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MarcoSkoll wrote:an evolutionary pressure that targets just women would affect men too.

This is not necessarily the case, as proven by the existence of medical conditions and mutations that are unique or near-unique to women.

While it is true that there is very little genetic difference between a male and a female, Astartes fanboys claim that this relaively insignificant difference is enough to disqualify all women, and therefor it must count for quite a bit in 40k (given that men of entirely different families and thus far less related than a brother and sister would be are able to both become Astartes).

Games Workshop does not employ geneticists or even biologists. They don't know what they're talking about; they haven't the faintest idea and they're really just pulling pop culture "science" nonsense out of their asses, and you shouldn't look too deeply in to it. Suffice it to say, humans in 40k are VERY different from humans in the real world. the martial difference between the two is not so great in 40k, because 40k runs on rule of cool rather than physics.

Hunterindarkness wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:

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

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

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

A man is also likely (on average) to be more agile and faster then a woman. Even with the implants. And again, you're gonna have to get rid of breasts to fit in armor. The intense amount of testosterone and other drugs going into making a woman an Astartes would just be better used on a man in the first place.

As for far better to grasp small details, perhaps make women into Space Marine scouts?

Omegus's cliff notes also suffice as well.

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

Because female guardsmen work in game just the same as male guardsmen. Why should Sm be any different?

Vladsimpaler wrote:And again, you're gonna have to get rid of breasts to fit in armor.

When doing strenuous activity, one does not lt the breasts simply hang loosely to sway to and fro (much to the chagrin of red-blooded men everywhere). Sports bras were invented for this very reason. And this itself ignores the fact that they probably wouldn't have big breasts in the first place simply because they live a martial lifestyle which does not leave much room for fat from a very young age, this isn't actually necessarily the case. See also the Japanese, who for all their many flaws (and they are legion) have the good sense to eat a diet low on fat and exercise a lot, but this along with genetic factors results in their society's women being notably flatter chested than average.

To bring another example up, Sisters of Battle armor has breasts because GW wants the average person looking at the tiny models to instantly identify them as female (also because the original designer was a perverted douche with no taste in women and no artistic talent, but thankfully they did not adopt everything that John Blanche had in mind for the Sisters), not because they're all well endowed.

Vladsimpaler wrote:



A man is also likely (on average) to be more agile and faster then a woman. Even with the implants. And again, you're gonna have to get rid of breasts to fit in armor. The intense amount of testosterone and other drugs going into making a woman an Astartes would just be better used on a man in the first place.



Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

Ya know RL females use the same armor as males right? even in the ye old days of Knights this was true. If they recruit the best of the best, saying no to any woman that could rank with the rest of them seems odd. Sure they may not be a strong, but they do tend to be faster, less bulk and better dexterity. "We can't take them because they are girls" is frankly Non-sense.

Hunterindarkness wrote:Because female guardsmen work in game just the same as male guardsmen. Why should Sm be any different?

Game =/= fluff.

Melissia wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:And again, you're gonna have to get rid of breasts to fit in armor.

When doing strenuous activity, one does not lt the breasts simply hang loosely to sway to and fro (much to the chagrin of red-blooded men everywhere). Sports bras were invented for this very reason. And this itself ignores the fact that they probably wouldn't have big breasts in the first place simply because they live a martial lifestyle which does not leave much room for fat, this isn't actually necessarily the case.
To bring another example up, Sisters of Battle armor has breasts because GW wants the average person looking at the tiny models to instantly identify them as female (also because the original designer was a perverted douche with no taste in women and no artistic talent, but thankfully they did not adopt everything that John Blanche had in mind for the Sisters), not because they're all well endowed.

That was a very long response to a very minor part of my argument haha, thank you anyway though. You seem to have a lot of hatred for your favorite faction.

Also, here's another thing: Female Adeptus are going to suffer from amenorrhea, since ostensibly they won't have periods anymore. Going to have to deal with the the side effects of that as well.


:edit:
@HunterintheDarkness- You know that powered armor is a lot different from the armor they use today?
Also again, men on a whole are faster than women. Finally, I know I'm assuming that female Adeptus are possible for the sake of argumentation, however I am going to have to bring up the background which shows that women just can't be marines. So it ultimately is a matter of "we can't take them because they are girls".

Meh. Its easy.
1) Admech from system BLAH BLAH come across some STC templates. I their thousand year proofing (look up the lightning) they find this STC actually works on women of a specific genetic subgroup. Bang shebam ERA.

