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After responding to the Female Primarch thread I got to thinking about genetics versus looks. "Good looks", as we know them, are simply signs of good genes. In the near future our understanding of genetics will allow us to make "perfect" babies that express genes we find desirable. Humanity has been in a position to make perfect babies according to consumer tastes for quite awhile in the 40k universe. In addition to the Dark Age of Technology we also have our near future and the time beyond that. This would mean that the alleles that are considered "undesirable" would be weeded out from the gene pool over time. So, why aren't humans in 40k better looking than in our time?

Sure, I can understand that millennia of being "savage" would somewhat cloud the gene pool because of random mutations but 10,000 years isn't enough time to reproduce all of the alleles that made "ugly" people. At least not on a massive scale. Is it just because the people who write 40k don't really understand science all too well, is it environmental factors or is it an artistic choice for more Grimdark? Remember, I'm not talking about bomb shells I am just saying on average they should be at least good looking.

Good looks are NOT "simply signs of good genes". The paradigm of beauty has evolved and changed, even within the last 50 years. We have no way of knowing what will be considered beautiful or desirable in 100 years, let alone 40'000.

"Better looking"

is subjective in all ways of looking at it. Age, gender, time period, fashion, trends, tastes, eyes of the one looking, the list goes on.

So whats attractive will never be the same. For wall we know in 40k one planet may value women with nose hair thats braided. Or men with the left side of the body well toned and the right side not well toned.

So I think what you need to define what you are asking a bit more. Because better looking is well, impossible to define.

20 years ago attractive people looked different, although not much different, but then compare it to the medieval era where a mans looks was based on the shapelyness of his calves. The human body is not something that can be bred into looking good because if they all looked good to our standards then something else will be good looking.

In short, an odd question. Also GW dont do very good faces so thats probably 90% of the problem.

True, very true, but there are parts of beauty that are linked to good genes like symmetry of the face, clarity of the skin and body shape. I would think that those items would be superior on future humans because of years of selective breeding. But, you are right, for all we know the humans of 40k are beautiful to the generation that designed their genetic code.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
After responding to the Female Primarch thread I got to thinking about genetics versus looks. "Good looks", as we know them, are simply signs of good genes. In the near future our understanding of genetics will allow us to make "perfect" babies that express genes we find desirable. Humanity has been in a position to make perfect babies according to consumer tastes for quite awhile in the 40k universe. In addition to the Dark Age of Technology we also have our near future and the time beyond that. This would mean that the alleles that are considered "undesirable" would be weeded out from the gene pool over time. So, why aren't humans in 40k better looking than in our time?

Sure, I can understand that millennia of being "savage" would somewhat cloud the gene pool because of random mutations but 10,000 years isn't enough time to reproduce all of the alleles that made "ugly" people. At least not on a massive scale. Is it just because the people who write 40k don't really understand science all too well, is it environmental factors or is it an artistic choice for more Grimdark? Remember, I'm not talking about bomb shells I am just saying on average they should be at least good looking.

What.

Did you happen to miss the bit where every single Hive World is a massive dystopia where mutants are rife thanks to breeding populations being cut off from each other for several thousand years? The rich upper classes already do this- they're effectively immortal, or have outlandishly long lives, coupled with the money to have any manner of surgeries done to them in order to retain beauty besides age. Hive Worlds are typically just general gak holes to live if you're not a merchant or higher. The government of planetary lords doesn't care enough to enforce breeding programs for specific traits of appearance- if anything they'd simply want more bodies to send off to the Guard and sate the Imperial tithe. Forge Worlds only care that you can lift something or push a button. Agri Worlds just care about farming, if albeit it's a more peaceful and pleasant life than most.

It isn't a case of them lacking to do it. It simply would cost the planetary governments resources to do so, and even then, the Imperium of Mankind is largely beyond racism, and to some varying degree, sexism. So long as you aren't so far removed from the gene pool that you qualify as a different species several times over, they don't care what you are. They don't care if you're ugly, if you're black, or if you're white. So long as you contribute or have the resources to tell them to feth off, the IOM just really doesn't care.

