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 Crimson wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

That is not a renaissance portrayal of an archangel.

MANLY AS HELL!

This thread needed you so bad.

I think if they were made today they'd probably still be all male. There are definite thematic reason for it.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
I think if they were made today they'd probably still be all male. There are definite thematic reason for it.

They made the movie GI Jane in the 90's. I can not stil belive this is an issue. Israel has 3 years mandatory military duty for wimen, One third of Norways recruits are now wimen. Women can fight. But all of these arguments are irrelewant. By the time you introduce space wizardry anything can be defended from inside the cannon. There are plenty of times the fluff has been changed over night retroactivly. Tyranids has gotten new units eddited in as old units all the time. Look at the necron re-write. OK, so then it makes no sence to defense it from an in-game perspective. Allow people to be part of the hobby, just include women into the setting. Just ad a small spruce with female heads into SM boxes. That is literarly all that is needed. Because of the power armour and genetic retrofit backstory you do not need to change anything else. Heck, on units that have all helmets on them, you do not need to include female heads, just retcon them in. Next time you do some IG models just add in some female opper bodies and heads and problem solved.

But no, you people are so afraid of your plastic toys having female cromosomes under that armour. Can you tell me what the argument from outside of the setting is that prevents the females to be represented in 40K? I do not understand the argument. And I would not presume to know your intension behind this rescentment, I would like to know. Because I do not understand it.

Do you even need female heads? Most Marines are bald and the faces are hardly detailed.

 Niiai wrote:

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
I think if they were made today they'd probably still be all male. There are definite thematic reason for it.

They made the movie GI Jane in the 90's. I can not stil belive this is an issue. Israel has 3 years mandatory military duty for wimen, One third of Norways recruits are now wimen. Women can fight. But all of these arguments are irrelewant. By the time you introduce space wizardry anything can be defended from inside the cannon. There are plenty of times the fluff has been changed over night retroactivly. Tyranids has gotten new units eddited in as old units all the time. Look at the necron re-write. OK, so then it makes no sence to defense it from an in-game perspective. Allow people to be part of the hobby, just include women into the setting. Just ad a small spruce with female heads into SM boxes. That is literarly all that is needed. Because of the power armour and genetic retrofit backstory you do not need to change anything else. Heck, on units that have all helmets on them, you do not need to include female heads, just retcon them in. Next time you do some IG models just add in some female opper bodies and heads and problem solved.

But no, you people are so afraid of your plastic toys having female cromosomes under that armour. Can you tell me what the argument from outside of the setting is that prevents the females to be represented in 40K? I do not understand the argument. And I would not presume to know your intension behind this rescentment, I would like to know. Because I do not understand it.

You do not understand it, because you got it wrong. We have nothing against "female chromosomes under that armor." There is nothing wrong with guardswomen and plastic sisters of battle. Just space marines, because of 30 years of background and because the entire point of the Horus Heresy is to be Paradise Lost in space, with the Emperor as God who creates primarchs and marines from his DNA (in his "image". Basically clones, except not identical). Except everything goes wrong.
Its entirely possible that the Emperor deliberately designed the Space Marine process to work on women, as he is that much of a narcissistic bastard with a god-complex.
Going "nope, girls can be marines too now!" would undermine that aspect, and they'll just be yet another superhuman without any of the thematic elements.

Female Space Marines would give GW an excuse to further ignore the Sisters of Battle, who are about a thousand times more interesting, so no thank you.

pm713 wrote:
Do you even need female heads? Most Marines are bald and the faces are hardly detailed.

I do not know. The only female heads I have seen from GW are Dark Elder models. I would like to see their version of female space marine heads. Can you pull of female while doing the ultramarine buss cut? How about cool female SW heads? I would like to see Viking haircuts, the male cuts are cool. Chaos female heads could also be really cool. ^_^

 Crimson wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

That is not a renaissance portrayal of an archangel.

MANLY AS HELL!

