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Out of curiosity, has anyone reached out to GW in recent times and gotten a response on this issue?

some bloke wrote:

sgt smudge wrote: My motivations are centred on real human beings here.

Your whole reason for doing this isn't because it would improve the game, but because it would improve other things.

He said “real human beings.” This is a game with player characters. A person decides their many characters’ faction and wargear, pose arm and paint models, probably give some of them names. They’re player characters and real people make them. That’s the main activity of the game, playing the several dozen player characters that are an army. It’s real people playing their characters, not a culture war. You seem more preoccupied with social engineering than smudge does, imo.

As for an background explanation, that’s worse than no explanation. In 40k, even an officer of the space marines or an inquisitor doesn’t know what’s happening with galactic politics, doesn’t know what’s going on in the next sector, and has a totally confused idea of what was going on even 300 years earlier, like tapestries that show Israelites wearing medieval plate armor, or movies with medieval knights eating tomatoes. Maintaining that concept, especially with the appearance of women in marine chapter, is way more important than explaining it.

 some bloke wrote:

It's about the mindset of people. I think that if you wade in and say "these have to change because societal reasons" then you will get backlash. If you wade in and say "These have changed because al lthis stuff happened in the lore" then you won't get that backlash.


We want the same thing - I just think your reasoning for it will cause more harm than good.

So this really shouldn't be overlooked. Building and taking the fiction exciting places because it's a good story artfully executed will natrually bring people along. The momen it smacks of a "you will like this because you are supposed to like this or you are bad person" you will naturally generate an opposition that might be fun for some to use in culture war purse swinging, but in reality hampers progress. Similarly, trying to advance a cause within a scene that seems inauthentic and not something that really builds within the soul and core of the existing body of work will lead to rejection.

Think about how seamlessly James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver (and no small part of it was Signorney speaking up on behalf of her character) wove a believable and admired strong but distinctly feminine character into the movie Alien. People loved it because it was well executed.

It's one thing to want to see progress, but to do it well requires an artfull hand, effort, and a consciousness of being an integrating force meeting people where they are, rather than confrontation and demonization for people not immediately jiving with your vision of improvement.

personally I'd rather GW develop females in factions that have them before they include a token head for a marine that upon close close inspection is apparently female.

the inclusion of sisters of battle in the 9th edition trailer was a promising sign. as well as piety and pain.

RegularGuy wrote:I think the difference might lay in the fact that women already exist in 40k, and have probably existing in larger numbers vis-a-vis sisters and representation in other factions for a long time, and ethnic diversity was clearly a blind spot born from the limitations of the world the game grew up in.

The problem is that while women *exist*, they are not represented, and certainly not visibly.

Sisters are probably the only thing close to actually decent representation, short of the single models released for the Imperial Guard, but when all your women are centralised in one faction, that's still exclusivity, not inclusivity.

Women were represented in 40k on paper and fringe armies alone for the longest time before plastic Sisters, but even Sisters are contributing to that "you're still relegated to this faction, you're not part of the flagship" feeling.

So, no, I'm not quite all on board with "women were already represented", because they weren't - as I keep saying, representation is nothing without visibility.

That level of representation being acheived for females (alibet not without sexist depictions also from it's heritage)

It hasn't been achieved, because women are either relegated to single models in side-factions, or to a main "all-women" faction. That's not inclusivity.

not everyone views the existence of a fraternal faction (even a popular or flag ship faction) in the universe where sororitas and mixed gender forces like guard exist as problematic. Nor does it neccessarily seem obvious to everyone that marines as a fraternal concept MUST be dismantled in order for women to enjoy the game or find representation.

I'm not saying a fraternal faction can't exist.

I'm saying Marines ain't it.

Why do Space Marines need to be the token fraternal faction, and not the Custodes, who fit that design niche better?

I get that there's vocal persons here who hold that as a very deep conviction, but there also seem to be a lot of people who haven't reached that same world view, including a population of current women who enjoy the game even without GW producing female marines or fiction.

Sure - but I have to ask, why are those same people who don't hold such a deep conviction opposed to the idea? Even if they were indifferent, why do they actively want to refuse women Space Marines?

No-one would be forcing them to change their models - this is purely there so people who *do* care about representation, and getting cool women Astartes, can get that. Even if you don't personally see it as an issue for you, why are you trying to prevent other people who *do* care?

some bloke wrote:

Gert wrote:A Space Wolf miniature is visibly different from a Dark Angel.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Tell me, is a colour swap the only difference between a Space Wolf and an Ultramarine?

Lore aside, these are different armies.

That's an entirely different topic, but I'm of the belief that they're not different armies, and that Space Marines should (as I believe they actually been!) folded into one single book.

Fundamentally, they're both Space Marines. But sure - I can say this about Raven Guard and Iron Hands, and the point will still be the same.

You need a different book to run them.

Not any more, surely? They both use the Space Marine Codex as a baseline. If you want the fancy stuff, you can buy supplements, but the core Codex is shared, yes?

Plus, I don't consider "you can buy a different model!" to be the same as "They are so customisable!"

If I buy two Intercessors, and convert one using the Ultramarine bits, and the other using Space Wolf bits, they're not "different models". They're the same models, with different customisation.

Considering that the main reason why people turn unpleasant about female marines is because, within the setting, female marines don't exist (regardless of whether or not females exist in real life), I would consider the baseline for a faction to be advertised as customisable to be how much you can customise them whilst keeping within the lore.

By why does Space Marine lore let them be customised to become basically any culture, colour, creed, or combat style you like, but women is where the line is drawn? Why is the lore that way?

Why should I care what the lore says, when the lore is needlessly exclusive, and ultimately arbitrary?

A space marine rhino can have smoke launchers put in different positions, or some decals or battle damage added to the outside. You can cover it in purity seals if you like, but ultimately it will always look like a rhino. However, if you gave me every vehicle kit in the game, I could make you 3-4 dozen different ork vehicles, none of which would look the same, and all of which would fall within the scope of the lore (except perhaps necron vehicles as they have their whole phasing out thing).

And yet, when you look at which faction GW showcase to be customisable, which faction has the greatest amount of spinoffs and homebrews and "OC-do-not-steal" community creations, it's not Orks.

Yes, Orks have the greatest diversity *in lore*, second perhaps only to the Imperial Guard. But I'm not talking purely about lore. I'm talking about *practice*. I'm talking about the real world, including GW's models and marketing. And GW's models and marketing would indicate that the faction they see as most customisable is the Space Marines.

So yes, you can buy different models for your marine army from different armies which also happen to be marines, but that doesn't make them customisable. Heck, they even have the lore saying "if it wasn't written forever ago, you cannot make it!" for all their technology. That is basically GW saying "If we don't make the kit, and if you don't assemble it exactly how we say, then it's not canon". Their fliers look cool as anything when they have legs, but they aren't canon. GW's lore makes space marines one of the least customisable factions.

And yet, in terms of player reception and GW's own marketing for them, Space Marines are the apex of player expression. Seriously, just look at how many custom Chapters there are. Look at the wealth of paint programs that let you make your own Space Marines. Look at the sheer variety of cultures and traditions that people have expressed and represented in their Space Marines.

There was the example of the Fighting Tigers of Veda mentioned earlier - an excellent example of Space Marines being more than just this European warrior fraternity, but taking some massive inspiration from Indian culture and design, to great effect. I can't see that with Orks.

You mention GW saying "if we don't make the kit, you can't make it" - and yet, which faction has the most kits? Also, your issues on kitbashing being disallowed would apply for basically every Imperial faction - just saying. But ultimately, this is a side-issue - because customisation is more than modelling or paint schemes - it's in personality, culture, player expression. And Orks are much to tied to their own Orkish culture to be "most customisable". What makes Orks so iconic and attractive to many players is their own distinct culture and idiosyncracies - their obsession with dakka, teef, and red 'uns going faster. Space Marines, on the other hand, are more defined by what they *can* be - and that's largely a choice of player freedoms. Want Sneaky Marines? We've got that. Want Roman Marines? We've got that. Want Viking/Werewolf Marines? Got that. Want Celtic Marines? Got that. Want Vampire Marines? Got that too.

Want Women Marines? Why not too?