2) The admech have been busy little beavers in league with the Adeptus Custodes, who are worried that their genetic improvement replications will fade over time. As part of their experiements to "fix" the process they focus on more stable female genes, creating AC female troopers comparable to marines. They, the Inquisition, (or even the Council if we want to be more legal about it) decide to develop a chapter styled force, which like the Nuns with Guns are much more loyal and less apt to "just go off and sulk or eat a planet's population." Woop Delioop Title IX.

3) In line with #3 above, they INSERT GOTHIC ORGANIZATION HERE decide to test this procedure on SOB volunteers. Twice the Fleur De Lis, Twice the 'tude! They could even be allied with the admech, sort of a Skitarii marine equivalent (lots of opportunities for conversions with all the best kit). After all, when it comes to obeying the Insquition's rules or The Big Book of Blue Marines, Honey badger, er Admech don't give a gak.

You mean just like male adeptus suffer from roid rage and other side effects of their hideously disgusting chemical cocktails?

Oh wait. They don't.

You forget, 40k fluff doesn't give a damn about reality as long as it's cool.

Melissia wrote:You mean just like male adeptus suffer from roid rage and other side effects of their hideously disgusting chemical cocktails?

Oh wait. They don't.

Roid rage isn't real, it's an urban myth. Most other side effects of AAS use can be negated with proper vitamins and other SERMS (selective endrogen receptor modulators).

:edit in response to your edit haha: Well yeah of course, that's a given.

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

Vladsimpaler wrote:Roid rage isn't real, it's an urban myth. Most other side effects of AAS use can be negated with proper vitamins and other SERMS (selective endrogen receptor modulators).

Just like the effects of the menstrual cycle can be minimized or even nullified with certain medications.

Always wondered about that. Why with all the roids and chemicals and implants do the marines not actually suffer any side effects from it?

Gotta take an awful lot of roids to increase your height.

Nom

nomsheep wrote:Always wondered about that. Why with all the roids and chemicals and implants do the marines not actually suffer any side effects from it?

Because it's cooler if they don't.

Like the roids that Duke Nukem takes in DN Forever-- no negative side effects because it's cool to have him pop a few pills and then suddenly hulk out and beat the everloving gak out of everything he sees for a few minutes.

Melissia wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:Roid rage isn't real, it's an urban myth. Most other side effects of AAS use can be negated with proper vitamins and other SERMS (selective endrogen receptor modulators).

Just like the effects of the menstrual cycle can be minimized or even nullified with certain medications.

Yes, it's true that you can nullify it with progesterone.
The problem is that if you want to avoid amonhrrea, you then need to administer progesterone, which in turn will increase estrogen which is not a good thing for a super soldier. So yes you can avoid the effects of not having menstruation, but then you're gonna have a soldier who is menstruating and increasing its estrogen when in reality you want testosterone.

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

I think Melissia is right (as she very often is). 40k runs on rule of cool. If someone thinks space marines with boobs are cool, more power to them. Everyone else is free to mock them as they see fit, but it's not like whatever they make up could be any less sensible than some of the stuff GW publishes already.

Had this same conversation with my girlfriend once. She said it was kind of sexist. I agreed, but I still stood by the "no female space marines" camp. I don't personally believe there would ever be female space marines due to the nonsensical description of the geneseed. If there were, I subscribe to the idea that they'd be so jacked and roided up they'd look just like male space marines anyway, making the whole argument moot in my head. Wanting female space marines just to say they're female, when they'd end up looking like male gorillas, isn't worth the effort, and fairness for fairness's sake has never been a part of 40k.

If you want a REAL argument about the insensitivity of GW, just notice that NO ONE IS BLACK. Even the one space marine chapter that was black got retconned into horrible black-faced monsters for absolutely no reason (maybe because they decided that separate but equal chapters was too blatantly racist, so better make it "subtle" by dodging the subject altogether).

Hunterindarkness wrote:Because female guardsmen work in game just the same as male guardsmen. Why should Sm be any different?

You're taking this discussion into rules when it is very clearly about fluff. Need to stop here.

Question from the Peanut Gallery

What exactly is the Fluff justification for the genetics-SM-must-be-men situation?

Despite the fact i've been playing this game for so long, i've never bothered poking around this bit of lore.

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:I think Melissia is right (as she very often is). 40k runs on rule of cool. If someone thinks space marines with boobs are cool, more power to them. Everyone else is free to mock them as they see fit, but it's not like whatever they make up could be any less sensible than some of the stuff GW publishes already.

Had this same conversation with my girlfriend once. She said it was kind of sexist. I agreed, but I still stood by the "no female space marines" camp. I don't personally believe there would ever be female space marines due to the nonsensical description of the geneseed. If there were, I subscribe to the idea that they'd be so jacked and roided up they'd look just like male space marines anyway, making the whole argument moot in my head. Wanting female space marines just to say they're female, when they'd end up looking like male gorillas, isn't worth the effort, and fairness for fairness's sake has never been a part of 40k.

