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I dunno, man.

The Sisters of Battle are infamous for their round table meetings to quietly and politely discuss the finer points of theology in search of a comfortable compromise.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
Ah yes. Space marines in rogue trader had actual female sculpts. Then that was changed to marines being a power armored sausage fest (that change doesn't count though, for completely non-arbitrary reasons!). So now introducing female space marines would be an unprecedented retcon and destroy their lore.

I never understood this argument.

It helps reading the actual arguments instead of putting one together in your head.

It is a valid point though.

When people object to changes to the background? Where do we draw that line?

The Horus Heresy began its life as literal, genuine Filler. A tiny snippet of text written to fill out a page layout. And now it’s I don’t know how many novels long, and the setting for three games.

Why are some things held up as completely sacrosanct when others aren’t? Why is the topic of female Astartes considered so contentious?

The IoM already makes heavy use of women in the Imperial Guard, Navy, Titan Legions, Skitarri, pretty much everywhere that isn't Space Marines.

So the thematic argument that it will make 40k less grimdark doesn't make sense.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It is a valid point though.

When people object to changes to the background? Where do we draw that line?

The Horus Heresy began its life as literal, genuine Filler. A tiny snippet of text written to fill out a page layout. And now it’s I don’t know how many novels long, and the setting for three games.

Why are some things held up as completely sacrosanct when others aren’t? Why is the topic of female Astartes considered so contentious?

I addressed that point in my previous post.

To quote myself:

Lore has been changed before, why is this one so important?
It does not change much about the feeling of a faction to retcon certain new weapons or units. I can live with Space Marines suddenly having Sternguard and Vanguard along with Relic blades and some other stuff. I do not agree to substantial changes to a factions identity. I would not approve of Khorne suddenly using psykers, I would not approve of SoB suddenly ignoring the "no men at arms" law and I would not approve of SM suddenly using female recruits.

The Horus Heresy is filling out blind spots that have not been mentioned before. We know it happened. We know some bigger events like the Siege of Terra. We don't know what Sgt. Iolus had for lunch one week after the Dropside Massacre. If the Heresy tells me it was baked beans and toast, it doesn't change anything about the legion he belonged to, because there is no mention anywhere that Ultramarines don't eat beans and it is not part of their identity.

Personally, I would not take Rogue Trader into consideration for anything canon. We all know that it was a wild era where GW just threw stuff at the wall to see what stuck. If Rogue Trader never existed and Warhammer started with the 2nd edition and its lore, you would not notice a difference.
I acknowledge that there is no official ruling from GW in regards to what is considered canon or no longer valid, though. So others can feel free to put their argumentation based on Rogue Trader as a source.

One thing people who want gendered marines (male/female) forget is that if you actually apply all that muscle, bone and chemically enhanced growth, the end result would be very odd if it looked like a normal person, male or female. So GW made the decision to show men, perhaps to appeal to young boys who were their market and area of expertise for their writers, painters and sculptors, and they are oddly unaffected looks wise from this process they have undergone.

The background changes whenever convenient, if they decided there was money to made more than there was to be lost we would end up with strange female sterotypes shoehorned in.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It is a valid point though.

I really don't think it is. Putting aside the specific issue here for a moment, Rogue Trader lore might as well be for a different game. In the context of the history of 40k it existed for about 5% of the lifespan of the game and accounts for about 0.05%, if that. We had half-Eldar Ultramarine librarians and Primarchs as just random generals of Space Marines who were essentially penal troops. It was a "throw everything at the wall" period as far as the background is concerned and it more or less wasn't until we started getting Codices in 2nd edition that the lore as it stands today really started to take shape.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

When people object to changes to the background? Where do we draw that line?

Probably some time around the middle of 2nd edition, maybe later for some of the lore that was kind of forgotten about until GW realised they could monetise it. Even then it's not like there's a definite point we can all take as the start of the "real" lore, but I do think it's massively disingenuous to bring up the early RT lore as any sort of justification for anything in modern 40k.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
So GW made the decision to show men, perhaps to appeal to young boys who were their market and area of expertise for their writers, painters and sculptors, and they are oddly unaffected looks wise from this process they have undergone.

It all pre-dates the gene editing stuff.

Rogue trader (the pre 1st edition space trading rpg) used whatever models were available, at the time including power armour from the various 'pacific war in space' model lines.

