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Recently I was talking with one of my fellow black geeks about 40k, and telling him about space marines named of color from Johna Orion (DOW II) to Pedro Kantor (vote for him) and Lo Chang, and how "we" weren't/hadn't been limited to salamanders (I think changing the fluff on them was dumb). There's also other artwork of unnamed characters, this is a real good one it was used as the box art for the Dark Millenium game as well as the cover of White Dwarf #170 (Feb 1994)

Interesting he's a Dark Angel. Nice fro-hawk.

http://coffeeforclosers.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/gw_whitedwarf_018.jpg
http://www.geofftaylor-artist.com/system/files/imagecache/normal/gws/gwswd1701.jpg
http://www.geofftaylor-artist.com/system/files/imagecache/normal/gws/games_workshop_170_darkmillenium_box_2009.jpg

Essentially, there isnt just ONE token guy, that serves as the 'Lando Calrissian' of the whole universe.

Thing is, the topic has come up multiple times before, it happens every once in awhile it seems on some forum or another -everyone wants to know "Are there black/non-'white' marines?" A legit question considering most depictions of the Imperium are european (Albeit very notably, the Emperor himself does not strike me as such-he seems more turkish or something, consistent with his origins in Anatolia...if that fluff origin is actually true).

But this then brought me to another question.........why is it people always ask if there 'black' marines?

Nobody cares about IG or Inquisitors or anyone else? For all those who might have been wondering, on that subject, today I came across this.

From p. 77 of The Inquisition

Sistas of Battle? Looks legit. I suddenly feel inspired to paint some SOB now.

This is the best thread on Dakka.

BlaxicanX wrote:
This is the best thread on Dakka.

Hell yeah! But Idon't know what to reply:-)

Sorrowdusk wrote:




But this then brought me to another question.........why is it people always ask if there 'black' marines?

Nobody cares about IG or Inquisitors or anyone else?

They ask because they lack the imagination to see the full range of Humanity used to fill the ranks of the forces of the IoM.
Or just have to have GW hold their hands, can't have anything you have to think about, must have pics or it didn't happen...
Really sad.

Black marines? Sistas? Please venture forth, as long as they are loyal...

The old IG codex of third edition had a lot of examples of IG regiments, nothing unusable in style or heritage. Be it aztecs or chinese, zulu or viking, if it looks imperial and serves the Emperor there is no limit.

Yeah, if I remember correctly, the DA were recruiting off of a number of sparsely populated worlds after they lost their back yard. I think one of them was sort of native N/S American themed before it got all genestolen.

I always thought it was sort of absurd that people recruited from whole worlds ended up being so racially and thematically uniform. I guess there's also some historical precedence for only using women in detachments of their own, but that's also something that bothered me.

I always liked how the eldar had a lot of diversity in their classes.

 Lucre wrote:

I always thought it was sort of absurd that people recruited from whole worlds ended up being so racially and thematically uniform. .

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfHats

There is another theory that, given the mingling of the human populace, as we know it now, amidst the Hive Worlds and Forge Worlds and other massive population centers, unless you lived on a world that mimics the environmental settings of Africa, everyone would be just "sort of tan", with hairstyles being dependent on local environmental conditions, rather than any real genetic reference (on an evolutionary scale, blacks haven't been out of sub-Saharan Africa long enough to lose the frizzy hair, which is an evolutionary benefit for that climate... give them 30,000+ years, living in a temperate climate, and the situation may well be different).

So, theoretically, there are no Caucasians, Negroids, or Mongols in the Imperium, excepting those from planets with appropriate climates *and* a resident human population of sufficient size and planet-side presence of sufficient duration to re-express the genetic markers that we use as racial differentiators in modern parlance... though, really, these differentiators are dumb because we're all one race with minor cosmetic differences based on our regions of origin. The vast majority of people in 40K should be "kinda brown" or "kinda tan" or "kinda pale", based on whether they live mainly indoors or outdoors.

I believe that blacks were kind of rare in the galaxy going back to the Horus Heresy... I think in the first book Cpt. Loken is surprised to see that the remembrancer (can't remember her name) has black skin.

IRL humanity only has 16% of our original gene-stock.

Once upon a time humnas had striped and spotted hair, crazy bushy eyebrows, tails, multipule types of ear lobes, all kinds of genetic variation.

Then came plagues, war and other natural disasters. Now we are living in the end-times for the red heads and such.

By that logic, Terra would have had like .005% of it gene-stock at the end of unification.

By the time of the 41st millenium all humans whould have brown eyes, hair and skin.