You want sexist? Sisters of Battle. Even has Sisters in the name. There are no male sisters of battle. Waaaaaahhhh

Though if you think that this: (very NSFW) is cool, then you know what? More power to you. I guess.

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:Question from the Peanut Gallery

What exactly is the Fluff justification for the genetics-SM-must-be-men situation?

Despite the fact i've been playing this game for so long, i've never bothered poking around this bit of lore.

Something about it only being able to work with a man's chromosomes. That's it. It goes back as far as Rogue Trader, and is one of the few parts of the background that actually hasn't changed.

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Hunterindarkness wrote:Because female guardsmen work in game just the same as male guardsmen. Why should Sm be any different?

You're taking this discussion into rules when it is very clearly about fluff. Need to stop here.

There's no difference in the lore, either.

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:
If you want a REAL argument about the insensitivity of GW, just notice that NO ONE IS BLACK. Even the one space marine chapter that was black got retconned into horrible black-faced monsters for absolutely no reason (maybe because they decided that separate but equal chapters was too blatantly racist, so better make it "subtle" by dodging the subject altogether).

LOL! Didn't even consider that.

That does make me wonder though how well Non-Caucasians are represented in 40K.

I do recall a few Japanese members of the Guard and the Adeptus Arbites in a few fluff stories but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Vladsimpaler wrote:
Game =/= fluff.

In other words Zero real reason at all.

Vladsimpaler wrote: You know that powered armor is a lot different from the armor they use today?

You know that All Sm are not the exact same size right? If they can adjust the chest, arms , legs and other things for different sized tall/short, slightly slim, more wide Sm then one being female is zero real issue. The outside looks the same, but outside of the armor they do not. They are not clones.

Vladsimpaler wrote:
Also again, men on a whole are faster than women. Finally, I know I'm assuming that female Adeptus are possible for the sake of argumentation, however I am going to have to bring up the background which shows that women just can't be marines. So it ultimately is a matter of "we can't take them because they are girls".

An Arbitrary BS reason. If someone could engineer the Astarte, all the many thousands of changers and whole new organs. Being female is not an issue, all males start out as female, if you can alter one sex to that degree you can do the other.

Vladsimpaler wrote:There are no male sisters of battle.

Frateris Templar.

Your argument fails.

Frazzled wrote:2) The admech have been busy little beavers in league with the Adeptus Custodes, who are worried that their genetic improvement replications will fade over time. As part of their experiements to "fix" the process they focus on more stable female genes, creating AC female troopers comparable to marines. They, the Inquisition, (or even the Council if we want to be more legal about it) decide to develop a chapter styled force, which like the Nuns with Guns are much more loyal and less apt to "just go off and sulk or eat a planet's population." Woop Delioop Title IX.

Yes, but also far more apt to spend time trying to figure which shoes go with the next planet's soil coloration and having bitchy behind the back conversations about what another sister did, and asking loaded questions about if the armor makes them look fat to every male Chapter Serf who wanders by at the wrong time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Hunterindarkness wrote:Because female guardsmen work in game just the same as male guardsmen. Why should Sm be any different?

You're taking this discussion into rules when it is very clearly about fluff. Need to stop here.

There's no difference in the lore, either.

That is an entirely unsupportable assertion.

Vladsimpaler wrote:
Something about it only being able to work with a man's chromosomes. That's it.

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

So.... they are arguing that the modifications are essentially sex-linked to the Y Chromosome?

I mean the other 45 pairs are all autosomes so they are out of the running.

nomsheep wrote:Always wondered about that. Why with all the roids and chemicals and implants do the marines not actually suffer any side effects from it?

Gotta take an awful lot of roids to increase your height.

They don't take steroids for height increase. It's part of the geneseed cocktail of organs, I believe it overrides the pituitary and leaves the "keep growing" switch on longer than the body normally would during puberty, same as gigantism. You probably wouldn't need an extra organ to do it though, you could just administer the proper hormone, but whatever.

Similarly, there's actually a genetic switch that can be flipped to cause greatly increased muscle growth (I've seen studies where they do it in mice, to the point where the mice are so bulky they can hardly move). No actual steroids necessary.

Combine those two, and successfully add redundant organs like heart, lungs, and kidneys to handle the demands of such a huge body, and you have what is a fairly realistic recipe for a super-human. All the rest of the geneseed gak is, well, gak, but those things are probably doable.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:That is an entirely unsupportable assertion.

