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Could we leave a discussion on the virtues ,or lack thereof, of Karl Marx out of it?

Good representation does not hurt anyone.
Bad representation reinforces bad stereotypes.
No representation keeps things as is.

The female marine debate has become so toxic, I don't blame GW for staying away.
Fun fact SM have to start their augmentations before puberty (I believe the first implants happen around seven?) so there would be almost no difference between boys and girls that age. A female space marine would look exactly the same as a male one the gender is irrelevant.

The primarchs are another interesting case. They have no sex as far as we know (and I am willingto bet hand BL will never adress this) and therefore cannot be male/female in the conventional biological sense . The definition there is tied to method of reproduction.
So they are guys only because they identify as such.

By and large the gender diversity in BL has been okay. And they have 'in the books I have read, avoided the most dreaded stereotype: the badass woman that constantly needs saving.

 Crimson wrote:
...Yeah, that's kinda fethed up way to look at it. It is a view that in certain circumstances facism is justified. It is not. 40K Imperium is plainly evil. And I love that, because that's the flavour of the setting and whole thing is absurd black comedy.

"Facism is justified in a galaxy full of hostile aliens in which deviant thought can cause planet-swallowing Warp rifts that kill everyone" isn't "facism is justified under certain circumstances." It's a stronger version of "when pigs fly." It means "this is ridiculous," not "I can imagine a situation under which this kind of behaviour is acceptable."

Alternately: Drop "justified," accept/acknowledge that the Imperium is 'evil', and the questions/themes of the setting change. Are you going to stick to a human viewpoint and ask "would I rather be evil or dead?" Conclude that Lorgar was correct about the Emperor and start exploring the potential of Chaos? Decide that the Orks or the Tyranids actually have a saner reaction to the whole mess and leave humanity behind entirely?

The dystopia that is the 41st Milennium isn't about what 'evil' behaviour is acceptable, it's about what's the 'lesser evil' when weighed against extinction.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Hold on, let me get this straight.

The lack of female models and female characters in the fluff is because of institutionalized racism and sexism.

Yes, at least partly.

A vast conspiracy to make the womenfolk and Pee-Oh-Seez feel awful.

No. Societal attitudes are not a conspiracy. People in 18th century held many views we now view as backwards (I mean most of us do, maybe you don't.) People in 19th century were a lot more sexist than people are now, and people in 80's, when bulk of the 40K lore was created were more sexist than people are now. This doesn't make people in the 18th or the 19th centuries, nor people in the 80's part of some conspiracy (nor inherently bad people.) Attitudes chance, and there will always be some resistance for that. This should be pretty basic common sense stuff.

And adding these things will start fixing these societal problems

In very super miniscule way yes. Representation matters.

(that no one can provide genuine evidence for).

There is gak ton of studies about this, you're just ignorant.

I just want to make sure I'm summarizing that correctly.

No you didn't.

 Crimson wrote:

Asmodios wrote:


See the difference between the "feminist" and everybody else is nobody else is trying to fundamentally change what the hobby is. The basic feminist argument seems to be that 1. the background is racist/sexist 2. The models are racist/sexist 3. The people who play are racist/sexist..... Guess what 40k becomes if you 1.change the background 2. change all the models 3. replace all the players.... You all of a sudden dont have 40k and thats what people dont want because we enjoy the setting for what it is.

And all the "issues" for 40k that you see aren't actually issues because of 1. The background is fiction and doesn't hurt anyone 2. The model are grey and don't exclude anyone 3. The Warhammer community is the single most excepting/ nice community I've ever been a part of and I've done everything from play professional sports to the tabletop games.

That's not really the argument, it is caricature of it. It is that representation of females in fluff is lacking and in model form even more lacking. This is at least partly due certain sexist attitudes ingrained in the culture, as is the opposition to addressing this issue. This doesn't mean that the GW designers, or the players are bigots (though of course in huge player base there will be fair share of bigots.) Many people get super defensive when it is pointed out that institutionalised sexism or racism might be a thing. But it is a thing, it affects all of us, and realising this is the first step at trying to address it.

And people want things that about 40K changed all the time. Eldar have almost always been OP as feth, yet most people don't think that asking that to be addressed is somehow ruining 40K.

If your best argument is saying that discussing power/point cost of units is the same as redoing decades of lore then your even more misguided as I thought.

