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So if the Imperium could spend valuable resources to make a bunch of dudes walking tanks that have the ability to wear massive suits of power armor that weigh literal tonnes, eat the goddamn memories of their enemies, survive in space with nothing but their bald heads, SEAL UP THEIR donkey-caves THROUGH SHEER MUSCULAR FORCE, be able to withstand bullets thanks to a massive fething wall of bone in their chests, have two hearts, lives for hundreds and hundreds of years, spit goddamn poison, and can stay awake for weeks at a time...

Why couldn't they just feth with the female genes so they could do it to?

I mean compared to literally eating someone's fething memories surely it'd be easy to just feth with the human DNA right? I mean space marines aren't even technically human.

The Emperor designed the geneseed to affect only the Y chromosome, for whatever reason. Probably because he did not want the SMs to replace humanity. They were a tool to him, nothing more. Without females of their own, they would be unable to reproduce unaided, thus making them reliant on the Imperium and it's infrastructure for their continued existence.

Also; GW is scared of girls. No, really. Why do you think they have so much trouble sculpting attractive female models? Because girls have cooties and the staff at GW don't like looking at them for too long because it makes them feel funny in their naughty place.

squidhills wrote:
The Emperor designed the geneseed to affect only the Y chromosome, for whatever reason. Probably because he did not want the SMs to replace humanity. They were a tool to him, nothing more. Without females of their own, they would be unable to reproduce unaided, thus making them reliant on the Imperium and it's infrastructure for their continued existence.

Also; GW is scared of girls. No, really. Why do you think they have so much trouble sculpting attractive female models? Because girls have cooties and the staff at GW don't like looking at them for too long because it makes them feel funny in their naughty place.

This is actually super informative and not at all what I was expecting.
10/10

SM weren't meant to become humanity, they were weapons and nothing more. Part of the reason some legions turned traitor, because that wasn't good enough for them.

Well back in the 80's it was all about men in Power. Movies, TV shows, and especially comics. GW would have been laughed at if they tried to do women as Power Houses. It was the 90's in comics where women became main stray only because of sex.

Hell even GW had to sexualize 40K by making Sisters of Battles armour with breasts. Funny I don't see any women in the armies of today with breasts. They are all covered up.

If it can't be sexualized back then, even now, women are not the power houses they should be. If the women are a power house they are sexualized. Men are buff, full of muscles and tall. Women are slender with big boobs.

You never see any big girls in comics or movies unless they are Evil. The good girls are always skinny basically like Tomb Raider Lara Croft.

If a woman was going to be a Space Marine, and comparing them to the male counter part, they would be tall, husky, ugly in a lot of cases. They just can't really be sexualized and since GW is almost all men, just like in comic books, that is why they are not used. Look at any SoB artwork. All the SoB are sexy, slender and sexualized in almost all cases.

TL;DR Female SM can't be secularized because they really wouldn't be attractive.

It's also possible the Emperor or the scientists who worked on the Marine program were sexist, or perhaps even more likely the chromosome incompatibility is just a byproduct of geneseed design where it was considered easier to just create it in a way that works with a very specific type of human instead of everyone. I mean, even amongst the males of a population, very few are compatible with the organs.

Just to offer an alternate explanation. I also like the theory of preventing reproduction, although you really don't need a chromosome lock to do so. In fact, if Marine organs were hereditary (they aren't) and Marines still had working bits down there (fairly sure they don't), then they'd still pass on Marine'ism to any male offspring, wouldn't they?

Davor wrote:You never see any big girls in comics or movies unless they are Evil. The good girls are always skinny basically like Tomb Raider Lara Croft.

Although there are some few exceptions.



But yeah, it's an ongoing issue in character design. Ties into a discussion currently ongoing over at dakka's vg forum.


On a sidenote, Marines in GW's own fluff aren't actually that amazing - though various novels certainly depict them in a way as presented by OP.

Davor wrote:
Well back in the 80's it was all about men in Power. Movies, TV shows, and especially comics. GW would have been laughed at if they tried to do women as Power Houses. It was the 90's in comics where women became main stray only because of sex.

Hell even GW had to sexualize 40K by making Sisters of Battles armour with breasts. Funny I don't see any women in the armies of today with breasts. They are all covered up.

If it can't be sexualized back then, even now, women are not the power houses they should be. If the women are a power house they are sexualized. Men are buff, full of muscles and tall. Women are slender with big boobs.

You never see any big girls in comics or movies unless they are Evil. The good girls are always skinny basically like Tomb Raider Lara Croft.