As for saying "space wolves are different from normal marines", death guard are different from chaos marines. But they are two different armies which are based on the same thing, so I wouldn't say "chaos space marines are so customisable, because you can buy a different army instead and they look different!"

Death Guard are much more different than Space Wolves are to the Ultramarines, from every perspective. Bad comparison.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Integrity?

My motivations are centred on real human beings here. I honestly couldn't care less about the lore, because the lore matters less than real human beings. I think the idea that wanting representation in the most visible place *because it's the most visible place* is the best motivation to have, as opposed to being detached from representing real human beings.

Yeah, integrity and good motivation - I think I have plenty of that, thank you very much.

So this is the very definition of Societics interfering with something. Your whole reason for doing this isn't because it would improve the game, but because it would improve other things.

Define "improving the game", because I think these would improve the game very much.

I was referring to integrity of the excersise, not your reasoning.

And my exercise very much has integrity, thank you. I'd be losing integrity if I didn't make my case clear on this matter.

You say that your goal is to improve the viewpoints of people who are so deeply entrenched in the lore that they will not allow female marines and act sexist because of it, driving women away.

Not necessarily to "improve", but to delegitimise - and that was only one of my goals. I had many more.

I agree that this needs to be addressed.

So we have the person who is so obsessed by the lore that it means gurlz go home. You have two approaches here:

Your approach - you take that lore and you replace it with alternative lore which includes women. When questioned "why has this changed", you reply (in whatever way you like), "Because society doesn't accept the way in which marines were not representative, so we waded in and changed it for you. The change has nothing to do with the game, and is only about the real world."

Well, no, because it's very much *is* to do with the game - the game being something in the real world, and entirely a construct of people in the real world.

This isn't a "because society doesn't accept how Marines weren't representative", it was "Marines weren't representative, and that was stupid, what society says be damned".

How do you suppose that person, who was so attached to the lore, wil ltake this? Will they see women coming through the door and think anything other than "those women made them change the lore that I loved, and I resent them for that"?

I frankly don't care what they think, so long as if they start to become toxic to other people, they're shown the door.

Before you say "and that person can sod off", I agree with you - but they won't. They will stay there, and their toxic vibes will make the women who come through the door wonder what they did wrong.

Actually, if anything, they're likely not to. They'll rage and fester, yes, but without that feeling of legitimacy and hopefully everyone else actually calling them out on their toxicity, they won't stick around. For an example, look to AoS - that's not full of people who stuck around after and fester with toxic vibes. Yes, those people exist still, but they fled the space - and the AoS player base looks healthier for it.

Now, alternatively you say to this person, having changed their lore and they ask "why?" - "Cawl did a bunch of cool stuff and when he did so he managed to make space marining work on women, which has doubled their recruitment, and then he led an awesome battle to reclaim >insert some planet here< with an army which was a mixture of male & female marines, and won because they had enough marines now, and now Cawl is doing more cool stuff in the background".

Except (and I know this argument, because I used to make it) the person adverse to women Space Marines would say "why would Cawl care about making women Space Marines?" or "but the lore says Space Marines can't be women, so Cawl's just breaking the lore", which ultimately leads to "why did you change the lore - oh, I bet you changed it for societal reasons, didn't you".

I keep telling you - the lore does not have a mind of it's own. It cannot be self-determinate, it cannot have it's own natural conclusions or developments. Every new development, from the biggest retcon, to the smallest skirmish, is artificially added from the real world, from outside sources. And much as you throw up the smokescreen of "no, it's totally an internal lore decision that Cawl suddenly worked out how to make women Space Marines", it's not internal at all. It's not internal, because you - the hypothetical some bloke working at GW - wrote that in. You, for whatever reason, made it so that Cawl would learn how to make women Astartes. Cawl could not have done that on their own, because Cawl is a fictional character, and cannot exist. You used Cawl as a surrogate to push for something that you - the hypothetical some bloke working at GW - wanted.

You can smokescreen it by saying "it's just what happened in the lore!", but as I've been saying, the lore is invented by real people, and every change or status quo maintained in the lore is done according to the real world desires and objectives of those real world people.

The net result on marines is the same - they become representative, and they will attract a wider audience. But when those women walk through the door, they will be met by people who have read a load of cool lore justifying the change in-universe, and have accepted and raved about how cool this latest development in the 40k storyline is. They might even have been influenced by the idea that adding women to marines made them better, so think adding women to GW stores will make them better too.

Or they'll be met by those same people who feel disgruntled because of a lore change that we all know was made for external reasons, no matter how much you say that it was only the lore developing.

It's about the mindset of people. I think that if you wade in and say "these have to change because societal reasons" then you will get backlash. If you wade in and say "These have changed because al lthis stuff happened in the lore" then you won't get that backlash.

I'm sorry, but that's simply not the case.

When this topic inevitably comes up, before anyone can even say "I want this because women would be cool" or "I want this because it could be a new development in the lore", you have people calling the whole thing political. You have people shooting down the simple appearance of women a political act. We've seen it in this thread, I've seen it in other threads, and I will likely continue to see it.
To those people, they know, just as I understand, that changes to the lore don't happen in a vacuum. To them, even moving the setting forward to include women Space Marines is a problem, because they don't want women where they weren't before. You can't justify it with lore, because the lore to these people is not something to be touched - to be moved forward, to be adapted, to be tinkered or modified. You can say all you like how "but it makes sense in the lore, Cawl developed how to do this!" - but the response will be "Cawl shouldn't have been able to do that", or "Cawl shouldn't exist", because that's exactly part of the Primaris backlash. GW moved the setting forward with Primaris, didn't invalidate anyone's previous history or backstory doing so, but still got massive amounts of flack for doing so.

This is not a blanket statement, but for some people, when they say they don't want the lore influenced by the real world, they mean they don't want the lore to change at all, and that no matter how many "in lore" reasons you can give for why women Space Marines should now exist, they will still shoot those ideas down as "political" - just for including women.

Where I differ from you is that I'm being realistic about my goals, intentions, and methods. I know the lore is a construct, so I'm not going to pretend that I'm following it to push forward the concerns that I want to see addressed.

We want the same thing - I just think your reasoning for it will cause more harm than good.

Our reasoning will not matter to these folks. No matter what reason you say you have, it won't change the fact that they don't want women in their Space Marines. If you come up with a lore reason, they'll call the lore stupid. If you throw away the lore, they'll lose legitimacy entirely.

RegularGuy wrote:So this really shouldn't be overlooked. Building and taking the fiction exciting places because it's a good story artfully executed will natrually bring people along.

I'm going to very briefly put on my cap of someone who might be opposed to women Space Marines for a moment here, and ask "why is the fiction being built towards adding women?", or "why would adding women make a better story?"

Now, to me, adding women *would* make a better story because it wouldn't be exclusive to the sake of it any more. But evidently, the people who do oppose women Space Marines don't exactly care about that exclusivity, and seek to maintain it.

The momen it smacks of a "you will like this because you are supposed to like this or you are bad person" you will naturally generate an opposition that might be fun for some to use in culture war purse swinging, but in reality hampers progress.

No-one is saying "you must like this" about women Space Marines. We're just saying "why can't we have this - why do you need to fight back so hard against women Space Marines being a thing?"

I don't see why there's a need for opposition on this.

Think about how seamlessly James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver (and no small part of it was Signorney speaking up on behalf of her character) wove a believable and admired strong but distinctly feminine character into the movie Alien. People loved it because it was well executed.

And there's plenty of things that are similarly inoffensive, yet are widely cried out as being "SJW propaganda" or "woke" for no other reason than simply including women or being female centric.

Look, I admire your naivety perhaps, that all it takes is a well executed story, but that doesn't change that many perfectly serviceable stories are mired down by people choosing to see it as a political attack on them.

It's one thing to want to see progress, but to do it well requires an artfull hand, effort, and a consciousness of being an integrating force meeting people where they are, rather than confrontation and demonization for people not immediately jiving with your vision of improvement.

The problem is that, as I've outlined, but why does literally just including women in the Space Marines *need* an artful hand and effort? Why does it need to be anything more than "they're here now".

The fact that we apparently need to even justify why women exist, instead of just women existing in the first place, is the thing I'm talking about here. I shouldn't need to make a female-led story well executed just so that people won't cry about it being "woke politics", because those same people won't cry about "woke politics" if I make a badly executed male-led story. The fact is that by bringing this up, you're admitting to a double standard between male and female-centric representation here.

