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 JNAProductions wrote:

 Las wrote:
I honestly think that much of the hollow, pathetic thematic tenor at the heart of the story of the space marines and the primarchs wouldn't work as well if they weren't exclusively male.

Why do you say so?

Honestly, I don't think I could totally articulate it on an internet forum. However, the short of it is that the story at its core is a story of the relationship between brothers and fathers.

In my opinion, it just wouldn't have the same 'oomph' if they weren't all male.

See, I don't see why siblings and parents would have to be male to have the same story. Especially given it's set 38,000 years in the future. (Well, 28,000 for 30k stuff.)

 JNAProductions wrote:
See, I don't see why siblings and parents would have to be male to have the same story. Especially given it's set 38,000 years in the future. (Well, 28,000 for 30k stuff.)

You could have that story, but you'd have to write it differently. It certainly would not be the same.

The space marines thematically are about brotherhood, and how those brothers relate to a great failure regarding a father. It's related to the dynamic of children/parents writ large, but it's not quite the same 1:1. It certainly changes the story when introducing the themes of brothers and sisters, or sisters and sisters, or brothers and sisters and fathers. These may seem trivial at first glance, but they're not. Especially not given the nature of the story as it has existed and exists to us today.

The time difference is a trivial distinction, considering it's a type of story that intends to relate to us, now, using recognizable human attachments, emotions, etc. Some of those things are tightly bound to what we implicitly feel about and associate with brothers and fathers.

 Las wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
See, I don't see why siblings and parents would have to be male to have the same story. Especially given it's set 38,000 years in the future. (Well, 28,000 for 30k stuff.)

You could have that story, but you'd have to write it differently. It certainly would not be the same.

The space marines thematically are about brotherhood, and how those brothers relate to a great failure regarding a father. It's related to the dynamic of children/parents writ large, but it's not quite the same 1:1.

The time difference is a trivial distinction, considering it's a story that has to relate to us, now, using recognizable human attachments, emotions, etc. Some of those things are tightly bound to what we implicitly feel about and associate with brothers and fathers.

Understandable on the time difference not mattering.

But I firmly believe that the difference between father and son or parent and child isn't really that significant. I understand your point of view, I just don't agree with it.

Question: How would you feel if Cawl changed it so Astartes can be female? So the existing stories of Marines would remain all-male, but future stories would include women.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Las wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
See, I don't see why siblings and parents would have to be male to have the same story. Especially given it's set 38,000 years in the future. (Well, 28,000 for 30k stuff.)

You could have that story, but you'd have to write it differently. It certainly would not be the same.

The space marines thematically are about brotherhood, and how those brothers relate to a great failure regarding a father. It's related to the dynamic of children/parents writ large, but it's not quite the same 1:1.

The time difference is a trivial distinction, considering it's a story that has to relate to us, now, using recognizable human attachments, emotions, etc. Some of those things are tightly bound to what we implicitly feel about and associate with brothers and fathers.

Understandable on the time difference not mattering.

But I firmly believe that the difference between father and son or parent and child isn't really that significant. I understand your point of view, I just don't agree with it.

Question: How would you feel if Cawl changed it so Astartes can be female? So the existing stories of Marines would remain all-male, but future stories would include women.

I wouldn't like it as I think it would disrupt the thematic thrust that I've outlined before. I'd much, much rather them introduce more female sculpts to the guard, tau, eldar, deldar etc.

Just my opinion. I echo your sentiment, just a simple point of disagreement.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Question: How would you feel if Cawl changed it so Astartes can be female? So the existing stories of Marines would remain all-male, but future stories would include women.

I would feel like it would diminish what Cawl actually is--an amalgam of multiple personalities sharing a body.

Also, it diminishes what the Mechanicus is. They just don't care about gender. They don't consider the Astartes to be male or female, they're simply "Astartes".

Personal take though?
I just don't know how to do it in a decent way without making the lore that came before feel trampled all over. The Primaris project, to me, was acceptable...but it going to women as well as men for the selection pool? It feels like a bridge too far and I cannot exactly articulate why.

