My Thoughts on Female Space Marines

[Bryan Blaire]

I think a big question to answer is whether the want is specifically for female Adeptus Astartes (as in made in exactly the same way as Marines, but starting off female) or for female super-soldiers akin to Space Marines, but possibly not identical?

[Uberlord Gendo]

As far as I can see, there are no insurmountable lore justifications for NOT having female marines. People have trotted a few out, and none would be a problem which couldn't be written around.

 

[The idea that stealing small female children would be a step too far for 40k is cute. Halo did it years ago, and in that universe the children were taken in secret, then replaced with clones with reduced lifespans, so the parents raised a terminally ill child while the real child was experimented on and indoctrinated in a not dissimilar way to a 40k space marine. If Halo can get away with it, 40k can.]

 

The problem with the 'debate' as I see it, is that once you remove the uncivil, juvenile and deliberately antagonistic or reactionary responses, you don't have a 'debate' at all, which makes the whole thing pointless on a debate forum.

 

(If that last paragraph is itself deemed to be sabotage, remove it and keep my Halo argument.)

Really good point on Halo. Though my (rather limited) understanding is that Spartans are more "human" than Space Marines? Reason I ask is because I'm curious about the audience reception side of things. Basically, how do you have something iconic and main-character-ish, but also prevent the audience from identifying with them too much?

Space Marines as deranged little boys trying to be action heroes is brilliant, but our society isn't healthy enough to get the joke-- people take Batman and Superman seriously. (To be totally clear, I'm saying that the OG infertile GW Space Marine is a brilliant parody of the way what's now being identified as toxic masculinity is incorporated into tropes of heroism and gender norms.)

So the addition of broken little girls is no big deal and makes more sense in universe anyway. That's all no big deal.

The thing that gives me pause is the notion that this is to do with positive representation, like the Disney princesses as Space Marines kind of stuff. As I said before, that's spot on for Stormcast, but to put it into academic, it erases the trauma built in to the Space Marine through the totalization of identification based on a presumption of static intersticies. This is driven by an assumption that all representation is positive. However, the identification with Space Marines is ideally a disidentification. What I'm going on about here is that we are not supposed to want to be Space Marines. How do we keep that discomfort live and tangible? And this applies to GW as well. How do you write (and market) Space Marines in a society that expects its protagonists to be the Rebel Alliance, where redemption arcs for villain protagonists are practically mandatory, and when dealing with systems scale issues (like the Imperium), corruption is always other people?

(And to be clear, this has been a feature of popular American media... Basically forever. 40k is more like Sanguo and the Americans don't do greys very well. I know GW is British, but American influence blah blah blah.)

So, yeah, there's no reason not to do female Space Marines. GW just needs to keep trying to remind the audience how messed up Space Marines are and anyone looking for a hero should really go play Age of Sigmar. And there I'm talking as much to the Space Marine Fanboy and stereotypical Space Wolf player as to anyone else.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

You have to look at this from a business POV. Wargames are a niche market, and the majority of customers in this niche are MALE; FEMALE wargamers are in the minority, a niche of a niche. A business will not profit if it caters too much to this "niche of a niche," as the resulting customer base will be too small.

 

The political activists demanding "representation" do NOT represent the minorities they claim to support. As a Chinese-American, I do NOT want to see Asian characters in American comics, as American comic book companies tend to make these characters INSULTING STEREOTYPES. (FYI, I buy manhua and manga- comics from China and Japan, respectively- when I want to see my kind represented.) Do female Warhammer 40,000 fans really want to see "female Space Marines" conform to every insulting stereotype that exists for their gender, due to Games Workshop giving the job to talentless hack? Note that hiring a female writer is NO guarantee the result won't be a disaster. When Marvel Comics hired Gabby Rivera, a lesbian Latina, to write stories for the Latina character "America Chavez", Rivera made the character a lesbian and then did to her what Matt Ward did to the Ultramarines, e.g., had America Chavez time-travel to World War II and punch Adolf Hitler, stealing Captain America's accomplishments; Marvel Comics fans were understandably upset with such plagiarism, and refused to buy the books; the resulting poor sales led to the series being cancelled.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Bjorn Firewalker

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The thing that gives me pause is the notion that this is to do with positive representation, like the Disney princesses as Space Marines kind of stuff. As I said before, that's spot on for Stormcast, but to put it into academic, it erases the trauma built in to the Space Marine through the totalization of identification based on a presumption of static intersticies. This is driven by an assumption that all representation is positive. However, the identification with Space Marines is ideally a disidentification. What I'm going on about here is that we are not supposed to want to be Space Marines. How do we keep that discomfort live and tangible?