One faction to emerge from cobbled together set this were the astartes who were given a monk background for GM convenience - it gave an in-verse reason for them to pop up in unlikely places due to the scattered and often hidden nature of their monasteries.

In the lore there were humans of both sexes in power armour along with the sororitas 'nuns in space' faction - but when the 1st edition tabletop game came along citadel had a couple of dozen sculpts and the marines got pride of place as the cover faction alongside early plastic models and the whole 'battle brothers' theme became a brand identity that would be shifted over time from convicts to superhumans with all the lore being back-fitted to the models rather than the other way around.


That's why all marines are male. A monk faction became their big seller and the world was built flanderized around them.

 Tyran wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

My point isn't that the IoM is sexist.

My point is that the Emperor was sexist. The non-sexist nature of the IoM is a happy accident, just like how its theocratic nature is a blatant deviation from the Emperor's blatant radical and violent atheism.

Expanding on the above, the core lore reason is that FSM cannot exist is because the geneseed doesn't work on women for "reasons". Those reasons aren't technological limitations, as all other trans-human augmentations work on women just fine. FSM doesn't exist because the Emperor didn't want FSM to exist.

And the Emperor does have a documented preference of men over women, I mean all the Primarchs, who were literally custom built down to their genetic level if not even deeper, are male.

I would posit an alternative theory. The Emperor was not sexist, at least, not misogynist. The nature of war as fought by humanity is inherently misandrist. War is anti-man. Men fight in wars, men die in wars, men are used as the sacrificial soldiers in the workings of kings, leaders, and tyrants alike. If you were genetically designing a soldier to build an army from, you'd use men as the basis. A human population of 1000 men and 1000 women could lose 900 men and still survive as a culture, but that same population couldn't lose 900 women and still survive as a culture/population, that culture would be devastated for generations if it even still could survive. That's kind of the nature of humanity and why war is misandrist.

And that falls apart when you can clone, have massive over population, etc. Even our total war mobilisations have put small % of people under arms. If you were designing a perfect soldier for a technological battlefield there are an awful lot of useful traits that are often displayed by women. The traditional advantages of men (bigger, stronger, etc.) in military roles have massively eroded.

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
more female helmet

I kinda want to see the female helmet now

*Head

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why do you put women in the same category as children and cripples? (Which are, respectively, the main source of Marines and the main source of Blood Angels.)

I searched for underprivileged groups or something like that. I am not saying that women are crippled men

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
The hobby should be inclusive to a broad population, that means we cannot have Nazis since they will try to exclude anyone who isn't of European ethnicity and do so just by being allowed to be part of the hobby while openly espousing their affiliation with Nazism, but extremists will want to not just exclude Nazis but everyone who isn't super progressive and at that point they really should just make a private club, Reddit and Facebook group for themselves if they cannot tolerate regular people being a part of the hobby.

I don't think any of that means what you think it means.

If you think I don't want Nazis in my hobby, you're absolutely correct. Does not wanting Nazis in my hobby make me an extremist? Does wanting lore-official female Space Marines make me an extremist?

And just how do you define 'normal people'? Are you implying that people who want lore-official female Space Marines aren't 'normal'? What is normal?

And why does opening up the poster faction to a broader audience offend you so?

Explain to me how I am wrong.

I'm not making any claims about whether you want Nazis in the hobby. I am saying that as a community we should exclude Nazis, but include normal people. Normal people are not Nazis. If you want to exclude normal people and not just Nazis or if you think normal people are Nazis you are the problem.

Approximating the statistical average or norm for the 40k community is what I think is normal. I have yet to meet a Nazi in the 40k community, I've read about a few, but they are not normal 40k players and if you think they are why would want to be a part of the community?

How does adding Femarines open the faction to a broader audience? It's already the primary faction in the game.

 vict0988 wrote:

How does adding Femarines open the faction to a broader audience? It's already the primary faction in the game.

Being the primary faction of the game is the point. Having males and females in the primary faction of the game, that is vastly over-represented in terms of models and GW's time and effort, is a much bigger deal for inclusivity than 'yeah there is this almost-all female faction that GW care about so much it literally went 30 years without any attention whatsoever'. We all know Space Marines are the primary faction in the game, and if we play anything else we're just the bloody NPCs.