Any breeding program aiming for preferable human appearance traits would also likely draw suspicion for being a Slaaneshi cult.

Wyzilla, I am not referring to the people of modern 40k being able to get perfect genes. I am saying that their ancestors, as in the DAoT humans, did this sort of thing which would weed out the "bad" genes. I am just wondering why the humans, as depicted in art, aren't a bit better looking since they would have inherited this thinner gene pool. AFAIK, the time between the DAoT and now wouldn't be enough to massively reintroduce the "imperfect" genes.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Wyzilla, I am not referring to the people of modern 40k being able to get perfect genes. I am saying that their ancestors, as in the DAoT humans, did this sort of thing which would weed out the "bad" genes. I am just wondering why the humans, as depicted in art, aren't a bit better looking since they would have inherited this thinner gene pool. AFAIK, the time between the DAoT and now wouldn't be enough to massively reintroduce the "imperfect" genes.

Because simply a thousand years would undo any breeding programs. W40K takes place on a time scale of 38,000 years in the future. That's more than enough time for humans to evolve into new species, multiple time. In only the last ten thousand years we've significantly advanced from our origin, and increased in height by several inches. It doesn't matter how good they were during Old Night, their work would have been undone.

Although we do know that at least one species of human ended up as some weird practically separate species with perfectly symmetrical faces and what-not. The Interex.

Have you ever seen an ugly or flat chick in any 40k artwork, ever? Seems like they are all pretty bodacious to me.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Wyzilla, I am not referring to the people of modern 40k being able to get perfect genes. I am saying that their ancestors, as in the DAoT humans, did this sort of thing which would weed out the "bad" genes. I am just wondering why the humans, as depicted in art, aren't a bit better looking since they would have inherited this thinner gene pool. AFAIK, the time between the DAoT and now wouldn't be enough to massively reintroduce the "imperfect" genes.

Because simply a thousand years would undo any breeding programs. W40K takes place on a time scale of 38,000 years in the future. That's more than enough time for humans to evolve into new species, multiple time. In only the last ten thousand years we've significantly advanced from our origin, and increased in height by several inches. It doesn't matter how good they were during Old Night, their work would have been undone.

Although we do know that at least one species of human ended up as some weird practically separate species with perfectly symmetrical faces and what-not. The Interex.

Genetic Diversity doesn't just reappear as soon as you stop trying to stamp it out. In addition, as you have said, the only significant changes to our gene pool have been a somewhat increased height and that could be to just better nutrition. DNA is pretty stable in terms of mutating.

Though, I suppose different environments might have favored individuals over the years that weren't lookers on some worlds.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Have you ever seen an ugly or flat chick in any 40k artwork, ever? Seems like they are all pretty bodacious to me.

You should look at more Blanche, Silver. Blanche's art is full of ugly people.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Have you ever seen an ugly or flat chick in any 40k artwork, ever? Seems like they are all pretty bodacious to me.

You should look at more Blanche, Silver. Blanche's art is full of ugly people.

Or see if any oldtimer has the Rogue Trader rulebook - not the FFG RPG but the original WH40K rulebook. Some of the pictures seem to have been inspired by HR Giger. Leman Russ is especially "handsome". :-)

Blanche is a special case. I'm actually in the camp of loving his work but you can't consider his style to be anything like directly representational. Pretty much everyone who does have a more documentary style seems to show the even anonymous random background babes as sirens. You should see any of the FFG rule books, for example

Blanche defined the aesthetic of 40k, supposedly. Part of me wishes that his modern successors remembered that.

Then I remember that I can only take his work in small doses, and that his fetish for high heels pisses me off. ><

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Blanche defined the aesthetic of 40k, supposedly. Part of me wishes that his modern successors remembered that.