Eh, fair enough. That is Gabriel.
I was thinking more Archangel Michael, who would probably be a source of inspiration for blood angels, considering how he's a warrior angel and all.
He even has nipple armor in this one painting



His face is still pretty feminine, but he does have a more masculine build, going by the torso and musculature.
In Paradise Lost (written in the 17th century) he's referred to as a guy as well.
As it was written in the renaissance, it would seem that they considered Michael a guy angel back then.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arbitrator wrote:
Female Space Marines would give GW an excuse to further ignore the Sisters of Battle, who are about a thousand times more interesting, so no thank you.

Oof, yeah, that is a possibility.
I would much rather have plastic sisters than female space marines.

It would also be pretty stupid to make male sisters of battle, for the same reason. That wouldn't really fit the theme. Why would you want male space nuns?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Basically clones, except not identica

I don't think you understand what word 'clone' means...




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arbitrator wrote:
Female Space Marines would give GW an excuse to further ignore the Sisters of Battle, who are about a thousand times more interesting, so no thank you.

Well, yeah. That is absolutely the best reason to be sceptical about the female Astartes.

 Crimson wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Basically clones, except not identica

I don't think you understand what word 'clone' means...

What would you call a genetically engineered organism that posses the genetic makeup of its creator then?
Because that's what the primarchs are. They aren't clones, but they were made in a test tube from the Emperor's DNA. That sounds really close to a clone to me.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

What would you call a genetically engineered organism that posses the genetic makeup of its creator? A son?
Because that's what the primarchs are. They certainly aren't clones, but they were made in a test tube from the Emperors DNA.

They cannot be solely made from Emperor's DNA, because they're not identical to him.

 Crimson wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

What would you call a genetically engineered organism that posses the genetic makeup of its creator? A son?
Because that's what the primarchs are. They certainly aren't clones, but they were made in a test tube from the Emperors DNA.

They cannot be solely made from Emperor's DNA, because they're not identical to him.

Eh, I don't know about that. Its possible that they started off identical, but got mutated when they got stolen by chaos. Hence the bird wings on Sanguinious. Or maybe the Emperor made the modifications himself so they would serve some other purpose. Or maybe the Emperor's genetic makeup is super messed up from centuries of being a psyker, resulting in...curious results.
Its not very clear. It is implied that he used sorcery, so maybe that had an effect.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:


You do not understand it, because you got it wrong. We have nothing against "female chromosomes under that armor." There is nothing wrong with guardswomen and plastic sisters of battle. Just space marines, because of 30 years of background and because the entire point of the Horus Heresy is to be Paradise Lost in space, with the Emperor as God who creates primarchs and marines from his DNA (in his "image". Basically clones, except not identical). Except everything goes wrong.
Its entirely possible that the Emperor deliberately designed the Space Marine process to work on women, as he is that much of a narcissistic bastard with a god-complex.
Going "nope, girls can be marines too now!" would undermine that aspect, and they'll just be yet another superhuman without any of the thematic elements.

So if I am to break up your argument it has to parts to it.

1. - The Horus Heresey part of the setting is Paradice Lost in space.
2. - If space marines can be made from women it would not be paradice lost in space.

I find these arguments a bit weak.

1. While there are some similaraties with Paradise Lost, it is hardly based on it. The first incarantion of warhammer was rogue trader. Back then the space marines where gloryfied policemen (there is a nice drawing of one beating up a punk doing grafity in a wall.) Except for the basic idea of good people on one side, and some of them breaking of and becoming evil on the other side it has very little to do with Paradise Lost. Paradice Lost also has a second story arch with Adam and Eve, where is this in the comparison? The Horus heresey is also fleshed out in the Horus Heresey book series. This removes them much further from Paradise Lost. And while the primarch might have been based on his DNA, and the legions are based on the DNA of the primarchs, the Grey Knights are the only Space Marines that are based on his DNA. And they make no aperance in the whole Horus Heresey. (If you include things outside Horus Heresey as part of the paradise lost the inspiration argument fals even further apart as the other xenos make no sence in this inspiration.)

