Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

It's a matter of basic logic, not authority.
Would you prefer to have two options, or only one? You're free to chose either, or both of course.

Proof that the second option will damage the first one are still to be provided. What we get until now is all about historical inspiration and monastic life (plus pseudoscience, but that is another topic about how fictional world logic works... It's a pretty technical point that will add little to the discussion).

Would you like to have an overview of the major monastic Western traditions, so we can double-check what factions between those available maintain more closely a similar feeling in 40k?
Spoiler alert: usually it's not Marine, but another branch or faction within the Imperium.

The lore doesn’t need to be messy, if it’s just an idea that a particular hobbyist has about her or his particular project. If anything, homebrew lore can be some of the most fascinating. Fans tend to take great pains to make their ideas “fit” with existing canon, especially when their idea seems to contradict an established principal of canon.

What would make it messy lore-wise is if the corporation just used hamfisted fiat to shoehorn in whatever a beancounter proclaims will sell better. This kind of top-down imposition tends to have the least consideration for existing canon.

I’m using “canon” here as a convenient term, I know it’s not exactly applicable.

Would you prefer to have two options, or only one? You're free to chose either, or both of course.

You are already free to chose to have female SM in your army. It’s your army, it can be whatever you want.

What do people who want female space marines actually want? Based on the process we know of, they'd be exactly the same as male space marines, aside from using female pronouns wouldn't they? The amount of hormonal and physical changes inherent in the space marine process are not going to result in female space marines that are recognizably female - even facial features are impacted significantly by testosterone therapy and that sort of thing, and what space marines undergo goes far beyond anything humans currently experience. There's unlikely to be any physical distinguishing features that are going to be visible at a 28/32mm scale, unless they go out of their way to feminize them.

Is it just the idea that under that armor the person might have originally had XX chromosomes rather than XY chromosomes? And that some of them might use female pronouns rather than male ones?

Not trying to be snarky here, I'm honestly curious. Because what people want has a big impact on how the lore would have to change.

edit: Based on the poll in the model thread, virtually nobody wants feminized marines. So is it just that people want an official GW blessing that they are "allowed" to call their dudes dudettes instead?

It would be nice yeah.
All these posters keep saying that "officialdom" doesn't matter and just make "Your Dudes" but then get up in arms when change is suggested.
So what is it? Does the background matter or not?

I'd say the three best options overall for this would be:

1) They have always been there. This is lazy, but just say "oh yeah they've been around forever its just never come up" and start slowly adding in female characters/models/lore bits.
2) The lost Primarchs were female: Probably already mentioned, didn't read through the entire thread, but the two missing Primarchs were female and one or both of them returns from parts unknown, along with the institutional knowledge on how to make female space marines. Their legions can either be all female, or mixed gender.
3) Lean into the post human, hunk of meat ungendered angle. Marines are no longer human, and have gone through years and years of mutation and conditioning. Throw in the fluff that men and women both become marines, and the changes inflicted upon them more or less turn them into a hunk of meat. Maybe include initiates, serfs, and say marines with only the early stages of implants be shown as both genders, while full marines get marked more as a "they/them", or even "it" (by outsiders), with slightly redone heads to help mark in what they once were.

Honestly of the three there I find 2 the most interesting.

 Manchu wrote:
The lore doesn’t need to be messy, if it’s just an idea that a particular hobbyist has about her or his particular project. If anything, homebrew lore can be some of the most fascinating. Fans tend to take great pains to make their ideas “fit” with existing canon, especially when their idea seems to contradict an established principal of canon.

Indeed, when in doubt make them a chaos chapter. Chaos can do anything.

What would make it messy lore-wise is if the corporation just used hamfisted fiat to shoehorn in whatever a beancounter proclaims will sell better. This kind of top-down imposition tends to have the least consideration for existing canon.

An excellent point.

I haven't seen anyone express opposition to you calling "your dudes" "your dudettes" instead. If people want to say their chapter has female marines and invent whatever explanation for that they want, that seems to be fine with the vast majority of people in this thread.

Maybe the compromise everyone could live with then would be GW saying "almost all space marines are male, but the galaxy is a big and mysterious place and who knows if there might be female space marines somewhere out there? The process is normally thought to only work on males, but who knows how reliable the Imperial scribes are who wrote that down?" and leave it at that?

It harkens back to GW's original "leave a little mystery and ambiguity in the galaxy" approach - one they have largely abandoned for the rest of the IP - but maybe it's time for the return of a little of that old attitude?

yukishiro1 wrote:
I haven't seen anyone express opposition to you calling "your dudes" "your dudettes" instead. If people want to say their chapter has female marines and invent whatever explanation for that they want, that seems to be fine with the vast majority of people in this thread.