Good point. Becoming a Space Marine is a dehumanizing process; Space Marines no longer see themselves as human, and have difficulty relating to the latter.

 

Are women happy if others view them as nothing more than a womb for bearing children, and breasts for nursing children? Don't they feel insulted when others subject them to such a dehumanizing view? Well, a Space Marine submits to an equally dehumanizing view, i.e., he sees HIMSELF as a weapon the Emperor may wield against His enemies, nothing more, nothing less.

[Guest Triszin]

I am completely fine with Marines as women.

 

for me, it would only be a change of a head, and barely that.

Marines physiology is so Transhuman that anyone that undergoes the process would end up almost exactly the same. so they would use the exact same equipment in all honestly, or dang near it.

 

also, while it has been regulated to soft Cannon.

In the black library book: [ Ashes of Prospero ]; ARJAC ROCKFIST ponders why there aren't Women that go through the Marine trials as a Fenrisian woman is the only one to assist him in hunting a tainted beast, and she makes a good, valid argument asking why she isn't allowed through the Trials.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Triszin

[Ishagu]

I have no issue with the idea, however to see it happen the lore would have to be heavily retconned and re-writen, and that I can't support.

 

Marines themselves are an 80s, heavy metal, hyper masculine view of Super Soldiers, and there is nothing wrong with that. I agree more female representation in the hobby is a good thing, but not at the expense of years of detailed lore and identity.

 

Also, the new Sisters range arguably looks better than any Marine models lol. I think I'll be collecting various kits and it does a great job of a female focused army.

[Noserenda]

You have to look at this from a business POV. Wargames are a niche market, and the majority of customers in this niche are MALE; FEMALE wargamers are in the minority, a niche of a niche. A business will not profit if it caters too much to this "niche of a niche," as the resulting customer base will be too small.

 

Have you not wondered why that is? Most of the women hobbyists ive known are driven away from the hobby by other reasons but representation is right up there, and having a "separate but equal" "girls army" really isnt a solution.

 

Nor does it require any retcons at all, its straightforward enough to have Primaris be equal opportunities but Cawl never bothered to tell anyone because he assumed it was obvious, (or he's basically genderblind from being a thousands year old techpriest with both Genders in his head personally)  there is a recruitment shortage and he just asks Guilliman why the marines are ignoring half their recruits. BAM job done, literally minutes of work.

 

Then simply enjoy your new upgrade sprue with a bunch of head options and maybe some sergeant weapons  that arent on non chapter sprues like Thunder hammers. Maybe even do a limited run boxed set to celebrate it with a new Primaris Lt and an alt cover codex for the hell of it. Minimal effort, pull in some cash and if im wildly wrong you have some actual evidence to support the doomsaying ;) 

 

 

[Jings]

Sorry the grammatical errors/repeats in wording through - put this little essay together in the quick reply before it grew arms at legs and I didn't bother skimming over it before I hit post. 