BanjoJohn wrote:

I would posit an alternative theory. The Emperor was not sexist, at least, not misogynist. The nature of war as fought by humanity is inherently misandrist. War is anti-man. Men fight in wars, men die in wars, men are used as the sacrificial soldiers in the workings of kings, leaders, and tyrants alike. If you were genetically designing a soldier to build an army from, you'd use men as the basis. A human population of 1000 men and 1000 women could lose 900 men and still survive as a culture, but that same population couldn't lose 900 women and still survive as a culture/population, that culture would be devastated for generations if it even still could survive. That's kind of the nature of humanity and why war is misandrist.

A human population of 2k shouldn't be waging wars, period.

But also that doesn't seem to stop anyone else in the setting.

It doesn't stop Bile, whose New Men and Gland-Hounds can be female. It doesn't stop Cadia, Catachan, Krieg or any of the other war obessesed IG worlds. It doesn't stop the Admech from making female Skitarii.
Eldar who have real population concerns still enlist females into their military. The current supreme comander of the Tau Fire Caste is a female.

Gender isn't an issue for 99.999% of the militaries in the setting. It is only an issue for Space Marines because "reasons" (and Sisters of Battle because a very stupid loop hole).

In my personal headcanon, The Emperor is gay, which perfectly explains why he only wanted to see muscular men around, and made women mute (SoS). GW has never admitted it to being true, but they should, that would give the real life nazis something to think about

This thread just inspired me to make my CSM into female/mixed gender. I was already thinking of building some 28mm DG, to mirror with my LI DG forces, now I have to add daemonette heads to some of the models. Just because Chaos does not care about trivialities such as gender.

One thing I would like to add to people who consider that RT era lore isn't "canon" - Your knowledge of RT era lore must be different from mine. Read Realm of Chaos? Ere We Go? etc. Yall love to remind us about the goofy lil bits while conveniently ignoring everything established at that time which still remains. Like it or not, RT era lore is inseparable from modern 40K.

 tauist wrote:

One thing I would like to add to people who consider that RT era lore isn't "canon" - Your knowledge of RT era lore must be different from mine. Read Realm of Chaos? Ere We Go? etc. Yall love to remind us about the goofy lil bits while conveniently ignoring everything established at that time which still remains. Like it or not, RT era lore is inseparable from modern 40K.

If this is directed at me, let me clear up some confusion. I don't think the RT lore can't be canon. I simply point out that much of it no longer is, and hasn't been for literal decades. I'm simply pointing out that invoking RT lore isn't the winning argument many seem to think it is. A little more nuance is needed when dealing with anything from the RT era.

 tauist wrote:


This thread just inspired me to make my CSM into female/mixed gender. I was already thinking of building some 28mm DG, to mirror with my LI DG forces, now I have to add daemonette heads to some of the models. Just because Chaos does not care about trivialities such as gender.
.

Look no further

-removed

Why do some people consider being male to be essential to Marine's theme?

They're genetically modified super soldiers wearing tank-like armor, fighting for the Imperium. Why does that require them to be male?

Edit: Put another way, you can have Marines with almost any theme.

Vikings, tactical and smart soldiers, vampires, angels, knights of various stripes...
But women are a bridge too far?

Straying well outside 40k - arguably women in various contexts are a bridge too far through lots of history. And considering 40k comes after recent history when you would have had women still barred from many pubs and clubs, needing a husbands support to open a bank account etc... British society has gone through a lot of change in a short period of time and many of the satirical or otherwise lore in 40k are artefacts of views encountered in the 70's and 80's.

Even the comment above about defining a woman. The scientific one is too much detail to repeat, people tend to mean the current social construct but do so with no knowledge of how that is different around the edges through time and different cultures.

So you are down to do you want female marines to drive sales? To reflect current views in fantasy where most things are assumed to be equal before adding class, armour, abilities etc? To better reflect Sci Fi science views of what it would mean to be trans or post human? To get rid of people whose views you dislike? To drive a culture change which you hope will increase your market reach and penetration, even if it doesn't mean core sales?

I think most would agree if they were launched today they would be like other science fantasy groups like admech, stormcast, etc. Them being all male is an artefact of the time they were thought up and moved to be the face of a product line. Is it worth retconning that to change that product line face?

First, few replies:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Regarding seeing male as the default, it makes sense in 40k, given it's a wargame, and in current human history, 99,9999% (and a lot more 9's, probably) of soldiers are/were male, the setting defaulting to that makes sense, given the world's history. Funnily enough, there's probably more % of female soldiers representation in 40k as a whole than in history as a whole, even with the overwhelming presence of the Marines in the lore.

Because you conflate current and past, the numbers may work out.

