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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I think to placate the whole equal opportunities crowd they should just make the sob/SM equivalents, in that they take the children at whatever age, and they split into the relevant branches for training and enhancement.

That system already exists, iirc. The male equivalent are storm troopers. Both they and the sisters are from the Schola, if I understand correctly.
There are already plenty of equal opportunities.

I'd honestly prefer it if there was no scientific reason that women couldn't be Astartes and instead it was just a product of the Emperor being a misogynist looking specifically for masculine traits in his Space Marines. It fits the setting, it fits my #chaosbias by making the Emperor even more of a bastard, and brings up a delicious irony in that the rest of the Imperium doesn't actually agree with his views on that subject given that every branch that wasn't hand-crafted by the Emperor himself is equally open/oppressive to both men and women.

Nah, he's more of a narcissist than a misogynist.

Misogynist would imply that he actively hates women. I don't think that's right, there's nothing that hints at that. Remember that he formed the Sisters of Silence, who are all women. If he were a misogynist, he would not have done that.

Narcissist Empy thought he was so great that the only way humanity could progress is if he made more of himself, hence the Primarch / marines project. That's something he did do.

The latter makes more sense to me, given all the data we have.

epronovost wrote:
@Hive City Dweller

You sir deserve an exalt for this dissection of the many, many problems of Space Marine anathomy, but I think you forgot the fused rib-cage which would prevent breathing and augment the chances of overheating and also make Space Marines stiff as feth which isn't that practical when you are supposed to fight. You need to be strong, but also supple to be a good fighter.

More than anything else this post illustrates the problems faced when you add more detail than is necessary.

There will always be an expert around to call BS!

In terms of the Emperor's 'No Girls Allowed' rule, that's based on the assumption that the 20 Primarchs were the final product.

And we don't know that for sure.

If we stop and think about it, there's anecdotal evidence to suggest they weren't. Instead, they were just the culmination of his current knowledge.

Consider the Thunder Warriors. They were crude, but effective. Certainly effective enough to handily overcome all earthbound resistance to Unification.

Mr Emperor Sir (or Doris, to his friends) then toddles off to work on the Primarch Project. Now we know that went wrong. We absolutely know that. They were cradle snatched.

Mr Emperor Sir (or Doris, to his friends) then creates the Astartes as what I understand to be a salvage project. A measure to ensure the Primarch Project wasn't a dead loss.

Now, that raises various questions around the common assumption.

First, why would he ever stop at 20 Primarchs? Seriously. Why would you? Where's the sense in that.

I suspect that had they not been God Napped, they were just the first batch. Perhaps simply a trial run - an experimental batch to see how that process turns out. One which he was open to tweaking and improving in the future.

Second. How much of his efforts were constrained by time? We know the Primarchs (or at least, we're told) were derived from his own genetic structure. If that is indeed true, making them all male was simply a matter of expedience. Less work to be done with chromosomal shift and that (look, I'm not a biologist, so excuse the shonky language).

Third. Reconquering the Galaxy is no small task. Particularly when even Mr Emperor Sir (or Doris, to his friends) has precious little idea of what's actually out there, waiting in the dark. So why restrict your genetic super soldier to a mere half of the population by design? Where's the sense in that? That's a gross waste of resources, and one not reflected in any of the other military wings of The Imperium, barring the much smaller Sisters of Silence (and I've my own theory on that one. It involves cloning.) So why the Primarchs and Astartes by design?

Remember, the Great Crusade was launched once the Warp Storms abated, and the Age of Strife ended. Now, being psychically potent, it's a reasonable assumption to say the Emperor had some sense that it was coming - even if he couldn't pin point exactly when. All he knew for sure is that the clock was ticking, and he had to be good to go the second it broke.

In short, The Emperor was making the best of a bad situation, and was ultimately unable to return to his Lab as events overtook him.

Had he retained all 20 Primarchs from the beginning, who knows what might've happened? Being able to raise them from birth/maturation, would he have seen the flaws that were later to cause so much trouble, or were they purely the result of their scattering? If the former, would he have reworked stuff, having put the flawed ones down?

I suspect yes. We know he's utterly ruthless. And I don't think he'd accept flawed Primarchs unless he had absolutely no other choice. Perhaps all 20 would've been subtly bumped off as he prepared the next, theoretically improved batch. Perhaps some (Horus, Guilliman and Dorn spring to mind) would've been up to snuff, and survived.