Maybe the compromise everyone could live with then would be GW saying "almost all space marines are male, but the galaxy is a big and mysterious place and who knows if there might be female space marines somewhere out there? The process is normally thought to only work on males, but who knows how reliable the Imperial scribes are who wrote that down?" and leave it at that?

It harkens back to GW's original "leave a little mystery and ambiguity in the galaxy" approach - one they have largely abandoned for the rest of the IP - but maybe it's time for the return of a little of that old attitude?

That would be a perfectly good introduction in my books. To the point of I don't even consider it a compromise. Based on current lore one could say it's even implied right now.

Well there's a 70 page discussion and this one is on 12 pages, both of which have loads of posters saying people shouldn't have "Their Dudettes". I don't see a problem with your option Yukishiro but apparently having the potential for female SM is going to destroy the setting of 40k.

Really? I see a lot of people opposed to changing the existing lore in significant ways and opposed to GW bringing out a bunch of new kits and female characters. I don't see anyone saying "I would be angry and/or would not play against your space marines army if you told me they're dudettes instead of dudes."

If GW was just ambiguous about it - not ruling it out, but not explicitly confirming it either - that seems like it satisfies everyone. People who want female space marines can have them, people who don't won't, and neither the game nor the lore need to change in any substantial way to accommodate both camps.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Really? I see a lot of people opposed to changing the existing lore in significant ways and opposed to GW bringing out a bunch of new kits and female characters. I don't see anyone saying "I would be angry and/or would not play against your space marines army if you told me they're dudettes instead of dudes."

I mean I just literally had a picture of a model with about 200 likes deleted by a moderator on a large Facebook group because the marine was female. Now I didn't receive serious insults or death threats like happens sometimes when people post their female marine models, but it still means that my models are not welcome.

If GW was just ambiguous about it - not ruling it out, but not explicitly confirming it either - that seems like it satisfies everyone. People who want female space marines can have them, people who don't won't, and neither the game nor the lore need to change in any substantial way to accommodate both camps.

Well, 'maybe' is definitely better than 'hell, no!'

 Crimson wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Really? I see a lot of people opposed to changing the existing lore in significant ways and opposed to GW bringing out a bunch of new kits and female characters. I don't see anyone saying "I would be angry and/or would not play against your space marines army if you told me they're dudettes instead of dudes."

I mean I just literally had a picture of a model with about 200 likes deleted by a moderator on a large Facebook group because the marine was female.

Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Really? I see a lot of people opposed to changing the existing lore in significant ways and opposed to GW bringing out a bunch of new kits and female characters. I don't see anyone saying "I would be angry and/or would not play against your space marines army if you told me they're dudettes instead of dudes."

I mean I just literally had a picture of a model with about 200 likes deleted by a moderator on a large Facebook group because the marine was female.

Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.

No - it was a good move. It is just going to spark endless debate and draw needless attention to their page. Facebook might actually shut your site down if they see things the deem "hate speech" which that debate is highly likely to produce - whether it is motived by hate or not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I prefer this answer -

Female space marines should not be added just as Male space marines should not be added. Space marines have no gender - they have no sex. They are cyborgs with interest in 1 thing. Killing aliens.

yukishiro1 wrote:

Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.

I agree it is absurd, but it is not unusual at all. Female space marines are like a red rag to a bull to certain people. If you post pics of such conversions online, in many places negativity will follow, sometimes to utterly absurd degree. And these are not some random isolated incidents. If people could do their own stuff in peace, and people would treat this like other canon deviations like making loyalist versions of traitor legions etc, then it wouldn't matter that much (Cool loyalist World Eaters, mate!) But that simply is not the reality where we live in.

I used to think like you, but this insane hostility the mere idea of female marines garners is actually what has changed my mind about the topic. I want GW to officially back female marines to normalise them.

Manchu wrote:

Again: it isn’t broken and doesn’t need fixing.

Sorry, I didn't know you were the arbiter on that.

No need to apologize, now you know lol.

In all seriousness, when I say the IP “ain’t broken” I’m not making an arbitrary declaration, I’m observing fact.

Some of you are coming at this topic as if GW has hired you to consult them on how to reboot a failing property.

In reality, the property has been and is doing great.

If anything, “I didn’t know you were the arbiter of that” is the proper response to those who say that GW must make female SM.

No-one's saying that it's not doing financially well.

What we are talking about is issues like what Crimson explains below, or how "good" doesn't mean "best" or "unimprovable".

Manchu wrote:You are already free to chose to have female SM in your army. It’s your army, it can be whatever you want.

Again, I wish it were so, but far too often do I see women Astartes models get shot down and the subject of great flame wars *simply for existing*.

That doesn't happen with orange Space Marines, or yellow Space Marines, or blue Space Marines, or pink Space Marines.

yukishiro1 wrote:What do people who want female space marines actually want?

Women Space Marines. Just like how there's male Space Marines.

Based on the process we know of, they'd be exactly the same as male space marines, aside from using female pronouns wouldn't they?

