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 Zakiriel wrote:
Well someone had to light the promethium and throw it into the dumpster.

But in all honesty if you were to introduce female space marine types into the game it should come from the Emperor's Children and Fabius Bile.
Just to prove he can, and well, Slaanesh.

On a side note, a friend of mine raised the point that this is a "War Game" and do we really want more female representation to then violence up?
Already to much violence against women as it is.

Food for thought.

I like the idea of human women from Fenris in power armor. I think the female space marine idea is terrible and hope that doesn't happen.

I think partly it's because of what you mention. Even just being made into a space marine is pretty terrible. Obviously there's a lot of violence and terrible things that happen in the setting, but there are still limits to what people want in something that is supposed to be fun. Do we really want to read about little 10 year old girls being taken from their families, physically mutilated, and turned into hulking monsters? Not that it happening to boys is any better, really, but everyone's line is in a different place. I remember a lot of people being a little turned off by the Walking Dead game having Carl in it, because that means you may be in a game and, as part of the game, trying to kill a little kid. Some people would find that pretty distasteful. I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't want to play a game where the objective was to murder unarmed civilians. You don't want to get too close to something that might turn a lot of people off, especially for no real benefit.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Good points. Female space marines would be just as buff but probably be virtually breastless.

Who cares? Most people, including me, have no idea what a male space marine torso look like either. It's irrelevant because we always see them in power armor anyway so…

It felt worth mentioning giveen the third party female space marines we see for sale. SOB have the silly corset of war aesthtic, but women space marines wouldn't need it. Likewise it wouldn't be a major change for GW's sculptors. Just include the occasional female head in a box.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Good points. Female space marines would be just as buff but probably be virtually breastless.

Who cares? Most people, including me, have no idea what a male space marine torso look like either. It's irrelevant because we always see them in power armor anyway so…

It felt worth mentioning giveen the third party female space marines we see for sale. SOB have the silly corset of war aesthtic, but women space marines wouldn't need it. Likewise it wouldn't be a major change for GW's sculptors. Just include the occasional female head in a box.

Or GW can just come out and say "You thought all those helmeted Space Marines were guys? Surprise!"

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Do we really want to read about little 10 year old girls being taken from their families, physically mutilated, and turned into hulking monsters?

I have bad news for you.
Dark eldars don't spare little girls.
If a little girl turns out to be a psyker, or even a blank, her fate will be way worse than this.
Thought the assassins have had a happy childhood? Think again.
Did you know that canonically, schola progenium used to be place where orphans were submitted to sexual exploitation?

Male humans are (on average) physically stronger and tougher than female humans.

The question is...would the SM process equalise that difference?

If women use steroids to boost testosterone and work out, they can approximate the muscle growth of men who don't use steroids and who work out. Ceterus paribus, men physically beat out women on average.

If the SM process is tied to the recruit's testosterone production, using males as first choice makes sense. You could use girls with the aid of steroids, but why not just use boys...or boys on steroids? You would only use girls when boys are unavailable or too few.

If the SM process is somehow tied to Y-chromosomes, then girls can't join the SM club. They can still become Assassins, Guardswomen, SoB, Navy crew, what have you...

I do think there is some thematic merit to keeping SM all-male. The type of fraternal bonding among many Loyalists (think the 300 Spartans or the Sacred Band of Thebes) and brutal competition for dominance among many Traitors (think male lions or chimps) are primarily male modes of behaviour. Violence and tribalistic/clan allegiances and conflict are male behavior patterns. SM take these male traits to an extreme.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
It's not recruits Chapters are short on - it's more the codex restrictions, geneseed, wargear and such that are the restrictive factors. I'd imagine the Codex restrictions are the main ones.

Not really. Sure codex limits # of marines per chapter. But number of chapters isn't limited. More of logistics of building all the ships and wargear and geneseed. With 1 marine providing geneseed for 2 more it takes time to get enough geneseed harvested. Especially when marines are constantly involved in warfare resulting in lost geneseed.

 Tengri wrote:
The question is...would the SM process equalise that difference?

Or... reverse! Because space magic science!

 Tengri wrote:
I do think there is some thematic merit to keeping SM all-male.

I don't. Space Marines are a blank state. I think there is some thematic merit to keeping the Dark Angels all male though. They have a strong monastic theme not found in other chapters.

So, if you really want more female models being brought into the game, I believe you should be petitioning GW for new Guard kits first, which contain a mix of male and female models.

This is a much more plausible starting point for the fans, and GW than going… “oh look! Female space marine!”.

Kdash wrote:
So, if you really want more female models being brought into the game, I believe you should be petitioning GW for new Guard kits first, which contain a mix of male and female models.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Tengri wrote:
I do think there is some thematic merit to keeping SM all-male.

I don't. Space Marines are a blank state. I think there is some thematic merit to keeping the Dark Angels all male though. They have a strong monastic theme not found in other chapters.