However, the biggest problem with your compareson between Horus Heresey and Paradise Lost is that the emperor apparantly planed to kill off the space marines after galaxy unifcation. God had no plan like this with the angels. It is unclear what his plan was for the Primarchs. (Was Magnus the Red ment to be a component in the golden throne? Good parenting dad.) But the Space Marines where just the best the Emperir could mass produce. They even come with their own toolkit 10 000 years later. If one breaks, crack it open and you get two more. The warriors best comparable to the angels would be the custodians.

2. So even if the horus heresye is paradise lost how does having space marines based on females prevent this? Page 3 and 4 of this thread has people posting the same argument, with people responding of depiction of femenine angels. This argument has been refuded ad nausium by now.

It seems to me that you have an opinion on the subject, and then you just ad arguments after the fact. I do not want to put intensions behind your words, because I do not know them. But the arguments seems very flimsy.

Yeah, no kidding. That's what everyone is doing. Stating their opinions on the subject.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Yeah, no kidding. That's what everyone is doing. Stating their opinions on the subject.

This.

All everyone is doing is spouting opinions, for, against, in-between. However, no matter how many times this is talked about, until GW do something, it's useless.

 Niiai wrote:

It seems to me that you have an opinion on the subject, and then you just ad arguments after the fact. I do not want to put intensions behind your words, because I do not know them. But the arguments seems very flimsy.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Yeah, no kidding. That's what everyone is doing. Stating their opinions on the subject.

I can not speak for all here, but I would asume that many people look at the arguments and then they make up their mind afterwards. That is generally how you get the best relationship with reallaty. "Do I have a million dollars so I can go crazy on Amazon?" as opposed to "I have a million dollars and therefore I can go crazy on Amazon." One of these is a better tactic if you do in fact not have a million dollars.

To move this over to the can space marines be based on females:

- Can I find reasons for space marines to be based on females? Yes / No.
- Do I want space marines to be based on females? Yes / No. And then grab all arguments I find and dig in.

There are two very different aproaches to the subject, and the last one is very dishonest.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

All everyone is doing is spouting opinions, for, against, in-between. However, no matter how many times this is talked about, until GW do something, it's useless.

That is an argument for the status quo if I ever heard one.

For what I read here, it'd be better a full revamp of the Sisters, maybe with an updated look (less silly boob-plate) and who knows? Maybe an elite option that's aaaaaalmost on par with Marines, but using exoskeletons and such rather than bio modification.

 Niiai wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:


You do not understand it, because you got it wrong. We have nothing against "female chromosomes under that armor." There is nothing wrong with guardswomen and plastic sisters of battle. Just space marines, because of 30 years of background and because the entire point of the Horus Heresy is to be Paradise Lost in space, with the Emperor as God who creates primarchs and marines from his DNA (in his "image". Basically clones, except not identical). Except everything goes wrong.
Its entirely possible that the Emperor deliberately designed the Space Marine process to work on women, as he is that much of a narcissistic bastard with a god-complex.
Going "nope, girls can be marines too now!" would undermine that aspect, and they'll just be yet another superhuman without any of the thematic elements.

So if I am to break up your argument it has to parts to it.

1. - The Horus Heresey part of the setting is Paradice Lost in space.
2. - If space marines can be made from women it would not be paradice lost in space.

I find these arguments a bit weak.

1. While there are some similaraties with Paradise Lost, it is hardly based on it. The first incarantion of warhammer was rogue trader. Back then the space marines where gloryfied policemen (there is a nice drawing of one beating up a punk doing grafity in a wall.) Except for the basic idea of good people on one side, and some of them breaking of and becoming evil on the other side it has very little to do with Paradise Lost. Paradice Lost also has a second story arch with Adam and Eve, where is this in the comparison? The Horus heresey is also fleshed out in the Horus Heresey book series. This removes them much further from Paradise Lost. And while the primarch might have been based on his DNA, and the legions are based on the DNA of the primarchs, the Grey Knights are the only Space Marines that are based on his DNA. And they make no aperance in the whole Horus Heresey. (If you include things outside Horus Heresey as part of the paradise lost the inspiration argument fals even further apart as the other xenos make no sence in this inspiration.)