 

~~~

 

I'll preface this by stating I'm vehemently against female marines and will drop the hobby in a heartbeat should they be introduced. It would be a pointless, pandering change and would fatally undermine the meta-theme of the faction in much the same way a male Sister of Battle would to the Sororitas. It's not a "boo women" argument - rather, they're "male", they've always been portrayed as "male", and by introducing a second gender to Astartes, it would ruin what makes them Astartes. 

 

There is and always has been a lot of little meta wink-winks and nudge-nudges about Space Marines being portrayed as an extreme male power fantasy, with a variety of nasty little undersides designed to ruin that very same fantasy. In this sense, I'm going to argue that Astartes are a parody of traditional male power fantasies. Just as their "angelic" and "knightly" aspects are subverted to the extreme and laser-focused on the negative aspects of those themes, as they are with masculinity. Yes, they're big and strong and good at killing. They're also as arrogant as they are violent, and just as dangerous to their allies as they are their enemies should they talk out of turn or really offer any resistance (depending on their background). They have no family, and the process that creates them removes their ability to procreate (by design - we'll get to that), and instead are loyal only to Chapter and Imperium. Marines are toxically masculine at the expense of everything that makes a man good - even their loyalty is of a twisted, unquestioning variety. 

 

The idea is - Space Marines are the manliest man you'd never want to be, and have constantly been portrayed as such. They're not human, and they're not supposed to be. 

 

Enter: The Adepta Sororitas. 

 

In much the same vein Astartes attack typical male power fantasies, Sisters play with similar themes. They're an order of warrior women who are highly sexualized (let's face it) while suppressing that sexuality through the practice of chastity, given their devotion to a singular man (my feminist theory is rusty, but I think this is generally considered a bad thing). I'm mentioning this now because it's both a point in itself - the Sororitas are, meta-narratively, analogous to the Astartes - and they share a particular aspect that will bring me to my conclusion here: 

 

Chastity. 

 

Both the Astartes and Sororitas share a common element in that they're both chaste. While it's not unheard of for a Sororitas to become pregnant, they're likely to wind up shaved bald and handed an Eviscerator in such an event. Space Marines, too, are restricted from traditioanl reproduction, with their pseudo-greek practice of Geneseed implantation (cough) being their method of reproduction outside of older loose-canon examples of pre-implantation liaisons. This is big, to me at least, in that it blocks both groups from taking part in what is arguably the happiest moment in most people's lives - having and raising a child. Nothing makes you want to hope for a better future more than having a child, and two of the most powerful fighting organizations in the Imperium are blocked from that experience - with ensuring the continued survival of the Imperial state itself taking precedence over better futures that could be. 

 

I'm aware that this is a lot of narrative "between the lines" interpretation on my part, but I think my points stand and are largely by design. Even in-universe, Sororitas are chaste as they are "married" to the Emperor like modern-day nuns as it would be a waste for these highly-trained schola-elite troops if they were to pop off for 9 months to have a kid - their value lies elsewhere. They are robbed of motherhood in the same way that Astartes are robbed of personhood. They're not human anymore. And that's why they're only men. Astartes were designed by the Emperor as a means to the end - the reconquering of the galaxy for the benefit mankind - not as a replacement for baseline humanity. The Emperor made the Astartes creation process require baseline humans for that express purpose - to ensure that, in the event the Astartes attempted to take over, they would still be require baseline humans to survive and prosper in order to replenish their ranks. Narratively speaking, this safeguard would be completely undermined by the introduction of female Astartes, because if you can gene-edit to allow female implantation, why not their ability to breed? 

 

The setting absolutely needs more female representation and I'm happy that it's happening, slowly but surely. GW's recent approach of expanding visibility of the Sisters of Battle range is the best way forward for this. But shoehorning that representation into places where there is established thematic and narrative reasons why that is not already the case would be a massive mistake. Tinkering with established lore to sell models is never a good thing imo. 

 

To end, I'll put a masssssssive caveat in here: The Emperor's Children. Interesting things could be done here, vis-a-vis female Astartes, at least initially. If it absolutely have to happen, the Emperor's Children would be the best place to explore that given the nature of the Prince of Pleasure. But for Space Wolves or Ultramarines to suddenly have marines turn up in boobplate or what have you would be a colossal error. 

 