I feel like I would prefer the Astartes to go more down the route of logic and knowledge, to the point where their motives feel alien to humans at large, while Sororitas retain their faith and humanity and feel closer to the population at large.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Question: How would you feel if Cawl changed it so Astartes can be female? So the existing stories of Marines would remain all-male, but future stories would include women.

I would feel like it would diminish what Cawl actually is--an amalgam of multiple personalities sharing a body.

Also, it diminishes what the Mechanicus is. They just don't care about gender. They don't consider the Astartes to be male or female, they're simply "Astartes".

Personal take though?
I just don't know how to do it in a decent way without making the lore that came before feel trampled all over. The Primaris project, to me, was acceptable...but it going to women as well as men for the selection pool? It feels like a bridge too far and I cannot exactly articulate why.

I feel like I would prefer the Astartes to go more down the route of logic and knowledge, to the point where their motives feel alien to humans at large, while Sororitas retain their faith and humanity and feel closer to the population at large.

I certainly wouldn't phrase it as "Cawl makes Imperium more gender-equal!"

It'd be Cawl saying "I figured out how to significantly increase the pool of recruits for Astartes."

I don't think female space marines (with a large asterisk I'll get to later) should be added to the setting for the sole reason that it is sexist.

One of my favorite fictionalized governments in any pieces of media is the NCR from Fallout: New Vegas. There's an extremely interesting conversation that you can have with one of their soldiers under the right circumstances, in which he mentions that despite the NCR being socially liberal and mostly pro-democracy, they are still extremely intolerant of non-heterosexual people in their society. The soldier also blithely adds that despite being a bunch of fascist slaver jackasses, Caesar's Legion is actually more accepting of gay men than the NCR.

Anyone with half a brain can put a member of a marginalized community in a work of fiction and pat themselves on the back for being progressive. It takes someone who actually knows what they're talking about to include bigotry within their protagonists' ranks, and then critique that perspective and the underlying biases which gave rise to it. The reason why the Imperium doesn't use female space marines is half because they're effectively minmaxing humanity and only using subjects with a pre-existing testosterone supply to aid the process, and half because introducing female soldiers would disrupt the openly prejudiced, hypermasculine "great man"-worshipping cult which most Imperial citizens and all loyalist space marines are a part of. As literature, the Imperium is a critique of conservative authoritarian worldviews, and part of that critique is their unhealthy, self-destructive obsession with an imagined masculine ideal embodied by the space marines. Including female space marines, no matter whether it's justified in the lore or not, is another step towards turning the Imperium from a satirical message about what a fascist "perfect world" would actually look like into a generic science fiction society which, by incorporating surface-level progressive ideas such as gender equality, makes the mass poverty and genocide a lot easier for audiences to ignore.

That being said, the big exception which I would be interested in seeing explored is that of Chaos. Not only do the CSM dudes have no real reason not to try and incorporate female recruits, but as previously mentioned, the male-only aspect of space marines is a big part of the Imperium's philosophy, and making it so a group of people supposedly
modeled in the image of the emperor are now women is a pretty effective form of rebellion. I personally think that having some female berserkers, sorcerers or warpsmiths would do wonders in further distinguishing the chaos forces from their Imperial counterparts, both from an idealistic and visual perspective. Maybe some of the rubric marines were women already!

I also think it's totally cool for people to include female space marines in their personal armies if they feel like it. In fact, I think it's pretty rad.

My counter argument to female space marines in general (and just to be clear, I wouldn't care less if they were retconned in tomorrow) is that actually, the clamour for female marines in part comes down to a lack of representation of strong females or those with enough character depth within the lore.

A novel series about some unbelievably badass sisters of battle (use some of the minor ordos maybe) with excellent writing in the vein of Gaunts Ghosts... Giving a titan of a character like Jenetia Krole her dues and not having her just steam rolled by Khan - which from a lore perspective should happen also, but it was written poorly. If she would have defeated another Khorne champion first, but was spent and then Khan appeared and did what he did, then it would be acceptable.

Not all female characters are poorly written mind, but the good ones never seem to be 'the' character of most novels. Bequin, Kara Swole, great characters but passengers for the most part - Even Bequin isn't the most intriguing/interesting/well written character in her own novel series.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
My counter argument to female space marines in general (and just to be clear, I wouldn't care less if they were retconned in tomorrow) is that actually, the clamour for female marines in part comes down to a lack of representation of strong females or those with enough character depth within the lore.