However, the biggest problem with your compareson between Horus Heresey and Paradise Lost is that the emperor apparantly planed to kill off the space marines after galaxy unifcation. God had no plan like this with the angels. It is unclear what his plan was for the Primarchs. (Was Magnus the Red ment to be a component in the golden throne? Good parenting dad.) But the Space Marines where just the best the Emperir could mass produce. They even come with their own toolkit 10 000 years later. If one breaks, crack it open and you get two more. The warriors best comparable to the angels would be the custodians.

So since the Horus Heresy doesn't match Paradise Lost 100%, it could not have been based off of a Paradise Lost? What?
Horus turning against the Emperor out of Hubris, just as Lucifer has done to God, is the entire point of Paradise Lost, which is a poem about Lucifer's fall from Heaven. That is the primary comparison.

 Niiai wrote:


2. So even if the horus heresye is paradise lost how does having space marines based on females prevent this? Page 3 and 4 of this thread has people posting the same argument, with people responding of depiction of femenine angels. This argument has been refuded ad nausium by now.

First off, Feminine =/= female. Just because the subject has feminine features doesn't make it a woman.
See Bishounen, or that depiction of Louis XIV as Jupiter.



Seems they had a thing for giving feminine faces to men back in the 17th century.

In Paradise Lost, God is presented as a man, and the Angels, created by him are all male.

The Emperor is a man who created the space marines. The Emperor is shown several times to have huge god-complex and a bit of dick.
As such, it is likely that he would only design this process to work on males, as he was a male and couldn't be arsed to rig it to work on women.
Which is a pretty bleak portrayal of the setting, really. As if the setting's god-analogue, a figure typically seen as good, is a complete donkey-cave, well, that doesn't bode well for everyone now does it?

There is a big difference between 'inspiered by something so much you can not put in females because it is essential to the setting' and 'happens to be similar'.

There is a big difference between happen to be similar and being stated as inspiration. Warhammer first edition even statet Michael Moorcock as a big inspiration for Chaos. It draws heavily on Moorcock's “Man vs. Himself” theme and the issues related to Chaos. It is in the end notes. The end notes says nothing about paradise lost. I do not think your paradise lost argument is very good.

You have not even commented on the second problem, even if it was based on paradise lost it would not prevent wimen for being the chassis for a space marine. As stated previusly the space marine procces changes musclel mass, bones structure, hight by 80 cm, all the organs and the implants of 13 new organs. I hardly see how that chunk of magic-sci-fi can not get past the subject being a woman.

Edit: I read the posts above, and it stil seems like you decide on the fact first and then you look for evidence afterwards, instead of the other way around.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

So since the Horus Heresy doesn't match Paradise Lost 100%, it could not have been based off of a Paradise Lost? What?
Horus turning against the Emperor out of Hubris, just as Lucifer has done to God, is the entire point of Paradise Lost, which is a poem about Lucifer's fall from Heaven. That is the primary comparison.

So? It is partly vaguely inspired by it. Why should the genders of the actors be the one thing that cannot be altered while so much else is?

The Emperor is a man who created the space marines. The Emperor is shown several times to have huge god-complex and a bit of dick.
As such, it is likely that he would only design this process to work on males, as he was a male and couldn't be arsed to rig it to work on women.
Which is a pretty bleak portrayal of the setting, really. As if the setting's god-analogue, a figure typically seen as good, is a complete donkey-cave, well, that doesn't bode well for everyone now does it?

Makes about as much sense than him making the process to only work on dark haired people because he himself was one.