No white. No black. No unique traits. Only albinos would be "white".

That is .. surprisingly scientific. I'm rather sure no-one at GW even considered this, but it's funny how things can appear reasonable "by accident".

On the other hand, with entire human subraces like Ratlings and Ogryn and such being established, it would appear that the genetic code must have started to develop great variances somewhere down the line again, possibly due to newly colonised environments triggering some sort of rapid adaption, or pollution and radioactivity causing the DNA to throw a bunch of random dice. I've read an article about the aftereffects of Chernobyl on the children born in that area - crazy stuff like babies without eyes and so on. For 40k's setting, the only thing that would have to happen would be mutated traits becoming hereditary rather than a random one-off, or even causing the subject to die before being able to procreate.

EC =purple albinos Salamaders = black dudes

Deffdred, you mean natural selection? (as in bad genes get weeded out because those individuals die) Because the way you worded it made it sound like genotypes would just die off because something bad happened, which usually isn't the case, rather than those genotypes being inferior. I could just be misinterpreting you.

Though some genetic defects (like red hair) have stuck around because of a lack of negative selection (Evidence for Variable Selective Pressures at MC1R by: Harding et al.)

In order for radiation to cause mutation and the formation of a new species, it would have to alter the DNA in such a way that it could be passed on to future generations (ask your parents for 'the talk' ). However, it is more likely that the individual will simply be made infertile or the kids will die before/slightly after birth. Pollution is in the same boat, if it causes mutations at all.

In the beginning at least, positive and negative selection is the most reliable way to get rapid adaptation as it will ensure only those with the most adapted genotype will survive. Mutation is a much more long term strategy for adaptation (we're talking a very long time because of all the intricacies).

Well there is also the human factor to consider.

Humans in general not (individual) prefer to gather in groups of their own kind. Even in a more open setting humans tend to gather ,live and play with what they might think of or might not think of and just do with out realizing as one of them. The two biggest reasons they gather are race or social habits or in some cases both.

So in truth the odds of the human race ever looking just one way are low.

Depends on the societal changes between now, when we're not boarding Generation Ships to go populate some far-off, inter-stellar colony, and the Far Future, where we are.

If, at some point during that time-line, we finally get over these petty cosmetic differences, or encounter intelligent alien life (friendly or not) that indicates what we call "racism" these days is both petty and stupid (who cares what color your skin is when there is that thing over there?), then having large numbers of what we currently call "mixed race" communities is much more viable.

Not sure if you're aware, but pretty much all of South America can be considered "Mixed race". The attitude required to have a functioning society of different cultures is usually intrinsic and doesn't always rely on external forces of a "greater evil".

Sure, if you consider the aboriginal Americans to be a different race than European colonists. Personally, I don't, but I am well aware that I am in the minority in this.

Though what I'm saying is that I think it unlikely that people in the early stages of the Imperium and humanity's spread across the stars would only colonize a planet with other white people, other black people, other red people, other yellow people, other brown people, other Apple Geeks... wait, those are xenos, nevermind... and instead just grouped/were grouped along less-ethnic lines (religious communities, skillsets for building successful colonies, gender mix for sustaining colonies and breeding populations, etc).

A couple schools of thought on this:

1. The characters are predominantly white because the players/creators of the game are predominantly white and they paint their little men to look like them. This seems the most likely explanation.


2. 40,000 years into the future, chances are most racial types will be gone, having blended over the years. Remember, most of the skin pigment differences that have developed were due to environmental responses and geological isolation. Space colonists, even on a desert planet, will be well protected from the sun and not need to develop skin pigments to protect themselves. They'll have clothes and advanced shelter for that. People living on a hive planet may see actual, natural light very rarely. Skin may revert, over time, to paler tones. I imagine that a light tan to white skin tone is just what is inevitable for humanity if it were to expand to the kinds of numbers seen in 40K, as a combination of inevitable racial mixing and no natural drivers for darker skin pigments.

Distortionist wrote:
Deffdred, you mean natural selection? (as in bad genes get weeded out because those individuals die) Because the way you worded it made it sound like genotypes would just die off because something bad happened, which usually isn't the case, rather than those genotypes being inferior. I could just be misinterpreting you.

Though some genetic defects (like red hair) have stuck around because of a lack of negative selection (Evidence for Variable Selective Pressures at MC1R by: Harding et al.)

In order for radiation to cause mutation and the formation of a new species, it would have to alter the DNA in such a way that it could be passed on to future generations (ask your parents for 'the talk' ). However, it is more likely that the individual will simply be made infertile or the kids will die before/slightly after birth. Pollution is in the same boat, if it causes mutations at all.

