Adeptus Custodes Officially Include Women

[Marshall Bretton]

12 minutes ago, Robbienw said:

 

There actually has. I think the reason why its seen as wrong to introduced them is twofold:

 

Previously produced lore where they are stated to be all male and have been shown to be entirely male in various art and BL fiction - many will solely object to that because its a sudden very abrupt change.  Not least of all because it has a strange as yet unknown effect on a 60+ novel HH series that has only just concluded.  It affects 30k far more than 40k.

 

Secondly, like Marines the Custodes are the top military elite.  Elite units have extremely stringent requirements in the real world and seemingly in 40k. A miniscule percentage of the very best hardest men make it through training to be one, a vanishingly small amount.  It seems hard to believe any women would make it given innate physical differences and the gap there would be between women and men in the respective top percentiles.  This is ameliorated a bit by some peoples perception of this being based more in Hollywood depictions rather than real life, but probably still a factor.

 

 

 

Fair enough and I respect your opinion but I do disagree.

 

Regarding the art, how can you tell what gender they are when they are wearing all enclosing armour? I know there are some very old images of custodes wearing nothing but a helmet and pants, but I think we can all agree those are frankly ridiculous and I believe have already been retconned. Likewise in terms of the lore, I am not aware of anything that says they were all male? Yes there were references to recruiting the sons of terran nobles, but that is specific wording that is easily changed. There was also the example given from sanguinious speaking of male and female guardians for the emperor which is an equally valid argument. I have read all the hh novels and really don't see how it impacts them at all? Just because we didn't explicitly see female custodes, doesn't mean they weren't there.

 

In terms of real life, there are plenty of women in the armed forces who are far fitter than the majority of men and who have passed the most difficult selection courses to be in the most elite units. The perception that the reality is otherwise is quite frankly down to Hollywood and sadly to a legacy of mysogenistic people in the armed forces who can't accept that women are just as good as men, if not better (again to be very clear I am NOT talking about anyone on these forums, it is just a sad reality of military life). The primary reason for there being more men in these units is actually down to the fact that there are generally just more men in the armed forces. That also isn't a capability thing, it's a societal issue where traditionally it has been a male role and much of it has only recently been opened to women actually being allowed in.

 

Regardless, for custodes that argument is irrelevant. When you take a 3 year old child and fundamentally rewrite their DNA then their gender makes no difference. I have always thought of it with the custodes that it is nothing to do with physical strength, but more to do with their genetic stability to be able to accept their DNA being fundamentally rewritten without unravelling. The lore always states that each custodian is a unique creation so it is easy to believe that the DNA  for males and females would be rewritten to make each one as effective as possible.

For females this would be stopping unnecessary breast tissue growing, decreasing hip width to allow increased strain and promoting larger muscle growth.

For males this would be widening hips to increase agility, and increasing flexibility and mobility to make them more agile and reactive.

 

In reality the perfect soldier sits somewhere between the male and female body stereotypes, neither gender is ideal.

[phandaal]

1 minute ago, Indy Techwisp said:

1) Where was this controversy when the Votann were unsquatted or when the Guard spontaneously gained a new Tank which had "always been there" as per GW? It's the exact same issue, but they had no outrage at all iirc.

 

There was plenty of controversy about Votann, with many people saying they did not belong in the game at all, they should only have been reintroduced as a Tau auxiliary force, they look stupid, etc etc. People still express their dislike of the faction to this day. Difference is it did not escalate in the same way as this latest change, because people mostly just stated their opinions without being told they were horrible for having those opinions.

 

To be fair, we seem to have moved past that last part pretty quickly on this topic, thanks to the mods nuking the worst of it.

[Robbienw]

ADB said he wasn't allowed to use female Custodes because the model line was all male.  This is not proof at that point that there was always intent to be female ones.  That makes no logical sense, they would obviously have just put female models from the start if that was the case.  The scene in EoE will be Custodes and SoS.  It says about all infant sons only in the 8th edition codex, the recruiting during missions/off world came in the 9th edition codex.  Additionally the infant sons line in the 8th edition codex proves up to that point there was no intent to have female Custodes.