A novel series about some unbelievably badass sisters of battle (use some of the minor ordos maybe) with excellent writing in the vein of Gaunts Ghosts... Giving a titan of a character like Jenetia Krole her dues and not having her just steam rolled by Khan - which from a lore perspective should happen also, but it was written poorly. If she would have defeated another Khorne champion first, but was spent and then Khan appeared and did what he did, then it would be acceptable.

Not all female characters are poorly written mind, but the good ones never seem to be 'the' character of most novels. Bequin, Kara Swole, great characters but passengers for the most part - Even Bequin isn't the most intriguing/interesting/well written character in her own novel series.

This is a good point. I can count the number of compelling female characters in the 40k lore on one hand. I can count the number of compelling non-imperial ones on one finger.

EDIT: Okay, two fingers.

Making female marines fundamentally changes nothing, they're still big, brainwashed meatheads with boom-boom guns with or without dangly bits. There is no real narrative harm to come from that because gender is not integral to marines role.

Anyway, Make Imperium Crumbling Empire again is my change. It holds a million worlds, but it's grasp on each world is by the fingertips only. The local governors know it, and do what human positions of authority always did- either gather more personal power out of greed or in an attempt to protect their local population when the central government fails. The faith in emprah should be ever at odds with the lack of faith in the Imperial Palace and it's siphoning of local resources that never seem to come back to the system/sector because they're used up in another far-away war. Imperium as depicted rn is a magicala place where humans seem to care nothing for how awful their lot is by and large, even if we get occasional mentions of rebels or secession we never really get a scale for it. Like it's all isolated chaos-dummies doing it.

I'm going to regret wading into the female space marine debate, aren't I...

 Flipsiders wrote:
I don't think female space marines (with a large asterisk I'll get to later) should be added to the setting for the sole reason that it is sexist.

I concur. And I say this as someone who shoehorns female characters into basically everything given half a chance.

Female space marines across all Chapters would be a bit like the Galactic Empire's military from Star Wars being full of women and aliens. It cancels out its own point.

In the original Star Wars trilogy, the fact that the Empire's forces were all male--and human, and white--gave off a recognisably totalitarian master-race vibe. You don't have to be told they're probably racist and sexist and speciesist because it's continually implied onscreen. The women have probably been told to stay home and breed more sons for the master race. It contrasted nicely with the more eclectic Rebels, who at least had the occasional woman and black guy and alien.

(Yes, I know the Expanded Universe went off and did its own thing, and various authors had their own ideas about the Empire's values.)

For an example of what I'd call 'completely missing the point', see this artwork for an Empire fighter pilot:

That picture makes my good little progressive head hurt, because half my brain goes "yay for representation!" and "TIE Interceptors are cool!" while the other half goes "hang on a minute..."

And the Imperium in 40K is basically the Empire times ten, with the twist that either it's necessary because all their enemies are even worse (the straight take), or that they've managed to hoodwink everyone into believing it (the satirical take).


However...

...since I do like to shoehorn female characters into everything, I've spent a bit too much time trying to figure out fluffy ways to have female Marines anyway.

As Flipsider says, female Chaos Marines make a lot more sense than loyalists.

If we did have female Loyalists, I'd have them be the two lost Legions whose records were expunged--and have them be made up entirely of women, Amazon style. Why were all records pertaining to them wiped even though the records of the Legions who turned traitor weren't? Because their existence would have allowed Space Marines to breed, and thus be tempted to replace humanity rather than serve it. (Insert sterility retcons here, blah blah.) Of course, just because all records have been purged doesn't mean the Legions themselves aren't out there somewhere...

I also once came up with a loyalist Chapter whose beloved Master got zapped by a Tzeentch sorcerer and turned into a woman, with no other signs of mutation or change of character... leading the entire Chapter to schism over the question of whether she was now tainted by Chaos and untrustworthy. Which was the sorcerer's plan all along, muhahaha, etc. It was basically an excuse to get Kushana from Nausicaa into the game, golden armour and all.

