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 Anemone wrote:
I'm not sure where you got that idea, I said they were created, like all armies, by economic factors primarily (not solely). Part of those economic factors was the appeal to the certain target male audience who would dislike the presence of females among their traditionally masculine 'male-archetype' warriors.

Considering that the concept of Space Marines was likely developed in the 1980's, they were probably made the way they are to capitalize on the popularity of the macho, alpha-male, lone-warrior soldier type feel from movies such as Diehard, Terminator, Rambo, Predator, etc.

And if you look at it that way, the stoic, badass, lone-warrior space marines (in generic concept not accounting for variations displayed by the specific chapters) really just become another vector of sale for the awesome, explosion-ridden, badass macho male-targeted movies of that era and, to a lesser extent, the current one (which now includes the lone savior/survivor achetype popular in a lot of FPS video games).

I don't even really think it was necessarily intentional exclusion of women for the people who would dislike them in their army. I think it was a kind of marketing "rule of cool" and standing traditions - because it was the 1980's. Women have only been allowed into the military front lines rather recently, so it is logical to assume that the thought process was likely something like wargaming = war = traditional army structure = only men (except women nurses and such if necessary). And the stigma against "girl gamers" is still alive and kicking even today, so 1980's GW likely only thought of marketing towards men because it was a foregone conclusion that women did not or would not like wargaming - hence marketing towards them being assume a waste of time.

As to why no one decided to change the original portrayal of space marInes yet? They still sell and are the most popular army (whether that is a self-perpetuated cycle is just our best guess), so the tradition is still serving GW pretty well as much as people talk this topic around in circles. And the thought most people have is "if it's not broken, why fix it?" Although, arguably, with X-wing unseat in 40k as the most popular tabletop wargame, we might be desending into the broken territory soon.

Edit: TLDR - space marines were likely born of the Rambo-type lone-war-hero idea. Tradition also dictated that women were not part of the concept of "army" until recently. And space marInes still sell well, so GW likely thinks "it's not broken, why fix it?"

 Red_Ink_Cat wrote:

 Anemone wrote:
I'm not sure where you got that idea, I said they were created, like all armies, by economic factors primarily (not solely). Part of those economic factors was the appeal to the certain target male audience who would dislike the presence of females among their traditionally masculine 'male-archetype' warriors.

Considering that the concept of Space Marines was likely developed in the 1980's, they were probably made the way they are to capitalize on the popularity of the macho, alpha-male, lone-warrior soldier type feel from movies such as Diehard, Terminator, Rambo, Predator, etc.

And if you look at it that way, the stoic, badass, lone-warrior space marines (in generic concept not accounting for variations displayed by the specific chapters) really just become another vector of sale for the awesome, explosion-ridden, badass macho male-targeted movies of that era and, to a lesser extent, the current one (which now includes the lone savior/survivor achetype popular in a lot of FPS video games).

I don't even really think it was necessarily intentional exclusion of women for the people who would dislike them in their army. I think it was a kind of marketing "rule of cool" and standing traditions - because it was the 1980's. Women have only been allowed into the military front lines rather recently, so it is logical to assume that the thought process was likely something like wargaming = war = traditional army structure = only men (except women nurses and such if necessary). And the stigma against "girl gamers" is still alive and kicking even today, so 1980's GW likely only thought of marketing towards men because it was a foregone conclusion that women did not or would not like wargaming - hence marketing towards them being assume a waste of time.

As to why no one decided to change the original portrayal of space marInes yet? They still sell and are the most popular army (whether that is a self-perpetuated cycle is just our best guess), so the tradition is still serving GW pretty well as much as people talk this topic around in circles. And the thought most people have is "if it's not broken, why fix it?" Although, arguably, with X-wing unseat in 40k as the most popular tabletop wargame, we might be desending into the broken territory soon.

Edit: TLDR - space marines were likely born of the Rambo-type lone-war-hero idea. Tradition also dictated that women were not part of the concept of "army" until recently. And space marInes still sell well, so GW likely thinks "it's not broken, why fix it?"

Again...the idea that it was all economic or even largely so is just odd to me. Believe it or not, there was a time when GW wasn't ruled by the whims of the quarterly earning statement. Indeed, there was a glorious time when nerds with bad haircuts and a wicked coke addiction just wrote cool stories and made tubular, gnarly models. Did the "macho man" of Mad Max and Rambo play a role? Yeah, no doubt. But it wasn't really economic in nature.