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk. 

Edited May 10, 2021 by Jings

[Bjorn Firewalker]

 

You have to look at this from a business POV. Wargames are a niche market, and the majority of customers in this niche are MALE; FEMALE wargamers are in the minority, a niche of a niche. A business will not profit if it caters too much to this "niche of a niche," as the resulting customer base will be too small.

 

Have you not wondered why that is? Most of the women hobbyists ive known are driven away from the hobby by other reasons but representation is right up there, and having a "separate but equal" "girls army" really isnt a solution.

Or it could be because MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT, i.e., most women aren't interested in the things that most men are interested in, and vice versa.

 

Let me speak from the POV of a man who immigrated to the US as a five-year-old, and has lived here for 30+ years. As an anime otaku, I watched Sailor Moon when the series was syndicated in the 1990s, but my sister didn't make fun of me for sharing her interests; I stopped watching NOT because my peers mocked me (they didn't know, as I didn't advertise my hobbies), but because I lost interest as I grew older. My sister read Ranma 1/2, and I did NOT make fun of her for liking a martial arts sex comedy; in fact, I was happy she shared my interests, and sad I couldn't get her interested in other shonen manga (boy's comics) series. My mother enjoys Sons of Anarchy, which surprised me, but I'm not going to make fun of her for this; on the other hand, she has zero interest in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

 

In short, fandoms ARE inclusive towards other genders, but this inclusivity is no guarantee other genders will become fans.

[Evil Eye]

(Disclaimer: I do not play Space Marines and I am not likely to any time soon so YMMV on how valid my points are...)

I would rather we didn't have female Space Marines, but not because "Ew, icky women in my 40K!" or anything stupid like that. I like having female characters in 40K- I'm building a Sisters kill team/INQ28 warband/thing for no reason other than I really like the Sisters and wanted to build some. There's plenty of places for women in 40K but the Astartes are not one of them, for several reasons.

 

The first is the fluff. It has been consistently, repeatedly stated that the Astartes conversion process does not work on women. We don't need the exact fine details of why- the conversion process is already utterly horrific, taking pubescent boys, vivisecting them and quite literally rebuilding them as living weapons- I'd rather not think about the precise parts that make that not work on girls, because Jesus Christ. But regardless, it's one of those things that's as much a part of the fluff as Orks being green. Throwing in an asspull of "Oh hey Cawl worked out how to mutilate girls into transhuman monsters too!" or worse outright retconning it for no very good reason would be dumb.

Secondly, I can't see how they could do female Space Marines that wouldn't cause one side or the other to erupt in fits of rage over something, or quite possibly the same side. Play up the fantastical side of things and have them noticably female in body shape (not talking cheesecake marines, just having more feminine hip-to-waist-to-shoulder ratios than their male counterparts)? Someone will accuse them of being too feminine/oversexualised or whatever. Go the more realistic route and have them be so roided up that they basically don't look any different to male Marines when their helmets are on? There'll be criticisms of GW being misogynists who won't represent the female body properly or something equally stupid. Some people make a living off of never being happy about anything, and pandering to these people is ALWAYS a mistake.

 

Thirdly, 40K as a setting is not somewhere you would want to be "represented" and is fundamentally incompatible with that line of thinking. It's a hideous nightmare setting where humanity is a totalitarian hell state out of necessity to avoid literal embodiments of evil from destroying the galaxy. The Space Marines aren't superheroes, they're post-human murder machines who are made by abducting and genetically mutiliating children. If someone says "I wanna be a Space Marine!" the correct response is "No you do not!". The whole setting is a grand tragedy mixed with a cosmic horror story and attempts to make it more "inclusive" would only succeed in watering down what makes 40K interesting. Even if some elements of the Imperium could be viewed as "problematic", that's...kinda the point. It's a horrible place to live. If you pushed for diversity quotas in a Munitiorum factory's management you'd probably be sentenced to hard(er) labour for wasting time and slowing down the already gastropod-speed Imperial beauracracy machine.

 

Fourthly, the Sororitas exist. We don't need Misters of Battle and we don't need female Space Marines. The Sisters are all female. The Space Marines are all male. To be honest though if I were a woman I'd rather be a Sororitas by virtue of not having to be chopped up and reassembled with a selection of new organs- I'd argue they get the better deal!