We don't really know anything for sure, because we don't have women Space Marines.

The amount of hormonal and physical changes inherent in the space marine process are not going to result in female space marines that are recognizably female - even facial features are impacted significantly by testosterone therapy and that sort of thing, and what space marines undergo goes far beyond anything humans currently experience. There's unlikely to be any physical distinguishing features that are going to be visible at a 28/32mm scale, unless they go out of their way to feminize them.

But there's apparently enough detail that we can have visually different and distinct masculine features?

If Space Marines bare heads *were* indistinguishable fleshy masses of muscle, then I'd agree, but GW have made it pretty clear that Space Marines have some pretty varied faces amongst their lot. I don't doubt that more feminine heads could be distinguished.

Is it just the idea that under that armor the person might have originally had XX chromosomes rather than XY chromosomes? And that some of them might use female pronouns rather than male ones?

Also that too, especially in one of my comments about Space Marine Chapters potentially having a distinction between their assigned birth genders and their Astartes identity.

So is it just that people want an official GW blessing that they are "allowed" to call their dudes dudettes instead?

Call and model, yes.

IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Really? I see a lot of people opposed to changing the existing lore in significant ways and opposed to GW bringing out a bunch of new kits and female characters. I don't see anyone saying "I would be angry and/or would not play against your space marines army if you told me they're dudettes instead of dudes."

I mean I just literally had a picture of a model with about 200 likes deleted by a moderator on a large Facebook group because the marine was female.

Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.

No - it was a good move. It is just going to spark endless debate and draw needless attention to their page. Facebook might actually shut your site down if they see things the deem "hate speech" which that debate is highly likely to produce - whether it is motived by hate or not.

So the answer is to remove an inoffensive picture of a model instead of banning and removing everyone who made "hate speech" comments?

Sounds like a failure of moderation, if you ask me.

I prefer this answer -

Female space marines should not be added just as Male space marines should not be added. Space marines have no gender - they have no sex. They are cyborgs with interest in 1 thing. Killing aliens.

I would too, if Space Marines *were* explicitly genderless. Unfortunately, they do have male-presenting features. I would really like them to be explicitly genderless - I think having them only use "Astartes" pronouns, and be visibly inhuman would be so much more interesting than "warrior monk = all male".

Basically, if we can have men, then we can have women. If we can't have women, then we shouldn't have men. And obviously, vice versa.

 Crimson wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

Wow, that's absurd. Talk about giving the inmates control of the asylum.

I agree it is absurd, but it is not unusual at all. Female space marines are like a red rag to a bull to certain people. If you post pics of such conversions online, in many places negativity will follow, sometimes to utterly absurd degree. And these are not some random isolated incidents. If people could do their own stuff in peace, and people would treat this like other canon deviations like making loyalist versions of traitor legions etc, then it wouldn't matter that much (Cool loyalist World Eaters, mate!) But that simply is not the reality where we live in.

I used to think like you, but this insane hostility the mere idea of female marines garners is actually what has changed my mind about the topic. I want GW to officially back female marines to normalise them.

Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters. You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?

Like...did you see that Ravengard Shrike model with the emo hairstyle? Did you see how that was ridiculed? It has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with space marines are supposed to look a certain way.

yukishiro1 wrote:

If GW was just ambiguous about it - not ruling it out, but not explicitly confirming it either - that seems like it satisfies everyone. People who want female space marines can have them, people who don't won't, and neither the game nor the lore need to change in any substantial way to accommodate both camps.

Allowing people to pretend people they don't like aren't real does not have great end results over the course of history, even if it appeases their egos.

That would be a perfectly good introduction in my books. To the point of I don't even consider it a compromise. Based on current lore one could say it's even implied right now.

Absolutely correct. As things already stand, female SM can already exist in 40k as your own hobby project. And GW saying “it’s your army, do what you want!” has been a thing for a long, long time.

Also there is a BIG gap between the way people can be endlessly acrimonious online and how people behave IRL.

If you have a beautiful army that includes or comprises female SM and you take it to the store, all things being equal, it’s not going to be a problem.

When people post their conversions in the P&M section of this site, it doesn’t really create problems either. The problems seem to come from the abstract demi-ideological around what GW should/must do/not do.

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:
They are monsters. You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?

Not really?

 Manchu wrote:

That would be a perfectly good introduction in my books. To the point of I don't even consider it a compromise. Based on current lore one could say it's even implied right now.

Absolutely correct. As things already stand, female SM can already exist in 40k as your own hobby project. And GW saying “it’s your army, do what you want!” has been a thing for a long, long time.

Tell that to the people saying that it's not canon, heresy, so-on-so-forth, in this very thread, I guess.

Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters. You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?

What? Even assuming you mean agendered, that's explicitly not true because they're Battle Brother this, Battle Brother that.

