Thematic Discussion of Female Custodes - Straight From the Page

[Rob P]

 

@Marshal Rohr ...

Going back to the topic of theme - I do want to know what people see as the theme of the Custodes, and how adding women to that detracts (or adds) to it. I think Captain Idaho has made the most cogent argument for his point, which is that the Custodes as a fraternity is diluted by the addition of women, if not destroyed. I don't agree with him, but I do think it's the most reasoned argument I've yet seen.

Captain Idaho's pov has been the one that has engaged me the most. Partly because of the clarity and sincerity and partly because it's quite alien to my own perspective.

 

I never felt the fraternity angle as a key sell for space marines or custodes (although I'm thinking about it now). I've also felt the sell for space marines was the space knight or the special ops elite (the latter I hate from a lore perspective). I feel Captain Idaho's affinity with the fraternity aspect of these subfactions is stronger than any affinity I've had with any faction and that's why it's given me pause for thought.

 

I do wonder if the fraternity angle is a prominent sell because I've not heard that before this thread. Of course, the brotherhood of the lodges is/was similar but I've not drawn that idea to 40k.

 

Anyway ... Interesting!

[Crimson Longinus]

 

@wecanhaveallthree - apologies, I had not connected the post above to you in my head!

I really liked your end line here about how could a boy's toy soldiers be anything else, but I fundamentally disagree. I don't think that the Custodes/SoS are a Sun/Moon explicit design choice (and also it isn't actually the case that sun-male, moon-female everywhere and all the time). I also don't think that - as I understand it - the Big E can be seen as always a man; he presents as such during the Unification Wars and later, but isn't it the case that, canonically (as of The End And The Death) he's also been a woman a lot of his life?

I think that the theme of the Custodes is a lot simpler than the almost phallic/yonic yin-yang dualism with the SoS that you posit, and that they draw much more from the Persian Immortals and the Praetorian Guard. Mind you I do appreciate your analysis - I just disagree with it!

 

That being said, and whilst I personally don't care much for yin/yang feminine/masculine dynamic, it is something that is common in mythology, and could potentially be thematically compelling. But I don't think Custodes and SoS actually have such a dynamic. They could certainly have been developed in that direction, if they had wanted to keep Custodes all male and still somehow make them less bland (and sun and moon iconography would look rad.). 

 

Like I said earlier, I would have been fine with all male Custodes, if we had gotten female marines instead. That's the faction which actually needs this sort of diversity and thematic flexibility. Custodes are thematically way more limited and constrained than marines, whose selling point is their thematic variance and customisability, so them being more constrained in this regard too is less jarring than it is for the marines. 

[Gamiel]

 

"Much." Not all.

 

"It is KNOWN that ALL Custodians begin their lives as the infant SONS of the noble houses of Terra."

 

There's no assumption from in-universe characters there. It's a recent, objective, definitive answer to whether female Custodes exist. And the answer is "no."

I will have to disagree with you here, stating that something is "known" is not the same thing as saying that it is a fact. Something that's known by people could be a misconceptions or propaganda. I have seen, and myself used, "known" in texts as a marker of ambiguity, that what's stated is just what the person/group know, not that it's the full truth or possibly even not true at all.

[wecanhaveallthree]

>I don't think that the Custodes/SoS are a Sun/Moon explicit design choice (and also it isn't actually the case that sun-male, moon-female everywhere and all the time). 

 

Indeed, but considering that we're literally talking about Rome here - and Rome being a foundational theme for the Imperium, along with all those skulls and gothic cathedrals and bondage gear, thanks Blanche - the design inspiration is, I think, obvious. Consider the balance of Sol and Luna in Roman society. More obviously, the Psykana live on the moon! (along with those Selene worshippers, natch). The period that the inspiration is coming from supports it. 

 

>big e's a big she

 

The Emperor's perception by others as female, I think that was. Of course, there's a good argument to say that the Emperor is effectively a genderless energy being, but that argument is lame and ugly compared to my awesome, handsome 'the Emperor is a scared little boy' analysis, so I elect to ignore it. 