But the world of the present does not match the world in your head. Here is a link to a post from the US Department of Defense, which states that in 2022, the American military across all of its various fighting forces, was 17.5% women, and at that time, the stat was rising (though if Hegseth is confirmed, that may change). Look at nations with mandatory military service: women are not excluded.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/article/3246268/department-of-defense-releases-annual-demographics-report-upward-trend-in-numbe/

Now as I said, the slippery tactic of combining ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY with the present will have the desired effect of making that 99% closer to accurate, but even history and mythology give us at least some women warriors; the Tale of the Genji and the Shura Noh stories of Tomoe Gozen, the impact of Joan of Arc, and the presence of Athena and Artemis to balance out Aires; Kali the destroyer, etc.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
The lore is continuing in ways to create more stories of good vs evil when I want evil vs evil.

This is an interesting one in the context of this argument... and yes, I know I'm isolating a single line from its larger context... But for me, FSM make the world MORE Grimdark, not less. No one in 40k is exempt from participation in war. Men women and children ALL must be killers, because if they aren't, humanity will cease to exist. That is some hardcore gak right there.

 vipoid wrote:

For me, 10th poured a dumptruck of sand on the already dwindling spark of enthusiasm I had for 40k. My favourite army has been neglected for over a decade, and virtually everything I enjoyed about my armies and the game in general has been systematically hammered into paste. So now all that's left is a bland, grey slop that feels less like a wargame and more like playing a bad Magic The Gathering clone with some models involved.

It's a bit outside the intended topic, but I had to reply to this, and it also gives back some of the context to Shade's quote above. 10th is far from my favourite edition too, and I do believe that valuable game elements were lost- personally, I'm having a hard time forgiving them for what they did to psychic powers, and units once were far more customizable. And yes, strats do seem like something out of Magic, and even datacard special rules can feel that way. So we don't disagree.

But what I've done to keep the game alive for me is lean into the role-playing elelments, and I've been doing that since Rogue Trader. And 9th and 10th DO give you a lot of roleplaying elements to lean into if you can find players to do it. Playing the "Drukharimunda" mini-game of 9th ed Crusade did more to bring the Dark Eldar to life for me than playing with the better dexes- I think 5th might have been the best dex for army composition, but it doesn't bring Commorragh into the game and develop the backstabbing ruthlessness of Drukhari society as well as 9th's Crusade rules do. I miss Sathonyx and Khedadruahk, and I wish my Archon could ride a jetbike, but if I had to choose between those things and Drukharimunda, I'm leaning Drukharimunda every time.

Of course, as I've said many times, this is mostly because I prefer roleplaying games to tabletop miniature wargames and I've kinda been playing Inquisitor 28 since 1989, using whatever 40k rules were available to facilitate that. I hope that Drukhari get a good glow-up this time around. A new Court, new beasts, new Grotesques and hopefully Kheradruahk now that he has plastic Mandrakes to lead. Maybe a Vect centrepiece; it won't address your valid concerns about rules, but it may give you back enough to keep you with us. We don't always agree, but if you gave up and disappeared, you would be missed.

Now back to more of the topic stuff:

 vipoid wrote:

As a few posters noted previously, men and women are different. Not just physically but mentally. For example, women will generally try to avoid conflict and mediate situations that could lead to such.

Others have already said it, but this is purely down to environmental factors. You might be able to argue that specifically maternal instincts fall into the category of epigenetics (ie. traits which, though genetic, require an environmental trigger to manifest), but conflict avoidance is learned behaviour, as is self advocacy and assertiveness. What freaks me out is that I'm pretty sure you know that, because whether I've agreed with all your posts in the past or not, they've usually been fairly intelligent.

Last post to reply to (though I might break it into chunks):

 a_typical_hero wrote:


All of this aside, I even wrote on this forum that I saw avenues for an (imo) proper introduction of female Space Marines into the setting without just saying "they have always been there".

I chose to go out of sequence and start with this chunk, because I want to remember it- I think it is reasonable; like you, I would prefer a Lore way in, rather than a retcon, and I don't think it's unreasonable to want that.

 a_typical_hero wrote:

BUT I have an issue with people who not only want to introduce FSM, but then actually telling everybody who had a problem with it, regardless of the reason, to no longer be welcomed in the hobby. THIS is what actual exclusion looks like and is just despicable:

F) Female space marines would be a thing on the spot, I dont care the in-universe reason, but I would be sure to have a nice and clear public announcement that anyone that has a problem with that is no longer welcome anywhere in the GW ecosystem.

So I agree that the piece you quoted was a bit heavy handed. I think most of us don't want to see the exclusion be this bold or explicit. Personally, one of the things I like about the Lore-based inclusion of FSM is that players who don't want FSM in their chapter could have the option of creating/ playing an all male chapter, an all male company, or even just an all male army.

However I do believe that at least some of the percentage of people who might take the inclusion of FSM as cause to quit probably ARE at least some of the people who are making actual women players uncomfortable... And with that percentage of people, letting them choose to leave because their male power fantasy is now an option and not the default might actually be a good thing. Again, GW doesn't have to explicitly tell them to GTFO, but if they would be sufficiently offended by FSM to leave, they might not have been all that positive an impact on the community in the first place.

 a_typical_hero wrote:

Women get excluded from Warhammer 40k because there are no female Space Marines.
This is objectively false. GW itself stated that Warhammer is for everyone. There are no shop guidelines or laws that keep women out of 40k. Non-representation is not the same as exclusion. I get the feeling some people are mixing these two things up. Humans can like things without seeing themselves represented in something.

Most people who aren't members of a marginalized population don't get it, because marginalization is a complex process that involves many moving parts. It was never as simple as Non-representation = Exclusion; there may be a few amongst us who are saying that, but I'd argue that they aren't seeing the complexity of the issue either.

It's more like "Non-representation in the poster faction supports certain player attitudes, and those attitudes can lead to the marginalization of certain demographics within the potential player base, encouraging them to self-exclude rather than face the discomfort caused by those attitudes." That's a better articulation of what people close to the argument are actually saying, and trying to make it simpler than that doesn't really work.

 a_typical_hero wrote:

Some people use the official canon to gatekeep or ridicule others because there are no female Space Marines.
Does anybody here think these people would become shining paragons of the community if FSM were introduced?

No, but again, those who would be offended enough by the inclusion of FSM in the range to choose to leave the hobby are likely some of the worst offenders, so the environment would likely become at least somewhat less toxic.

 a_typical_hero wrote:

Would you suddenly want to play games with a person that was making fun of you just last week for the female head you put on your Captain?

With an actual handful of official GW FSM straight out the box? Hell yes, because though I wouldn't directly point this out to them, playing that game with those official models would be proof beyond the shadow of doubt that their previous behaviour was inconsistent with the worldview held be the game designers, players and store owners. I would think it more likely that the person in question would feel uncomfortable playing ME knowing that their behaviour could no longer hide behind any semblance of legitimacy.

 a_typical_hero wrote:

Everybody is responsible for their own community, so go ahead and make it a better place. You already have your legitimation from the highest entity in the game (GW approval from above). Bad people will find other things to latch onto and be dicks to you.

Again, putting an actual, official GW FSM model on the table would do more than calling someone out for their behaviour ever would. When you call people out for their behavior, they just dig in deeper. You have to present tangible, physical evidence that their premise is flawed.

 a_typical_hero wrote:

Warhammer would be more appealing to women if the "hero" of the story was female / mixed gender.
Yes, probably. But this can be achieved without eroding a long standing faction identity. Everybody who is not (exclusively) playing Space Marines would benefit from the lore and following support (miniatures, video games, novels, audio books, merch, boardgames, ...) switching the focus equally to other factions. Just because this would take more effort does not automatically make the other option better or correct.

It isn't 100% clear (to me) what you mean here. You've already said you're okay with FSM being introduced in a way that is lore consistent, which would EVOLVE (not ERODE) the "longstanding faction identity," so are you saying that is the alternative, or are you referencing others who have said that the problem would be less of an issue if Marines weren't the poster faction, and advocating that the diminishment of the Marine privilege is the ideal alternative, or are you saying that a combination of those two approaches is the ideal.

Either way, I would probably agree, because I'm not the biggest fan of the "there have always been FSM" retcon either, though depending upon implementation, I'd probably prefer it to the boys club status quo.

 a_typical_hero wrote:

Lore has been changed before, why is this one so important?
It does not change much about the feeling of a faction to retcon certain new weapons or units. I can live with Space Marines suddenly having Sternguard and Vanguard along with Relic blades and some other stuff. I do not agree to substantial changes to a factions identity. I would not approve of Khorne suddenly using psykers, I would not approve of SoB suddenly ignoring the "no men at arms" law and I would not approve of SM suddenly using female recruits.

Sure... but since other parts of your post seem to imply that you ARE okay with change being introduced to a faction over time via lore, and if that is truly the case, then I'm not sure why you need this piece in your post, because it does seem (in isolation) to be at odds with what you've said elsewhere, though I suppose your repeated use of the word "suddenly" does leave room for gradual, lore based change.

 a_typical_hero wrote:

The only real life reason for no FSM existing in the lore was the poor reception of the models 40 years ago.
I'm aware of that and it does not change anything of what I wrote above.

This is more to object to the person you're quoting than to object to your response, because again, I think the original premise is oversimplified. Sales are also a matter of promotion. To say that the two FSM models from the RT era didn't sell well is "truthy" but not "true" - it's more accurate to say that they were never promoted our incorporated into the army in the same we the better selling marines were. There was never a full squad of FSM, nor a mixed FSM/ MSM unit, nor were were there ranking FSM characters or FSM with specialized roles. All of those things may have actually pushed sales up above the threshold for greater inclusion, but none of them were ever attempted.

Yes, two FSM models were created as a curiousity. They were never taken seriously be the designers, sculptors or marketers. It's like arguing that the reason there are no Chibi style marines in the actual 40k range because Chibis didn't sell as well.

All in all, I'd like to see FSM added via lore over time. I'd like players to be able to choose how far they go in adopting FSM into their chapter/ company/ army lore. And I would like to see marines become less of a poster faction over time. I've ALWAYS believed marine popularity is a matter of promotion and support rather than lore or aesthetics.

What are the Centurions and Mariocarts of the Eldar range? There aren't any. The Eldar are consistently better models than Marines (which is not to say that there aren't a lot of amazing marine models... of course there are- but also a lot of lemons). If the launchbox for 10th had been NIds vs the Eldar previews we've just seen, Space Marine 2 had been the siege of Biel Tan 1, and hence the Amazon show had featured Eldar fighting nids, if Joy Toy made Eldar toys for a year and if the Horus Heresy novels had been "Fall of the Eldar" novels do you think Desolators and Supressors would outsell Warpspiders and Swooping Hawks?

I mean, I even like the Lion, but he ain't winning a contest for model of the year against Lhykis.

Marines are popular because GW did everything in their power to make them popular and continues to do everything in their power to keep them popular.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I think most would agree if they were launched today they would be like other science fantasy groups like admech, stormcast, etc. Them being all male is an artefact of the time they were thought up and moved to be the face of a product line. Is it worth retconning that to change that product line face?

Yes, it absolutely is worth it. GW constantly changes and retcons lore for far worse reasons.

I still don’t get why Marines are considered so sacrosanct. Particularly as with the long view? They’ve probably been subject to the most lore changes since 40K began.

They’ve gone from elite infantry to genhanced post-human ubermensch. The structure of their armed forces through history have been chopped and changed.

The character of some Legions has been redefined by the Horus Heresy novels. They have more units added over the years than some armies have ever received.

Yet for some, the idea that it’s an all male thing is just background and could be changed is reason to get the pitchforks out. That’s just weird to me. And I genuinely feel those folk need to give their heads a wobble.

As said, if such a change came, I’d want some background to go with it, because I’m a right slag for background. And I reserve the right to be disappointed in such potential background if it’s a bit ropey. But even if it is “oh actually they’ve always taken both sexes as recruits now”? Teddy isn’t gonna be launched from my pram.

BTW, what is the last marine codex that even mentioned that they cannot be women? I don't think that it has even been mentioned for several editions. There are probably a lot of newer gamers that don't even know of this limitation. Perhaps there just could be female marines in the next codex, no justification, and the "always men" thing can just be considered forgotten early edition weirdness like half-eldar Ultramarines or the Oldcrons?

To me the ass-backwards manner of the imperium approach to marine recruitment is exactly why it's quite valid for the setting.

I'm not going to have a hissy fit over femarines if they suddenly exist, but I do think it would devalue the anachronistic mentality of the imperium.

That said, they logically can't call a female marine brother, they also can't call them sister as that's already a different thing, so what would the be called?

Dudeface wrote:
To me the ass-backwards manner of the imperium approach to marine recruitment is exactly why it's quite valid for the setting.

I'm not going to have a hissy fit over femarines if they suddenly exist, but I do think it would devalue the anachronistic mentality of the imperium.