And that is your argument you just layer it out again. You want to fundamentally changed the lore ( point #1 I made) you want to change the model line to fit your new lore (point # 2) and you think number 1 and 2 need changing because the makers/ player base are racist/sexist (point #3)

 Earth127 wrote:

Fun fact SM have to start their augmentations before puberty (I believe the first implants happen around seven?) so there would be almost no difference between oys and girls that age. A female space marine would look exactly the same as a male one the gender is irrelevant.

That's the funny thing, space marines are basically meat golems and it wouldn't matter whether they were made out of a boy or a girl. You wouldn't have to introduce new sculpts or anything.

Table wrote:

So, whats next, getting in a time machine and bitching at the knights templar for being a warrior fraternity? Come on man.

You understand the difference between history and fiction, right?

 Crimson wrote:
[unsubstantiated drivel].

Exactly as I thought. Thank you, oh comedian.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Earth127 wrote:
Could we leave a discussion on the virtues ,or lack thereof, of Karl Marx out of it?

No. I have no qualms about mocking the Patron Saint of underachievers.

Table wrote:

This is backlash from the recent invasion of "feminism" to other historically male based games and media. And honestly. Its justified to an extent. Identity politics solves nothing. Only ruins.

Seriously, the people can't handle that they gave a girl a lightsabre are they biggest crybabies. Grow up! Making hobbies or franchises these 'no girls allowed' treehouses is massively immature.

 Crimson wrote:
Seriously, the people can't handle that they gave a girl a lightsabre are they biggest crybabies. Grow up! Making hobbies or franchises these 'no girls allowed' treehouses is massively immature.

Yeah, people expecting that girl to have an actual personality and character development? Total woman-hating manbabies. They probably like rape.

 Crimson wrote:

Table wrote:

This is backlash from the recent invasion of "feminism" to other historically male based games and media. And honestly. Its justified to an extent. Identity politics solves nothing. Only ruins.

Seriously, the people can't handle that they gave a girl a lightsabre are they biggest crybabies. Grow up! Making hobbies or franchises these 'no girls allowed' treehouses is massively immature.

I dont care about identity politics. I dont care if the last jedi is a girl. I care about people coming into a hobby and proceed to tell everyone how things should be. Like you.

Table wrote:
Please take your identity politics and take it to someplace else. I cant be any nicer about that.

I agree with the demon. These threads are always disengenuous and always say the same thing. Lock it.


Edit: case in point look at the posts above me.

 Crimson wrote:

Table wrote:

This is backlash from the recent invasion of "feminism" to other historically male based games and media. And honestly. Its justified to an extent. Identity politics solves nothing. Only ruins.

Seriously, the people can't handle that they gave a girl a lightsabre are they biggest crybabies. Grow up! Making hobbies or franchises these 'no girls allowed' treehouses is massively immature.

You are aware that Rey wasn't the first woman to wield a lightsaber in Star Wars, right? I didn't notice any bitching about Mara Jade, or about Aayla Secura ,or Kreia. They didn't bitch about the fact she had a lightsaber. They bitched about her because she was a near perfect character who could seemingly do everything, with no development or personality. Immediate control of force powers with no training? Check. Can jury rig and pilot star craft? Check. Can somehow win against a trained sith? Check. There was a lot of contrivances with her character.

Apparently not even the most sacred havens of nerddom are safe from the incursion of the sjw ...

Jokes aside, I think this whole discussion is pretty nonsensical.
This is not about government policy or culture, it's about a product that is entirely driven by the free market and the demand of the customers.

Why is the 40K universe set up the way it is? Because it appeals to its customer base. When (or rather if) GW at some point realizes that female Marines or Guardswomen are in demand, they will produce them.They have been pretty good in gauging customer demand lately, with the re-introduction of specialist games, genestealer cults and so on, so just wait and see whether it is going to become a reasonable thing for them to do.

As far as the 40K universe being a justification of real-world fascism, I'm afraid people reading it this way are rather deluded, to use a nice term. Not every piece of fiction is a political or sociological allegory/comment on the real world and if WH40K ideed is one, it's not exactly supportive of the status quo in the Imperium of man. It's a dystopia if I ever saw one.

It's just as silly a notion as claiming that Bretonnians are a reprehensible concept because they glorify the crusades (and I've seen this argument in this very forum a while back).

Fiction is an outlet in which we can all experience atrocities like war, genocide, fascism, torture etc. without actually having to commit any of them. These things do have a huge appeal to the human mind and we've found a great way of confronting them in the forms of books, video games, movies and tabletop. Why on earth would you want to regulate a space that has been created for precisely this reason?