Well it isn’t canon, it probably is canonically heresy, etc, etc.

But there is room for non canon / heretical stuff in your own project.

Again, my all- or partially-female SM chapter may think of itself as completely orthodox but the inquisition might very well think otherwise and send your chapter to hunt me down. Now we have a good narrative for our game.

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters.

Why is being female sexualisation? Marines are currently men, why is that not sexualisation? And yeas, they should remain asexual; women can be asexual. Or are you confusing agender with asexual? Current marines are not agender. Though yes, some marines indeed could be agender too.

You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?

Tell that to Space Wolves! Also, are women legally required to have ponytails where you live?

Like...did you see that Ravengard Shrike model with the emo hairstyle? Did you see how that was ridiculed? It has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with space marines are supposed to look a certain way.

Yet people posting their painted Shrikes didn't receive hostility.

No I mean A sexual - space marines don't have sex organs. That is what that means. Were talking about models here. They are pumped full of testosterone to an insane degree - they would not have any feminine features. - There is no debate to be had really...human females that take heavy testosterone look like males. Graudruple that and what do you expect to see. I put helmets on all my marines anyways if I can - their faces usually look pretty bad...mostly because GW is pretty bad at making mass produced faces. Look at the codex art for Ultramarines and Ironhands supplements. Those meat heads are what marines should look like.

If you want to talk about what space marines call each other...like "Brother" I would assume that is just military tradition passed down. The primarchs are all male so they called them brothers...Seeing as the space marines were Asexual and have no purpose for a gender...I don't see that as much of an issue.

You keep using that word, I don't think you know what it means.

Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity.

 LunarSol wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

If GW was just ambiguous about it - not ruling it out, but not explicitly confirming it either - that seems like it satisfies everyone. People who want female space marines can have them, people who don't won't, and neither the game nor the lore need to change in any substantial way to accommodate both camps.

Allowing people to pretend people they don't like aren't real does not have great end results over the course of history, even if it appeases their egos.

I honestly don't know what this response has to do with my suggestion.

 Crimson wrote:

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Yikes...you want to "normalize" the idea of sexualizing marines when they are asexual....I would like marine to remain Asexual because it makes sense. They are not human. They are monsters.

Why is being female sexualisation? Marines are currently men, why is that not sexualisation? And yeas, they should remain asexual; women can be asexual. Or are you confusing agender with asexual? Current marines are not agender. Though yes, some marines indeed could be agender too.

You take away from that monster vibe when you strap on a pony tail wouldn't you agree?

Tell that to Space Wolves! Also, are women legally required to have ponytails where you live?

Like...did you see that Ravengard Shrike model with the emo hairstyle? Did you see how that was ridiculed? It has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with space marines are supposed to look a certain way.

Yet people posting their painted Shrikes didn't receive hostility.

How else are you going to differentiate male/female features on a 32mm model covered in power armor?

Your right...shrike is a great model and everyone loved it

 Gert wrote:
Well there's a 70 page discussion and this one is on 12 pages, both of which have loads of posters saying people shouldn't have "Their Dudettes". I don't see a problem with your option Yukishiro but apparently having the potential for female SM is going to destroy the setting of 40k.

FSM wont destroy the 40K setting... But many consider this an arbitrary change that diludes or muddles the setting for no real gain to be appreciated (beyond the wishfull thinking of a few).

I know two things about Female Space Marines:

1) They don't really make sense, given everything we know about the recruitment and selection process for Marines. Depending on the Chapter, a few dozen slots a year are divided amongst millions or billions or people, which means that much like modern elite units, even exceptional women would probably fall off. Add in the ritualized nature of the surgeries, it takes a lot of folding and exception grabbing for FSMs to make sense within the context of everything we know about marines.

2) They attract a hostility and level of vitriol grossly out of proportion to point number 1.

I find the desire to have female marines a bit odd, but harmless. I also think that most people that actually do it are doing so because they think it's neat, not out of some ideological point. However, any mention of FMSs invariably brings out the screeching hordes who seem shockingly invested in the genital situation of their asexual super soldiers. And that, of course, leads to things being said which brings out the inclusion argument, because you can read the "no girls allowed" vibe through these dudes from a mile away.

And thus we get this weird verbal war of attrition. 20 years ago somebody though that modeling breasts on a space marine would be cool, and now we have to have endless discussions about the topic.

Asexual is also a term in biology, referring to a type of reproduction.

It can also be used more generally of people to mean lack of sexual activity.

And there is also the usage as a sexual orientation.

Anyhow, it’s true that regardless of SM having no concern for sexuality one way or the other, they are nonetheless gendered as male.

 Gert wrote:
You keep using that word, I don't think you know what it means.

Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity.

This is one definition.

It also means - not having a sex.
and
Not having functional sex organs.

Space marines meet all of these definitions actually.