 Lusall wrote:
Again...the idea that it was all economic or even largely so is just odd to me. Believe it or not, there was a time when GW wasn't ruled by the whims of the quarterly earning statement. Indeed, there was a glorious time when nerds with bad haircuts and a wicked coke addiction just wrote cool stories and made tubular, gnarly models. Did the "macho man" of Mad Max and Rambo play a role? Yeah, no doubt. But it wasn't really economic in nature.

Well, at this point, we are basically arguing the difference in my cynicism and your idealism.

Both "rule of cool" and marketing factors were clearly present. The amount to which they are entwined, directly or indirectly, is something we can only guess at. Well, unless you worked at GW during the 80's

Even the argument that current economic factors should make female space marines more likely to happen, is unsubstantiated and odd.

If there really was a big enough market for female space marines, then there would already be a 3rd party cottage industry dedicated to it, and painted, female space marines would show up all the time in project log and online galleries.

I honestly don't think most of us ever felt we ever needed to include female models in our armies, especially not so we could feel inclusive and pc and smug about them.

Most 40k factions were designed to make you feel more than a bit uncomfortable about them in the first place, and most games are total carnage anyway. Are we not supposed to be bothered by that? I'd rather let the violence and needless death get to me, than whether or not Space Marines is a boys club.

 Anemone wrote:
@Sgt_Smudge:

I'll believe what I might about GW's business practice, regardless what you might.

Isn't that just repeating 'if you want to believe that fine' which is what I literally said?

Exactly. If you want to use that argument, I'll do the same.

So, you ignore all the context of the setting and reasons to why gender matters in those armies, purely because you see it as cosmetic?

What? I simply see gender as cosmetic. And it is. The context is easily changed and, in my opinion, gender is as minor as a paint scheme and thus I don't feel opposed to differing genders and would not quite an army over differing genders the same way I don't mind people doing their own paint schemes and would be surprised if someone quit an army over paint scheme.

I mean we have a guy at my place who paints his Orks human-skin colour and it absolutely doesn't bother me at all. *shrugs* Same with gender of units.

Gender is assuredly NOT cosmetic in the 40k universe, especially with Sisters and Space Marines: Sisters in that the Decree Passive simply DISALLOWS men from joining, and Space Marines in that women have never been shown to be Astartes-material, so one may assume they are barred by gender. That's not cosmetic - that's context.

I repeat - if you want to change context, then why are you arguing in Dakka BACKGROUND when you want to disregard the actual background and just say "it doesn't matter because it can be changed".

I also ask if the portrayal of Vostroyans going from Russian themed to Celtic themed would be a reason to quit an army. If you may, please respond to that part of question.

And I have only mentioned some fluff points. I don't think I ever insinuated that ALL fluff points were accurate, according to me.

But now you're expecting me to be telepathic. You just said 'the fluff points' and so I went back and looked through the fluff points I thought you were referring to.

Correct. But seeing as Space Marines are not genetic clones of their Primarchs, that's not fluff. That's a headcanon, and therefore not under my inclusion.

The Imperium, on standard of living (for the majority of citizens)
Orks, on technological control.
Tyranids, seeing as they have no electrical tech.

And yes - for their age as a race, the Tau advanced in tech VERY quickly.

That's a lot of provisos on your earlier claim which pretty much invalidates it. Also actually kind of weird that the faction who keep in official fluff being described as 'advanced' are actually the lowest-tech nation in the game.

I'm sorry? Which claim was this? I don't understand this point?

Counter-argument: what's wrong with keeping it the same?

It gets boring? More importantly though, how do we decide when to freeze it then? What's the point at which fluff can no longer change?

So we change it for the sake of it? Why don't we just retcon the whole setting and restart from the ground up, because yanno - "It gets boring."

Choosing what to add and freeze is hard, yes, but why do we need to retcon a very old part of Space Marine lore?

@Lusall: Not saying its ' unfair' to quit an army over fluff, I just said I'd find it strange if someone quite over something like gender (which I feel to be superfluous)

See my point above re CONTEXT.

Also 'no female space marines' would not generate a strong counter reaction, not from the Warhammer fanbase at all, it's not such a fanbase. The counter-claim 'there are female Space Marines' would cause a storm though. Just read /tg/. Other than that I find it surprising that you think Space Marines were created then for some sort of 'idealistic' reason rather than simple economics. Clearly I'm too jaded.

No offence, but it looks that way. /tg/, like Dakka doesn't represent the player base. I think they took inspiration from media at the time (macho-men films) and the idea of knights and monks, and gave them guns and power armour. The Sisters followed because people asked for women in power armour.

as ever with this topic we've gone nowhere.