 

Regardless, i was just stating the reasons why people perceive their inclusion as wrong.  Regardless of if you think that perception is wrong or right, the perception will still exist.

[Indy Techwisp]

4 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

There was plenty of controversy about Votann, with many people saying they did not belong in the game at all, they should only have been reintroduced as a Tau auxiliary force, they look stupid, etc etc. People still express their dislike of the faction to this day. Difference is it did not escalate in the same way as this latest change, because people mostly just stated their opinions without being told they were horrible for having those opinions.

 

To be fair, we seem to have moved past that last part pretty quickly on this topic, thanks to the mods nuking the worst of it.

 

Most of the controversy seems to be on social media rather than here, and on said social media the same accounts who were chanting "Rock and Stone" for the Votann's introduction are now railing against GW for adding Female Custodes with the same justification.

It's something I'm seeing a lot (although the Tank I've seen no complaints about other than its lack of a Bottom plate)

[Robbienw]

13 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Also, 3 bonus things.

 

1) Where was this controversy when the Votann were unsquatted or when the Guard spontaneously gained a new Tank which had "always been there" as per GW? It's the exact same issue, but they had no outrage at all iirc.

 

Its not the same.  A new tank appearing is an addition.  Changing previously specifically all male Custodes to include women is a retcon, there is a difference.  The Votann was a resurrection of old Squat fluff, i'm failry sure there was a lot of fuss over it.

[Robbienw]

20 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

2) Female Stormcast are equally as strong as Male Stormcast, and since that's currently our only GW example of Female Transhumans, I'd say that's a good place to look to see how they're handled.

 

3) The last time GW made up in-universe reasoning for a change in the same ballpark as this we got Primaris Marines, and since we still have people complaining about them nearly a decade on from that, I think GW made the right call to just use their traditional, in use since the start of the game method of adding new things to the lore of "Yeah, that's always been a thing." rather than risk another decade long hot topic like Primaris turned into.

 

Stormcast are AoS, they have nothing to do with 40K power levels.

 

Primaris by design are a development of Space Marines, you couldn't have said they had always been there as a surprise new addition.  It would have been a massive retcon.  Saying they were a new development was their only option.  They probably should have gone with its just a new armour mark and warmachines, and left the geneseed evolution part though 

Edited April 16 by Robbienw

[phandaal]

1 minute ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

Most of the controversy seems to be on social media rather than here, and on said social media the same accounts who were chanting "Rock and Stone" for the Votann's introduction are now railing against GW for adding Female Custodes with the same justification.

It's something I'm seeing a lot (although the Tank I've seen no complaints about other than its lack of a Bottom plate)

 

This is definitely something that provokes more extreme reactions whether in appreciation or dislike, and I think the opinions bounce off of even harder because of the mutual pushback.

 

Votann are not something people would ever consider to be part of the wider "culture war," but female Custodes are. It is what it is. I am glad that at least here people can still argue like real nerds over the important things like "what exactly is 'arcane genetic alchemy?'"

[Indy Techwisp]

Just now, Robbienw said:

 

Its not the same.  A new tank appearing is an addition.  Changing previously specifically all male Custodes to include women is a retcon, there is a difference.  The Votann was a resurrection of old Squat fluff, i'm failry sure there was a lot of fuss over it.

 

The Necrons went through 3 different major "always have been" style retcons as of now, going from Chaos aligned Robots, to Mindless Terminator parodies, to sapient beings held as slaves to the C'tan and now to the old masters of the galaxy waking up with their enslaved C'tans.

 

While I imagine there was some complaints about all of these when they were first introduced, there's almost no evidence of that at all nowadays and these were all major changes to the factions identity.

 

Adding another possible biological sex for the 9ft tall hand-crafted by technomagic demigods isn't a major change to the faction in anywhere close to that capacity, especially since we have confirmation from the team who actually wrote the things that there legitimately were always meant to be female Custodes.