I shouldn't need to have to artfully justify women Space Marines, because there should be no need to justify women existing in the first place. Why do I need to justify that? Surely it should be a case of justifying their *exclusion*, not inclusion. Is inclusivity and equality not the point we should be starting this from?

I mean I'm pretty sure most people here aren't demonising anyone for disagreeing. We're mostly just pointing out hypocrisy and mean behaviour. Peeps keep saying the pro-female SM folks are starting a "culture war" but the only people who view it as such are the ones that want to maintain the status quo or who are being deliberately exclusionary (these two groups are not that same thing). Declaring a "culture war" is a reactionary, usually right wing, tactic to make people afraid of the "other side" coming to take away your way of life. People aren't saying nuke 40k and start again with all mixed forces, they're saying just add them in since there's easy lore precedent and it would help solve a real world problem.
As for the whole "it's political to add X into 40k", everything is political. Your objection to it is political. The "no politics" argument is bunk because literally everything anyone does is motivated by the society that they live in and can be framed as politics by literally anyone.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:If I buy two Intercessors, and convert one using the Ultramarine bits, and the other using Space Wolf bits, they're not "different models". They're the same models, with different customisation.

Death Guard are much more different than Space Wolves are to the Ultramarines, from every perspective. Bad comparison.

You mention GW saying "if we don't make the kit, you can't make it" - and yet, which faction has the most kits?

Regarding customisation, I will grant you that space marines have the largest variety of interchangeable kits (orks aside, who can use it all and then some provided they paint it blue). However, I would argue that chaos space marines are more customisable than regular marines, as everything you can to to marines you can do to chaos, and then there's all the chaosy stuff like horns and mutations and marks. But I'm arguing a different point entirely here, as this isn't a discussion about whether space marines are the most customisable faction!

Regarding this:

Well, no, because it's very much *is* to do with the game - the game being something in the real world, and entirely a construct of people in the real world.

This isn't a "because society doesn't accept how Marines weren't representative", it was "Marines weren't representative, and that was stupid, what society says be damned".


I frankly don't care what they think, so long as if they start to become toxic to other people, they're shown the door.


Actually, if anything, they're likely not to. They'll rage and fester, yes, but without that feeling of legitimacy and hopefully everyone else actually calling them out on their toxicity, they won't stick around. For an example, look to AoS - that's not full of people who stuck around after and fester with toxic vibes. Yes, those people exist still, but they fled the space - and the AoS player base looks healthier for it.


Except (and I know this argument, because I used to make it) the person adverse to women Space Marines would say "why would Cawl care about making women Space Marines?" or "but the lore says Space Marines can't be women, so Cawl's just breaking the lore", which ultimately leads to "why did you change the lore - oh, I bet you changed it for societal reasons, didn't you".

Are you suggesting that people will react the same regardless of whether a change is made because their game has been considered offensive and thus must be changed, vs the game doing what it has been doing already (lore changing & developing) and the result being the same?

Do you not see that you will get a far higher backlash from anyone who feels like they are being told what to do? And that this will not be lacking a feel of legitimacy because most people will say "I hate how they changed the game just to be more PC". Most people won't even be aginst the female marines, they'll be against it being done for political/societal reasons - you'll make people who don't mind female marines resentful about how it was done. If you changed it in the same way the game has been changed in the past, most people wouldn't even think that space marines were being changed to be more representative. If Cawl came up with a way to make female marines, they'd just think GW wanted to sell some new models and that this another damned space marine release.

Ultimately, if you justify the female marines in the game by progressing the lore, it will feel organic and a logical step in the imperiums efforts, whereas if you just say "nah there's been female marines the whole time you just never saw them" and an out-of-lore "we added these because they never shouldn't have been there", then that will see a lot of people thinking it's real life interfering with their game.

The choice is whether you want to see a load of threads saying "OMG why did they add girls to space marines, that's so rubbish they're only doing it because someone complained why can't girls just leave these things alone, damn karens!" or whether you see a load of threads saying "Why are space marines getting even more releases! When will they do xenos! Where's my eldar codex!"

Which of those seems like it made a more inclusive culture to women?

 RegularGuy wrote:
I think the difference might lay in the fact that women already exist in 40k, and have probably existing in larger numbers vis-a-vis sisters and representation in other factions for a long time, and ethnic diversity was clearly a blind spot born from the limitations of the world the game grew up in.

That level of representation being acheived for females (alibet not without sexist depictions also from it's heritage), not everyone views the existence of a fraternal faction (even a popular or flag ship faction) in the universe where sororitas and mixed gender forces like guard exist as problematic. Nor does it neccessarily seem obvious to everyone that marines as a fraternal concept MUST be dismantled in order for women to enjoy the game or find representation.

I get that there's vocal persons here who hold that as a very deep conviction, but there also seem to be a lot of people who haven't reached that same world view, including a population of current women who enjoy the game even without GW producing female marines or fiction.

Yet you don’t see people getting the abuse for painting a marine to have black skin, but put a female head on it and you are fair game. In the 1st edition literature that is lauded by those who hold the lore so highly regarding female marines you won’t find a black marine anywhere. All white. Now they and other black models are common place in GW publications. That’s politics in 40K, that is being done to increase representation and redress and imbalance from the past, in the hope that that representation will increase player numbers from BAME back grounds. Let’s say marines of some flavour make up 50% of 40K armies (conservative guess), them being a fraternity (low risk way of saying no girls allowed) is surely a problem for a company that wants to increase representation of gender diversity. I believe we have addressed the “fraternity” issue in depth a few pages ago and it doesn’t wash with me. I can get my head round it for the custodes because they are a small fringe faction, it doesn’t exclude people from the majority of the armies like the marines do.


The sexists who don’t want female marines cling to this outdated and unpublished bit of lore to defend their actions and shout about keeping politics out of the game. When I talk about threats and abuse for making female marines, I have been on the receiving end myself on ore than one occasion, on the board in the past and on FB groups when I have posted pics of my female marines.

I don’t see any female 40K players coming out claiming that female Marines would be a problem for them? Maintaining the status quo in order to protect a small group of women who tolerate the misogyny in the community doesn’t make sense or remotely outweigh the need for change.

 RegularGuy wrote:
I think the difference might lay in the fact that women already exist in 40k, and have probably existing in larger numbers vis-a-vis sisters and representation in other factions for a long time, and ethnic diversity was clearly a blind spot born from the limitations of the world the game grew up in.

That level of representation being acheived for females (alibet not without sexist depictions also from it's heritage), not everyone views the existence of a fraternal faction (even a popular or flag ship faction) in the universe where sororitas and mixed gender forces like guard exist as problematic. Nor does it neccessarily seem obvious to everyone that marines as a fraternal concept MUST be dismantled in order for women to enjoy the game or find representation.

I get that there's vocal persons here who hold that as a very deep conviction, but there also seem to be a lot of people who haven't reached that same world view, including a population of current women who enjoy the game even without GW producing female marines or fiction.

Maybe if guard were actually presented as a gender-mixed faction this would be true, but the addition of a single sprue with four heads into a single kit has not yet in my experience presented basically every existing guard collection from being 100% dudesmen.

some bloke wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:If I buy two Intercessors, and convert one using the Ultramarine bits, and the other using Space Wolf bits, they're not "different models". They're the same models, with different customisation.

Death Guard are much more different than Space Wolves are to the Ultramarines, from every perspective. Bad comparison.

You mention GW saying "if we don't make the kit, you can't make it" - and yet, which faction has the most kits?

Regarding customisation, I will grant you that space marines have the largest variety of interchangeable kits (orks aside, who can use it all and then some provided they paint it blue). However, I would argue that chaos space marines are more customisable than regular marines, as everything you can to to marines you can do to chaos, and then there's all the chaosy stuff like horns and mutations and marks. But I'm arguing a different point entirely here, as this isn't a discussion about whether space marines are the most customisable faction!

I would still disagree with Chaos - loyalists are showcased with a much wider array of aesthetic designs, and styles, whereas CSM are more often than not shoved into the "spikey" category. Loyalists can be spikey, smooth, ornate, tacticool, etc etc, but Chaos Marines are most often just spikey or gritty. Unfortunately, it yet again comes to Space Marines getting a lot of kits, and a lot of representation with different aesthetic styles.