 

>persians, praetorians and the sacred band

 

I used the exact same examples in another post, right here, in this very thread, but I also used the Ten Thousand because I am a very clever wechat and want everyone to know it. 

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

 

I will have to disagree with you here, stating that something is "known" is not the same thing as saying that it is a fact. Something that's known by people could be a misconceptions or propaganda. I have seen, and myself used, "known" in texts as a marker of ambiguity, that what's stated is just what the person/group know, not that it's the full truth or possibly even not true at all.

 

You're conflating "knowledge" with "belief." Again, these were the words of the omniscient narrator of the Codex. They didn't refer to people BELIEVING that all Custodians were male. They said it was KNOWN. And unlike the POV you reference, the omniscient narrator IS in a position to know whether something is a justified true belief (and thus "known") or a false belief (in which case they would have said it was "believed.")

[The_Worker]

 

 I would have been fine with all male Custodes, if we had gotten female marines instead. That's the faction which actually needs this sort of diversity and thematic flexibility. Custodes are thematically way more limited and constrained than marines, whose selling point is their thematic variance and customisability, so them being more constrained in this regard too is less jarring than it is for the marines. 

Yes, I absolutely agree. I think the Primaris range was a really big missed opportunity for this and, as @wecanhaveallthree noted that would have enabled the Custodes to remain all men as a marker of Big E's blind spots (which I actually think is a really fascinating angle to take here) - it would also mean that people like @Captain Idaho would still find a faction that they can find representation of their life experience in very traditionally masculine environments in.

[The_Worker]

 

>I don't think that the Custodes/SoS are a Sun/Moon explicit design choice (and also it isn't actually the case that sun-male, moon-female everywhere and all the time). 

 

Indeed, but considering that we're literally talking about Rome here - and Rome being a foundational theme for the Imperium, along with all those skulls and gothic cathedrals and bondage gear, thanks Blanche - the design inspiration is, I think, obvious. Consider the balance of Sol and Luna in Roman society. More obviously, the Psykana live on the moon! (along with those Selene worshippers, natch). The period that the inspiration is coming from supports it. 

 

>big e's a big she

 

The Emperor's perception by others as female, I think that was. Of course, there's a good argument to say that the Emperor is effectively a genderless energy being, but that argument is lame and ugly compared to my awesome, handsome 'the Emperor is a scared little boy' analysis, so I elect to ignore it. 

>persians, praetorians and the sacred band

 

> design inspiration

Yes - valid point re the period to a certain extent, but I do think (and yes, you used these examples too) that they owe more to the political-military aspect of these super-elite semi-mythologised bodyguard formations of Rome and Persia than to the intricacies of Roman religious practice and gendering of the sun and moon - if, indeed, they ever did owe anything to that male/female divide. And, of course, the Custodes may work with the SoS but they don't do that exclusively or all the time - indeed the SoS main role was psyker catching with the Black Ships, as I understand it, and the smushing of the two military forces together for the Burning of Prospero is a tactical decision - SoS because the 1K Sons needed their magic suppressing, Custodes because the whole thing was the Direct Will And Command Of Big Daddy E. And when the boxed set was released and the rules were written this ended up being seen as the "default", when, really, while the two organisations do work together the SoS are much more likely to work alone or alongside Imperial Army or Astartes formations (partly due to scale - there's 10,000 bananas and umpty bajillion Army troopers and however many hundreds of thousands of Astartes, after all.

> the council's decision was stupid.gif

Fair enough, but that is a headcanon position you are holding, you must admit ;)

[Brother Tyler]

I've hidden a bunch of posts where things were starting to go off the rails and which would have led to the locking of this topic.

 

It's a very contentious issue, obviously, and the conflicting opinions will inevitably lead to a level of friction. The discourse has been interesting, and the different viewpoints presented have allowed others to broaden their own understanding of the issues.

 

What we won't tolerate, however, is the denigration of people holding other viewpoints.