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
[unsubstantiated drivel].

Exactly as I thought. Thank you, oh comedian.

See, this is I said you don't have an argument. You literally don't.

 Crimson wrote:

Table wrote:

This is backlash from the recent invasion of "feminism" to other historically male based games and media. And honestly. Its justified to an extent. Identity politics solves nothing. Only ruins.

Seriously, the people can't handle that they gave a girl a lightsabre are they biggest crybabies. Grow up! Making hobbies or franchises these 'no girls allowed' treehouses is massively immature.

No girls allowed
>sister of battle
>sisters of silence
>imperial guard
>elder
>dark elder

 Crimson wrote:

Table wrote:

So, whats next, getting in a time machine and bitching at the knights templar for being a warrior fraternity? Come on man.

You understand the difference between history and fiction, right?

Yes, but you seem not to. Not so much history, but reality.

 Crimson wrote:
See, this is I said you don't have an argument. You literally don't.

No, you just didn't bother reading anything until you got your ego bruised a bit.

It's fine, you can come back and try some other day. You've still yet to refute ANYTHING anyone has said.

All I see is you being offended and snarky. Which is fine, it's a lolcow I can milk at my convenience.

 Crimson wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Hold on, let me get this straight.

The lack of female models and female characters in the fluff is because of institutionalized racism and sexism.

Yes, at least partly.

A vast conspiracy to make the womenfolk and Pee-Oh-Seez feel awful.

No. Societal attitudes are not a conspiracy. People in 18th century held many views we now view as backwards (I mean most of us do, maybe you don't.) People in 19th century were a lot more sexist than people are now, and people in 80's, when bulk of the 40K lore was created were more sexist than people are now. This doesn't make people in the 18th or the 19th centuries, nor people in the 80's part of some conspiracy (nor inherently bad people.) Attitudes chance, and there will always be some resistance for that. This should be pretty basic common sense stuff.

And adding these things will start fixing these societal problems

In very super miniscule way yes. Representation matters.

(that no one can provide genuine evidence for).

There is gak ton of studies about this, you're just ignorant.

I just want to make sure I'm summarizing that correctly.

No you didn't.

Followup summary: Said "institutionalized racism/sexism" may be more accurately described as "inertia". It doesn't usually involve anyone trying intentionally to keep people out, it involves institutions who are resistant to change by virtue of being institutions populated by people who don't think making said changes is worth the trouble (even if they may agree in principle).

Asking for "genuine evidence" is part of said inertia; it isn't actually possible to do a controlled experiment for any kind of social change, so any evidence anyone could come up with would be correlational.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Table wrote:

This is backlash from the recent invasion of "feminism" to other historically male based games and media. And honestly. Its justified to an extent. Identity politics solves nothing. Only ruins.

Seriously, the people can't handle that they gave a girl a lightsabre are they biggest crybabies. Grow up! Making hobbies or franchises these 'no girls allowed' treehouses is massively immature.

You are aware that Rey wasn't the first woman to wield a lightsaber in Star Wars, right? They didn't bitch about the fact she had a lightsaber. I didn't notice any bitching about Mara Jade, or about Aayla Secura , or Kreia. They bitched about her because she was a near perfect character who could seemingly do everything. Immediate control of force powers with no training? Check. Can jury rig and pilot star craft? Check. Can somehow win against a trained sith? Check. There was a lot of contrivances with her character.

Shhhhhhh stop pointing out glaring plot holes you bigot reeeeeee

Asmodios wrote:


>dark elder

Asmodios wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Table wrote:

This is backlash from the recent invasion of "feminism" to other historically male based games and media. And honestly. Its justified to an extent. Identity politics solves nothing. Only ruins.

Seriously, the people can't handle that they gave a girl a lightsabre are they biggest crybabies. Grow up! Making hobbies or franchises these 'no girls allowed' treehouses is massively immature.

You are aware that Rey wasn't the first woman to wield a lightsaber in Star Wars, right? They didn't bitch about the fact she had a lightsaber. I didn't notice any bitching about Mara Jade, or about Aayla Secura , or Kreia. They bitched about her because she was a near perfect character who could seemingly do everything. Immediate control of force powers with no training? Check. Can jury rig and pilot star craft? Check. Can somehow win against a trained sith? Check. There was a lot of contrivances with her character.