But, yes, this is a different discussion.

Regarding this:

Well, no, because it's very much *is* to do with the game - the game being something in the real world, and entirely a construct of people in the real world.

This isn't a "because society doesn't accept how Marines weren't representative", it was "Marines weren't representative, and that was stupid, what society says be damned".


I frankly don't care what they think, so long as if they start to become toxic to other people, they're shown the door.


Actually, if anything, they're likely not to. They'll rage and fester, yes, but without that feeling of legitimacy and hopefully everyone else actually calling them out on their toxicity, they won't stick around. For an example, look to AoS - that's not full of people who stuck around after and fester with toxic vibes. Yes, those people exist still, but they fled the space - and the AoS player base looks healthier for it.


Except (and I know this argument, because I used to make it) the person adverse to women Space Marines would say "why would Cawl care about making women Space Marines?" or "but the lore says Space Marines can't be women, so Cawl's just breaking the lore", which ultimately leads to "why did you change the lore - oh, I bet you changed it for societal reasons, didn't you".

Are you suggesting that people will react the same regardless of whether a change is made because their game has been considered offensive and thus must be changed, vs the game doing what it has been doing already (lore changing & developing) and the result being the same?

Yes, I believe the reaction will be the same.

If a change is made that people don't like, they won't suddenly accept it because some made up words said so. And for a considerable amount of anti-women Astartes folks, I believe that any modification to what Space Marines are *right now* (or arguably, from whenever they decided what Space Marines were to them), lore-development or retcon alike, they would see it as a political change, because they see including women as a political act.

Do you not see that you will get a far higher backlash from anyone who feels like they are being told what to do?

As I said, I don't care about their backlash, because they'd be lashing back irrespectively.

The people who would be satisfied with a lore development, and wouldn't complain about women Space Marines being added in via an advancing story, are likely also people who could be persuaded to see the necessity of women Space Marines from a representative point of view.

I can't bargain with people who oppose the inclusion of women Astartes full stop.

And that this will not be lacking a feel of legitimacy because most people will say "I hate how they changed the game just to be more PC".

And they'd say exactly the same, irrespective of how you integrated women Space Marines. It's not the methods that these folks don't like, it's *including them at all*.

Most people won't even be aginst the female marines, they'll be against it being done for political/societal reasons - you'll make people who don't mind female marines resentful about how it was done. If you changed it in the same way the game has been changed in the past, most people wouldn't even think that space marines were being changed to be more representative. If Cawl came up with a way to make female marines, they'd just think GW wanted to sell some new models and that this another damned space marine release.

Again, I have to disagree, considering the responses that I've seen in this thread, other threads, and will likely see in others.

People will think that Space Marines are getting women only for political reasons regardless of what you tell them, because that's what they've told themselves. As Gert says - this a common tactic, wherein people will resist any change to their sphere of influence by claiming that it's just a political move to make them change. It doesn't matter how you spin in, they *will* call it politically motivated, because, at the end of the day, to an extent, it is. The lore can't develop on it's own. There must have been an external force that made it so.

The reason I maintain that this is not a political decision, or a political topic, is because everything, including neutrality or status quo, is political in those lens, and so it becomes an utterly meaningless distinction.

So, I'm sorry, but I think you are incorrect with stating that people would be fine with women Space Marines, but are against it being done for political reasons - because these people would see any form of women Space Marines as political.

Ultimately, if you justify the female marines in the game by progressing the lore, it will feel organic and a logical step in the imperiums efforts, whereas if you just say "nah there's been female marines the whole time you just never saw them" and an out-of-lore "we added these because they never shouldn't have been there", then that will see a lot of people thinking it's real life interfering with their game.

But the lore isn't organic. Sure, we can make the lore sound organic, but we all know that it's not - that's just smoothing over the gaps of a decision that was made in the real world.

With just a shred of thought, it is clear that no decision in the lore is truly "organic" - it's all down to external decisions made in the real world, and the detractors of women Space Marines know that.

The choice is whether you want to see a load of threads saying "OMG why did they add girls to space marines, that's so rubbish they're only doing it because someone complained why can't girls just leave these things alone, damn karens!" or whether you see a load of threads saying "Why are space marines getting even more releases! When will they do xenos! Where's my eldar codex!"

You'd be seeing the former regardless, I'm afraid.

Just look at the amount of vitriol directed towards Primaris.

Which of those seems like it made a more inclusive culture to women?

Well, considering that the first one will happen regardless, I'd want to make sure that I make the stance to be as inclusive and representative as possible, without trying to hide behind "well, I'm just following the lore!"

I'm not going to make the lore my excuse, because the lore doesn't have weight. I'm after representation because it's the fair thing to do, not because I can bend the lore to make it that way. And that visible action from GW, if they were to reject the "sanctity" of their own lore, and outright say "yep, we messed up, we're just making women's inclusion completely normal, as it always should have been", feels far more genuine and sincere than "heyyyy, so we've let women join in now, but boy, we had to really make up these fictional reasons why we could ignore our previous fiction reasons!!". That kind of response would indicate to me that GW still cared more about their lore and fictional words than they did about me, as a real human being.

There is such a thing as overdoing a model, for example, a CSM army that is inspired by samurai but is still very clearly a CSM army is going to be much harder to do than a samurai-inspired SM Chapter. You have to make sure you put enough effort into showing they are samurai but need to put equal if not more effort into showing they're CSM. CSM kits have much more detailing than Loyalist SM so any conversions have to take that into account and from personal experience, it is much harder to convert a model when the majority of it is sculpted detail.


Pretty much yeah. Centurions, Primaris, writer X doing the codex for faction Y in past editions. 40k hobbyists will get mad at literally anything at any time for any reason.


Taking any stance on anything is political, that's just life. And anyone who says "they ruined 40k by making it PC", IMO doesn't have an opinion worth listening to. It is the buzzwordiest of buzzwords that has naff all meaning.


The only way the game can be interfered with is with real life, anyone who says otherwise is either in denial or has a peanut brain. The Primaris could be seen as the logical step in the evolution of SM but people still got mad about them.


So? Those threads will happen regardless because the Internet is the home of over-exaggeration and hyperbole. And I'd also like to point out that every single thing GW has released that "changed the lore" has been accepted by the majority. There isn't nearly as much whining about "waaaah Primaris ruined 40k" as there was when they were released.

As I said, I don't care about their backlash, because they'd be lashing back irrespectively.

That... is a weird way to go about it.

do you not see that by doing a change in a way that will make people push back and then saying "I don't care what they think" is a very good way to turn a good thing into a bad thing?

if you introduce female marines and just outright say "this is being done because it's not PC to have all-male space marines" then you will get a huge amount of people who don't care either way about female marines getting annoyed about it because it's politics interfering with 40k. Do you not see that?

And where will they direct this ire of theirs? Will it be to the shop colleagues? no, they are just there to sell them plastic crack. Instead they'll pick a convenient scapegoat to direct their unhappiness about being forced to do something for PC reasons, and that will be the people they assume were complaining about it to make them change it - female gamers.

Your approach to this is setting it up to fail spectacularly. You'll go from a select few idiots who take it too seriously and poison the environment for female gamers to a huge amount of people who are resentful that their game, which has had the lore to make the things they are using make sense, suddenly got changed without any lore explanation so there could be female marine models, with a big announcement saying "we don't care what you think, there's women there now, deal with it".


I have no problem with people who are actually sexist being made to shut up or get out. But if this change were made without any respect to the game, then it will make people who would otherwise have accepted the change happily feel resentful about it. That will not improve things at all. If anything you'll tempt more women in with the female marines, but into an environment which is more resentful against women than it was before.

 some bloke wrote:

Do you not see that you will get a far higher backlash from anyone who feels like they are being told what to do? And that this will not be lacking a feel of legitimacy because most people will say "I hate how they changed the game just to be more PC". Most people won't even be aginst the female marines, they'll be against it being done for political/societal reasons - you'll make people who don't mind female marines resentful about how it was done. I

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Lets say GW did absolutely everything possible to please their existing playerbase in the next couple of months - like, let's assume the absolute crazy impossible, like they do huge release waves for Eldar, Imperial Guard and Tyranids, then they release Word Bearers and Emperor's Children as spinoff 'dexes with their own miniature ranges ala thousand sons, and after all that, they put out new marine kits with female miniatures included and they come up with the BEST POSSIBLE in-universe explanation for why female marines get added.