Then I remember that I can only take his work in small doses, and that his fetish for high heels pisses me off. ><

Or his terrible space marines. I still can't believe how the hell his drawings on CSM's can be so good, but his Space Marines just look so... awful.

Don't forget all the environmental factors at play. High radiation exposure from space travel and living on poorly shielded habitats or airless moons would increase mutation. Many worlds are rife with toxic and hazardous compounds (either from industrial activity or because of the particular flora/fauna of the world) with little or no protection for the population. High or low gravity worlds selecting for particular factors, same with different planetary atmospheric pressures . New and exciting parasites, viruses and disease vectors will also play their part.

The poor old Genome is going to be taking a bit of a beating.

Besides, I think this is pretty hot;



Of course, your mileage may vary.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Have you ever seen an ugly or flat chick in any 40k artwork, ever? Seems like they are all pretty bodacious to me.

Does my avatar qualify as ugly ?

 Flinty wrote:
Don't forget all the environmental factors at play. High radiation exposure from space travel and living on poorly shielded habitats or airless moons would increase mutation. Many worlds are rife with toxic and hazardous compounds (either from industrial activity or because of the particular flora/fauna of the world) with little or no protection for the population. High or low gravity worlds selecting for particular factors, same with different planetary atmospheric pressures . New and exciting parasites, viruses and disease vectors will also play their part.

The poor old Genome is going to be taking a bit of a beating.

Hmm, this is true and I would presume that your average hiver would be pretty ugly since they are exposed to a multitude of environmental hazard.

However, on the flip side, you'd get some really good looking people from realms such as Ultramar where they lived a relatively good life. I guess the FFG and their supposedly hot women represent this. Where are the oh-so-sexy men, though?!


@Hybrid Son of Oxayotl
Well... I am sure was alright before she was horribly mutilated by the church.

Because when you live on a hive worl beauty soon stopps to matter, when you cant be expectt to live very long. That and the Imperial Guard amongst other institutions do not care whatso ever about how you look. Just how good you are at killing/building/ pushing paper

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Don't forget all the environmental factors at play. High radiation exposure from space travel and living on poorly shielded habitats or airless moons would increase mutation. Many worlds are rife with toxic and hazardous compounds (either from industrial activity or because of the particular flora/fauna of the world) with little or no protection for the population. High or low gravity worlds selecting for particular factors, same with different planetary atmospheric pressures . New and exciting parasites, viruses and disease vectors will also play their part.

The poor old Genome is going to be taking a bit of a beating.

Hmm, this is true and I would presume that your average hiver would be pretty ugly since they are exposed to a multitude of environmental hazard.

However, on the flip side, you'd get some really good looking people from realms such as Ultramar where they lived a relatively good life. I guess the FFG and their supposedly hot women represent this. Where are the oh-so-sexy men, though?!

I guess Blood Angels are representative of the ultra-lovely beefcake standard of "sexy". Most of the Human armed forces spend so much time wearing fully enclosed helmets, though, who can tell?

 TheCustomLime wrote:
@Hybrid Son of Oxayotl
Well... I am sure was alright before she was horribly mutilated by the church.

s/was mutilated by the church/mutilated herself/ .

OP... Are you serious? You really should be able to come up with the answer to this yourself...

Also, the fact that we are capable of genetically modifying humans does not mean we are going to do that. There are way too many ethical complaints about genetical modification of animals, let alone humans. 'Designer babies' are a big no go at the moment.
Apart from ethical considerations, which in 40k would likely vary widely from planet to planet, there is also the fact that 'beauty' and 'ugly' are extremely subjective concepts and most importantly, most world in 40k likely do not have the capabillity to do this on a large scale. Not even in the Dark Age of Technology. Just imagine the massive costs of modifying every human being. And why would they do something like that? There are things you can spend your resources on that are actually useful, like building even bigger tanks. Beauty is useless in a galaxy where you are constantly under siege from pretty much all other species in the universe.