My point is, finding a way to make it work in the existing official fluff for 'your dudes/dudettes' purposes can be more interesting and fun than just wanting the fluff itself to change.

Zenithfleet wrote:

Female space marines across all Chapters would be a bit like the Galactic Empire's military from Star Wars being full of women and aliens. It cancels out its own point.

In the original Star Wars trilogy, the fact that the Empire's forces were all male--and human, and white--gave off a recognisably totalitarian master-race vibe. You don't have to be told they're probably racist and sexist and speciesist because it's continually implied onscreen. The women have probably been told to stay home and breed more sons for the master race. It contrasted nicely with the more eclectic Rebels, who at least had the occasional woman and black guy and alien.

As far as I'm aware there's nothing that implicates the Empire as being sexist beyond the lack of women officers in the original trilogy, which can very easily be summed up to "it's the 70s/80s" and anyone who isn't white/a man isn't getting a lot of screen time. Yes, the Empire is a SciFi version of the Nazis but it's more the fascist totalitarian with some similar uniform design cue's thrown in for good measure rather than ethnonationalism, sexism, or antisemitism analogies.
From the "Educator's Guide for the Rebel, Jedi, Princess, Queen: Star Wars™ and the Power of Costume traveling museum exhibition":

George wanted the Imperial people to look efficient, totalitarian, fascist; and the rebels, the goodies, to look like something out of a Western or the U.S. Marines.
Many of the costumes worn by the Imperials and the Rebel Alliance were inspired by American Navy pilots, World War I and World War II - era German troops, and Japanese fighter pilots.
The outfits of the Imperial officers include several direct references to uniforms worn by the German military including their tunics, tall boots, and hats — modeled after the elite Alpine troops of Nazi Germany.

So the only things here are about the image Lucas was evoking. People know the Nazis were the baddies so they made the Empire look like the Nazis so we knew they were the baddies. Anything beyond that is conjecture or personal interpretation.
As for the Rebellion, the only alien involved until Return is Chewbacca, who is only there because Han is there and they're partners. The only women we see in the OT are non-com's like Leia (who ends up a combatant for a bit but is a diplomat, not a soldier) or Mon Mothma (who again isn't included until Return). The only reason we know the Rebellion as a haven for all races is purely due to non-movie sources like Rebels, Battlefront 2, Empire at War, and all of these other pieces of media that came along after the OT. Again it's all very much down to "it's the 70s/80s" no women/non-whites thing.

And the Imperium in 40K is basically the Empire times ten, with the twist that either it's necessary because all their enemies are even worse (the straight take), or that they've managed to hoodwink everyone into believing it (the satirical take).

Yet the Imperium also isn't sexist and has had mixed armed forces with 3 very specific exceptions since 40k became 40k proper and not just RT. SoB are only all women because of intentionally poorly worded in-universe law that allows the Ecclesiarchy to have soldiers under arms as long as they aren't "men" under arms, Custodes are an analogy to Alexanders Companions (who BTW were all super intimate with each other all the time ), and then Space Marines who are only males because pseudoscience. Not a single other Imperial institution is mono-sex but we have only really seen male/men characters because for a very long time that was the target audience.

@Gert: With respect, you've missed Zenith's point. He's correctly pointing out that the all-male imperial cast in Star Wars helps your brain subliminally evoke the totalitarian themes that the strengthen the drama of the story, without having to explicitly TELL you what the empire's gender policy is. It's very much a show don't tell thing. And most importantly, whatever real world reason for the all male imperial cast is irrelevant. Whats relevant is how it affects the quality of the story being told when it comes into contact with the audience.

It's why whatever the original, real-world reason that space marines all ended up male doesn't factor into my opinion of whether or not it should change today. Only the story matters.

As for Chaos having female space marines, I also think this would have the end effect of further diluting the themes of the setting. Whether you can rationalize it in the setting is not really relevant, what's relevant is that it would read to our brains as more rational and progressive. Those are not things you want to associate with Chaos if you want them to work as a "character" in the story.

 Insectum7 wrote:

The thing during the HH that brought the Tyranids to our galaxy. Remove it. Delete it. Pretend like it never happened.

Yeah that's silly.

Heh, I actually liked that.