Finally,  I honestly don't see where 40K NEEDS more female representation outside of the Guard, who need new models (not 2003 sculpts with new heads, GW!) anyway. Tau are IIRC not particularly sexually dimorphic, Eldar have far more pressing concerns than sex representation in their rather decrepit model range and actually have a fair few female sculpts, the Dark Eldar have plenty of female sculpts, the Orks are a single-sex race, the Necrons have long since abandoned such fleshy concerns (also robot skeletons don't need boobs), the Tyranids are completely alien in biology anyway and the Mechanicus probably view gender as a pointless barrier to true oneness with the holy Machine.

 

There's other points I'd like to make, but I don't want to start a raging flamewar or get accusations of "gatekeeping" or whatever, so instead I'm going to post this comic that succinctly explains the woes of niche hobbies far better than I could:

[Felix Antipodes]

An interesting topic but sorta a waste of time unless the same conversation is taking place in the GW boardroom. If they decide to introduce opposite sex marines/sororitas there will be brief flame wars across the net and some losses of personnel to the hobby, but things will go on and people will adjust.

 

Do I think we need this? Not really, but I'm not that passionate about it either way. I'm a fluff bunny and will accept what the lore masters dictate. Would I include said figures if it came to pass? No. As others have pointed out they would be so roided up they would look no different so why purchase these new models - you already have them. Since selling models is what GW is all about they would have to differentiate them to make sales. This will inevitably lead to some form of boob plate and I wouldn't support that either.

 

If GW were going to make such a change they had the perfect opportunity when they introduced the Primaris range - and who knows, that may be what they are holding back to complete that range - with their technical deux-ex-Belisarius sorting the issue. They are smart people so I don't believe they didn't think over this in the 9th edition planning meetings.

 

So TLDR: Personally not for a retcon of this magnitude but ((shrug)) if they find a "cure" and advance the lore.

 

Who knows, maybe Cawl found some left over geneseed from the two missing Primarchs and found out the big secret was they were female? (lol)

[Ordo Machinum]

My opinion is simply this...
Augmented, genetically-enhanced, etc super humans shouldn't be "male" or "female". 
They are an amalgamation of both distinctive features or of no specific features at all. 
I prefer my monster-soldiers to be monster-soldiers, shy of contaminating chaos influence of course. 
 

Oh, and armour is armour. No difference at all.

And they should always be wearing helmets. 

Because I cannot paint eyes worth a dam. 

Edited May 11, 2021 by Orion

[Helias_Tancred]

Female space marines?

 

No. Not a chance in Hades.

 

Along the same line as an Asian Apollo Creed, a female Colonel Kurtz, a female James Bond, Wonder Woman is not a man, etc.

 

Also female space marines? Two words, Adeptus Sororitas. 

Edited May 11, 2021 by Helias Tancred

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Sisters of Battle aren’t Space Marines, not more than Alpha Legion are Ultramarines .

[BitsHammer]

Sisters of Battle aren’t Space Marines, not more than Alpha Legion are Ultramarines .

This. One is a religious order of space paladins serving the space catholic church, the other are post human weapons who pretend to still be human by aping human customs and are way too caught up defending some imagined "honor" of their respective chapters.

 

They have different asthetics, different backgrounds, different rules, different wargear limitations, different statlines, and at the end of the day they're no more similar than Astartes and the Guard.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Fulkes

[Ishagu]

 

 

Sisters of Battle aren’t Space Marines, not more than Alpha Legion are Ultramarines .

This. One is a religious order of space paladins serving the space catholic church, the other are post human weapons who pretend to still be human by aping human customs and are [i[way too caught up defending some imagined "honor" of their respective chapters.

 

They have different asthetics, different backgrounds, different rules, different wargear limitations, different statlines, and at the end of the day they're no more similar than Astartes and the Guard.

They are both soldiers in power armour that use similar weapons. They are extremely similar.

 

Female space Marines aren't needed, just as Brothers of battle aren't needed. The lore has been established over 20 years in this matter.

 

Inclusivity doesn't mean that everything has to be identical. If the lore wasn't so well established then sure, but that's not the case.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Ishagu

[BitsHammer]

 

 

Sisters of Battle aren’t Space Marines, not more than Alpha Legion are Ultramarines .

This. One is a religious order of space paladins serving the space catholic church, the other are post human weapons who pretend to still be human by aping human customs and are [i[way too caught up defending some imagined "honor" of their respective chapters.

 