Shhhhhhh stop pointing out glaring plot holes you bigot reeeeeee

I can't help it. I have a perpetual desire for plot consistency and logic :(

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Asking for "genuine evidence" is part of said inertia; it isn't actually possible to do a controlled experiment for any kind of social change, so any evidence anyone could come up with would be correlational.

If you can assert it without evidence, you can dismiss it without evidence.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

All I see is you being offended and snarky. Which is fine, it's a lolcow I can milk at my convenience.

Ehm, a bit of self-awareness might not be out of order?

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
See, this is I said you don't have an argument. You literally don't.

No, you just didn't bother reading anything until you got your ego bruised a bit.

It's fine, you can come back and try some other day. You've still yet to refute ANYTHING anyone has said.

All I see is you being offended and snarky. Which is fine, it's a lolcow I can milk at my convenience.

Claims others are being offended
>offended about plastic toy models
>offended about fictional universe
Muh sides

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Ehm, a bit of self-awareness might not be out of order?

I'm cruel. Not snarky.

And the only thing that offends me is ketchup on meatloaf.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Ehm, a bit of self-awareness might not be out of order?

I'm cruel. Not snarky.

And the only thing that offends me is ketchup on meatloaf.

Wait, you mean you AREN'T supposed to put ketchup on meatloaf?
I'm not even being a smartass, that's how I eat meatloaf.

Asmodios wrote:
Claims others are being offended
>offended about plastic toy models
>offended about fictional universe
Muh sides

Uh... misfire?

I'm not offended by models or the fictional universe. I like it as it is. And I'm down with more being added. Not... sure where you're going with this.

Asmodios wrote:

If your best argument is saying that discussing power/point cost of units is the same as redoing decades of lore then your even more misguided as I thought.

And that is your argument you just layer it out again. You want to fundamentally changed the lore ( point #1 I made) you want to change the model line to fit your new lore (point # 2) and you think number 1 and 2 need changing because the makers/ player base are racist/sexist (point #3)

Do I want fundamentally change lore? I personally don't think that female marines are needed as long as female representation is increased in other factions and those other factions get more equal share of the limelight. But I don't think that having female marines would fundamentally change the lore. It is ultimately quite a minor thing, I've been in this hobby for decades, and the lore has been altered and retconned countless of times. Also, new models get released all the time. Why is it a problem if some of them are female. Also, acknowledging that institutional sexism/racism is a thing is not same as thinking that players/designers are racist sexist (at least not in a way those words are normally understood.)

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Wait, you mean you AREN'T supposed to put ketchup on meatloaf?
I'm not even being a smartass, that's how I eat meatloaf.

You fething subhuman degenerate. You're not even human to me any more.

Tomato PASTE and brown sugar.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Hold on, let me get this straight.

The lack of female models and female characters in the fluff is because of institutionalized racism and sexism.

Yes, at least partly.

A vast conspiracy to make the womenfolk and Pee-Oh-Seez feel awful.

No. Societal attitudes are not a conspiracy. People in 18th century held many views we now view as backwards (I mean most of us do, maybe you don't.) People in 19th century were a lot more sexist than people are now, and people in 80's, when bulk of the 40K lore was created were more sexist than people are now. This doesn't make people in the 18th or the 19th centuries, nor people in the 80's part of some conspiracy (nor inherently bad people.) Attitudes chance, and there will always be some resistance for that. This should be pretty basic common sense stuff.

And adding these things will start fixing these societal problems

In very super miniscule way yes. Representation matters.

(that no one can provide genuine evidence for).

There is gak ton of studies about this, you're just ignorant.

I just want to make sure I'm summarizing that correctly.

No you didn't.

Followup summary: Said "institutionalized racism/sexism" may be more accurately described as "inertia". It doesn't usually involve anyone trying intentionally to keep people out, it involves institutions who are resistant to change by virtue of being institutions populated by people who don't think making said changes is worth the trouble (even if they may agree in principle).

Asking for "genuine evidence" is part of said inertia; it isn't actually possible to do a controlled experiment for any kind of social change, so any evidence anyone could come up with would be correlational.

40k is hardly a monolithic institution. Its a very small niche hobby that has been around for decades. There is nothing wrong with the people who enjoy said niche hobby wanting to keep it as something they enjoy. If someone does not enjoy the hobby or setting, please by all means I hope they find one they do enjoy. No one is getting hurt. No one is turning into KKK recruits because of 40k or all male space marines.

And that is what is so reprehensible about what the OP is doing. Not everything need fit your political view point. Let dogs be dogs and cats be cats.