If a woman was going to be a Space Marine, and comparing them to the male counter part, they would be tall, husky, ugly in a lot of cases. They just can't really be sexualized and since GW is almost all men, just like in comic books, that is why they are not used. Look at any SoB artwork. All the SoB are sexy, slender and sexualized in almost all cases.

TL;DR Female SM can't be secularized because they really wouldn't be attractive.

I like how you can post stuff like this on this board not be flamed by a mob of angry women

Rx8Speed wrote:

Davor wrote:
Well back in the 80's it was all about men in Power. Movies, TV shows, and especially comics. GW would have been laughed at if they tried to do women as Power Houses. It was the 90's in comics where women became main stray only because of sex.

Hell even GW had to sexualize 40K by making Sisters of Battles armour with breasts. Funny I don't see any women in the armies of today with breasts. They are all covered up.

If it can't be sexualized back then, even now, women are not the power houses they should be. If the women are a power house they are sexualized. Men are buff, full of muscles and tall. Women are slender with big boobs.

You never see any big girls in comics or movies unless they are Evil. The good girls are always skinny basically like Tomb Raider Lara Croft.

If a woman was going to be a Space Marine, and comparing them to the male counter part, they would be tall, husky, ugly in a lot of cases. They just can't really be sexualized and since GW is almost all men, just like in comic books, that is why they are not used. Look at any SoB artwork. All the SoB are sexy, slender and sexualized in almost all cases.

TL;DR Female SM can't be secularized because they really wouldn't be attractive.

I like how you can post stuff like this on this board not be flamed by a mob of angry women

Well what he's saying is true. A lot of heroins in today's works are often catered towards Men. Women aren't going to just go ballistic because someone made an observation.

You also want lots of Testosterone if you are putting on the massive quantities of muscle a Marine has. Human females simply wouldn't have enough, and artificially inducing it does whacky things. Especially if its done after or during Puberty(remember women sexually mature before men)

I believe somewhere it actually stated they tried using Geneseed in women, but it failed horrifically. The initiates either died or horribly mutated.

And even if you were successful, the female marine would look almost identical to a male marine due to all the changes. Literally the only difference would be whats between the legs.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You also want lots of Testosterone if you are putting on the massive quantities of muscle a Marine has. Human females simply wouldn't have enough, and artificially inducing it does whacky things. Especially if its done after or during Puberty(remember women sexually mature before men)

I believe somewhere it actually stated they tried using Geneseed in women, but it failed horrifically. The initiates either died or horribly mutated.

And even if you were successful, the female marine would look almost identical to a male marine due to all the changes. Literally the only difference would be whats between the legs.

You have a point.

Grey Templar wrote:You also want lots of Testosterone if you are putting on the massive quantities of muscle a Marine has. Human females simply wouldn't have enough, and artificially inducing it does whacky things.

Ehh... that kind of makes it sound as if "muscle women" wouldn't exist. Considering what changes a Space Marine goes through, I'd wager the difference in physiology between men and Astartes is a lot greater than between men and women.
There was a bit in GW's Index Astartes about how Marines need regular drug dosages just to keep their overclocked bodies from breaking down because their system is so out of whack. Grimdark!

Grey Templar wrote:And even if you were successful, the female marine would look almost identical to a male marine due to all the changes. Literally the only difference would be whats between the legs.

Aye. And even there we can't be sure.

Hell even GW had to sexualize 40K by making Sisters of Battles armour with breasts. Funny I don't see any women in the armies of today with breasts. They are all covered up.

You also don't see any women in the armies of today wearing a suit of powered armor that allows her to lift ten times her bodyweight with little effort and wielding a two-meter long chainsword wrapped in a matter-destroying energy field.

The Sisters of Battle are also the poster-army for the "scifi-gothic" look of the setting. That is why their armor is so... baroque. It's meant to invoke the images of the Great Cathedrals of Europe built in the mid-to-late medieval period (the time of Gothic architecture).

 Lynata wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:You also want lots of Testosterone if you are putting on the massive quantities of muscle a Marine has. Human females simply wouldn't have enough, and artificially inducing it does whacky things.

Ehh... that kind of makes it sound as if "muscle women" wouldn't exist. Considering what changes a Space Marine goes through, I'd wager the difference in physiology between men and Astartes is a lot greater than between men and women.
There was a bit in GW's Index Astartes about how Marines need regular drug dosages just to keep their overclocked bodies from breaking down because their system is so out of whack. Grimdark!

Grey Templar wrote:And even if you were successful, the female marine would look almost identical to a male marine due to all the changes. Literally the only difference would be whats between the legs.

Aye. And even there we can't be sure.