They have different asthetics, different backgrounds, different rules, different wargear limitations, different statlines, and at the end of the day they're no more similar than Astartes and the Guard.

They are both soldiers in power armour that use similar weapons. They are extremely similar.

 

Female space Marines aren't needed, just as Brothers of battle aren't needed. The lore has been established over 20 years in this matter.

 

Inclusivity doesn't mean that everything has to be identical.

 

As similar as jam and jelly. Yes, there are similarities, but they are completely different things.

[Ishagu]

They are completely similar things, actually.

 

Both elite armies fighting for a Brutal empire using bolters and meltas, wearing power armour and riding around in boxy vehicles.

 

Sure, various lore details are different, and that's a good thing. The armies are steeped in lore.

 

Just as a retcon can change Marines to be female, a retcon can change Sisters to be male. I'm against both of these changes because they don't enrich the setting or improve on anything. They make it less special and less unique.

[BitsHammer]

They are completely similar things, actually.

 

Both elite armies fighting for a Brutal empire using bolters and meltas, wearing power armour and riding around in boxy vehicles.

 

Sure, various lore details are different, and that's a good thing. The armies are steeped in lore.

 

Just as a retcon can change Marines to be female, a retcon can change Sisters to be male. I'm against both of these changes because they don't enrich the setting or improve on anything. They make it less special and less unique.

One serves the Emperor, one serves a church. One uses a wide range of weapons, the other is focused on a Holy Trinity. One follows the Codex Astartes, the other follows the Decree Passive and the Imperial Cult. One is a short ranged elite shooting army that outnumbers the other 1.5-2:1, the other is an all ranges elite army with 2 wounds a pop and the ability to rapid fire at full range for free. One has a wide range of cultures it pulls from that give a massive creative freedom to the player, the other is locked into space catholics.

 

You can boil down similar wargear like bolters or rhinos, but by that logic Marines share just as much with Custodes and Sisters of Silence.

 

And as it's pointed out, if Primaris are the source of the female Space Marines (or warp nonsense the source of female Chaos Space Marines) it's not a retcon to go "things changed, now anyone can be an Astartes if the implants take".

[Ishagu]

The fine details are different, yes - those linked closely to lore. The general forces of the Sisters are extremely similar to Astartes in form and function, and that is a simple fact.

 

40k is built on lore, and the lore is the whole identity of the setting.

 

In said lore, the Emperor - an ego-maniacal warlord conquered the galaxy. He did so by creating 20 sons in aspects of his image, who in turn were used to create their own more numerous sons.

 

Further to this, the Marines themselves are a dark satire of historical soldiers and the ways men were treated. Young men and boys thrown into the furnace of War, stripped of their humanity and horribly butchered and disfigured in the process.

 

This is the lore that makes them interesting, and suggestions about changing this would lead to the dilution of multiple aspects. Wanting to change this shows a simple lack of comprehension or understanding of the lore, the inspiration behind it and the characters involved within it.

 

Do people simply not understand that the character of the Emperor would chose to create sons? And do they not see the historical influence on the dark lore of their creation? How does watering this down improve it? How does a desire for tearing down these ideas illustrate any love for the stories and plots of 40k?

 

A further example: There is no reason why the Amazons in Wonder Woman don't feature men. No reason at all... except their entire story, lore and identity. Should we have male Amazons in WW? I don't think so. To add them would be a dilution of their background, identity and reason for existing in the first place.

 

If the lore had been different from the start then sure, make both examples feature both sexes. But it wasn't, and the things that make these stories unique and interesting in the first place are linked intrinsically to the genders of the parties involved. There is nothing wrong with this.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Ishagu

[excelite]

 

 

They are completely similar things, actually.

 

Both elite armies fighting for a Brutal empire using bolters and meltas, wearing power armour and riding around in boxy vehicles.

 

Sure, various lore details are different, and that's a good thing. The armies are steeped in lore.

 

Just as a retcon can change Marines to be female, a retcon can change Sisters to be male. I'm against both of these changes because they don't enrich the setting or improve on anything. They make it less special and less unique.