[Indy Techwisp]

2 minutes ago, Robbienw said:

 

Stormcast are AoS, they have nothing to do with 40K power levels.

 

Primaris by design are a development of Space Marines, you couldn't have said they had always been there as a surprise new addition.  It would have been a massive retcon.  Saying they were a new development was their only option.  They probably should have gone with its just a new armour mark and warmachines, and left the geneseed evolution part though 

 

Regarding Primaris Marines briefly.

The intention here was "The fans want us to explain the origins of the new minis, so how donwe explain releasing the new True Scale Marines?"

They didn't do a whole song and dance for making CSM the correct scale and as such bo-one complained about that. It's because they tried to explain it as a Lore thing that we had an issue.

 

Also, re Stormcast.

I get it, they're AoS.

They're also, as I said, the only example of Female Transhumans that GW currently produce and they're stated to be equally as powerful as the male stormcast.

This isn't me saying "They should be as strong as stormcast."

This is me saying "GW didn't make the existing female transhumans arbitrarily weaker, so there's no reason to assume it would be the same here."

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

11 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Also, 3 bonus things.

 

1) Where was this controversy when the Votann were unsquatted or when the Guard spontaneously gained a new Tank which had "always been there" as per GW? It's the exact same issue, but they had no outrage at all iirc.

 

2) Female Stormcast are equally as strong as Male Stormcast, and since that's currently our only GW example of Female Transhumans, I'd say that's a good place to look to see how they're handled.

 

3) The last time GW made up in-universe reasoning for a change in the same ballpark as this we got Primaris Marines, and since we still have people complaining about them nearly a decade on from that, I think GW made the right call to just use their traditional, in use since the start of the game method of adding new things to the lore of "Yeah, that's always been a thing." rather than risk another decade long hot topic like Primaris turned into.

 

 

1) There were and are complaints around the introduction of that range and the effects it had on lore. Not only from old Squat players, but also from T'au players who suddenly had most of their tech coming from a different in universe group rather than their own faction. It rubbed every lore concerned T'au player I know the wrong way, and those I hang out with still grumble about it. It just isn't as big a deal as Primaris was. Guard players are cool guys who like tanks, and nothing about the introduction of a new tank really changes the identity of their army.

 

2) I don't really care about this.

 

3) The introduction of Primaris was staggeringly stupid and flew in the face of so much lore. The introduction of female Custodes isn't as bad as that was, but it is a change and it does fly in the face of established lore. However, there is a reason that this is hitting harder than it might otherwise have.

 

The elephant in the room is, this male vs female crap is getting old. Every time inclusion and diversity is introduced into an IP we love, it tanks. Sometimes this is due to general mismanagement, but often it's because the changes that take place piss off all the people who were originally there as fans, while catering to an audience that is vanishingly insignificant. Then, instead of trying to mend that bridge, people online see that the diversity has driven off people who don't like change, call them evil for not liking the change, the company piles on behind them, and the fans give up and leave. But here's the thing, it isn't actually to do with Males vs Females. It's about change. Some changes are worse than others. Primaris was one, the destruction of the Old World for AoS was another. This one, while smaller and less important to lore than either of those, might be even nastier in the long run because of all the baggage people have from watching similar changes destroy IPs over, and over, and over, as well as all the completely uneffected people who will pile onto it from outside of the hobby purely because of the subject of gender.

 

In short, I wouldn't care about female Custodes if they were actually originally intended. They weren't. They haven't been. They were originally just honored marines, then they were giant golden super beings created in the Emperor's image. Sisters of Silence were the female component of his guard, and there wasn't a reason to change that other than to score points in an ongoing culture war that I, personally, am exhausted with. I just want people to stop changing things I like for these stupid, STUPID reasons. This isn't going to bring in some great wave of new players that were being held back by the fact Custodes weren't women. It's just going to get used as a vehicle for people to clout chase online until the next thing comes along.