The female body does create testosterone on its own just as the male body does, just not in the same quantity. Besides, testosterone is like a booster for building muscle mass, but it is not required. So he has a valid point in that teenage boys are absolutely loaded with testosterone pretty much at all times, but I doubt the high levels of testosterone in a female body would cause any changes more significant than what the geneseed is doing. So I guess I'm neutral in a roundabout way, I was just pointing out that stating how much testosterone helps with muscle building doesn't mean he is implying it is impossible for women to build muscle.

Davor wrote:
If it can't be sexualized back then, even now, women are not the power houses they should be. If the women are a power house they are sexualized. Men are buff, full of muscles and tall. Women are slender with big boobs.

So both men and women are sexualized right? Sexy woman = slender, curvy, long hair. Sexy man = ripped muscular physique. In both cases the men and women are presented in a sexualized way.

Men are naturally bigger and stronger. Why bother enhancing the ladies when you can get a better result enhancing the men which are starting ahead with power, strength etc. anyway. If superenhanced woman < superenhanced man what is the point?

squidhills wrote:
The Emperor designed the geneseed to affect only the Y chromosome, for whatever reason. Probably because he did not want the SMs to replace humanity. They were a tool to him, nothing more. Without females of their own, they would be unable to reproduce unaided, thus making them reliant on the Imperium and it's infrastructure for their continued existence.

Also; GW is scared of girls. No, really. Why do you think they have so much trouble sculpting attractive female models? Because girls have cooties and the staff at GW don't like looking at them for too long because it makes them feel funny in their naughty place.

This +1.

Orblivion wrote:The female body does create testosterone on its own just as the male body does, just not in the same quantity. Besides, testosterone is like a booster for building muscle mass, but it is not required. So he has a valid point in that teenage boys are absolutely loaded with testosterone pretty much at all times, but I doubt the high levels of testosterone in a female body would cause any changes more significant than what the geneseed is doing. So I guess I'm neutral in a roundabout way, I was just pointing out that stating how much testosterone helps with muscle building doesn't mean he is implying it is impossible for women to build muscle.

Oh, I'm familiar with the topic, this isn't the first thread about female Marines or the reason for why they do not exist in the setting as portrayed in official sources.

I just wanted to point out that there are a lot of women who seem to be quite able to build up muscles, especially if it involves artificial enhancement via testosterone therapy. In fact, the Marines commonly recruit at pubescent or pre-pubescent age, at which the differences between girls and boys are a lot smaller. Indeed, the higher conversion levels of testosterone to estradiol in female bodies is the reason why boys grow slower than girls, even though they end up growing longer.

I would not be surprised if part of the Marine creation process (which is said to involve all sorts of chemicals) involves pushing testosterone levels, too. Those muscles aren't implants, after all - they need to be grown.

Personally, I'm thinking it would be possible, the original scientists just couldn't be arsed - and nowadays nobody really understands how any of it works, anyways. From an out-of-universe perspective, I also believe it'd devalue the Sisters of Battle in their role as the female counterpart to the Space Marines if the Marines suddenly had both genders. Equality is nice, but it's certainly not wrong to have individual organisations that do not adhere to it, especially if you consider "balancing" it elsewhere in the setting.
Though unfortunately the ratio of GW's attention seems to be at about 99:1 when it comes to featuring Marines and Sisters, which might make the setting look more sexist than it actually is. I'm sure that if the SoB were featured more strongly, fewer people would ask for female SM.

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:So both men and women are sexualized right? Sexy woman = slender, curvy, long hair. Sexy man = ripped muscular physique. In both cases the men and women are presented in a sexualized way.

This comes up a lot as a sort of justification, but you have to consider that one is more of a power fantasy (for the male consumer), whereas the other is plain objectification (for the male consumer).

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:Men are naturally bigger and stronger. Why bother enhancing the ladies when you can get a better result enhancing the men which are starting ahead with power, strength etc. anyway. If superenhanced woman < superenhanced man what is the point?

See my point about the differences between normal men and Astartes, though. How big would the difference between a male Space Marine and a "female" one actually be?
And that's before we start looking at the population of the individual planets and how they've evolved. Pretty sure the average Catachan woman is stronger than the average Necromundan man.

If the Marines have trouble finding replacements due to geneseed compatibility (something that has actually gotten worse over the millennia, so it was not intended by the Emperor), it might pay off to increase the pool of possible recruits.