 Crimson wrote:

The Emperor is a man who created the space marines. The Emperor is shown several times to have huge god-complex and a bit of dick.
As such, it is likely that he would only design this process to work on males, as he was a male and couldn't be arsed to rig it to work on women.
Which is a pretty bleak portrayal of the setting, really. As if the setting's god-analogue, a figure typically seen as good, is a complete donkey-cave, well, that doesn't bode well for everyone now does it?

Makes about as much sense than him making the process to only work on dark haired people because he himself was one.

Though, let's say the Emperor never made female marines in his time because either there was no need, or didn't felt like doing the needed tinkering to adapt the process (and again, let's just speculate on this); then I wouldn't put past the 40K Empire to not induct females onto Space Marine chapters, even if possible, because "that's not how the emperor himself did it". While we can be progressists on this, the Empire can be self-harmingly stubborn on certain things.

 Dark wrote:

Though, let's say the Emperor never made female marines in his time because either there was no need, or didn't felt like doing the needed tinkering to adapt the process (and again, let's just speculate on this); then I wouldn't put past the 40K Empire to not induct females onto Space Marine chapters, even if possible, because "that's not how the emperor himself did it". While we can be progressists on this, the Empire can be self-harmingly stubborn on certain things.

Sure. And that is pretty much what the current fluff is, and I don't have a huge problem with it. But it could easily be changed. Or not. It is just that some people make absolutely ludicrous justifications to why it absolutely must be this way. It doesn't. Just say you don't can't handle the change. It's fine, I get it.

Would that argument just be another in-game setting for not having female space marines, as supposed to an argument from outside the game to have female space marines. To sound like a broken recond GW retcons their setting all the time. Every edition of tyranids has new units being retroactivly being inserted from the beggining, they do not 'evolve' as the swarm holds on. (Although they do evolve as well, none of this is used for the new unit entries.) This happens relativly often, but are small changes. If you look at 5th edition Necrons you see a really big change in the setting. It worked. I would argue that 'oh by the way, females can be used to make space marines' is an very small change. It would not look any diferent before anybody take of their power helmets. This would requier some ad on spuces. More for SW as they have more bare heads. Stil, no biggie.

 Niiai wrote:

Spoiler:

 Dark wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

The Emperor is a man who created the space marines. The Emperor is shown several times to have huge god-complex and a bit of dick.
As such, it is likely that he would only design this process to work on males, as he was a male and couldn't be arsed to rig it to work on women.
Which is a pretty bleak portrayal of the setting, really. As if the setting's god-analogue, a figure typically seen as good, is a complete donkey-cave, well, that doesn't bode well for everyone now does it?

Makes about as much sense than him making the process to only work on dark haired people because he himself was one.

Though, let's say the Emperor never made female marines in his time because either there was no need, or didn't felt like doing the needed tinkering to adapt the process (and again, let's just speculate on this); then I wouldn't put past the 40K Empire to not induct females onto Space Marine chapters, even if possible, because "that's not how the emperor himself did it". While we can be progressists on this, the Empire can be self-harmingly stubborn on certain things.

If you look at 5th edition Necrons you see a really big change in the setting. It worked.

No it didn't. It killed off any uniqueness or atmosphere they had and made them Egypt in space. They turned a joke into a reality, and made them jump the shark even higher.
I find it amusing that people bitched about how the Nightbringer was the cause of the fear of death in the 3rd ed book (which was pretty cringeworthy, don't get me wrong), but are fine with Necrons being able to delete star systems with the press of a button, necrons shattering star gods (yet haven't won yet against everyone else), and how their doomsday arks can explode with enough strength to destroy a planet. And yet still haven't worked out how to put plating on a cockpit of a fighter.
Just because they can retcon something doesn't mean they should.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:

 Dark wrote:

Though, let's say the Emperor never made female marines in his time because either there was no need, or didn't felt like doing the needed tinkering to adapt the process (and again, let's just speculate on this); then I wouldn't put past the 40K Empire to not induct females onto Space Marine chapters, even if possible, because "that's not how the emperor himself did it". While we can be progressists on this, the Empire can be self-harmingly stubborn on certain things.

