cannot exist is because the geneseed doesn't work on women for "reasons". Those reasons aren't technological limitations, as all other trans-human augmentations work on women just fine. FSM doesn't exist because the Emperor didn't want FSM to exist.

That's a reason for there to be no female Space Marine at the time of the Horus Heresy. In an Imperium where the will of the Emperor is subject to creative interpretation where necessary, and where in the older background at least the Emperor was never perceived as divine by the Marines anyway, it's not a particular impediment to having female marines in the 'current' timeline.

Current Space Marines have no idea how geneseed works to the point they have to rely on the slow process of harvesting it from Marines instead of simply artificially making more.

And the "no girls allowed" is explicitly coded into the geneseed.

 Tyran wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

Expanding on the above, the core lore reason is that FSM cannot exist is because the geneseed doesn't work on women for "reasons". Those reasons aren't technological limitations, as all other trans-human augmentations work on women just fine. FSM doesn't exist because the Emperor didn't want FSM to exist.

That's a reason for there to be no female Space Marine at the time of the Horus Heresy. In an Imperium where the will of the Emperor is subject to creative interpretation where necessary, and where in the older background at least the Emperor was never perceived as divine by the Marines anyway, it's not a particular impediment to having female marines in the 'current' timeline.

Current Space Marines have no idea how geneseed works to the point they have to rely on the slow process of harvesting it from Marines instead of simply artificially making more.

And the "no girls allowed" is explicitly coded into the geneseed.

Ask Cawl how to change that.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Ask Cawl how to change that.

Maybe.

But Cawl hasn't been able to fully crack the geneseed, which is why geneseed flaws are still present in Blood Angel Primaris.

The Dark Eldar could, and maybe Fabious Bile, but lol at the idea of asking the Dark Eldar and lmao at asking Bile.

Would it be considered offensive if the FSM were Chaos Marines at first?

 Tyran wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Ask Cawl how to change that.

Maybe.

But Cawl hasn't been able to fully crack the geneseed, which is why geneseed flaws are still present in Blood Angel Primaris.

The Dark Eldar could, and maybe Fabious Bile, but lol at the idea of asking the Dark Eldar and lmao at asking Bile.

You do understand that this is fiction, right? It is made up, it can be made to work in whatever way the writer wants.

 Tyran wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Ask Cawl how to change that.

Maybe.

But Cawl hasn't been able to fully crack the geneseed, which is why geneseed flaws are still present in Blood Angel Primaris.

The Dark Eldar could, and maybe Fabious Bile, but lol at the idea of asking the Dark Eldar and lmao at asking Bile.

There were no Primaris Marines until there were.
There were no Blade Champions in Custodes until there were.
Centurion suits (as dumb as you might think they are) didn't exist until suddenly they did.

Changing the lore is as easy as a writer at GW saying it's changed. There is no real scientific basis for something like Marine-ification to not work on women.

 Tyran wrote:

And the "no girls allowed" is explicitly coded into the geneseed.

...because of one line of text in older books, that was inserted to provide an in-universe explanation for why the models were all male, which was a situation created by sales, rather than the needs of the setting.


With how much in universe 'factual' information turns out to be subject to interpretation or just flat out wrong, it wouldn't be a particularly huge leap to 'everyone thought it was coded to male physiology, but then some enterprising techpriest realised that 'male physiology' isn't actually an absolute and therefor that whole concept was flawed, and tried it on some female subjects...'






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
There were no Primaris Marines until there were.
There were no Blade Champions in Custodes until there were.
Centurion suits (as dumb as you might think they are) didn't exist until suddenly they did.

Changing the lore is as easy as a writer at GW saying it's changed. There is no real scientific basis for something like Marine-ification to not work on women.

There was also no Cawl, until he had suddenly always been there, tinkering away in the background...

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would it be considered offensive if the FSM were Chaos Marines at first?

Chaos has always struck me as a meritocracy (even if it's mercurial at best). I don't think the Chaos gods - or even mortal lords - care what's in your pants if you can get the job done. I've got a model that I use as a Chaos Lord to represent the leader of my Chaos Knights when she's not in her Rampager, and I've also got some female Thousand Sons awaiting paint jobs.

 insaniak wrote:

...because of one line of text in older books, that was inserted to provide an in-universe explanation for why the models were all male, which was a situation created by sales, rather than the needs of the setting.