Regardless, I find it hard to accept that given better times, The Primarchs were ever intended as The Emperor's 'sixth day' creations.

Just had another pondering about it. Had he retained all 20 Primarchs, would The Emperor ever have needed to join The Great Crusade himself? We know he was instrumental in bringing Mars into the fold, and then went off looking for his missing 'Sons'. That's possibly because he felt he was the only being such masterworks would recognise as their true leader. If all 20 had lead their exploratory fleets, and their Legions, from the get-go, would The Emperor ever have had to leave Terra? I mean, we're talking a potential 200 years back on earth, in his Labs doing what he needs to do. If he turned out satisfied with the original 20, perhaps he'd have made more, maybe aiming for female versions to take advantage of the remaining 50% of possible stock. Maybe he'd figure it was a good enough job, and the WebWay issue was more pressing.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I think to placate the whole equal opportunities crowd they should just make the sob/SM equivalents, in that they take the children at whatever age, and they split into the relevant branches for training and enhancement.

Honestly I think the best way to introduce female marines would be just retconning it so they've always been a thing. There's not really a decent reason for the Imperium to make them all of a sudden so they may as well just have always been.

I think what I most dislike about the "Lore" is how it is so incredibly lacking in the "everyday citizen" of how society holds together in general.
Orks have their structure and everyday life better explained.
Hive life has a touch more to it but again only in very "faction specific" information.
You could say the number of planets and cultures out there could be "anything".
But I suspect the "Imperium of Man" will shove certain methods of doing things down their throats since everything to do with them does that.

- Prescribed militia and duties.
- Citizen registration vs "unregistered".
- "Guilds" and official rights and duties.
- Warzone protocol of what citizens are to do upon invasion or raids.
- We have the "Adeptus Arbites" what are their duties during wartime/raids.
- Something as simple as "common transports" (Getting a bit tired of empty streets to play in).
- They all cannot possibly walk to work... Public transportation.
- Planetary defense force, structure (there is some detail on this) how it operates with supporting troops that "drop-in" AM/SM/Mech. ...

Every bit of these questions are to go toward when we have our 40k scrap in a city, any of the above can add some colour to it all.
Hab-blocks could be a form of hazardous terrain if there is a lockdown and some kind of weaponization.
Random encounters of militia or gangs to help protect their "turf".

They are truly "faceless masses" and not a feth is given of what exactly is worth fighting for.... definitely not for these characterless beings.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I think to placate the whole equal opportunities crowd they should just make the sob/SM equivalents, in that they take the children at whatever age, and they split into the relevant branches for training and enhancement.

That system already exists, iirc. The male equivalent are storm troopers. Both they and the sisters are from the Schola, if I understand correctly.
There are already plenty of equal opportunities.

Technically, Scions can be men or women just like Commissars. These two are male dominated because Sisters do recruit from the same pool and have priority. Sisters are exclusively female as GW decided to make them the female counterpart of Space Marines, but of course, being a product of the early 90's, they were to have a support role to the protagonist role of the Space Marine and thus significantly weaker. In the same fashion, Custodes are basically turbo-marines and Sister of Silence super-sisters. The Imperium various faction are pretty much all alongst the line an action melodrama. Space Marines are the hunky hero, Sisters are his chick that needs saving and helos out once in a while, guards are the mooks that gets killed or are in the way for the most part, the Inquisition is the sly bastard that gives the hero his mission and frequently bs them, the Mechanicus is the weird dude who knows mechanic or computers introduced at half the movie to solve some issues that's also sometime a traitor. Yes, its sexist and slightly anti-intellectual, but it was, and still is, a very common formula.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I think they couldve made SM more plausible if the explanation was more along the lines of enhancing them with chemically perfected combinations of steroids and hormones, rather than all the surgeries and extra made up organs you mentioned

Funnily enough this is closer to the definition of Marines in their original conception (Rogue Trader-era). I think the exact term was 'chemically hardened', but I htink it was pretty much meant to be as you describe.

Towards end of 1st edition the Compilation (or was it Compendium? Always forget which is which) marines were changed to T4, and the whole extra organs & gubbins element was added.

epronovost wrote:

Sisters are exclusively female as GW decided to make them the female counterpart of Space Marines, but of course, being a product of the early 90's, they were to have a support role to the protagonist role of the Space Marine and thus significantly weaker

Fairly early fluff for the Sisters of Battle had them described as the match of Space Marines in combat and if I recall correctly the go-to for taking down rogue Chapters (as other Chapters might have conflicting loyalties).