Sure. And that is pretty much what the current fluff is, and I don't have a huge problem with it. But it could easily be changed. Or not. It is just that some people make absolutely ludicrous justifications to why it absolutely must be this way. It doesn't. Just say you don't can't handle the change. It's fine, I get it.

I don't like the change because I think its a bad idea from a consistency stand point and is at odds with various themes which I already mentioned.
If they can come up with a very, very good and logical reason that fits in universe other than waving a magic wand around and pulling them out of thin air (like they usually do with retcons. Which is bs), then I might be more accepting.

retconning a type of unit in is something GW has always done (although with GS it seems GW is trying to move past that) is one thing, retconning a minorish race is another thing, doing a massive lore retcon of thier core race though is a bit riskier,

Is it as massive core retcon to make space marines being based on females? For me it would be a very small retcon. I think perhaps there the crux of the problem is.

Every time this subject comes up there is always this little tappdance. The people who do not like the change make an argument, either in the fluff or outside the fluff. Upon taking a close examination of the argument it does not stand up to examination. The next argument gets launches. Upon closer examination the argument does not stand up to examination. A third argument gets launched etc.

It is always this tap dance. Some one gets frustrated with the adnasium discussion and people starts attacking the players instead of the ball, or it gets out of hand in some other way. And then the thread closes, only to pop up another place. Look at the title of this thread 'Re:Ashes of Prospero spoilers'. Currently we are not discussing Ashes or Prospero.

Buttom line is there are many bad arguments for not having space marines based on females, but not any good once. Continuing discussing this will just be one side swatting down the bad arguments from the other side, whereas the other side starts to dance and come up with new arguments.

 Crimson wrote:
Sure. And that is pretty much what the current fluff is, and I don't have a huge problem with it. But it could easily be changed. Or not. It is just that some people make absolutely ludicrous justifications to why it absolutely must be this way. It doesn't. Just say you don't can't handle the change. It's fine, I get it.

However, implying that everyone who doesn't like Female Space Marines "can't handle the change" is an incredibly reductionist, and some may argue, condescending, approach.

Do you genuinely believe that's the only reason people don't want it?

 Niiai wrote:

 Niiai wrote:

It seems to me that you have an opinion on the subject, and then you just ad arguments after the fact. I do not want to put intensions behind your words, because I do not know them. But the arguments seems very flimsy.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Yeah, no kidding. That's what everyone is doing. Stating their opinions on the subject.

I can not speak for all here, but I would asume that many people look at the arguments and then they make up their mind afterwards. That is generally how you get the best relationship with reallaty. "Do I have a million dollars so I can go crazy on Amazon?" as opposed to "I have a million dollars and therefore I can go crazy on Amazon." One of these is a better tactic if you do in fact not have a million dollars.

To move this over to the can space marines be based on females:

- Can I find reasons for space marines to be based on females? Yes / No.
- Do I want space marines to be based on females? Yes / No. And then grab all arguments I find and dig in.

There are two very different aproaches to the subject, and the last one is very dishonest.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

All everyone is doing is spouting opinions, for, against, in-between. However, no matter how many times this is talked about, until GW do something, it's useless.

That is an argument for the status quo if I ever heard one.

Um... No. You're doing exactly what everyone is doing. You have an opinion on what you'd like, and you're telling people about it. But you are (for some bizarre reason) trying to convince others that they should share your opinion. The difference is that you're trying to pretend that your opinion is somehow based on fact and arrived at by some logical process, but it isn't. It's just your opinion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Person A: I think they should make some models of Orks possessed by Daemons! (or whatever)

Person B: According to the background, Orks can't get possessed by Daemons.

Person A: But they could just change the background!

Person B: Yes, but I like the background and don't really want them to do that.

Person A: But they could just change the background! So you're wrong for not liking the same things as me.

Does that about sum it up?

That is actually a pretty accurate summary, yes.