In the beginning at least, positive and negative selection is the most reliable way to get rapid adaptation as it will ensure only those with the most adapted genotype will survive. Mutation is a much more long term strategy for adaptation (we're talking a very long time because of all the intricacies).

I'm not refering to natural selection.

I'm talking about 40,000 years of humans breeding with humans. Eventually there wouldn't be minorities. All races will cross-breed with one another eventually.

Then disasters like nuclear war, the civil wars of ancient Terra (our future, 40ks past), the wars of unification. All these things would thin the herd of a race that is already losing it's unique racial traits.

In a few hundred years Earth is going to be covered in a race of humans that will look like a cross between asians and mexicans. There's a great NatGeo on it.

Basically I guess I'm saying that it doesn't make sense that there are white people in 40k. There souldn't be any blonde or red hair. There shouldn't be any green or blue eyes.

There should only be brown skinned, brown haired, brown eyed (hehehe) humans that far into the future, even before galactic colonization.

I would assume that some worlds would begin to force certain human groups to re-evolve some of the older traits but possibly for different reasons than would happen on earth.

A race of humans that were forced to live underground (Horus and his homeworld) would probably begin to evolve back into subterrainian traits (better night vision, shorter stature, pale skin.

The races of Terra wouldn't have the gene-diversity to form a world entirely of the mongolians (The Khan) for example.

The history of 40k claims that at one point Earth was united and had spread through the stars as a single race who allied with alien races.

A global unity for hundreds of years wouldslowly errode the differences between mankind and result in a more singular form of human.

Of course there is nothing to say that random traits could spring up from time to time.

 DeffDred wrote:

Distortionist wrote:
Deffdred, you mean natural selection? (as in bad genes get weeded out because those individuals die) Because the way you worded it made it sound like genotypes would just die off because something bad happened, which usually isn't the case, rather than those genotypes being inferior. I could just be misinterpreting you.

Though some genetic defects (like red hair) have stuck around because of a lack of negative selection (Evidence for Variable Selective Pressures at MC1R by: Harding et al.)

In order for radiation to cause mutation and the formation of a new species, it would have to alter the DNA in such a way that it could be passed on to future generations (ask your parents for 'the talk' ). However, it is more likely that the individual will simply be made infertile or the kids will die before/slightly after birth. Pollution is in the same boat, if it causes mutations at all.

In the beginning at least, positive and negative selection is the most reliable way to get rapid adaptation as it will ensure only those with the most adapted genotype will survive. Mutation is a much more long term strategy for adaptation (we're talking a very long time because of all the intricacies).

I'm not refering to natural selection.

I'm talking about 40,000 years of humans breeding with humans. Eventually there wouldn't be minorities. All races will cross-breed with one another eventually.

Then disasters like nuclear war, the civil wars of ancient Terra (our future, 40ks past), the wars of unification. All these things would thin the herd of a race that is already losing it's unique racial traits.

In a few hundred years Earth is going to be covered in a race of humans that will look like a cross between asians and mexicans. There's a great NatGeo on it.

Basically I guess I'm saying that it doesn't make sense that there are white people in 40k. There souldn't be any blonde or red hair. There shouldn't be any green or blue eyes.

There should only be brown skinned, brown haired, brown eyed (hehehe) humans that far into the future, even before galactic colonization.

I would assume that some worlds would begin to force certain human groups to re-evolve some of the older traits but possibly for different reasons than would happen on earth.

A race of humans that were forced to live underground (Horus and his homeworld) would probably begin to evolve back into subterrainian traits (better night vision, shorter stature, pale skin.

The races of Terra wouldn't have the gene-diversity to form a world entirely of the mongolians (The Khan) for example.

The history of 40k claims that at one point Earth was united and had spread through the stars as a single race who allied with alien races.

A global unity for hundreds of years wouldslowly errode the differences between mankind and result in a more singular form of human.

Of course there is nothing to say that random traits could spring up from time to time.

Well, there's always gene therapy. Say what you will about IoM tech, but their medical technology is actually fairly decent.
Harsh, but decent. I wouldn't be surprised if some high lord fancied having blue eyes.
And Space Marines are genetically modified anyway so...

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Well, there's always gene therapy. Say what you will about IoM tech, but their medical technology is actually fairly decent.
Harsh, but decent. I wouldn't be surprised if some high lord fancied having blue eyes.
And Space Marines are genetically modified anyway so...

That's a good point. Didn't even think of some of those basics .