One serves the Emperor, one serves a church. One uses a wide range of weapons, the other is focused on a Holy Trinity. One follows the Codex Astartes, the other follows the Decree Passive and the Imperial Cult. One is a short ranged elite shooting army that outnumbers the other 1.5-2:1, the other is an all ranges elite army with 2 wounds a pop and the ability to rapid fire at full range for free. One has a wide range of cultures it pulls from that give a massive creative freedom to the player, the other is locked into space catholics.

 

You can boil down similar wargear like bolters or rhinos, but by that logic Marines share just as much with Custodes and Sisters of Silence.

 

And as it's pointed out, if Primaris are the source of the female Space Marines (or warp nonsense the source of female Chaos Space Marines) it's not a retcon to go "things changed, now anyone can be an Astartes if the implants take".

I don‘t think equipment and statlines matter in this discussion… it Leads to one sided cherry picking, like you forgot to mention that there are miracle dice, stratagems and auras that have to be included when talking about that stuff…

 

They add to the whole package of an army and if you have a look at the „Meta“ from 9th and end of 8th, it turns out that sisters are quite a strong faction… one might even say a stronger faction than most astartes.

 

Don‘t get me wrong, I like that… but I have to say it appeals to me more to have a different faction that provides other benefits and strategies instead of having a lazy reskin of existing units or a head upgrade sprue

 

Edit: fixed autocorrect

Edited May 11, 2021 by excelite

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I'm absolutely, 100% in favour of the idea. It's easy to write in thanks to what happened with Primaris, regardless of what the lore said before, it can be easily rewritten, that Cawl discovered it anew, or that one of the Lost Legions was in fact female all along.

 

A lot of the arguments against needing more representation are very simplistic, and miss the point entirely. Saying that women are 'catered for' with the sororitas or Guard misses the point.

 

Let's look at it through another lens. Imagine a world where the Sororitas are the main faction. They've been around forever and have the sort of range that the Space Marines have. They also have the freedom or creativity that Space Marines have. Sororitas with robes and skirts are just one of the sub-factions. Others exist which are not religioua at all, there are Amazonian styled orders, A Scythian styled order, as well as a basic model type with no ornamentation which can act as a blank canvas for anything your heart desires. There are few fluff restrictions on what an order can be, and almost anything goes.

 

Then, someone comes along and goes, can I have a male order? An order of my own, where all of the models are male? And the answer was simply yes, you can play Space Marines.

 

Except, in this world, Space Marines all HAVE to worship the Emperor as zealously as the Black Templars, and every single model is fully robed and hooded like a Dark Angel Veteran. No other models exist, you can choose your colours, but any other model customisation requires intensive resculpting or 3rd party models. Creative freedom is limited fluff wise as they all Ultramarine successors, and there are no exceptions within that lore which don't attract a wave of "Well Akchually" comments.

 

Representation sorted right?

[Ishagu]

Except the lore states categorically that Cawl merely improved in small ways on an existing design that originates from the Emperor. "Brotherhood" is a key component of the Astartes identity - thay are all male.

 

I have never looked at the Amazons in DC comics, or the elite Wakanda guard who are all female, and desired to have male representation.

 

To do that would be to drastically change the identity of those things, not merely evolve them or update them. It's perfectly OK to have all male Asteres, just as it's perfectly OK to have all female Amazons. To argue otherwise is to admit a failure to understand the lore and origin of the factions involved

Edited May 11, 2021 by Ishagu

[Blindhamster]

to be fair, Malcador says more than once that he'd tried to get big E to make daughters instead of sons.

 

I do think adding some female heads to the range and explaining that the super high success rate of primaris now means they can even convert women into space marines too.

 

I still believe it wouldn't need more than head swaps though, regardless of the ins and out of femanine armour, fact still remains that the process of becoming a space marine is going to obliterate most of what makes a womans physique look femanine.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I honestly don't think that the concept of 'brotherhood' to an Astartes would be gender limited. Brotherhood may be a gender specific term, but it is an entirely gender neutral concept, based on shared beliefs, training and experiences. One marine wouldn't care if the marine standing next to them was male or female, as long as they had passed all of the same tests, had the right abilities and followed the same chapter cult. A male Space Wolf would have more in common with a female Wolf than a male Dark Angel.