The idea is repeated in The Last Days of Ector that is a relatively recent novella.

As for the lore changing and Cawl developing FSM, sure. I'm not actually opposed to the idea of FSM, I was talking more how I have come to accept and reconcile 40k's lore regarding Marines and gender (it is all Emps' fault like always).

The blood angels geneseed already does things to scrawny misshapen mutants that make a girl space marine look boring by comparison.

As JNA says, there is no fictional limitation that will prevent the story changing, the limitations are all self imposed and supported for a variety of reasons.

To mix and mash some memes, if you don't want female space marines then don't get gay married.

ie, adding them does nothing to your doods if you choose to make your doods all doods. No one will force you to have girlmarines, it will just give ' lore permission' to people who would like to.

And for better or worse, the GW fandom is now absolutely bound by its lore. The days of 'do whatever you want' are long gone and people get ganged on line for working with ideas that don't 'fit' the lore. Down to using the wrong shade of blue for your ultramarines.

The social pressure to conform to 'correctness' means that no matter how 'do what you want' you try to be, large portions of the fanbase that you have to interact with in this inherently social hobby, will deny you, decry you, or abuse you for daring to go against lore.

All adding them does is provide an inclusive throughline for other members in the audience who would appreciate it, and GW's 'lore accurate approval' TM that people won't be doing anything wrong if they do.

 JNAProductions wrote:
The issue isn't the existence of an all-male faction.
The issue is that the only all-male faction is the poster faction, getting the lion's share of releases, promotional work, exposure, etc.

Personally, I'd far rather see GW address this.

Reason being it would have a far more positive effect on the game as a whole.

 vipoid wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
The issue isn't the existence of an all-male faction.
The issue is that the only all-male faction is the poster faction, getting the lion's share of releases, promotional work, exposure, etc.

Personally, I'd far rather see GW address this.

Reason being it would have a far more positive effect on the game as a whole.

I can agree to that, but I can also see that that's much less realistic for GW to do than adding women as Marines.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would it be considered offensive if the FSM were Chaos Marines at first?

Chaos has always struck me as a meritocracy (even if it's mercurial at best). I don't think the Chaos gods - or even mortal lords - care what's in your pants if you can get the job done. I've got a model that I use as a Chaos Lord to represent the leader of my Chaos Knights when she's not in her Rampager, and I've also got some female Thousand Sons awaiting paint jobs.

Cool. Is she the pilot of the green Chaos Knight you posted?

Not an advocate for female Marines myself. But not against it - it all depends on the Lore.

 vipoid wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
The issue isn't the existence of an all-male faction.
The issue is that the only all-male faction is the poster faction, getting the lion's share of releases, promotional work, exposure, etc.

Personally, I'd far rather see GW address this.

Reason being it would have a far more positive effect on the game as a whole.

You aren't wrong, but it's also a similar position that we see in modern social discussions - stop immigration/refugees until we fix our own homeless problem.

Which in effect is, dont do this thing until we fix this other thing that we won't be fixing. Which results in 2 things not being done.

Theory and practice are different things, and in this instance, Cawl finding the girl switch and turning it on in the geneseed is far easier and quicker for them to implement than a complete reworking of their business model.

 vict0988 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Blood Angels (one of the biggest Marine subfactions) takes cripples for their initiates.

And I'd like to point out that your exclusions are either something that's not inherent or even real (melee units and pyskers) or so broad as to encompass literally every human (breathing units). Except for women.

Do you have a source for that claim? I'd take anything, Youtube video, Lexicanum, something you remember reading in an old Codex or White Dwarf. The only thing I could find was an old Reddit thread were one aspirant had been accepted despite being crippled or something like that.

To answer this question here rather than in the other thread, the information was there in the first BA codex text and hasn't changed.

On physical strength? The Astartes conversion process would sort that out, as would their standard issue power armour.

Because, say it with me, Astartes Are No Longer Human. They’re post-human. Not Abhuman. Post-human.

Nor are they something I’d willingly aspire to be. Because they’re turbo-eunuch-combat-nutters, who from the time of selection are doomed to die a horrific death, one way or another. They don’t live anything remotely approaching a human life, even in the sheer hell that is The Imperium.