 

It's also important for everyone to remember that this is the B&C, not Reddit or Discord. You don't have to respond right away, nor do you have to respond often. Given the diversity in viewpoints and the high likelihood of disagreement, it is far better to sit back and think about what others have said (especially those whose viewpoints differ from your own) and consider what additional value your input might provide and then, if there's real value (and not just posturing or sticking up for yourself), compose something rational and constructive. And before you hit "submit" wait a bit and re-read what you've composed.

 

I'm going to lock this temporarily to let everyone cool off. The discussion will be re-opened within 24 hours.

[Brother Tyler]

This topic is once again open for civil and constructive discourse.

[SkimaskMohawk]

This is my very tepid take. 

 

As a lot of you know in this subforum, I like consistency in my lore. I don't like it when it's changed, regardless of the pedigree of the author. If stuff gets changed around, it needs to have a good reason to justify the change. I'm not keen on the Emperor ackshually giving up his godlike power and getting devil may cry air juggled by Horus until he also gets rused to give up his power. Or like, whatever specialist games is doing claiming the loyalists lost and retreated from Tallarn.

 

So, an "ackshually, there's always been female Custodes" doesn't work for me. Its a retcon and it's not done with any grace or wiggle room like saying "from this moment on, the legio Custodes has been retconned to have always been mixed gender; feel free to assign the gender to any that were only referred to by name on past literature". Or as others have pointed out, it's not framed as an in-universe change; primaris had stuff behind it instead of the always mocked "they actually always had this obviously brand new equipment that would have solved problems" that Centurions or storm talons/Ravens did. And this is the exact same if sisters of silence got retconned to have always been mixed gender, or sisters of battle. Its why I really can't care to read the allegedly excellent infinite and divine, because they just axed some really cool faction lore for space Egypt. I don't dislike the change because of the inclusion of women, i dislike it because it was terribly handled. 

 

As a lore aside, i do think it's cool that we'll probably see more awesome conversions from the much more developed stormcast range. We're 8 years from the Prospero box set and it's like, barely any different and kinda boring from a model perspective.

[aa.logan]

 

This is a discussion about the setting.

[StrangerOrders]

Decided to take a quick peek to see how the discussion has gone.

 

And I admit that I am somewhat bemused at the direction of the conversation's trajectory and I would like to clarify if I just misunderstood Roomsky's idea with the thread.

 

Was the purpose of the discussion the pros and cons of the directions GW went with Female Custodes? Or is it entirely not moving past the 'they exist' and 'how GW opted to communicate that' conversation? 

 

I mean the question genuinely because to me that feels more like discussing corporate and marketing strategies than a lore analysis. You can't argue lore themes and storytelling concepts with marketing folks and certainly not corporate folks when it comes to decision making. At least not very effectively since imo they tend to be eyeing the clock and tapping their foot to see how much you can simplify your argument to two sentences or less (and then act surprise later when nuance gets cut from the simplification). If tomorrow they decide the Imperium being sapient turtles is a good move they will do it, thats not really the lore peoples' call, their call is how they express it in their work.

 

So... maybe someone should call up Mr. Wraight and poke him to write a book about a female Custodes? Or with female Custodes? Or maybe just a Custodes book in general? And I am of course not just trying to get more Wraight Custodes books I swear!

 

But... pretty please?

Edited September 9 by StrangerOrders

[Crimson Longinus]

BTW, I am almost certain that the reason for this not being framed as in setting development like the Primaris, is that GW is in the process of making some new Custodes model sets that will contain female Custodians and they want these models to be usable in HH too. Thus female Custodians have "always existed" from the in-setting perspective. The original rationale for not depicting female Custodians in the lore was the models being all male, so now that the lore has changed I expect the models will follow. 

 

 

Edited September 8 by Crimson Longinus

[Marshal Rohr]

Except, and this is extremely relevant to the discussion, there is more likely to be a Heresy Custodes release and a 40K Custodes release since the studios are forbidden from crossing streams going forward. They just made Specialist Games Genestealers and Specialist Games Leman Russ. It’s not unlikely we are going to see Custodes consistent with what was before and new Custodes with female heads from the 40K studio. 
 

Source for this: a recent Juggz episode talking about Specialist Games getting blindsided by multiple 40K releases. 