I also like the Primaris models. I'm not too keen on the lore or the timeskip but, meh. I do think every faction could do with a re-release of their models.

As for taking away, as much as I enjoyed reading the HH, there was much more wriggle room with "lost to the mists of time".

 Las wrote:
@Gert: With respect, you've missed Zenith's point. He's correctly pointing out that the all-male imperial cast in Star Wars helps your brain subliminally evoke the totalitarian themes that the strengthen the drama of the story, without having to explicitly TELL you what the empire's gender policy is. It's very much a show don't tell thing. And most importantly, whatever real world reason for the all male imperial cast is irrelevant. Whats relevant is how it affects the quality of the story being told when it comes into contact with the audience.

Except people don't think the Empire is the baddies because they're all men. They think they are the baddies because they did bad things and looked like fascists. If you swap every single man in the cast for a woman and vice verse, the effect is still the same because they still look like fascists and do bad things like blow up planets. And again to reiterate my point, the movies were made in the 70s/80s where white men were the dominant force in the film industry.
How can the Imperials envoke totalitarian themes because they're all male when there is a single woman rebel (Leia) in New Hope, a single woman coms operator in Empire, and then Mon Mothma in Return for a total of 3 women seen in the entire rebellion over the 3 movies. No rebel pilots, soldiers, or crew are women until non-movie media added them in because shockingly enough a galaxy-wide rebellion having only 3 women was a bit bloody stupid. Likewise for the Empire which wasn't developed outside of "they're the baddies" in the movies. It's not believable that the Imperial Navy and Army could basically control the entire galaxy when it only has men in its ranks.

 Gert wrote:

Except people don't think the Empire is the baddies because they're all men. They think they are the baddies because they did bad things and looked like fascists. If you swap every single man in the cast for a woman and vice verse, the effect is still the same because they still look like fascists and do bad things like blow up planets. And again to reiterate my point, the movies were made in the 70s/80s where white men were the dominant force in the film industry.

No one said it was the defining factor in why the empire works as a villainous force, only that it is a contributing factor that makes them work so well. In storytelling, you want every single thing to work in service of the story. That's one of them.

Subjective, I know, but I would argue that the more multi-cultural and egalitarian composition of the First Order in the sequels is a pretty good counter-point to you here. They didn't work as well for a lot of reasons, but this was one of them. It tripped my brain up because it was a clash of themes.

And again, the real-world reason for them being all white and male does not matter. What matters is how the story ends up being told.

 Gert wrote:
How can the Imperials envoke totalitarian themes because they're all male when there is a single woman rebel (Leia) in New Hope, a single woman coms operator in Empire, and then Mon Mothma in Return for a total of 3 women seen in the entire rebellion over the 3 movies. No rebel pilots, soldiers, or crew are women until non-movie media added them in because shockingly enough a galaxy-wide rebellion having only 3 women was a bit bloody stupid. Likewise for the Empire which wasn't developed outside of "they're the baddies" in the movies. It's not believable that the Imperial Navy and Army could basically control the entire galaxy when it only has men in its ranks.

This is minutia and doesn't matter. Part of why the empire reads as totalitarian nazi stand ins is that people recall them as all male, white, and with a European accent. The rebels read as good because they were comparably diverse (even just having alien pilots assisted this) and had American accents. It flicked a switch in your brain that holds the emotional associations of the second world war. The more you dilute these themes, the more you risk the story not being able to flick that switch.

Same for 40k and the switches that if flicks.

First off great idea for a thread, and second another +1 to everything Dustweaver said.

As for me, some thoughts:

Tyranids are like an advancing glacier. They take years to get anywhere and then years to properly digest a planet. And it is possible to win against them if you make them throw in too many resources so that they're burning up biomass faster than they consume it. I think current fluff with Nids eating a planet over a weekend is just too much.

Movie Marines - A marine should be Captain America in Iron Man armor with Thor's Hammer. I have no problem with 1000 of them being military significant if they play on that level. Obviously then we'd have a very different game, with 10 marines taking on 200+ orks, but that's my head canon. For games I just assume every non-Marine model represent 10 or more normal guys. The super-duper marines like Grey Knights (and now Death Watch and Custodes) should be limited to a squad in a normal marine army, like they were in 1-3rd editions.