I think generally beauty and attractiveness are two desperate factors when such opinions are made known. It's a personal thing in my opinion and you won't find an exact specific list the same from 2 people. It's like a fingerprint and unique to each person. For example what I think is attractive and beautiful May be not so appealing to others and vice versa. The reason why posters have great sex appeal is because it's mainly directed to males using the porn element. Same principles the porn world manage to sell their material. In this age the top 10 attractive and beauty factors are x y and z. In 1000 years this will surely change again but it will be always be a known factor in whatever time period. This is the need to know stuff is based on using some kind of colated system to what makes us tick.

Now imagine after 40k years and most of that was war war war. Surely in the eyes of the battle hungry marine his idea of beauty will not have any legs compared to our idea today. Plus who knows what other freaky sh*t they would be into from being exposed to off world type pleasures that all fall into the same topic of what's attractive and beautiful. It's an interesting subject and difficult to imagine because of the huge time frame. One thing is for sure it's most likely nothing we can imagine in today's world especially with all the super advanced technology available.

You can't really say that 'posters have sex appeal because they're aimed at men with the porn element' - the 'porn element' is based in what people consider attractive, not the other way around!

I think a better example would be the way beauty is viewed in, say, rural Korea, where the beautiful women have powerful builds, large muscles and wide hips for working the fields and bearing children.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I think a better example would be the way beauty is viewed in, say, rural Korea, where the beautiful women have powerful builds, large muscles and wide hips for working the fields and bearing children.

And the way people over there think a hairy woman is more fertile, while we for some reason (porn) think everyone should be baby smooth hairless. ;-)

Many so-called beauty criteria are more cultural than anything else, and often tied to wealth. Look at people being suntanned and nicely muscular today - they're the beautiful people. They have the wealth and time needed to get a tan and keep themself buff. But only a hundred years ago or so it meant you were a poor worker, forced to do heavy labor outdoors. A rich person then was pale and probably not very muscular.

There's plenty of good looking Cadians out there, lord solar macharius too..

 TheCustomLime wrote:
So, why aren't humans in 40k better looking than in our time?

Who says they aren't?

 Iron_Captain wrote:
OP... Are you serious? You really should be able to come up with the answer to this yourself...

Also, the fact that we are capable of genetically modifying humans does not mean we are going to do that. There are way too many ethical complaints about genetical modification of animals, let alone humans. 'Designer babies' are a big no go at the moment.
Apart from ethical considerations, which in 40k would likely vary widely from planet to planet, there is also the fact that 'beauty' and 'ugly' are extremely subjective concepts and most importantly, most world in 40k likely do not have the capabillity to do this on a large scale. Not even in the Dark Age of Technology. Just imagine the massive costs of modifying every human being. And why would they do something like that? There are things you can spend your resources on that are actually useful, like building even bigger tanks. Beauty is useless in a galaxy where you are constantly under siege from pretty much all other species in the universe.

I think what he's talking about is that such changes would have taken place before that became an issue. Considering that we're fairly close to this NOW, before we ever leave Earth. The idea that genes for 'ugly' will magically reappear is quite ludicrous, because the fact is that most of those genes also provide some other benefit. They arose for a reason, not as a result of exposure to the sort of random mutations that environmental exposure brings about. Remember that for every mutant, you'd have dozens and dozens simply die due of cancer, or be unable to reproduce at all.

I'm just surprised the Citadel artists think everyone would be white after 20.000 years of isolated breeding. If anything each human planet would have several different ethnicities we've never seen before.

Science is so regressed it might as well be magic, and tampering with the basic human dna I believe is considered heresy of some kindy. Any genetic tinkering is in the military field. The Imperium doesn't care if you're pretty; poodles win dogshows, mutts win dogfights.

Correctly trained, poodles win dogfights too. >> They are hunting dogs.