And keep in mind aspirants are young. Ideally pre-pubescent, with increasing risk even in the original Heresy setting, the older the candidate was. So the initial selection likely isn’t terribly fussed for raw physical muscle, so much as will and physical endurance.

The genhancements and relentless ‘rest of your now considerably unnatural life’ physical training will see to the rest of it.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I can agree to that, but I can also see that that's much less realistic for GW to do than adding women as Marines.

Touché.

 Hellebore wrote:

You aren't wrong, but it's also a similar position that we see in modern social discussions - stop immigration/refugees until we fix our own homeless problem.

Which in effect is, dont do this thing until we fix this other thing that we won't be fixing. Which results in 2 things not being done.

Eh, I'd equate it more to fixing immigration vs. painting a zebra crossing in rainbow colours. One is something that has a significant effect, while the other is purely cosmetic and doesn't really mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

I get that some people want female SMs. However, even if GW granted that wish, the game would still be in a bad place in a lot of other ways. And if you're one of the many people who doesn't care about SMs (female or otherwise), then this is basically irrelevant. Meanwhile, making SMs more equal to the other factions in the game would solve not only this issue but a myriad of other issues as well.

I do take your point in that GW don't seem inclined to remove SMs off their pedestal anytime soon. Though both are out of our hands, so this is all hypothetical anyway.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On physical strength? The Astartes conversion process would sort that out, as would their standard issue power armour.

Because, say it with me, Astartes Are No Longer Human. They’re post-human. Not Abhuman. Post-human.

Serious question - does gender even mean much at that point?

I suppose what I'm asking is what people actually want.

Is it about getting female heads for SMs (even though, given what has been said about the process, I would think they would be barely distinguishable from male SM heads).
Is this about changing the lore?
Is it about getting SM models with literal breastplate armour?

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would it be considered offensive if the FSM were Chaos Marines at first?

Chaos has always struck me as a meritocracy (even if it's mercurial at best). I don't think the Chaos gods - or even mortal lords - care what's in your pants if you can get the job done. I've got a model that I use as a Chaos Lord to represent the leader of my Chaos Knights when she's not in her Rampager, and I've also got some female Thousand Sons awaiting paint jobs.

The novel Storm of Iron, published back in 2002, featured a Khornate champion's female slave who kills him and takes his armour (with a little boost from her newly adopted patron), with nobody being any the wiser...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On physical strength? The Astartes conversion process would sort that out, as would their standard issue power armour.

Because, say it with me, Astartes Are No Longer Human. They’re post-human. Not Abhuman. Post-human.

Nor are they something I’d willingly aspire to be. Because they’re turbo-eunuch-combat-nutters, who from the time of selection are doomed to die a horrific death, one way or another. They don’t live anything remotely approaching a human life, even in the sheer hell that is The Imperium.

And keep in mind aspirants are young. Ideally pre-pubescent, with increasing risk even in the original Heresy setting, the older the candidate was. So the initial selection likely isn’t terribly fussed for raw physical muscle, so much as will and physical endurance.

The genhancements and relentless ‘rest of your now considerably unnatural life’ physical training will see to the rest of it.

Strength difference is pretty irrelevant as you say, the process adds most of that and the aspirants are all pre-pubescent and it’s male puberty that introduces the bulk of the strength difference from bone and muscle growth anyway.
Tbh marinification is to some extent male puberty turned up to 11, with the result being something monstrous, which makes some sense given the two seem to be linked some how (hence also it doesn’t work on adults).

But even now we can make someone without a Y chromosome go through male puberty, and that’s without space magic or the Imperium’s near peerless bio engineering. The Imperium definitely can and the only in-universe technical blocker would be if Emps hard coded it in with the space magic he used to make them originally.

 vipoid wrote:

Is it about getting female heads for SMs (even though, given what has been said about the process, I would think they would be barely distinguishable from male SM heads).
Is this about changing the lore?
Is it about getting SM models with literal breastplate armour?

Outside of the grimier parts of Reddit and 4chan, very few people want boobplate on any of their models.

Most just want to see female characters represented.

Different people will be after different things.

I mean there are 9 people who think female semi-nude Christmas marines are a great idea (link being very much not for work)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1214288519/battle-bells-and-naughty-spells-power-armors-xmas-set