All space marines are warrior monks though. I mean, their base of operations is called a fortress monastery, they have chaplains and they follow a strict code of conduct. There's a very clear religious theme going on with most chapters. Wolves are an exception, not the rule.
Not to mention that they were created in the Emperor's image, a man with the mother of all god complexes and they call each other battle brothers. The theme of them being an all male faction is pretty integral to their design, especially when you consider that the Horus Heresy was heavily inspired by Lucifer's fall from heaven, where God, Lucifer and pretty much every angel fighting is portrayed as male. Hence the marines frequently being referred to as angels in one way or another.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

All space marines are warrior monks though. I mean, their base of operations is called a fortress monastery, they have chaplains and they follow a strict code of conduct. There's a very clear religious theme going on with most chapters.

Which is actually pretty weird considering that they actually are explicitly secular organisations.

 Crimson wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

All space marines are warrior monks though. I mean, their base of operations is called a fortress monastery, they have chaplains and they follow a strict code of conduct. There's a very clear religious theme going on with most chapters.

Which is actually pretty weird considering that they actually are explicitly secular organisations.

I find it deliciously ironic that for a man who wants to delete all religions and move humanity to an age of atheistic enlightenment, the Emperor sure loved making religious references, and that way after his internment in the throne the religious aspects only increased. I mean, Blood Angels is the original name of the chapter. You'd think a hardcore atheist like the Emperor would say "no Sanguinius, you can't name them that, try again" but I guess not.
I always chalked that up to the parody aspect of 40k.

To expand upon the biblical analogy, the Emperor destroying all religions isn't really any different from the Christian church destroying the European pagan religions, and this is even more apparent when you consider that he is worshipped as a god in the Imperium that he created, where every other form of belief is heretical. He ended up becoming that which he wanted to destroy, and that's hilariously ironic.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
All space marines are warrior monks though.

Blood Angels are renaissance Italian vampires. Not much about them says "warrior monk". I'd even say that they are very very far from the monastic archetype.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
All space marines are warrior monks though.

Blood Angels are renaissance Italian vampires. Not much about them says "warrior monk". I'd even say that they are very very far from the monastic archetype.

They are called Angels, their Primarch had angel wings, and they have Priests, so I dare say that they close enough. They might not be monks per-se, but they are religiously themed like monks.
And they still have a monastery. Like monks

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
To expand upon the biblical analogy, the Emperor destroying all religions isn't really any different from the Christian church destroying the European pagan religions, and this is even more apparent when you consider that he is worshipped as a god in the Imperium that he created, where every other form of belief is heretical. He ended up becoming that which he wanted to destroy, and that's hilariously ironic.

Not really, considering christianity was more open to absorb them (and that's why a lot of their current rites can be traced to pagan origins from different parts of Europe).

As for the names and all within 40K, I'm more pragmatic and say "when they created the game, they never considered all this and now they can't 'fix' it". If I try to make sense of it, I'll run into your same issues xD

And yet you have the Northern Crusades against the pagans in the Baltic and West Slavic regions. Or the Saxon wars which were religiously motivated.
Whilst the Church did absorb pagan practices, it was still more to destroy the pagan religions by attracting followers to the church. And they still condoned quite a bit of killing.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
They are called Angels, their Primarch had angel wings

Uh? Are you somehow mixing an angel and a monk?
Saint Celestine is very obviously referencing an angel, with her wings and all, and yet she is a woman.
There is no strong association between being an angel and being male...

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
and they have Priests

Priests. Not monks.
Priests talk to women. Often enough for it to be completely mundane.
Monks very rarely talk to women, they usually live recluse among other men.
And, I dare add, among other monks. There usually aren't priests in monasteries.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
They might not be monks per-se, but they are religiously themed like monks.

There is a huge difference between being religiously themed and being monastically themed. The Dark Angels are very obviously monastically themed. The Blood Angels are religiously themed, but they are much more close to the pop-culture version of the angels in Renaissance art.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about it :

As a matter of theology, they are spiritual beings who do not eat or excrete and are genderless. Many angels in art may appear to the modern eye to be gendered as either male or female by their dress or actions, but until the 19th century, even the most female looking will normally lack breasts, and the figures should normally be considered as genderless.

The untrained eye looking at some Renaissance painting will see a mix of male and female angels, and therefore the pop-culture version of those angels work just as well for male and female angels.


I think you are mixing up very different things.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
They are called Angels, their Primarch had angel wings

Uh? Are you somehow mixing an angel and a monk?
Saint Celestine is very obviously referencing an angel, with her wings and all, and yet she is a woman.
There is no strong association between being an angel and being male...