Aside from high heels in the artwork (pet peeve) they were arguably portrayed as much more competent than in current fluff.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

epronovost wrote:

Sisters are exclusively female as GW decided to make them the female counterpart of Space Marines, but of course, being a product of the early 90's, they were to have a support role to the protagonist role of the Space Marine and thus significantly weaker

Fairly early fluff for the Sisters of Battle had them described as the match of Space Marines in combat and if I recall correctly the go-to for taking down rogue Chapters (as other Chapters might have conflicting loyalties).

Aside from high heels in the artwork (pet peeve) they were arguably portrayed as much more competent than in current fluff.

As mentionned earlier as one of my biggest pet-peeve, there indeed was a Marine power creep in the fluff where they got progressively a lot more powerful then they used to be. Most of the Sister's fluff is a bit strange because of that. They were enven described as capable of defeating Chaos Space Marines while being outnumbered (well Celestians were supposed to be capable to do that). Hell, once upon a time Cadians were supposed to held in check the forces of Chaos. That means tens of thousand Chaos Marines and Cadia isn't even a massive hive world there isn't even a billion person on the entire planet.

epronovost wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

epronovost wrote:

Sisters are exclusively female as GW decided to make them the female counterpart of Space Marines, but of course, being a product of the early 90's, they were to have a support role to the protagonist role of the Space Marine and thus significantly weaker

Fairly early fluff for the Sisters of Battle had them described as the match of Space Marines in combat and if I recall correctly the go-to for taking down rogue Chapters (as other Chapters might have conflicting loyalties).

Aside from high heels in the artwork (pet peeve) they were arguably portrayed as much more competent than in current fluff.

As mentionned earlier as one of my biggest pet-peeve, there indeed was a Marine power creep in the fluff where they got progressively a lot more powerful then they used to be. Most of the Sister's fluff is a bit strange because of that. They were enven described as capable of defeating Chaos Space Marines while being outnumbered (well Celestians were supposed to be capable to do that).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

epronovost wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

epronovost wrote:

Sisters are exclusively female as GW decided to make them the female counterpart of Space Marines, but of course, being a product of the early 90's, they were to have a support role to the protagonist role of the Space Marine and thus significantly weaker

Fairly early fluff for the Sisters of Battle had them described as the match of Space Marines in combat and if I recall correctly the go-to for taking down rogue Chapters (as other Chapters might have conflicting loyalties).

Aside from high heels in the artwork (pet peeve) they were arguably portrayed as much more competent than in current fluff.

As mentionned earlier as one of my biggest pet-peeve, there indeed was a Marine power creep in the fluff where they got progressively a lot more powerful then they used to be. Most of the Sister's fluff is a bit strange because of that. They were enven described as capable of defeating Chaos Space Marines while being outnumbered (well Celestians were supposed to be capable to do that). Hell, once upon a time Cadians were supposed to held in check the forces of Chaos. That means tens of thousand Chaos Marines and Cadia isn't even a massive hive world there isn't even a billion person on the entire planet.

Isn't that because Sisters literally have plot armour via divine intervention?

I hope sisters get a lot of love when they get new models and a proper codex. They are really under represented despite that they are a far more common presence on a given Imperial world compared to a space marine.

I remember the sisters models of the late 90s were some of the best models in the 40K range at the time. The detail in them was awesome.

epronovost wrote:
Technically, Scions can be men or women just like Commissars. These two are male dominated because Sisters do recruit from the same pool and have priority. Sisters are exclusively female as GW decided to make them the female counterpart of Space Marines, but of course, being a product of the early 90's, they were to have a support role to the protagonist role of the Space Marine and thus significantly weaker. In the same fashion, Custodes are basically turbo-marines and Sister of Silence super-sisters. The Imperium various faction are pretty much all alongst the line an action melodrama. Space Marines are the hunky hero, Sisters are his chick that needs saving and helos out once in a while, guards are the mooks that gets killed or are in the way for the most part, the Inquisition is the sly bastard that gives the hero his mission and frequently bs them, the Mechanicus is the weird dude who knows mechanic or computers introduced at half the movie to solve some issues that's also sometime a traitor. Yes, its sexist and slightly anti-intellectual, but it was, and still is, a very common formula.