Similarly marine vehicles are piloted by serfs/servitors/crippled marines.

Movie Marines - A marine should be Captain America in Iron Man armor with Thor's Hammer.

And we run into the issue of...so are Aspect Warriors, Tyranid synapse critters and Nobs. Marines are not better than the other factions top warriors, they're equal to them and many, many times better than the baseline human, which is basically gretchin-tier combatant. But BS2 cadians would anger everyone.

Cronch wrote:

Movie Marines - A marine should be Captain America in Iron Man armor with Thor's Hammer.

And we run into the issue of...so are Aspect Warriors, Tyranid synapse critters and Nobs. Marines are not better than the other factions top warriors, they're equal to them and many, many times better than the baseline human, which is basically gretchin-tier combatant. But BS2 cadians would anger everyone.

Like I said it would fundamentally change the tabletop game, but if we're making a major change to the setting it's the one I would do.

Yes an Aspect Warrior should be as skilled as a marine, but not nearly as strong or tough.
An Ork Nob should be as strong and tough as a marine, but nearly as skilled or well equipped.
A Nid big beast should be stronger and tougher, but the marine faster and smarter.

Marines should not the 'average' army they should be the superior one. Or what's the point of the 1000 Marine fluff, the ~20 organs, the power armor etc.

A marine should be an action hero, a video game character, ordinary foes should just spontaneously die when one hits the field, like in a Schwarzenegger film.

So what's stopping them from overrunning the universe? There's only 1000x1000 of them, no sooner do they fight off 10,000 orks to kill the warboss then it's back the ship because they have to fight through thousands of Tau to stop their Ethereal.

Imagine being the Avengers but spending 24/7 either fighting or traveling to fights cause there's only war.

Why not? Why should the humanity's desperate attempt to have anything equal to the other factions of the galaxy be better than everyone else's stuff? Frankly, a tyranid warrior is designed from ground up for war, and has access to the vast intellect of the Hive Mind, with none of the paranoia, mysticism and ignorance that holds Marines behind. By the very nature of tyranid threat, it should be superior to any of the prey species it's designed to hunt.

 Gert wrote:

And the Imperium in 40K is basically the Empire times ten, with the twist that either it's necessary because all their enemies are even worse (the straight take), or that they've managed to hoodwink everyone into believing it (the satirical take).

Yet the Imperium also isn't sexist and has had mixed armed forces with 3 very specific exceptions since 40k became 40k proper and not just RT. SoB are only all women because of intentionally poorly worded in-universe law that allows the Ecclesiarchy to have soldiers under arms as long as they aren't "men" under arms, Custodes are an analogy to Alexanders Companions (who BTW were all super intimate with each other all the time ), and then Space Marines who are only males because pseudoscience. Not a single other Imperial institution is mono-sex but we have only really seen male/men characters because for a very long time that was the target audience.

I know Jenetia Krole was so memorably impossible to picture that she gets killed off by Kharn by accident, but please don't forget about the Sisters of Silence here.

They provide the second Talon of the Emperor to balance the Custodes, in the same way the Sisters of Battle sort of do for the Astartes.

Cronch wrote:
Making female marines fundamentally changes nothing, they're still big, brainwashed meatheads with boom-boom guns with or without dangly bits. There is no real narrative harm to come from that because gender is not integral to marines role.

Making female marines actually changes a lot; that's why so many people want it to happen. If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be talking about it.

 Flipsiders wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Making female marines fundamentally changes nothing, they're still big, brainwashed meatheads with boom-boom guns with or without dangly bits. There is no real narrative harm to come from that because gender is not integral to marines role.

Making female marines actually changes a lot; that's why so many people want it to happen. If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be talking about it.

100%.

Also, GW/BL wouldn't have achieved the success that it has if it were telling stories about such shallow characters, subjects, and themes.

 Flipsiders wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Making female marines fundamentally changes nothing, they're still big, brainwashed meatheads with boom-boom guns with or without dangly bits. There is no real narrative harm to come from that because gender is not integral to marines role.

Making female marines actually changes a lot; that's why so many people want it to happen. If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be talking about it.

Why does it matter? I really don't understand why it is needed so badly?