In all black library stories with male and female guardsmen, there is no noted difference between them as far as physical capabilities go-- in fact, some of the most famously competent and capable ones were female, in the Cain series. In the FFG roleplaying game, there is zero difference at all between male and female characters save social differences.

It is YOUR assertion that is unsupported by the lore, not mine.

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:
If you want a REAL argument about the insensitivity of GW, just notice that NO ONE IS BLACK. Even the one space marine chapter that was black got retconned into horrible black-faced monsters for absolutely no reason (maybe because they decided that separate but equal chapters was too blatantly racist, so better make it "subtle" by dodging the subject altogether).

LOL! Didn't even consider that.

That does make me wonder though how well Non-Caucasians are represented in 40K.

I do recall a few Japanese members of the Guard and the Adeptus Arbites in a few fluff stories but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Ultimately, racial qualities are going to be bred out of the human race. Considering the fact that many scientists think redheads will be mostly extinct in 75-100 years, in 38,000 years, chances are everyone is going to be a light-medium tan.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:That is an entirely unsupportable assertion.

In all black library stories with male and female guardsmen, there is no noted difference between them as far as physical capabilities go-- in fact, some of the most famously competent and capable ones were female, in the Cain series. In the FFG roleplaying game, there is zero difference at all between male and female characters save social differences.

Roleplaying games are an even more ludicrous source, since their mechanics have been artificially balanced between sexes for marketing/political correctness purposes for almost thirty years, and also that player characters are intentionally supposed to represent exceptional individuals, and not the average joes of any given universe.

And both of our assertions are entirely unsupportable in the fluff, since there hasn't been a single 40K book to make an in depth analysis of the topic. The bonus for me, is that my side is supported by reality, so in the end, given zero scientific, supportable evidence in the texts, we have to default to the known factors.

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

They don't take steroids for height increase. It's part of the geneseed cocktail of organs, I believe it overrides the pituitary and leaves the "keep growing" switch on longer than the body normally would during puberty, same as gigantism. You probably wouldn't need an extra organ to do it though, you could just administer the proper hormone, but whatever.

Wow, so the geneseed cocktail causes an increase in Growth hormone from the Anterior Pituitary?

I'm surprised, IRL this would cause acromegaly since bones are actually "sealed" from the effects of the hormone in adults.

In children it would just cause Gigantism.

@CalgarsPimpHand, it's much easier to make your marines black/white/purple/pink with dots in fluff than it is to make them grow bewbs and drop their trousersnake.

THe most likely reason that they aren't black is cos the greater amount of people who play it are white males.

It's also easier to put yourself in the shoes of someone who looks similar to you than it someone who doesn't.

Aesthetics wise in order to be realistic Fsm would look like the males and have armour like the males. If they are modelled then they have boob armour solely to identify them as female and cos boobs sell.

Nom

Veteran Sergeant wrote:[snip]

Unlike you, I provided sources. Your assertion is essentially pulled right out of your arse.

Hunterindarkness wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:
Game =/= fluff.

In other words Zero real reason at all.

In other words, very real reason at all. The game isn't entirely like the background which means that there's a disconnect.

Vladsimpaler wrote: You know that powered armor is a lot different from the armor they use today?

You know that All Sm are not the exact same size right? If they can adjust the chest, arms , legs and other things for different sized tall/short, slightly slim, more wide Sm then one being female is zero real issue. The outside looks the same, but outside of the armor they do not. They are not clones.

Fair enough about this, however ultimately it makes no difference because of my next point...

Vladsimpaler wrote:
Also again, men on a whole are faster than women. Finally, I know I'm assuming that female Adeptus are possible for the sake of argumentation, however I am going to have to bring up the background which shows that women just can't be marines. So it ultimately is a matter of "we can't take them because they are girls".

An Arbitrary BS reason. If someone could engineer the Astarte, all the many thousands of changers and whole new organs. Being female is not an issue, all males start out as female, if you can alter one sex to that degree you can do the other.

LOL, I like how you are the one who brings up these "BS reasons" like being faster and whatnot for female marines in the first place. When I refute them and actually make them a positive for the males, then they become arbitrary BS reasons. And I like how a piece of background that has stayed the same for almost 25 years is "arbitrary BS". C'mon dude, try a little. Also I'm pretty sure that embryos are a lot more susceptible to change than real humans, however I would definitely be up for some evidence proving otherwise.

Melissia wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:There are no male sisters of battle.

Frateris Templar.

Your argument fails.

Yeah, however they were disbanded if my memory serves. So if you want to be pedantic, yes there were male SoB, once, but not anymore. As such, it's a sexist organization. Also, I will assume that you've accepted the other part of my argument.

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler