Thoughts on Female Space Marines (Ashes of Prospero)

[Karack Blackstone]

Hello all, per the thread linked just below:

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/344764-passages-from-ashes-of-prospero-spoilers/?p=5019334

 

"‘Just sons?’ said Tyra, her humour edged with a hard look. ‘Perhaps there is more water that must learn to flow.’ (speaking of using females for Marines)

Arjac looked at this fierce woman, the sharp spear held easily in her hand, and recalled that she had overcome her fear not with psychodoctrination but raw courage. She had been the first to run to aid him against the wyrm, whether he needed her or not. The spirit of Fenris was in all of its people, elder and child, man and woman. He had seen first-hand that Roboute Guilliman had brought back miracle warriors from the time of the Allfather Abroad. Space Marines moulded from even sharper steel. If that was possible, anything was. He laughed at the thought.

Tyra frowned at him, thinking he mocked her. He calmed his humour and bowed his head in apology, eyes never leaving hers.

‘Perhaps,’ he said." (Just found this amusing that authors addressed what a marine thinks of female space Marine)

 

The book Ashes of Prospero raises a very ... sensitive subject, for many, I am going to hazard, as a guess.

 

FeMarines, or, Female Space Marines.

 

If done well, this could greatly expand the number of minds, perspectives, and opinions, throughout the game, and only increase the dialogue and discourse possible in regards to where the setting goes, long term.

 

As stated in the subject, Mind the Mods.

 

The mods are aware this thread is coming; I made sure to ask before I even tried to figure out what to type here.

 

Please keep the following in mind, before you post:

- If your feelings are riled, and you start to type a reply, please, go within yourself and give yourself a chance to gain an internal perspective apart from your own internal feelings on the subject. Yes, feelings are great; this is, however, a time for cogent thought.

- When you are ready, and have given this thread subject some thought, please, by all means, stop by and weigh in on the who, what, when, where, how, and why, and any other questions or points of discussion that you may have.

 

I hope this debate is something those inclined to post will keep in mind, the Mods will be watching like birds of prey, and vultures, if need be. There is no reason to start a flame war, and that, is purely against what I would like in this thread.

 

There is a question, and I am hereby requesting that before you, the reader, post, to please, by all means, give yourself time to think before you reply in a feelings driven tirade that might earn the ire of those that attempt to keep the discussions and debates here under control.

 

This thread is not meant to be a flame war, or to ever turn into one.

 

Female Space Marines: what do you think of the concept? Why? And, yes, feelings are important; please keep in mind, try to personally avoid the issue that when one is asked what one thinks, most often, people tend to respond with how they feel.

 

Constructive, thoughtful, and hopefully emotionally filtered out responses only, please.

 

Go.

[Triszin]

I'm all for it so long as it is done well.

 

an example I'll give.

 

in 2018 with the new codex space wolves start giving callsigns to its marines.

 

Freki (insert number)

Greki (insert number)

 

In the lore it starts to mention and follow some specific callsigns

 

Greki 33: fights the dark angels in an honor dual and wins, when asked for there name Greki 33 states.

"My name is Greki 33".

due to newer vox casters and alterations by iron priests, most Space wolve vox caster voices sound identical

 

then go on to mention awesome fight scenes and deaths using callisigns.

 

when the new/updated dex rolls around in 202X theres new lore.

 

Greki 33 is now being promoted to a wolf lord. Upon making wolf lord Greki 33 says

 

" I accept my promotion, I Tyra Ice fang am the wolf lord of the Ice wolves great company."

This is the first confirmation of a female marine.

 

Their armor is exactly the same (a special emphasis on this, they use the EXACT same armors and weapons) and no hints or nods were giving in the years leading up to this, besides following Greki 33.

 

Additionally, for the space wolves:

 

Perhaps the fenrisian people in conjunction with whatever the Canis Helix does at a genetic level; perhaps these differences actually allow female marines.

[Brother Sefiel]

Greetings

​While I'm no fan of much of the recent stuff, I'd like to see them (at least at first) introduced as a redone version of the purity-testing warriors such as Sister Sin from Rogue Trader. Adepta Sororitas don't seem powerful enough to keep space marines in line, sadly. Adepta Astartes might, however.

[Callan]

I think it would be a very... odd choice indeed, from an in-character standpoint.

 

The Emperor created the Primarchs, and therefore the Space Marines, to fill many roles, but the most immediate one was "warrior."  Throughout history, men have been the vast majority of warriors.  From a species standpoint, men are more expendable than women.  If a society loses most of its men, it can recover in a few decades.  If a society loses most of its women, it's doomed.  We're bigger and stronger, because that's how our biology works, and fewer of our biological resources are devoted to the maintenance or use of the reproductive system.  A reproductive system that does Space Marines no good, because they don't reproduce that way.

 

Therefore, it makes no sense to make a female Primarch, which you would need to create female Space Marines, from an efficiency standpoint.  And the gene-seed is necessarily gender-specific, because there is a high enough rejection rate of the implants without adding an additional 15% genetic variation to the mix.  Then there's the issue of getting female recruits, because a society that views women as expendable enough to make that kind of sacrifice would be unusual indeed.

 

From an out-of-character perspective, you might think it looks a bit more appealing.  After all, broader appeal, more players, more sales, more money for GW.  Except I don't really think it does broaden the appeal.  The game is about the grim darkness of the far future in which there is only war.  Find me a significant target audience who might be into grimdark scifi, if only they thought the faces under those helmets might belong to a hulking, brutish, genetically re-engineered woman instead of a man.  Especially when we already have a faction of women in power armor, but they're not terribly high on GW's priority list as it is, presumably because there's not a super-high demand for them, despite a few vocal and devoted fans.

 

The pro argument is that I doubt it would mortally offend many fans, while others would rush right out to collect.  It would create a lot of grumbling, as it would obviously be done in defiance of existing lore to placate people who aren't even interested in the hobby... but I don't think it would alienate too many.  Except maybe the Sisters of Battle players who realize that this would mean that their Codex and new minis are lower priority than ever.

[Ishagu]

Why should there be female space marines?

 

I think a re-done Sisters line with models the quality of Celestine will scratch that itch.

Heck, we need some female Astra Militarum models too.

[redmapa]

Im with Ishagu, female marines are simply redundant and counter-productive to the theme of Marines, which is to be ridiculously hyper-masculine. Sisters of Battle are already filling the niche that "female marines" would fill, adding them would simply make SoB even more irrelevant and to be honest it is a bit insulting to them, give SoB or IG new models rather than pushing them into the bottom of the barrel.

 

Besides after the way they handled Cawl, the Primaris, the new BT fluff in 6th and the Damocles campagin I dont trust GW to add something like this in a good way, they'll fumble it and alienate a ton of players.

[Magos Takatus]

It's an interesting time to have this old debate since the Primaris marine returns space marines back to their previous power without millennia of degradation of geneseed and implantation and even improvement in certain areas. The limitation of only selecting male candidates to become space marines does not necessarily have to stay. As for my own opinion? I'm still on the fence currently. I would like to see the Sisters of Battle get the update they desperately need and some female Astra Militarum before trying to overrule what has been one of the most well-known limitations of space marines since they were created. I'm not against female space marines but I think there are more interesting things that can be done before altering lore which might upset a lot of people.

[CaptainMarsh]

All things being equal I would be more than fine if there was fluff female space marines. Of course the all things being equal qualification is that I'd rather see SoB models and female IG before I see female space marine models. Fluff wise howevet I'm fine with it.

[Callan]

I do think female Guard minis and some love for the Sisters of Battle would go over super well right now and would make many players happy.  The only complaints would be from people grumbling that their own favorite faction wasn't released sooner.

[Servant of Dante]

I’ll agree I don’t trust GW in terms of writing fluff anymore.

 

Personally, if this is well done I see no real downside. Marines are effectively rather genderless to begin with, even if they, on a superficial level, play into a lot of traditionally “masculine” themes. A female marine would be exactly the same as any other marine, except that they would have been a female before they were a marine, rather than a male.

 

If this is done, I’d want it to just be “some marines were female rather than male before they became marines so we have some female heads in our marine kits now”

 

What I wouldn’t want to see is a new kit that’s just female marines (ie a special unit that is the only place female marines exist and all of them are female, none of them are male). Like I said above I’d want just general integration. It would feel cheap and gimmicky otherwise, in my opinion.

 

As for the impact on Sisters, they’re on the back burner behind marines anyway and I don’t think that this would change that. Sisters are unaugmented humans in power armour that are religious fanatics and exist outside the normal Imperium military structure. Aside from the power armour (that similarity already exists with marines and that’s kinda the point), the only similarity that would be added is that some are female. Note that this is still not an exact correlation since of course *all* Sisters are female. If we want to talk about stepping on the Sister’s thematic toes we should be talking about the Sisters of silence and their apparent love for flamers. In my view they’re a much larger encroachment on the Sister’s thematic space than female marines could ever be.

 

I also disagree with the idea that Sisters couldn’t handle purging marines :P but that’s off topic.

 

Tl;Dr: “female marines” integrated into the existing chapter structure would be cool. Also, Sisters are Sisters, marines are marines and this wouldn’t change that.

[Stark]

The more flesh, the merrier. 

Besides, all can be improved with the blessed touch of metal. 

 

The Machine God welcomes all to its service.  

[Doctor Perils]

I must admit that I was never a fan of female Space Marines, but only because it had been stated multiple times in the lore that women could not become Astartes.

 

However, times are a-changing. The introduction of Primaris - however clumsily handled it may have been last year - and the advancing timeline and plot are the perfect opportunity to introduce the fairer sex into the ranks of the Astartes. And judging by the female stormcast models, I think Games Workshop today would be able to rise to the challenge of creating feminine models that aren't overtly sexualised.

 

Also, thanks for keeping this thread clean :tu:

[Triszin]

copying a quote from the wolf sub forum

 

 

 

I'd argue it be like current day marines, where Female combat marines are so rare, few and far between it wouldnt be an army of them, maybe 1 of every 50-100.

Could look at it like the Stormcast eternals where females are rare, and they only have 2 female Stormcast.

 

my thoughts exactly.

 

I might just make my wolf lord a female primaris now. just a head swap., or maybe a helmet

 

[Marshal Rohr]

This is a common discussion on a Facebook group everyone has surely heard of, and they’ve basically explained why it can happen and why they think representation among space marines is important. There’s nothing to really say that they haven’t already said and the studio will do what the studio wants to do. They’ve proven nothing is permanent and sacred, and you can see by the new cringey tumblr art they’ve been putting out there is a critical mass of different people inside GW now not tied to the older fluff as holding any value, meaning it’s only a matter of time before they create female marines.

 

From a lore perspective, expecting subtlety and nuance when they implement this is probably unwise given their heavy handed implementation of everything else. It will probably go do down like everything else has. Some people vocally hate it, some people vocally love it, and some people don’t care and go on their own way.

[deathspectersgt7]

Seen some great fluff from some Frater here. And where is the fluff saying Marines are Genderless ? I have not read that in anything related to that statement in any GW fluff that I have read. But I am not really in favor of female Marines but I would not deny someone to build their own and have them in their Army . But this inclusive behavior is getting weird .

[Yodhrin]

Female Marines are, to my mind, the worst, most shallow kind of pandering.

 

They don't add anything of worth to the setting, or to the Space Marines, except superficial "representation" which is not necessary for absolutely everything(ie, it's not as if there are no women of power or skill at arms or wit in the 40K setting, they're just not being given adequate "screen time" in either the fiction or the model ranges). It's a deflection that would allow GW to ignore the implications of the whole Emperor/Primarch/Custodes/Marine all being big tough manlymen thing, to sidestep their pretty shoddy track record of releasing adequate numbers of female models for all the factions that already ostensibly have large numbers of female warriors, even putting the Sisters aside.

 

If GW were serious about making a statement, they would use the Emperor's choice to focus on male biology exclusively for his supersoldier projects to make nuanced and cutting points about assumptions and unthinking sexist biases, not just come out with "OK, some Marines have bewbs now after 10,000 years, we good?". It's like people who think we should edit old books and films to remove racist sentiments from them, but that's just hiding from our past, the way to deal with such things is to use them as the basis for genuine individual and societal self-reflection.

 

The Imperium is a fascist theocracy, does that mean the setting and the company are enabling or encouraging fascist and theocratic sentiment? No, because they put that in the proper context and use it to make interesting points or as a source of humour.

 

In short, the problem with Space Marines isn't that attitudes have changed and there aren't any female Space Marines, it's that given attitudes have changed the fact there aren't any female Space Marines isn't being used in an intelligent and thought-provoking way to comment on sexism, or at the very least to make a few jokes at the expense of sexism. Chucking a few feminine bitz on the sprue(or worse, creating a whole new unit of super-duper women-only Marines, because that doesn't have problematic subtext at all...) and ignoring the history is a deflection, not a resolution.

[Wargamer]

There has never been a good reason not to have Female Marines. There are some awful reasons to ask for them though.

 

Personally, my rationale has always been "I like Female Marines because the idea of an 8' tall lunatic woman with a tank-exploding hammer is pretty cool."

If your reason is any more political than that, you need to take a long walk through a short minefield.

[Aothaine]

I don't think female space marines are needed. I think they need to dig deep and work on Sisters of Battle. Ignoring them to make something entirely differently would kind of upset me. Females are portrayed through 40k in power positions already so I don't feel anything derogatory is happening. There are many female leaders among the T'au, Eldar, Imperium and Necrons. The need to focus on the balancing of the forces they have right now before diving into something like this. 

 

I don't think it would be bad to have them.. I just don't think it would fit the lore at all.

[Ishagu]

As I asked before, what's the point of female space marines? If they are literally just marines with long hair I have absolutely no desire to ever have them in the setting.

 

If they come with sweeping lore changes, then frankly not doing them is the better options. Primaris almost gave the community an aneurysm and that is a tiny change by comparison.

 

If the idea behind them exists to literally tick a box on someone's inclusion list then no. I don't want Brothers of Silence, or Brothers of Battle. I have NEVER looked at a Silent Sisters and thought; "Gee, I like the lore and idea here, but I want a male version."

[Lord Marshal]

Why should there be female space marines?

 

I think a re-done Sisters line with models the quality of Celestine will scratch that itch.

Heck, we need some female Astra Militarum models too.

 

For once I'm going to agree with Ishagu.

 

In my opinion, the Sisters of Battle are both far more unique and far, far more interesting to read about than the Space Marines. It's not even that they're women (although that's part of the aesthetic's uniqueness), but that they fill such a niche as religiously devout crusaders, well-equipped and trained, but without the "they were super epic and metal and golly geepwned everybody because they're super human" that so often pollutes 40k more often than not. 

 

Female Space Marines would give GW more of an excuse to ignore the Sisters of Battle and that would be a huge shame.

[Wargamer]

As I asked before, what's the point of female space marines? If they are literally just marines with long hair I have absolutely no desire to ever have them in the setting.

 

If they come with sweeping lore changes, then frankly not doing them is the better options. Primaris almost gave the community an aneurysm and that is a tiny change by comparison.

 

If the idea behind them exists to literally to tick a box on someone's inclusion ideals then no. I don't want Brothers of Silence, or Brothers of Battle. I have NEVER looked at a Silent Sisters and thought; "Gee, I like the lore and idea here, but I want a male version."

What's the point of female Guard? Female Inquisitors? Female characters in general?

 

Those of us who like the Adepta Astartes like them for the lore and models they inspire. Just like with female members of any other faction.

[Ishagu]

Women can be almost anything in 40k, not Marines.

 

Men can be almost anything in 40k, not Sisters of Battle.

 

Marines aren't sexualy active or developed anyways. They are mountains of muscle and testosterone.

Soon we'll have people asking for distinct Female Necron models or Orks.

 

Inclusion for the sake of inclusion is a terrible, terrible reason to change decades of lore.

[Wargamer]

Except it's not inclusion for the sake of inclusion. Your argument against female marines by comparing to "brothers of silence" or "brothers of battle" is disingenuous.

 

Space Marines are essentially a race - there's a million of them, spread across a thousand Chapters. There's a thousand different takes on them, with a thousand different cultures and doctrines and beliefs.

 

There is ONE order of the Silent Sisterhood. There is ONE order of the Adepta Sororitas. These are organisations that fill a very narrow niche.

 

Marines are more fairly compared to the Guard. Why do we need Female Guard if the whole point of them is to be gun fodder, not romantic characters? Because it adds to the setting for people who enjoy certain tropes and themes. People who add female characters don't do so for some political statement or for shipping fantasies - some of us just think our Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor looks cooler as a Gothic female.

[Triszin]

 

Inclusion for the sake of inclusion is a terrible, terrible reason to change decades of lore.

 

I mean, then what is your stance on Primaris and cawl? THey were shoe horned in and changed decades old lore?

[Terrified Templar]

 

As I asked before, what's the point of female space marines? If they are literally just marines with long hair I have absolutely no desire to ever have them in the setting.

 

If they come with sweeping lore changes, then frankly not doing them is the better options. Primaris almost gave the community an aneurysm and that is a tiny change by comparison.

 

If the idea behind them exists to literally to tick a box on someone's inclusion ideals then no. I don't want Brothers of Silence, or Brothers of Battle. I have NEVER looked at a Silent Sisters and thought; "Gee, I like the lore and idea here, but I want a male version."

What's the point of female Guard? Female Inquisitors? Female characters in general?

 

Those of us who like the Adepta Astartes like them for the lore and models they inspire. Just like with female members of any other faction.

 

The problem is that Space Marines have cultivated a masculine image, an image that has been around for a good while. They are and have been a brotherhood of warriors, the dynamics between space marines are unique to them in a way that I think it would be awkward to insert female Space Marines into the mix. 

 

Imperial Guard and Inquisitors are a different breed though. They don't have the whole brotherhood of warriors vibe to them or not to the extent that introducing female characters would be awkward. The Gaunts Ghosts series is an example of how female guard characters can be inserted and inserted well. True it lost the vibe of a surviving brotherhood fighting to keep the spirit of their world alive but the guard are human, it became a collection of lost souls fighting just to live another day. Space Marines are not human characters, their doubts and fears are not the same as the doubts and fears of a normal human. Their motivations are not the same as a humans. They have a code of honor that they follow without question to an extent that no normal human could. 

 

So the point to this whole ramble is that the Space Marines have a unique image that just doesn't mesh with the concept of female Space Marines.