Do you really, actually, in this universe that exists right now containing the people that exist within it believe that 99.9% of people who have a problem with female marines would not simply say "I hate how they changed the game to be more PC" regardless of any justification or in-lore reasoning by games workshop?

Because you seem to be presenting some kind of fantasy scenario where GW just drops a kit for marines with female heads and doesn't explain it in-universe at all.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 some bloke wrote:

Do you not see that you will get a far higher backlash from anyone who feels like they are being told what to do? And that this will not be lacking a feel of legitimacy because most people will say "I hate how they changed the game just to be more PC". Most people won't even be aginst the female marines, they'll be against it being done for political/societal reasons - you'll make people who don't mind female marines resentful about how it was done. I

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Lets say GW did absolutely everything possible to please their existing playerbase in the next couple of months - like, let's assume the absolute crazy impossible, like they do huge release waves for Eldar, Imperial Guard and Tyranids, then they release Word Bearers and Emperor's Children as spinoff 'dexes with their own miniature ranges ala thousand sons, and after all that, they put out new marine kits with female miniatures included and they come up with the BEST POSSIBLE in-universe explanation for why female marines get added.

Do you really, actually, in this universe that exists right now containing the people that exist within it believe that 99.9% of people who have a problem with female marines would not simply say "I hate how they changed the game to be more PC" regardless of any justification or in-lore reasoning by games workshop?

Because you seem to be presenting some kind of fantasy scenario where GW just drops a kit for marines with female heads and doesn't explain it in-universe at all.

I think that perhaps I'm not being clear on this.

There are two factors to consider here, two aspects of the people:

1: Whether or not they are opposed to female marines
2: Whether or not they are opposed to 40k being changed for external political reasons (all that jazz about "every decision a writer makes is political" aside, which I find somewhat wrong - reasons later)

Let's say option 1 is divided into "opposed" and "accepting", as A and B.
on 2 is split into "opposed" and "accepting", as 1 and 2.

Your possible people are:

A1: opposed to female marines and opposed to political changes
A2: Opposed to female marines and not to political changes
B1: Accepting female marines but opposed to political changes
B2: accepting of both female marines and political changes.

We can safely assume, as you said, that both A1 and A2 will be opposed to female marines because that is their stance. We can't change that, as what we're trying to do is fundamentally against their beliefs.

So we are left with B1 and B2 - both accepting of female marines, but one group is opposed to political changes in 40k.


We can assume that any people upset or angry about the change will make the environment bad for female games.

Currently (pre-change), A1 and A2 probably do this anyway. Some won't but chances are anyone who makes it unwelcoming for women is also someone who's opposed to female marines "'cos they're gurlz".

B1 and B2 aren't making things toxic, in all likelihood.


Now we make the change.

if we make the change politically, and say "this is happening because politics are interfering with 40k (however you slice it), then you now have groups A1, A2, and B1 all opposed to the change and only group B2 happy with it. Hostility towards women increases (or appears to), as there's 3 of 4 groups against the change to include women.

If we make the change in line with most of the other changes - add to the lore, give reasons, write cool stories about it, make it seem integral to how the imperium is now, and so on - then you'll find A1 and A2 are still against it, "cos they're gurlz" but B1 and B2 are for it, because they don't feel like it's politics stepping in and just changing things for PC reasons.


So I'm not saying that doing it via respectful lore additions will stop the sexists from being sexist, but I am saying that doing it via "we're in the right so you lot shut up and accept it or get out, there are women marines now, deal with it" will make people who aren't sexist adverse to the change - not for it's content, but its execution. You'll have all the people who are against changing things for PC reasons angry about it, who wouldn't have been if it had been done respectfully.

I hope that this has clarified rather than being like some bizarre algebra problem. (Why am I holding 15 watermelons on a train heading east at 15mph?!?)




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Reasons later, as promised, about why "every decision people make is for political reasons" is wrong to me:

I ask those who say this (Looking at you Gert), please tell me what the political reason for adding primaris marines was? What ideals of society were they trying to uphold, what wrongs were they trying to right?

In effect, fill in the blank:

"Adding primaris marines to 40k in order to ____ is the same as adding female marines to 40k in order to improve representation"

And then make sure it's not the same reason as:

"Adding primaris marines to 40k in order to ____ is the same as adding female marines to 40k in order to make more sales, make the faction cooler, or progress the lore.

I don't think there is an answer, because I don't think that primaris marines weren't added for political reasons.

A1 is to be ignored because this type of person will hate anything regardless so their opinion is moot.
A2 makes no sense to me because they are placing a fictional universe above real people. This type of person can not be reasoned with because they will always find a way to make the change seem politically motivated, which it technically is because everything is.
B1 is in denial about the way society operates with regard to change for "political" reasons.



As I said early, B1 will find a way to make any change seem political because they object to changes based on reality. However, every single change made to 40k ever has been as a result of real-life, and B1 is just in denial over this. Why did GW initially not include large numbers of non-whites in their promotional material but then changed this practise? Because society was changing to be more accepting of non-whites. Why did GW introduce X new models/faction/game? Because they wanted to make more money.
If someone flat out says "I'm fine with X as long as they don't make it political", they've already decided X is political and will find any excuse to say so.



Primaris were added to 40k to make GW more money. Adding female SM would likely increase their market thereby making them more money. Political reasons don't just mean in terms of social changes, money is the most political thing of all.
GW has one mandate, sell models to keep profits up to keep the board members and investors happy. If it was believed that adding female SM to 40k would satisfy this then GW would do it in a heartbeat. It's corporate culture 101, if adding X product will increase money flow by generating interest from group Y, then X product will be added. It's exactly what happens during Pride when all the corporations put rainbow logos up and say "We support the LGBTQ+ community, look at our rainbow flag!!!!!", then as soon as June ends they go back to donating to groups and individuals fundamentally opposed to LGBTQ+ people existing or making it impossible for LGBTQ+ people to be safe in their workplace.

Gert wrote:
A1 is to be ignored because this type of person will hate anything regardless so their opinion is moot.
A2 makes no sense to me because they are placing a fictional universe above real people. This type of person can not be reasoned with because they will always find a way to make the change seem politically motivated, which it technically is because everything is.
B1 is in denial about the way society operates with regard to change for "political" reasons.

A1 and A2 are both opposed to female marines anyway, so their political stance is somewhat irrelevant. B1 is for female marines but against politics interfering with 40k.

I don't agree with your idea that absolutely everything that happens in 40k is political. When they wrote a story about orks using a deathstrike missile, much to the surprise of some 200 orks, they didn't do that for a political reason. When they added primaris and centurion suits, they didn't do that for political reasons.

Gert wrote:
As I said early, B1 will find a way to make any change seem political because they object to changes based on reality. However, every single change made to 40k ever has been as a result of real-life, and B1 is just in denial over this. Why did GW initially not include large numbers of non-whites in their promotional material but then changed this practise? Because society was changing to be more accepting of non-whites. Why did GW introduce X new models/faction/game? Because they wanted to make more money.
If someone flat out says "I'm fine with X as long as they don't make it political", they've already decided X is political and will find any excuse to say so.

I can outright disprove this, because I am strongly for female marines and also strongly against changing things for purely political reasons. A decision may have political repercussions, such as improving representation, but I am against being told "your game is changing because real-world politics". If they say female marines are happening because Cawl made them work and now marines have more recruitment pools, then I will not try to twist that to be political.

Your claims that every change ever made to 40k is political is bizarre and I think that it is wrong. I think you are mistaking a business plan for politics.

Gert wrote:
Primaris were added to 40k to make GW more money. Adding female SM would likely increase their market thereby making them more money. Political reasons don't just mean in terms of social changes, money is the most political thing of all.

Politics =/= capitalism, though western politics is deeply ingrained in it.

every decision GW makes is about selling models. If they decide to add female marines, the driving force for them to take to their shareholders will be "it will sell more models". Shareholders don't care about the politics, they care about money.