Not that I as a gamer would actually want that. But I have a feeling that, in-universe, the High Lords might be interested.

squidhills wrote:
The Emperor designed the geneseed to affect only the Y chromosome, for whatever reason. Probably because he did not want the SMs to replace humanity. They were a tool to him, nothing more. Without females of their own, they would be unable to reproduce unaided, thus making them reliant on the Imperium and it's infrastructure for their continued existence.

Also; GW is scared of girls. No, really. Why do you think they have so much trouble sculpting attractive female models? Because girls have cooties and the staff at GW don't like looking at them for too long because it makes them feel funny in their naughty place.

I also must give this a +1 and an exalt!

Men are naturally bigger and stronger. Why bother enhancing the ladies when you can get a better result enhancing the men which are starting ahead with power, strength etc. anyway. If superenhanced woman < superenhanced man what is the point?

Because there's nothing saying that, at the upper limit of the enhancements, SW<SM is true. For all we know, there may be some effect with the implants and the geneseed that turns all the women red or green and Amazonian, able to lift Land Raiders without the aid of Power Armor.



(Possibly slightly NSFW, depending on your local customs)

I'm really glad this post has remained so knowledgeable and calm and hasn't fallen into people shouting at one another.

 Logan8tor wrote:
I'm really glad this post has remained so knowledgeable and calm and hasn't fallen into people shouting at one another.

Indeed. I'm rather surprised as well.

IIRC, most female body builders(at least the ones who get grotesquely buff) use Testosterone supplements.

I don't think your typical female can get much buffer than Lara Croft without outside help.

 Grey Templar wrote:
IIRC, most female body builders(at least the ones who get grotesquely buff) use Testosterone supplements.

I don't think your typical female can get much buffer than Lara Croft without outside help.

Nah that's a misconception. Women can get pretty buff just from regular exercise if they're trying to build muscle mass.

 Logan8tor wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
IIRC, most female body builders(at least the ones who get grotesquely buff) use Testosterone supplements.

I don't think your typical female can get much buffer than Lara Croft without outside help.

Nah that's a misconception. Women can get pretty buff just from regular exercise if they're trying to build muscle mass.

Funny, because I've always been told the misconception is that women can get bulky doing weights and the reality is they can't unless they use anabolic steroids. A random googling produced such quotes as:

"In more than 35 years, I’ve yet to see even one female get big, bulky and muscular with the exception of those who took anabolic steroids."

"Due to the fact that women do not, and cannot, naturally produce as much testosterone (one of the main hormones responsible for increasing muscle size) as males do, it is impossible for a woman to gain huge amounts of muscle mass by merely touching some weights. Unfortunately, the image that may come to your mind is that of professional female bodybuilders. Most of these women, unfortunately, use anabolic steroids (synthetic testosterone) along with other drugs in order to achieve that high degree of muscularity."

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Logan8tor wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
IIRC, most female body builders(at least the ones who get grotesquely buff) use Testosterone supplements.

I don't think your typical female can get much buffer than Lara Croft without outside help.

Nah that's a misconception. Women can get pretty buff just from regular exercise if they're trying to build muscle mass.

Funny, because I've always been told the misconception is that women can get bulky doing weights and the reality is they can't unless they use anabolic steroids. A random googling produced such quotes as:

"In more than 35 years, I’ve yet to see even one female get big, bulky and muscular with the exception of those who took anabolic steroids."

"Due to the fact that women do not, and cannot, naturally produce as much testosterone (one of the main hormones responsible for increasing muscle size) as males do, it is impossible for a woman to gain huge amounts of muscle mass by merely touching some weights. Unfortunately, the image that may come to your mind is that of professional female bodybuilders. Most of these women, unfortunately, use anabolic steroids (synthetic testosterone) along with other drugs in order to achieve that high degree of muscularity."

You don't touch the weights you gotta lift em'
Edit: I just googled that quote and it comes from Hoffmanfit.com which is trying to sell muscle-building workout routines so maybe don't use that as 100% true.

So THAT'S what all the women are doing wrong Shh, don't tell them!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Logan8tor wrote:
Edit: I just googled that quote and it comes from Hoffmanfit.com which is trying to sell muscle-building workout routines so maybe don't use that as 100% true.

There was a whole heap of them, I just picked a couple of randoms. If i'm wrong I'm wrong I don't mind, it's just I've always heard the opposite of what you said, I've always heard the misconception is doing weights makes you bulky regardless of whether or not you're a male or female but the reality is females can't build huge muscles without steroids. If that's wrong, it's not what I've heard.

I also wonder how many of those professional male bodybuilders don't use steroids. Also, notice how it says "most" instead of "all"?