I think 40k came from a very simple place like that but it has evolved into something more nuanced over time.

Some of the more recent novel series paint the guard in a pretty competent light, showing that the Space Marines are only good for Drop Podding in and applying overwhelming force to a small area and pretty much nothing else. There have been stories where a guard detachment have come into conflict with a Space Marine chapter and the inquisition sided with the guard. Then there was the whole badab war incident where a large number of space marine chapters got rebuked terribly for trying to assist the astral claws in building their own pocket empire. Space Marines (even loyalist Space marines) are not always the good guys of the setting.

There hasn't been good sisters lore in a while though as far as I know . They are portrayed pretty badly in almost everything I have ever read about them.

That lance strikes from orbit is rarely a thing.

Why engage a horde of orkes when you can just lance them from space?

Andersp90 wrote:

Why engage a horde of orkes when you can just lance them from space?

Because then the game wouldn't exist.

Andersp90 wrote:
That lance strikes from orbit is rarely a thing.

Why engage a horde of orkes when you can just lance them from space?

Some of the more recent novel series paint the guard in a pretty competent light, showing that the Space Marines are only good for Drop Podding in and applying overwhelming force to a small area and pretty much nothing else.

Oh, and this.

The fact that the SM are ment to be transhumans super soldiers, yet in every BL novel they are easily overwhelmed by a few orks, sharp sticks etc...

Andersp90 wrote:
That lance strikes from orbit is rarely a thing.

Why engage a horde of orkes when you can just lance them from space?

Because there's an ork warship on your ass or you don't want collateral damage?
There's plenty of reasons why orbital bombardment isn't always viable.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
That lance strikes from orbit is rarely a thing.

Why engage a horde of orkes when you can just lance them from space?

Because there's an ork warship on your ass or you don't want collateral damage?
There's plenty of reasons why orbital bombardment isn't always viable.

You mean because the game would become about laying down pie-plates which kill all on a 2+ ?

Oh, wait...

Andersp90 wrote:
That lance strikes from orbit is rarely a thing.

Why engage a horde of orkes when you can just lance them from space?

Planetary damage.

What is the point of fighting for a planet if the planet has no infrastructure afterwards?

 Pacific wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
That lance strikes from orbit is rarely a thing.

Why engage a horde of orkes when you can just lance them from space?

Because there's an ork warship on your ass or you don't want collateral damage?
There's plenty of reasons why orbital bombardment isn't always viable.

You mean because the game would become about laying down pie-plates which kill all on a 2+ ?

Oh, wait...

Yes, that was basically 7th ed. It was stupid.
8th ed solved it by removing templates.
Which I kind of miss, but I also understand because trying to determine how many are under the template was a real pain.

Andersp90 wrote:


The fact that the SM are ment to be transhumans super soldiers, yet in every BL novel they are easily overwhelmed by a few orks, sharp sticks etc...

Yes, that is a huge problem with the BL novels, space marines are not portrayed as powerful enough! *eyeroll*

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
That lance strikes from orbit is rarely a thing.

Why engage a horde of orkes when you can just lance them from space?

Because there's an ork warship on your ass or you don't want collateral damage?
There's plenty of reasons why orbital bombardment isn't always viable.

Ofc.

But often it is viable, yet not utilized.

The Purging of Kadillus is a good example.

 Crimson wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:


The fact that the SM are ment to be transhumans super soldiers, yet in every BL novel they are easily overwhelmed by a few orks, sharp sticks etc...

Yes, that is a huge problem with the BL novels, space marines are not portrayed as powerful enough! *eyeroll*

They drop like flies in every single BL novel I have ever read.

It takes what, 15-20 years to train a new sm? How the hell are they keeping up with their losses?

w1zard wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
That lance strikes from orbit is rarely a thing.

Why engage a horde of orkes when you can just lance them from space?

Planetary damage.

What is the point of fighting for a planet if the planet has no infrastructure afterwards?

A lancestrike is not world ending. It might level everything within 300-500m of the impact. But that is probably a fair trade if it kills the enemy warboss, necron overlord, hive tyrant etc.

Andersp90 wrote:
It takes what, 15-20 years to train a new sm? How the hell are they keeping up with their losses?