Why do we need to mold female characters in a male stereotyp? I think it is just tokenism and forcing female characters in the gene enhanced ultra masculine warrior stereotype just lose their femine side and become little more than carricaturs of females.

Don't get me wrong, a female character doesn't need fullfill only female stereotypes. In fact she must not do that, as it would make a boring and unrealistic character. When writing a good female character you need to take those stereotypes and play with them. Some are fullfilled and in others the character struggles against the stereotype and this shows who she is.

Sisters of Battle are great for the take the Marine stereotype and make their own thing out of it. They may no be as strong as a Marine, but they overcome challenges with a strong willpower and devotion to a cause, which a Marine (a genecrafted killermachine) simply cannot match. For example: Fear has been bread out of Marines. They simply don't care about it. The Sisters of Battle on the other hand feel fear, but overcome it with their faith. They have a human element, that Marines are missing and that makes them in my mind much more interesting than token female space marines.

 Flipsiders wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Making female marines fundamentally changes nothing, they're still big, brainwashed meatheads with boom-boom guns with or without dangly bits. There is no real narrative harm to come from that because gender is not integral to marines role.

Making female marines actually changes a lot; that's why so many people want it to happen. If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be talking about it.

What does it change. What crucial aspect of marine-ness hinges on their pronouns. I'm genuinely curious. It's not like marines in lore have any sort of anti-female bias in behavior, nor do they actually have kids, so not like Horusia would suddenly get pregnant during the Heresy. Or is the fact that they call each other "brother" the most defining trait of theirs? Seriously, nothing in lore I can think of would change if every single marine since Great Crusade started suddenly got gender-flipped. None of their plotlines focus on their male-ness, they're basically meat killbots with a fetish for catholic paraphernalia.

Cronch wrote:

 Flipsiders wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Making female marines fundamentally changes nothing, they're still big, brainwashed meatheads with boom-boom guns with or without dangly bits. There is no real narrative harm to come from that because gender is not integral to marines role.

Making female marines actually changes a lot; that's why so many people want it to happen. If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be talking about it.

What does it change. What crucial aspect of marine-ness hinges on their pronouns. I'm genuinely curious. It's not like marines in lore have any sort of anti-female bias in behavior, nor do they actually have kids, so not like Horusia would suddenly get pregnant during the Heresy. Or is the fact that they call each other "brother" the most defining trait of theirs? Seriously, nothing in lore I can think of would change if every single marine since Great Crusade started suddenly got gender-flipped. None of their plotlines focus on their male-ness, they're basically meat killbots with a fetish for catholic paraphernalia.

In-game, in-lore, all that?
Doesn't change much of anything.

However, out-of-game concerns?
It would (hopefully) diminish things like people who make female Marines getting death threats, and a general "Boys-only" mentality that, while certainly not universal, is present in the hobby.

I'd like to have seen the Tau allies get a little more attention. It's a cool aspect compared to the other factions out their and things like the kroot are pretty interesting.

 JNAProductions wrote:
In-game, in-lore, all that?
Doesn't change much of anything.

However, out-of-game concerns?
It would (hopefully) diminish things like people who make female Marines getting death threats, and a general "Boys-only" mentality that, while certainly not universal, is present in the hobby.

Death threats because how you build your minis are gakky behaviour and should never be tolerated. But it don't see this as a valid argument for female space marines. Idiots will be idiots no matter what and as GW mockingly said "they will not be missed".

And for the "boys only" mentality: I think that's more connected to females being generally less interested in wargames than men. That's across all wargames.

Yes, there are females playing warhammer or other wargames and that's great. But there will always be more men in this hobby. Creating female space marines will have little influence on this.

Yes, I understand that representation is important. But why do you wish to force female space marines? Representation can be introduced in so many other levels without breaking the lore on a larger scale than the introduction of primaris marines (which is still hated by many from a pure lore perspective to this day)

Maybe if the marines weren't presented as the posterboys of the game, THE superhumans, THE good guys people would not mind having 50% of humanity being excluded from the Defenders of Humanity But Really Cool club.

The funniest and saddest part is, 40k is so wide in scope that you absolutely could have boys-only marines chapter even if the lore supported femarines.