Not quite true. The Archangels are generally portrayed as male. Even in renaissance art they tended to look male, albeit very pretty men. If we are to assume that the Blood Angels are based off of Michael, then yeah, there's a association with them being male

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
and they have Priests

Priests. Not monks.
Priests talk to women. Often enough for it to be completely mundane.
Monks very rarely talk to women, they usually live recluse among other men.
And, I dare add, among other monks. There usually aren't priests in monasteries.

Priests talk to women. They generally aren't women. At least in the medieval or renaissance church.

Name me an Angel, in the bible, [Where we draw the concept of angels from] That's Female.

Go on. I've got all day.

So people are now literally arguing that a word 'angel' has such masculine connotations that it totally means that there cannot thematically be female Blood Angels? This has to be a textbook example of grasping at straw!



SO MANLY!

 Crimson wrote:
So people are now literally arguing that a word 'angel' has such masculine connotations that it totally means that there cannot thematically be female Blood Angels? This has to be a textbook example of grasping at straw!



SO MANLY!

That is not a renaissance portrayal of an archangel.

What the hell is wrong with both of you?
The angels, in the bible, don't have any mentioned gender.
In art, they are usually portrayed in an androgynous manner suiting their lack of gender.
All of this is basically already mentioned in the Wikipedia quote that I included in my message.

As a result, pop culture portrays angels as both men and women. Do you want a list of popular female angels in pop fiction? Are you somehow saying that Saint Celestine doesn't work as an angelic figure because she is a woman?

Are you arguing in good faith?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Priests talk to women. They generally aren't women.

What? There are female priests in many religions and denominations. Hell, there were already priestesses in ancient Egypt about seven thousand years ago!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:


I think you are mixing up very different things.

No. Monasteries and the Church are both male dominated religious organisations, at least in the medieval and renaissance periods. They are hardly "very different" things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Priests talk to women. They generally aren't women.

What? There are female priests in many religions and denominations. Hell, there were already priestesses in ancient Egypt about seven thousand years ago!

In the medieval and renaissance Catholic church? You know, what the IoM is based off of?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
That is not a renaissance portrayal of an archangel.

Hey look, I understand that you don't want your marines to include women, because after all, aren't they nicknamed the RENAISSANCE ARCHangels of death?
Except for the fact they are called the angels of death, not archangels. The Renaissance part only applies to Blood Angels, and doesn't even matter, because pop-culture reference have never been about accuracy. So, well :

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

That is not a renaissance portrayal of an archangel.

MANLY AS HELL!

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Priests talk to women. They generally aren't women. At least in the medieval or renaissance church.

It's good that the marines are not an order of priest warriors, then.
I'm interested into how you are somehow linking the White Scars' "Voice of the Storm" to the medieval or renaissance church.
Marines are a blank state. They have some Priest category that is going to be filled by whatever kind of Priest is relevant to the kind of marines you want to make. A "mongol golden horde" style chapter is going to have shamanistic priests, that can just as well be women.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
No. Monasteries and the Church are both male dominated religious organisations, at least in the medieval and renaissance periods.

Monasteries are gender-segregated organization, and that gender segregation is an important part of their identity. The church includes members of both sex. The angels canonically have no gender but in the widely accepted pop culture interpretation include both genders.
That's why keeping Dark Angels male-only is relevant to their theme while it isn't for White Scars or Blood Angels.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:


In the medieval and renaissance Catholic church? You know, what the IoM is based off of?

Super vaguely based on that. You do realise the real Catholic Church didn't have cathedral shaped giant tanks either?

Furthermore, that is Ecclesiarchy imagery, and doesn't really apply to the Blood Angels, who are a weird mix of vampires and angels, bot of which have a fair amount of feminine associations.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Marines are a blank state. They have some Priest category that is going to be filled by whatever kind of Priest is relevant to the kind of marines you want to make. A "mongol golden horde" style chapter is going to have shamanistic priests, that can just as well be women.

Remember how Iron Hands replaced Chaplains with Iron Fathers, that are techmarines that focus on the Machine God?
Marines are a blank state army that is just there to receive some identity. For White Scars it's the Golden Horde Mongols. For Blood Angels it's Renaissance Italians Vampire Angels. For Dark Angels it's Paranoid Monks. For Iron Hands it's Machine Obsessed. All of those chapters will receive a kind of priest fitting to that theme. Only the Dark Angels have some thematic reason for being all male.

 Duskweaver wrote:
Personally, I think this is just Gav Thorpe having a bit of fun. When you get right down to it, the real reason space marines are exclusively male is because their original fluff was written in the 1980s. Back then, it just seemed obvious that a bunch of genetically-enhanced super-soldiers would be male. If they didn't already exist in the setting and were introduced today, things would probably be different (see the Stormcast in AoS). It doesn't mean GW are actually planning to give us female space marines. Gav's a freelancer these days and wouldn't even necessarily know if GW were planning such a thing.

I think you're right, but think about the list of fluff things that have changed since the 80's.

That's a LONG list