[Indy Techwisp]

I get the distinct impression everyone here sees "AoS" and just goes "Ah yes, irrelevant. I can ignore that." rather than actually reading why I even brought them up in the first place.

[Robbienw]

24 minutes ago, Roomsky said:

 

Custodes creation begins at the developmental stage before any significant difference between strength or form between the sexes, as the process begins before they hit puberty. What's more, the Custodes have already been very specific that every facet of their being is hand-crafted when they're being created, which implies they don't have induced "hyper-puberty" or something similar. And on top of that, Custodes reliably being made from hostages of rebellious nobility means that physical acumen doesn't factor into it anyway. Their creation process isn't analogous to real-life military training on any level.

 

Also, gene science in 40k is effectively magic.

 

That may be the case, but the perception about elite military units I highlighted still exists and applies to Custodes.

 

Additionally, we know they are taken as infants, but we don't know much of the process and what stages it takes place in.  The candidates could grow into young adulthood and puberty before any significant kind of physiological or neurological changes take place.  

 

If the process turns a baseline human male into an upscaled physically perfect but still male human looking and shaped being, then it follows that the process will turn a human female into a an upscaled physically perfect but still female looking and shaped being, and their will be a commensurate small difference in physical capability.

[Marshall Bretton]

3 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

I get the distinct impression everyone here sees "AoS" and just goes "Ah yes, irrelevant. I can ignore that." rather than actually reading why I even brought them up in the first place.

I read why you brought them up :) 

and yes I do think it is a valid argument.

 

[Indy Techwisp]

There is exactly ONE example of Female "Transhumans" released by GW.

They are not treated with any mechanical differences from the males.

They are not made arbitrarily better or worse in the game or the lore.

They aren't depicted as being any different at all from the males besides their appearance.

 

Because this is the only example we have from GW across any of their Warhammer ranges, we should consider this the direction GW is likely to take regarding Female Custodes.

That is the reason I bring up Stormcast.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

No. I specifically don't care whether or not female Custodes are stronger or weaker than male ones. It isn't an discussion I'm interested in, and so I don't care about Stormcast being used as an example about why they wouldn't be. It's literally the least interesting argument we can make in a world this over the top and ridiculous. That's why I dismissed it in my response. 

 

As for everyone else, your mileage may vary.

[Indy Techwisp]

I am of the opinion that this is a good thing for the hobby, but not because I'm expecting total parity to bring in thousands of new players or whatever.

 

I'm thinking that it's a good thing because it will attract new writers to the franchise and maybe, just maybe, expand the lore a bit with fresh ideas coming in.

Additionally, there are some people out there where this change has convinced them to join the hobby instead of sitting on the fence, which is good for them.

 

But most importantly, I think this is a good thing because GW did this with Custodes rather than Space Marines and thus as bad as we have it now with all the arguments it's not the all out fandom collapse Female Marines would have caused.

With the knowledge gained from this, GW have actual evidence on hand for how the community react to this kind of Change and now can use that to guide future decision making, hopefully reducing this kind of outrage in the future.

[Marshall Bretton]

4 minutes ago, Robbienw said:

 

That may be the case, but the perception about elite military units I highlighted still exists and applies to Custodes.

 

Additionally, we know they are taken as infants, but we don't know much of the process and what stages it takes place in.  The candidates could grow into young adulthood and puberty before any significant kind of physiological or neurological changes take place.  

 

If the process turns a baseline human male into an upscaled physically perfect but still male human looking and shaped being, then it follows that the process will turn a human female into a an upscaled physically perfect but still female looking and shaped being, and their will be a commensurate small difference in physical capability.

 

I have already addressed your other points in a previous post.

 

Running with your last sentence though, ok so under the armour they may look more male or female, but again the likely genetic changes would make them far more similar.

 

You do seem to imply that the commensurate small differences in physical capability means that women wouldn't be as good. Say I agree with your argument though, this would still mean that female custodes were superior to males in some physical areas: flexibility and mobility, agility, reaction times, pain tolerance, intelligence (controversial but the science I am aware of does support this but I really don't want to get into a debate on it). Why would the emperor not want guardians with these bonuses as well? It's not all about physical strength which I think is what most people here seem to be arguing makes males superior.