You failed to fill in the blanks on the first line. They added primaris to make money and sell models. That is not a politically influenced decision, it is a business decision. If they add female marines to make money and sell models, then that is also a business decision and not a political one. But if they add female marines to improve representation, then it is a political decision.


If they treat it exactly the same as they did in adding primaris, by expanding the lore to justify a new thing, then that is sympathetic and respectful to the way the game has progressed in its entire lifespan. If they just say "there are female marines, and we've overwritten it so there always were, and if you don't like it you're sexist" then it will not go down well. It's disrespectful to the game as it is, and doesn't actually add any respect for women in the process.

I don't understand what is expected to be gained by just telling people there are female marines now, deal with it, vs a sympathetic introduction which matches every other release in the past?

Placating board members and investors is politics. If you don't have the board and investors on side you won't have your job for much longer. I could say Primaris were a political decision because the board and investors demanded that profits be higher and Primaris were the solution. GW plays politics all the time and they absolutely play both sides.
"Hey guys look we added more female models to the range but we also fired a writer we just hired because supposedly an "investor" didn't like the things they said on Twitter about Wargaming and Warhammer having a fascism problem. Oh look here's a message where we say "No " to mean people in the hobby but we aren't going to address the concerns of someone whose race was used as the punchline of a joke by a high-ranking member of our design team at an event."

 some bloke wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 some bloke wrote:

Do you not see that you will get a far higher backlash from anyone who feels like they are being told what to do? And that this will not be lacking a feel of legitimacy because most people will say "I hate how they changed the game just to be more PC". Most people won't even be aginst the female marines, they'll be against it being done for political/societal reasons - you'll make people who don't mind female marines resentful about how it was done. I

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Lets say GW did absolutely everything possible to please their existing playerbase in the next couple of months - like, let's assume the absolute crazy impossible, like they do huge release waves for Eldar, Imperial Guard and Tyranids, then they release Word Bearers and Emperor's Children as spinoff 'dexes with their own miniature ranges ala thousand sons, and after all that, they put out new marine kits with female miniatures included and they come up with the BEST POSSIBLE in-universe explanation for why female marines get added.

Do you really, actually, in this universe that exists right now containing the people that exist within it believe that 99.9% of people who have a problem with female marines would not simply say "I hate how they changed the game to be more PC" regardless of any justification or in-lore reasoning by games workshop?

Because you seem to be presenting some kind of fantasy scenario where GW just drops a kit for marines with female heads and doesn't explain it in-universe at all.

I think that perhaps I'm not being clear on this.

There are two factors to consider here, two aspects of the people:

1: Whether or not they are opposed to female marines
2: Whether or not they are opposed to 40k being changed for external political reasons (all that jazz about "every decision a writer makes is political" aside, which I find somewhat wrong - reasons later)

Let's say option 1 is divided into "opposed" and "accepting", as A and B.
on 2 is split into "opposed" and "accepting", as 1 and 2.

Your possible people are:

A1: opposed to female marines and opposed to political changes
A2: Opposed to female marines and not to political changes
B1: Accepting female marines but opposed to political changes
B2: accepting of both female marines and political changes.

We can safely assume, as you said, that both A1 and A2 will be opposed to female marines because that is their stance. We can't change that, as what we're trying to do is fundamentally against their beliefs.

So we are left with B1 and B2 - both accepting of female marines, but one group is opposed to political changes in 40k.


We can assume that any people upset or angry about the change will make the environment bad for female games.

Currently (pre-change), A1 and A2 probably do this anyway. Some won't but chances are anyone who makes it unwelcoming for women is also someone who's opposed to female marines "'cos they're gurlz".

B1 and B2 aren't making things toxic, in all likelihood.


Now we make the change.

if we make the change politically, and say "this is happening because politics are interfering with 40k (however you slice it), then you now have groups A1, A2, and B1 all opposed to the change and only group B2 happy with it. Hostility towards women increases (or appears to), as there's 3 of 4 groups against the change to include women.

If we make the change in line with most of the other changes - add to the lore, give reasons, write cool stories about it, make it seem integral to how the imperium is now, and so on - then you'll find A1 and A2 are still against it, "cos they're gurlz" but B1 and B2 are for it, because they don't feel like it's politics stepping in and just changing things for PC reasons.


So I'm not saying that doing it via respectful lore additions will stop the sexists from being sexist, but I am saying that doing it via "we're in the right so you lot shut up and accept it or get out, there are women marines now, deal with it" will make people who aren't sexist adverse to the change - not for it's content, but its execution. You'll have all the people who are against changing things for PC reasons angry about it, who wouldn't have been if it had been done respectfully.

I hope that this has clarified rather than being like some bizarre algebra problem. (Why am I holding 15 watermelons on a train heading east at 15mph?!?)




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Reasons later, as promised, about why "every decision people make is for political reasons" is wrong to me:

I ask those who say this (Looking at you Gert), please tell me what the political reason for adding primaris marines was? What ideals of society were they trying to uphold, what wrongs were they trying to right?

In effect, fill in the blank:

"Adding primaris marines to 40k in order to ____ is the same as adding female marines to 40k in order to improve representation"

And then make sure it's not the same reason as:

"Adding primaris marines to 40k in order to ____ is the same as adding female marines to 40k in order to make more sales, make the faction cooler, or progress the lore.

I don't think there is an answer, because I don't think that primaris marines weren't added for political reasons.

Two points here, you say they must make the change for lore/artistic reasons or political reasons, why not both? That’s the reality here. It makes sense artistically and lore wise, we have shown that time and time again, but it also makes sense for political reasons. You can’t ignore the political reasons, they are real and are part of the hobby. They are the reasons they are making female guard heads, dark skin tone paints and BAME featured heads. It’s already happening and has been for ever. It’s not a reason not to.

Now you talk about how those opposed to the politics will be upset if we acknowledge the political point. Well sorry, they are going to to be upset and cry culture war whatever. That’s what bigots do. I’m all in favour of good writing and cool models to take people along with us on this but politics is evident in every hateful and nasty post. Don’t ignore it. Do both and make it as good as it can be.

Andykp wrote:

Two points here, you say they must make the change for lore/artistic reasons or political reasons, why not both? That’s the reality here. It makes sense artistically and lore wise, we have shown that time and time again, but it also makes sense for political reasons. You can’t ignore the political reasons, they are real and are part of the hobby. They are the reasons they are making female guard heads, dark skin tone paints and BAME featured heads. It’s already happening and has been for ever. It’s not a reason not to.

Now you talk about how those opposed to the politics will be upset if we acknowledge the political point. Well sorry, they are going to to be upset and cry culture war whatever. That’s what bigots do. I’m all in favour of good writing and cool models to take people along with us on this but politics is evident in every hateful and nasty post. Don’t ignore it. Do both and make it as good as it can be.

^This is exactly it.

[

Two points here, you say they must make the change for lore/artistic reasons or political reasons, why not both? That’s the reality here. It makes sense artistically and lore wise, we have shown that time and time again, but it also makes sense for political reasons. You can’t ignore the political reasons, they are real and are part of the hobby. They are the reasons they are making female guard heads, dark skin tone paints and BAME featured heads. It’s already happening and has been for ever. It’s not a reason not to.

Now you talk about how those opposed to the politics will be upset if we acknowledge the political point. Well sorry, they are going to to be upset and cry culture war whatever. That’s what bigots do. I’m all in favour of good writing and cool models to take people along with us on this but politics is evident in every hateful and nasty post. Don’t ignore it. Do both and make it as good as it can be.

I'd like to think its down to some element of our community's rather dogmatic adherence the 'cult of officialdom' and any pushback being typical of any kind of 'colouring outside of the lines'.

I'd like to think if gw went ahead and made female marine models as a sales decision, and rewrote the lore to justify their inclusion, those same people would grumble and complain, as many do when faced with 'change', but would ultimately suck it up and like primaris, even if they didn't like it, accept it that its here to stay.

I'd like to think that I'm optimistic and that im right in thinking this. My wife, however, will tell me with a lot of affection that I'm an idiot. (Can't argue, she's scottish). And sadly, my optimistic vision for the world isn't the reality.
Don't get me wrong, i think some people would go this way as I describe. I think there'd be some, maybe too many would lash out at the community for the perceived 'loss of privelege'.