Though, does it even matter when Marine creation is not a natural process but decidedly artificial? Hypothetically, doesn't it sound reasonable that you just need to pump more 'roids into female recruits than the male ones? Though, maybe they'd grow faster... assuming that this isn't already factored into whatever they give the male Neophytes.

squidhills wrote:
The Emperor designed the geneseed to affect only the Y chromosome, for whatever reason. Probably because he did not want the SMs to replace humanity. They were a tool to him, nothing more. Without females of their own, they would be unable to reproduce unaided, thus making them reliant on the Imperium and it's infrastructure for their continued existence.

Also; GW is scared of girls. No, really. Why do you think they have so much trouble sculpting attractive female models? Because girls have cooties and the staff at GW don't like looking at them for too long because it makes them feel funny in their naughty place.

fkin sigged


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Davor wrote:
Well back in the 80's it was all about men in Power. Movies, TV shows, and especially comics.

I miss these times. I miss He-Man, I miss the Centurions, hell I miss all the good old cartoon stuff. Today cartoons are primarily aimed at children and no explosions or violence or the politically correct parents will file complaints to the station.

Davor wrote:
Hell even GW had to sexualize 40K by making Sisters of Battles armour with breasts. Funny I don't see any women in the armies of today with breasts. They are all covered up.

Umm...wot? No girl can wear a plate of armor without breast-bulges, else she'd have difficulty breathing. And Adepta Sororitas are wearing armor, not combat fatigues like the girls in today's modern armies (e.g. Israel).

Davor wrote:
If it can't be sexualized back then, even now, women are not the power houses they should be. If the women are a power house they are sexualized. Men are buff, full of muscles and tall. Women are slender with big boobs.

You never see any big girls in comics or movies unless they are Evil. The good girls are always skinny basically like Tomb Raider Lara Croft.

If a woman was going to be a Space Marine, and comparing them to the male counter part, they would be tall, husky, ugly in a lot of cases. They just can't really be sexualized and since GW is almost all men, just like in comic books, that is why they are not used. Look at any SoB artwork. All the SoB are sexy, slender and sexualized in almost all cases.

TL;DR Female SM can't be secularized because they really wouldn't be attractive.

secularized? What heresy are you speaking off, traitor!

About sexualization...I'm sorry, but drawing Men with big muscles and huge frames *is* sexualizing and objectifying them to quite an extent. In fact, in the age of bolter and lascannon, being built like a fire truck isn't going to make you more resilient one bit.

 Lynata wrote:
I also wonder how many of those professional male bodybuilders don't use steroids. Also, notice how it says "most" instead of "all"?

Though, does it even matter when Marine creation is not a natural process but decidedly artificial? Hypothetically, doesn't it sound reasonable that you just need to pump more 'roids into female recruits than the male ones? Though, maybe they'd grow faster... assuming that this isn't already factored into whatever they give the male Neophytes.

Well it's been brought up in previous female space marine threads, but I tend to be in the camp where I think a female space marine would look identical to a male space marine. A male space marine looks nothing like an average man anyway, so I'd imagine a female space marine would be so beefed up they'd look much the same, and they'd probably be pumped so full of drugs that anything that made them appear as a woman would cease to exist.

Sir Arun wrote:Today cartoons are primarily aimed at children and no explosions or violence or the politically correct parents will file complaints to the station.

... did we watch the same channels?

Though now that you mention it, I suppose it was scaled back a bit in recent years. Unless we'd delve into anime, ofc.

Sir Arun wrote:Umm...wot? No girl can wear a plate of armor without breast-bulges, else she'd have difficulty breathing.

That is sarcasm ... right?

Sir Arun wrote:About sexualization...I'm sorry, but drawing Men with big muscles and huge frames *is* sexualizing and objectifying them to quite an extent. In fact, in the age of bolter and lascannon, being built like a fire truck isn't going to make you more resilient one bit.

Tell that to certain Marine fans.
But really, those men with big muscles and huge frames are made that way in order to appeal to the male demographic. It's a male power fantasy, a symbol of the character's might and potential. What do big boobs symbolise?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:Well it's been brought up in previous female space marine threads, but I tend to be in the camp where I think a female space marine would look identical to a male space marine. A male space marine looks nothing like an average man anyway, so I'd imagine a female space marine would be so beefed up they'd look much the same, and they'd probably be pumped so full of drugs that anything that made them appear as a woman would cease to exist.

Same here.
There'd probably still be some minor differences such as the colour of their lips or the tone of their voice, but I think looking at those grotesquely over-muscled female bodybuilders on 'roids gives a good idea of where female SM would end up.

Well they never show an Adepta Sororitas without armor now, do they?