Like it has been said, one of the strengths of marines is their thematic customisability. So whilst your argument might makes sense for the themes of some chapters, it would not for the themes of some others.

That said, they logically can't call a female marine brother, they also can't call them sister as that's already a different thing, so what would the be called?

Battle-kin.

I'm going to toss my two thrones into this mess...

Looking at the Female Custodes as an example...

We had gamer outrage for a month or two... then most everyone has moved on.

I think this could be handled in the same way, and talking to other Custodes fans, there are those that don't like women, and if female Custodes sculpts come out they can choose not to put them in their armies.

Then there are some people like me, who thinks it will be cool not to paint angsty bald dude #145 and will enjoy a better mix of humanity in my forces, and if it gets new players to build Custodes, I'm all for it.

So I say, let's do it. It's nice to let everyone in on the fun, and if you don't like the models you don't have to use them.

EDIT:
In retrospect, I don't believe I should have put in my thoughts as this issue affects women more than me, we should be seeking their opinions on the material.

I'd honestly stick with Brother. Officers might be referred to as "my Lady" though.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
Ah yes. Space marines in rogue trader had actual female sculpts.

No, there weren't. There were however a pair of women wearing power armor in the "Adventurers" line - "female warrior Jayne & female warrior Gabs". (dire sculpts btw...)
But as we all know, simply wearing power armor (wether way back then or today) does not make one a Space Marine. If it did we could just call the SoB Marines & be done with all this.

Or just Brother. Because Astartes are no longer human.

As for the hypothetical background change? The male only candidate thing is easily pinned on the disruption of the Primarch project, and that the subsequent Astartes project was a bodge job. And just as that all shook out? The Warp Storms cleared, The Emperor was out planning time, and so The Great Crusade was on, with limited if any time to further work on the by now “good enough” Astartes conversion process.

Cawl is the only person since then to not only have the information and skills to further develop it, but the resources and time.

What isn’t clear is how long it took Cawl to get the Primaris to where they are now. We know he was beavering away for 10,000 years - but that included stockpiling Primaris in suspended animation and their kit. So whilst I don’t it was immediate, it couldn’t have been the entire 10,000 years before the upgrades were perfected.

The next step could well be to effectively double the potential pool of recruits by sorting out the Y Chromosome keying issue.

Nor would such work be necessarily against The Emperor’s own intentions. Because as I said? Post abduction of the Primarchs, everything else was a bodge job. A pretty successful bodge job I’ll grant you, but most definitely not the intended final product. And we’ve no real way of knowing what the original “ideal world” aim and outcome truly was, and so we can’t rule out part of the plan was to extend the Astartes conversion process to include young female candidates.


What we can say is there’s no evidence of discriminatory practices in the wider Imperial War effort. Otherwise we wouldn’t have lady Princeps, Captains, Admirals etc.

 PenitentJake wrote:
First, few replies:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Regarding seeing male as the default, it makes sense in 40k, given it's a wargame, and in current human history, 99,9999% (and a lot more 9's, probably) of soldiers are/were male, the setting defaulting to that makes sense, given the world's history. Funnily enough, there's probably more % of female soldiers representation in 40k as a whole than in history as a whole, even with the overwhelming presence of the Marines in the lore.

Because you conflate current and past, the numbers may work out.

But the world of the present does not match the world in your head. Here is a link to a post from the US Department of Defense, which states that in 2022, the American military across all of its various fighting forces, was 17.5% women, and at that time, the stat was rising (though if Hegseth is confirmed, that may change). Look at nations with mandatory military service: women are not excluded.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/article/3246268/department-of-defense-releases-annual-demographics-report-upward-trend-in-numbe/

Now as I said, the slippery tactic of combining ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY with the present will have the desired effect of making that 99% closer to accurate, but even history and mythology give us at least some women warriors; the Tale of the Genji and the Shura Noh stories of Tomoe Gozen, the impact of Joan of Arc, and the presence of Athena and Artemis to balance out Aires; Kali the destroyer, etc.

Okay modern numbers. Male still default by a huge margin, furthermore, GW uses history as a basis for this and that all the time. Now, with that said, hat's the stats for combat trades? Since 40k is excellent at ignoring anything logistical or admninistrative, and most women go for those trades over Infantry/Armored/Artillery/Combat Engineers and others. And yeah, history gives us women warrior, 40k has women warrior, too. Probably in great proportions in terms of models sold/lore given than the IRL ratio of warrior women in history.