[Indy Techwisp]

Right, now back on topic (to an extent).

 

ADB said they were told no female custodes because no female models, right?

 

So it stands to reason that because no models no lore is still mostly in effect that we can expect new Custodes models on the way which will include some female parts.

 

I'm guessing the squished shield captain was the last of the old custodes ready to go and the new ones just weren't ready in time, and when they are done GW will push them out to sale immediately.

 

So, in that respect, do we think any of the resin forgeworld units will make the jump to plastic in the range update?

[Jings]

1 hour ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

So.

Two things.

 

1) We have proof from ADB that Female Custodes were intended from the start and were only excluded because the standing at the time was "Sorry, but the minis we made were male." 

 

I'm really sick of seeing this getting twisted beyond what was said. 

 

ADB didn't introduce Custodes, and didn't want to include female Custodes "from the start". He wanted to have a female Custodian in Master of Mankind, a novel that came out in 2016 - 6 years after they entered the series in force, and after he'd featured them in several novels himself. 

 

ADB is known for having a creative approach to 40K, such as his Yu-gi-oh! Thousand Son, or the transforming at will Possessed Marines. It's telling that these things were allowed, but female Custodes, at the time, were not. It was not intended for it to be the case by the loremasters at the time. Remind me, where are our transforming Astartes or Astartes the Gathering models. 

 

The Custodes have been fairly well-cemented in the lore as we know them now since the 90s, and as recently as the 9th Edition Codex. If you're going to argue in favour of the change, you shouldn't twist reality as if this was some grand plan by misrepresenting a one paragraph quote from five years ago. 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

1 minute ago, Jings said:

It was not intended for it to be the case by the loremasters at the time.

 

It was the IP lawyers who said no, not the lore team.

This all comes back to the Post-ChapterHouse nothing without a model thing.

[Indy Techwisp]

2 minutes ago, Jings said:

 

I'm really sick of seeing this getting twisted beyond what was said. 

 

ADB didn't introduce Custodes, and didn't want to include female Custodes "from the start". He wanted to have a female Custodian in Master of Mankind, a novel that came out in 2016 - 6 years after they entered the series in force, and after he'd featured them in several novels himself. 

 

ADB is known for having a creative approach to 40K, such as his Yu-gi-oh! Thousand Son, or the transforming at will Possessed Marines. It's telling that these things were allowed, but female Custodes, at the time, were not. It was not intended for it to be the case by the loremasters at the time. Remind me, where are our transforming Astartes or Astartes the Gathering models. 

 

The Custodes have been fairly well-cemented in the lore as we know them now since the 90s, and as recently as the 9th Edition Codex. If you're going to argue in favour of the change, you shouldn't twist reality as if this was some grand plan by misrepresenting a one paragraph quote from five years ago. 

 

Hi.

I'm sorry for using a piece of evidence I've seen used multiple times by multiple parties on both sides of this argument.

I was only made aware of this passage when this whole controversy kicked off anyway.

 

My actual, personal opinion on this whole situation is that we, as adults, need to understand that games workshop changes the lore all the time, that people from the original games workshop team have stated that the lore was never intended to be a concrete thing at all, that realistically this makes absolutely zero tangible difference either way and that we should all just stop being whiney babies and grow up.

Games Workshop owns the IP.

They can do whatever they like with the IP.

 

I've tried to interact with this in a way which would be seen as reasonable to the community, but genuinely I can't believe we are even having this argument.

It's 2024, times are changing and it's been nearly a decade since the "boys only" lore was written.

Far bigger things have been retconned entirely with far less fanfare, for example that fact that Cadia didn't explode and was actually held to a stalemate was entirely thrown in the bin at the whims of the lore writers.

 

This is a minor change to the lore of a minor faction who have barely any 40k lore at all.