Edited September 8 by Marshal Rohr

[wecanhaveallthree]

WE'RE BACK

 

>indeed the SoS main role was psyker catching with the Black Ships, as I understand it, 

 

It's part of their aegis - it's the Telepathica who actually run and staff the Black Ships with the Psykana assisting - but their main role from inception was to be an anti-Chaos force (much like the Alpha Legion were). I discuss elsewhere how I really like the Psykana occupying the 'female equals magic' design space in 40K, in that the male Custodes are big bully boys but are psychically impotent (heh heh heh) except as conduits for the Emperor's will (quite literally, in the End and the Death, with the Emperor's insanely grimdark skeleton coterie). While both organisations can and do work separately, I'd suggest that enforces their duality as well - the Custodes are the Imperium's 'public face' as its diplomats, bodyguards, etc. while the Psykana are the 'hidden face', secretive, isolated, hunters of the night dealing with problems the Imperium doesn't even officially acknowledge exist. Put em' in tight black leather and give them silver-tipped crossbows and there'd be far fewer complaints from either side of the aisle, I wot. 

 

>headcanon

 

Perhaps my response is too flippant here, but the skinny is that I find the current idea that the Emperor is, indeed, a genderless energy being with an appearance that changes entirely on outside perception boring beyond belief. If we really want to go down that route, the closing line of the climactic duel between the Emperor and Horus - the most stripped-away their interaction and the Emperor can possibly be - is related as such: '...in the end, it's just a man killing his son with a stone'. 

 

There was, I think, a big missed opportunity to discuss more of that duality through Erda and her characterisation as an 'earth mother' type. Erda as a whole is a missed opportunity and I was very sad to see her go.

[Marshal Rohr]

The Emperor as a genderless energy being is the Emperor AFTER his ascension, in whatever form that took. The Emperor was very much born a regular (relatively) man, as seen in his memory with the Custodes. You can choose to believe that was real, or whatever if you want, but he was at some point a little boy. ADB spoke at length about how much he liked Dr Manhattan prior to being hounded from social

media by Reddit and Twitter garbage, and it very much shows that is the characterization he was emulating for the Emperor in MoM. 
 

Erda as an earth mother wasn’t really a successful idea, was it? Appears in two books, refuses to elaborate, dies. She didn’t really add mystery to the Emperor other than being Ed Sheeran popping up next to Pete Postelwaites son in Game of Thrones level jarring. 

Edited September 8 by Marshal Rohr

[hd3]

 

The Emperor as a genderless energy being is the Emperor AFTER his ascension, in whatever form that took. The Emperor was very much born a regular (relatively) man, as seen in his memory with the Custodes. You can choose to believe that was real, or whatever if you want, but he was at some point a little boy. ADB spoke at length about how much he liked Dr Manhattan prior to being hounded from social

media by Reddit and Twitter garbage, and it very much shows that is the characterization he was emulating for the Emperor in MoM. 
 

Erda as an earth mother wasn’t really a successful idea, was it? Appears in two books, refuses to elaborate, dies. She didn’t really add mystery to the Emperor other than being Ed Sheeran popping up next to Pete Postelwaites son in Game of Thrones level jarring. 

 

Yeah I wasn't clear what abnett expected to contribute to the story, other than removing the ambiguity about the scattering of the primarchs to replace it with the certainty that Erda makes bad decisions. Between that and Astarte overreacting by blowing up her labs, I wonder if the reason marines are all men is because Big E was just fed up with his female coworkers at the time. 