I'll be honest- some of what Smudge and Gert said much earlier in the thread rubbed me the wrong way. Having spoken to them since, I'd like to think it's 'internet and tone' and while maybe a little wary of some things, I'm fundamentally in agreement with their perspective now. Sometimes it takes a word or a phrase or an argument presented or spoken in a different way to make folks see that perspective and to 'close the loop'. To me, that phrase was 'everything is political', as Smudge said. Including female marines has a political component. Not including female marines, whether I want to accept it or not, has a political component. So if its political, weild it as such. 40k, as a while, originated in having a political component and commentary - it was a satire of thatcherite Britain. Sometimes I miss how thry have moved away from it. Bring it back.

The logical conclusion to making 40k more obviously satire again is to resurrect Margaret Thatcher. Downside of that is Margaret Thatcher comes back. Is it a price worth paying?

some bloke wrote:

As I said, I don't care about their backlash, because they'd be lashing back irrespectively.

That... is a weird way to go about it.

do you not see that by doing a change in a way that will make people push back and then saying "I don't care what they think" is a very good way to turn a good thing into a bad thing?

The question becomes 'why are they pushing back against it'.

If people are pushing back against it because they feel icky about women having a larger presence in the hobby, I don't think I really should care about that.

if you introduce female marines and just outright say "this is being done because it's not PC to have all-male space marines" then you will get a huge amount of people who don't care either way about female marines getting annoyed about it because it's politics interfering with 40k. Do you not see that?

Politics already affects 40k, and even your proposed lore change, no matter how much you claim is not political, will still be perceived as such, because many of the people using "no politics in my hobby!" as a defence don't care about the politics necessarily, it's the politics they don't agree with - more often than not "woke" politics..

And where will they direct this ire of theirs? Will it be to the shop colleagues? no, they are just there to sell them plastic crack. Instead they'll pick a convenient scapegoat to direct their unhappiness about being forced to do something for PC reasons, and that will be the people they assume were complaining about it to make them change it - female gamers.

Implying that women hobbyists aren't already the scapegoat, or that the folks in this thread haven't already been called some pretty awful things for supporting in the inclusion of women Astartes?

These people will always be hostile to what they don't like. Sugar coating it with "but we justified it in lore" will just make them say that the lore was changed for political reasons, and they'll continue to be toxic - but without that legitimacy, and with that very clear slap in the face saying "women Space Marines are a thing now, deal with it", it's more likely they'll be driven further into the fringes, and their opinions will cease to be mainstream.

Your approach to this is setting it up to fail spectacularly. You'll go from a select few idiots who take it too seriously and poison the environment for female gamers to a huge amount of people who are resentful that their game, which has had the lore to make the things they are using make sense, suddenly got changed without any lore explanation so there could be female marine models, with a big announcement saying "we don't care what you think, there's women there now, deal with it".

Hang on, you're saying that a "huge amount of people" care so much more about their game being "politics-free" that they'd then all suddenly become toxic towards women because of that?

Congratulations. You've proven my point excellently why the hobby *needs* to be more inclusive of women, if apparently just including women Space Marines would set everyone into a women-hating frenzy. You've proven excellently why I shouldn't care about their opinions - because apparently they think it's justified to hate women because their fictional super soldiers became gender inclusive, and the made-up fiction didn't owe them an answer.

Why on earth should I respect the views of someone who, as you describe, uses the lore getting changed to be an excuse to be a toxic asshat to women in the hobby?

I have no problem with people who are actually sexist being made to shut up or get out.

Sorry, but prioritising the lore over real people, and being mad when the lore starts including them, is definitely not entirely neutral.

Full blown sexist? No. But a severe misguiding of actual priorities? Yes.

But if this change were made without any respect to the game, then it will make people who would otherwise have accepted the change happily feel resentful about it. That will not improve things at all. If anything you'll tempt more women in with the female marines, but into an environment which is more resentful against women than it was before.

If that's all it takes to make people turn on women in this hobby, then this hobby is more broken than we thought.

some bloke wrote:There are two factors to consider here, two aspects of the people:
...
Your possible people are:

A1: opposed to female marines and opposed to political changes
A2: Opposed to female marines and not to political changes
B1: Accepting female marines but opposed to political changes
B2: accepting of both female marines and political changes.

We can safely assume, as you said, that both A1 and A2 will be opposed to female marines because that is their stance. We can't change that, as what we're trying to do is fundamentally against their beliefs.

So we are left with B1 and B2 - both accepting of female marines, but one group is opposed to political changes in 40k.

We can assume that any people upset or angry about the change will make the environment bad for female games.

Currently (pre-change), A1 and A2 probably do this anyway. Some won't but chances are anyone who makes it unwelcoming for women is also someone who's opposed to female marines "'cos they're gurlz".

B1 and B2 aren't making things toxic, in all likelihood.

Now we make the change.

if we make the change politically, and say "this is happening because politics are interfering with 40k (however you slice it), then you now have groups A1, A2, and B1 all opposed to the change and only group B2 happy with it. Hostility towards women increases (or appears to), as there's 3 of 4 groups against the change to include women.

If we make the change in line with most of the other changes - add to the lore, give reasons, write cool stories about it, make it seem integral to how the imperium is now, and so on - then you'll find A1 and A2 are still against it, "cos they're gurlz" but B1 and B2 are for it, because they don't feel like it's politics stepping in and just changing things for PC reasons.

All of the A categories are functionally identical anyway. Regardless, they are opposed to women Astartes, so appealing to their political "neutrality" (no such thing exists) is worthless.

You'll notice that I emphasised your comment along the lines of "people who don't want politics put into their games will make the environment worse for women". I'm going to say this now, I'm not going to condone an approach that appeases people who would use the inclusion of women as an excuse to be toxic towards them. They can join the rest of the A lot, as far as I'm concerned, if they care more about lore than about *real human people*.

You are asking me to resort to literal appeasement tactics to appeal to people who seem happy to turn on women in the hobby who's opinion I should apparently care about? Why should I appease people who are so clearly willing to be utterly exclusionary and toxic?

So I'm not saying that doing it via respectful lore additions will stop the sexists from being sexist

Sorry, but if someone's going to use a change in the lore as an excuse to be toxic towards women in the hobby, the problem isn't with the lore being changed, but with the person being toxic.

What is a "respectful lore addition" in respect of? The lore, an unfeeling, imaginary concept? The people who seem so eager to jump all aboard the "let's be toxic to women!" train? Why should I respect either?

You'll have all the people who are against changing things for PC reasons angry about it, who wouldn't have been if it had been done respectfully.

The people who are against things changing for PC reasons will call any change they don't want to see a "PC change". If someone is *so* opposed to women Astartes that they'd use a lore change to justify being toxic to them, I have no doubts in believing that they'd say *any* lore change, "respectful" or not, that they don't like happened for "PC reasons".

I'm sorry, but this "TOTALLY fine with women Space Marines, but don't want it for PC reasons" audience doesn't exist as a major bracket, because they'll call anything a "PC reason" - the majority of this demographic are just the A group in disguise.

I ask those who say this (Looking at you Gert), please tell me what the political reason for adding primaris marines was? What ideals of society were they trying to uphold, what wrongs were they trying to right?

In effect, fill in the blank:

"Adding primaris marines to 40k in order to ____ is the same as adding female marines to 40k in order to improve representation"

And then make sure it's not the same reason as:

"Adding primaris marines to 40k in order to ____ is the same as adding female marines to 40k in order to make more sales, make the faction cooler, or progress the lore.

I don't think there is an answer, because I don't think that primaris marines weren't added for political reasons.

Increase sales, and potentially rebrand slightly the image of Space Marines to create new IP and marketing devices that may be easier to legally protect.

Fundamentally, it is economic, but economics are political.

I'm not entirely sure why you're removing economics from political thought.

Deadnight wrote:I'd like to think its down to some element of our community's rather dogmatic adherence the 'cult of officialdom' and any pushback being typical of any kind of 'colouring outside of the lines'.

I'd like to think if gw went ahead and made female marine models as a sales decision, and rewrote the lore to justify their inclusion, those same people would grumble and complain, as many do when faced with 'change', but would ultimately suck it up and like primaris, even if they didn't like it, accept it that its here to stay.