Again, I'm sorry for trying to interact with this using the exact same materials everyone else is, but I feel we should all just shut up about it now because Games Workshop sure as hell aren't going to revert it and all we're doing by perpetuating this outright insane reaction to the mere concept of females in a fatction is driving other people away from the game and making it all the more likely that Games Workshop decide that 10 editions is enough and just chuck 40k in the bin for an AoS style replacement.

 

I want to be a part of this hobby and I'm sick of seeing everyone act like this is somehow on par with Games Workshop breaking into their house and pouring hight-strength acetone over their Custodes collection.

[Jings]

9 minutes ago, Sword Brother Adelard said:

 

It was the IP lawyers who said no, not the lore team.

This all comes back to the Post-ChapterHouse nothing without a model thing.

 

Read the quote again, or at all. The "previous IP overlord" - read: head of IP - said no. Then there was a design studio mandate of no female Custodes. 

 

Its much more likely that Laurie Goulding or whoever was in his shoes at the time shooting it down because it was, at the time, just another wacky ADB idea. 

 

Lore without models is absolutely not the same thing as rules without models, which was the entire issue with the Chapterhouse debacle. There were countless BL novels featuring female Guardsmen before the new Cadian kit. There are so, so many more examples of this that I don't know where to start. 

[phandaal]

8 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

I want to be a part of this hobby and I'm sick of seeing everyone act like this is somehow on par with Games Workshop breaking into their house and pouring hight-strength acetone over their Custodes collection.

 

It really is more to do with people seeing things that happened elsewhere and making the inference that this change means those things will happen here as well.

 

The mods have asked people not to go into all that here, and I respect that so not going to push the issue, but we all have an idea about the reasons no matter where we fall on the issue.

 

That said, if GW could find a way to make our models vanish and have us purchase them all over again, I think they might actually do that. 

[Marshall Bretton]

7 minutes ago, Trysanna said:

I was wondering how long this absolute trite would take to show up. 

 

First off, please show me an IP that tanked because of added diversity. D&D and MTG are still going strong, Star Wars makes a billion dollars a year, the Marvel had a good run of almost 15 years without breaking a sweat, the new She-Ra was a massive hit, and GW gave been diversifying their line for a few years now and they're still pumping out more models than I can keep track of. 

 

If you want an IP that doesn't change, I'm sorry to say that 40k just isn't for you. This is one of the most wildly inconsistent settings out there, and if bothers you so much, it might be best to take a step back and really think about what art you're getting invested in. 

 

Also, all you have are anecdotes. "This won't bring a new wave of players into the hobby" First, you don't know that, because this choice wasn't made for you. Second, like myself and others have said, a ton of women are, in fact, excited about this faction and how it now officially includes women. I know you probably don't have a ton of women in your life who shares these nerdy interests, but I do, I'm one of them, and a lot of us are pretty jazzed. 

 

And not for nothing, but YOU, a MAN, not liking modern medias attempts to expand and diversify the cast of characters mean nothing. It's not for you because you've already been catered to. Basically all western media for the past bajillion years has catered specifically to white cis het dudes. I'm sorry if letting women and people of colour and queer people into these settings and stories upsets you, but they should have been there all along, and getting upset about it proves nothing beyond your inability to share toys. Maybe instead of getting mad about these changes, you could consider how these marginalized groups have literally been erased and kept out of these spaces for decades and that modern inclusivity is a way to correct that. I already rambled about this a couple pages ago, but seriously, think outside yourself. How would you feel if people just life you weren't allowed to be present in a space you wanted to be..

I am a male and I personally find it fantastic that this is having a positive impact on even 1 woman. It is absolutely a positive move in the right direction.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

9 minutes ago, Jings said:

Read the quote again, or at all. The "previous IP overlord" - read: head of IP - said no. Then there was a design studio mandate of no female Custodes. 

 

I did, you have it backwards. The studio had made the models and there were all 'male' so none in the book. 

 

That sounds like legal laying down the 'no models, no lore' rule which they've thankfully stepped back from a little.