It takes about three years to transform a kid into a Scout Space Marines and about three more years for a Scout to become a fully trained Space Marine. If each Chapter has about 2 or 3 hundred Scouts in training at any given point and about twice more recruits ongoing the process of becoming a Space Marines, they should be capable of recovering relatively fast their losses. Also, Space Marine are very hard to kill. While a few shots in the chest, a busted leg or arm might prevent them from fighting in a specific engagement, they will survive such wounds and return to the battlefield fairly fast.

epronovost wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
It takes what, 15-20 years to train a new sm? How the hell are they keeping up with their losses?

It takes about three years to transform a kid into a Scout Space Marines and about three more years for a Scout to become a fully trained Space Marine. If each Chapter has about 2 or 3 hundred Scouts in training at any given point and about twice more recruits ongoing the process of becoming a Space Marines, they should be capable of recovering relatively fast their losses.

It was a rhetorical question.

The scouts make up the 10th company and are rarely more than a 100 strong.

Yes, after 6-10 years of training you become a brother . Then you are assigned to a devastator squad to master long-ranged weaponry and after that to an assault squad to master close-quarters combat. And ONLY then can they join a "normal" tactical squad as a full battle-brother. Like i said, decades pr SM.

Chapters that have been down to a few hundred marines (like the ultra marines and blood angels) may take upwards of a hundred years to fully recover.

Also, Space Marine are very hard to kill. While a few shots in the chest, a busted leg or arm might prevent them from fighting in a specific engagement, they will survive such wounds and return to the battlefield fairly fast.

Yea, but when a novel lists half the company or squad as dead, it's probably because they are, well, dead?

Its almost as if the writers keep forgetting that marines are only in chapters of 1000, and have the need to kill off a bunch of them to show that the enemy is srs bizniz.

Not a fan of GW's issue with number scaling regarding how small chapters are. 1000'sh (not including command staff, support guys, etc.) guys were always hard to take seriously as a force capable of doing much on most planets, much less just a company of 100 marines. Makes them come off as more "elite", but also harder to explain losses or how they can even attempt to pacify/occupy areas. Definitely an instance of just adding a few zeroes to the number to make it more feasible. That or make it explicit they have an entire army of serfs with them at all times handling the logistics of these things.

Andersp90 wrote:

epronovost wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
It takes what, 15-20 years to train a new sm? How the hell are they keeping up with their losses?

It takes about three years to transform a kid into a Scout Space Marines and about three more years for a Scout to become a fully trained Space Marine. If each Chapter has about 2 or 3 hundred Scouts in training at any given point and about twice more recruits ongoing the process of becoming a Space Marines, they should be capable of recovering relatively fast their losses.

The scouts make up the 10th company and are rarely more than a 100 strong.

Yes, after 6-10 years of training you become a brother . Then you are assigned to a devastator squad to master long-ranged weaponry and after that to an assault squad to master close-quarters combat. And ONLY then can they join a "normal" tactical squad as a full battle-brother. Like i said, decades pr SM.

Chapters that have been down to a few hundred marines (like the ultra marines and blood angels) may take upwards of a hundred years to fully recover.

Also, Space Marine are very hard to kill. While a few shots in the chest, a busted leg or arm might prevent them from fighting in a specific engagement, they will survive such wounds and return to the battlefield fairly fast.

Yea, but when a novel lists half the company or squad as dead, it's probably because they are, well, dead?

Almost every source for space marine structure notes that the 100 marine limit is not applied to 10th company and it can be as large as a chapter needs. Most chapters probably have a lot of scouts.

I dont like how litteral machine spirits are now. I also dont like the amount of ritual involved with mechanicus and their technology. All the prayer and incence is a turn off, Especially because that it actually seems to work.

But in reply to more recent comments, Space Marines being only male makes tons of sense. Its not just a technological restriction in my mind, because why would you want your space marines to be female anyway? Its not restricting half the population, as we know how small the amount of marines are compared to humans .Either way Space Marines would be extremley rare. Males are also stronger than females, with larger muscle growth, more endurance, etc... Space Marines only recruit the best of the best, and more often than not those will be males. All the implants used in the creation of marines would benefit males much more than females. Think of a male bodybuilder and a female body builder. Or top male athletes compared to female athletes. Its not sexist to say that men are physically more capable than women, because it is fact. So with that in mind, why would you want to potentially weaken your stock with female astartes? Even if the process was compatible with them, why would you waste all the time and resources on recruits who's bodies and minds (due to less testosterone and such) are less capable of dealing with the horrors of war in the 41st millenium?