I'd like to think that I'm optimistic and that im right in thinking this. My wife, however, will tell me with a lot of affection that I'm an idiot. (Can't argue, she's scottish). And sadly, my optimistic vision for the world isn't the reality.
Don't get me wrong, i think some people would go this way as I describe. I think there'd be some, maybe too many would lash out at the community for the perceived 'loss of privelege'.

Yeah, like, I'd *love* to believe that it was a simple as these, and as innocent, but you know as well as I do that this isn't (and in fact, more often than not) the case.

I want to be optimistic, I do, but I've been proven wrong too many times.

I'll be honest- some of what Smudge and Gert said much earlier in the thread rubbed me the wrong way. Having spoken to them since, I'd like to think it's 'internet and tone' and while maybe a little wary of some things, I'm fundamentally in agreement with their perspective now. Sometimes it takes a word or a phrase or an argument presented or spoken in a different way to make folks see that perspective and to 'close the loop'. To me, that phrase was 'everything is political', as Smudge said. Including female marines has a political component. Not including female marines, whether I want to accept it or not, has a political component. So if its political, weild it as such. 40k, as a while, originated in having a political component and commentary - it was a satire of thatcherite Britain. Sometimes I miss how thry have moved away from it. Bring it back.

I really don't like using the phrase "political", because of it's buzzword connotations, and how it can be very much ignored by the whole "but I don't want there to be politics in my hobby", but ultimately, it is - of course it is.

Everything is political, to an extent, which is why I don't like using it as a crutch argument, because *everything* is political. It's not a unique point to make. But I can't argue that there aren't outside circumstances that the lore is both affected by and affects in turn in good faith.

I'm a little sorrowful that I had to use a phrase I don't particularly like doing, because it plays into linguistic buzzwords and rhetoric I don't personally want to embody, but if that phrase helps make things clearer on my stance and why I support it, then I'll take that.

And yes, you're absolutely right - if including women Astartes is political, then so must be excluding them.

 Gert wrote:
I mean I'm pretty sure most people here aren't demonising anyone for disagreeing.

Oh yes you are. The utter lack of self-awareness is honestly mind-blowing at this point.

The idea that a selfish corporation like GW would claim moral authority over its playerbase is disgusting. Doesn't matter what they're saying, really.

Hecaton wrote:

 Gert wrote:
I mean I'm pretty sure most people here aren't demonising anyone for disagreeing.

Oh yes you are. The utter lack of self-awareness is honestly mind-blowing at this point.

Disagreement? Depends what kind of hare-brained arguments people decide to use, but any issues aren't coming from "disagreement", they're coming from such points as "women can't be Space Marines because then the men Astartes would be horny" or "people only want women Space Marines for the purposes of fulfilling their fetishes".

Just to remind the audience that you made those claims.

The idea that a selfish corporation like GW would claim moral authority over its playerbase is disgusting. Doesn't matter what they're saying, really.

Including women in the setting isn't "claiming moral authority". I thought we'd all be on the same page that including women is fine and normal, nothing morally virtuous. It's just the baseline I would expect.

Wanna provide some evidence for that claim there chief?
And again, if you don't care about SM and you don't care what GW does, why join the discussion.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:I'm sorry, but this "TOTALLY fine with women Space Marines, but don't want it for PC reasons" audience doesn't exist as a major bracket, because they'll call anything a "PC reason" - the majority of this demographic are just the A group in disguise.

I'm skipping a lot of what you said as there are two important things to note here.

The least important one is that you've misunderstood the groups. I am not suggesting that B group will become against female marines (effectively become in "A" group) if it is done for political reasons. But if people in group B1, who don't like politics interfering with their game, see if being done for political reasons, they will think that it's being shoehorned in without regard for the lore, and will be against it for that reason - not because they're women, but because of how insensitive and jarring the change was made.


The second, most important thing is how you seem to think that having the moral highground will affect anything in real life. If you were to make the change, and say "well I don't care about the people who don't like the change because they are morally inferior to me, why should I care what they think?", and then turn a far greater proportion of people (hell, or any greater proportion than it would have been if handled well) against the idea, it doesn't matter how much higher your horse is than theirs - they will still make the hobby either no better for women, or worse.

I have a motorbike. It has loud exhausts, and government regulations say that's bad now and you can't have them. I'm not fussed about the volume of the exhausts, the decision to have loud ones was arbitrary, but I'm in no rush to change them. The MOT comes due and I take it to my garage, and they have a set of new exhausts which will make my bike quieter, more powerful, and more efficient, and a government grant to pay for them.

If they say to me "we're changing the exhausts on your bike, for free, because the government said you can't have the exhausts you used to have any more", I will feel unhappy about that, and feel like the government is interfering with my stuff.

If they say "We're changing your exhausts for free, these ones will make the bike more powerful, more efficient, and quieter, which makes if fit with government regs", I will say "wow, thanks, that's awesome!". I won't feel like the government has been interfering with my stuff.

In both cases, when I ride away it's on a bike that's quieter, more efficient, more powerful, and conforms to government regs.



Regardless of peoples stance on the female marines, initiating this change with a big statement of how 40k is being interfered with by external issues, and the changes are being made exclusively for that reason, and not giving it decent justification in the lore, will cause more people to oppose it than just progressing the lore in the right direction and not even mentioning the politics.

And in both cases, we all ride away with a flagship faction which conforms to societal regulations. So why is it so important to shove it down peoples throats that it is political?



As another analogy - you have a pack of domestic dogs. Some like cats, some don't care about cats, one or two hate cats, and about half of them will attack anything that's thrown at them.

You have a cat, which you want to add to the group - it can take the one or two dogs which will attack it anyway, because the dogs that like cats will defend them. Do you introduce it gently, or do you throw it at them, and then say "why should I care what the dogs which attack anything thrown at them will do to a cat that's thrown at them, they clearly hate cats!"?

Not every reason for not wanting something is about sexism. I like cheese, don't like peanuts. If you offer me cheesy peanuts, I will turn them down - it doesn't mean I don't like cheese.

 Gert wrote:

Spoiler:

Hecaton wrote:

Oh yes you are. The utter lack of self-awareness is honestly mind-blowing at this point.

The idea that a selfish corporation like GW would claim moral authority over its playerbase is disgusting. Doesn't matter what they're saying, really.

Wanna provide some evidence for that claim there chief?
And again, if you don't care about SM and you don't care what GW does, why join the discussion.

Exhibit A, this thread. You aren't allowing room for anyone to disagree with you without being denigrated as a sexist.

Hectagon wrote:Exhibit A, this thread. You aren't allowing room for anyone to disagree with you without being denigrated as a sexist.

I have to say that several times in this thread it's been insinuated that I'm a sexist, though I will say it's not been by Gert. I'll agree using the royal "you", as opposed to a directed claim!

If their entire enjoyment of 40k comes down to things being thrown in with little explanation or reason then why didn't they leave when Necrons were redone or when Centurions/Primaris/GSC/Knights were added? Is their specific tolerance limited to the inclusion of female SM? If so then they were just group A, waiting for an excuse.



I don't care about people who don't like change now and I don't think myself superior, I'm just confused as to why these people have a specific dislike of female SM but not any of the hundred other changes GW have made to 40k in the last 30 years and if they did dislike those changes why are they still in the hobby if they hate it so much?
Why do the feelings of exclusionary people matter more than people receiving threats and hatred to the fence-sitters? If these people who are on the fence are so quick to join the "hating women" side, then they were always on that side but they were just waiting for an excuse.


If you have already decided that the exhaust change is government interference then the words the mechanic uses isn't going to change your mind.



Opposing the introduction of female SM is just as political as introducing them except those opposed to it are just in denial of reality. Appeasing people who might kick off and start hating women because female SM are introduced is a poor strategy.



I can't dissect that analogy because it's complete nonsense. Why are there so many dogs? Why do you have dogs that are violent all the time? Why are you introducing cats into an environment where the majority of the dogs are going to murder them and each other?
Presumably, the dogs that like cats are the pro-female SM crowd, the ones that don't care, don't care, and are therefore discounted, the ones that hate cats are the anti-female SM crowd. I get confused at the "half the dogs will attack anything". First off, these dogs clearly have rabies and need to be put down. Second, if these dogs are supposed to represent people who don't like "politics" interfering with 40k then that makes no sense.


Nobody said every argument is sexist. At all.