Edited September 9 by hd3

[Timberley]

There's been some interesting discussion here, and it's been good to read up on the various viewpoints.  For what it's worth, my view is that the handling of the change was terribly done, with GW essentially gaslighting people.  The Custodes 8th Edition (p14) and 9th Edition (p7) Codices explicitly mention the sons of noble houses, as an omniscient 3rd person narrator.  If, in 10th, they'd expanded the lore to state that due to declining birthrates/attrition/expansion/make-your-own-reason-here the Custodes had started inducting the sons and daughters of the nobles, then it would've gone over much better.  As it is, the female Custodes feel like they've been shoe-horned into the setting, without any set up or in-universe explanation, such as we had with the introduction of the Primaris range (though that's fraught with terrible writing).  Ultimately, it feels like change for change's sake, rather than for narrative reasons.  For similar reasons, I liked the Necrons when they were essentially Lovecraftian horrors with a healthy lashing of Terminator; implacable, inscrutable, and seemingly unending.  The introduction of various Necron characters cheapened and demystified them (a problem I have with the overall setting in the last few years), and they lost part of their GrimDark, becoming another just another Xenos race, their motives known and easily categorised.

 

Anyway, I dislike the current idea that Custodes need to be doing anything in the wider galaxy.  They were much better served as the tragic mystical beings that were confined to the walls of the Imperial Palace, their duty to protect the Emperor with their lives (even in his state as a withered being on the Golden Throne), paying eternal penance for their failure to protect the Master of Mankind at the most crucial hour aboard the Vengeful Spirit, the gene-craft that wrought them making them functionally immortal.  A whole series of unknowns about them, very few names, a shadow of their former selves, and not appearing in stories beyond the HH (an aside, and this I'm sure is an unpopular opinion; I thought the whole HH series of novels was a terrible, terrible idea and should never have been done).

 

I'd have personally preferred that GW do something with the Sisters of Silence, who were the Emperor's arm abroad in the 41st Millennium, with the Black Ships and so forth, albeit a much smaller force, filled with elite regular women who happen to be Nulls.  It would've been nice to see them more widely represented in the fiction and as tabletop force (though I could see the Adepta Sororitas folk getting irked that it'd take the spotlight away from their faction), if GW wanted to enhance their stable of strong female characters.  Have a young woman, a descendant of a former Sister, living a solitary life on a planet, travelling from town to town dealing with witches and would-be sorcerers in exchange for board and lodgings (but never for too long - her otherness makes people fearful and angry) be discovered by a Black Ship and inducted into the Order.  She finally has companions, others like herself, and travels the Galaxy investigating threats to the Imperium, but what has she lost?  Does she feel anything for the small planet she left behind?  Does she realise her importance to the overall Imperium, even serving as a small cog in the great machine of war that makes up the galaxy?

 

I'm of the opinion that the character is more interesting than anything else though.  I'm not Aragorn, Leia Organa (in the trilogy), Ellen Ripley (in the duology) or Sam Vimes, but I find their characters compelling and interesting, and most importantly consistent.

 

However, as we all know (and I've been into the stuff that GW pumps out since '91 so I should know better), the setting itself exists as a vehicle for GW to sell us expensive plastic crack.  If GW thinks they can enhance their market share and/or profits by changing things in the universe on a whim, they will do so.  Cynically, I half expect the Warhammer Day miniature to be a named female Custodian with no extra story or anything, similar to definitely-not-Vasquez "Ripper" Jackson.

[StrangerOrders]

Gonna chime in and say, with respect, that there is alot of slander to the SoS in these discussions that needs to be pointed out... which wouldn't bother me save for the fact that I always see people just slide by clarifications and relegate them to 'They are Sisters of Battle but idk, they are Blanks! Yeah, totally SoB but Blanks, it came to me in a meme!' Forgive the tone but it is irksome.

 

I actually feel mildly odd to have folks celebrate 'ah yes we have female Custodes' and then toss the (mostly atheist, unless you want to argue that the Black Fleet offshoots outnumbered the Secret covens to which I would come back the Guilli picked Secret Coven staff for both overall command and training oversight of neophytes during their refounding) SoS in with the SoB into the same bin as if they were second fiddle because they aren't joining a previously male-portrayed organization or to trying and make them the 'kinda female Custodes we already had' in the exact same conversation as the former.

 

Like come on folks, they don't have alot of books but they DO have books. Which are excellent incidentally and I recommend to anyone because it highlights the differences and makes the SoS fascinating in how hilariously bad their treatment became once they lost Big E's patronage and exactly how kinda ridiculous it is to equivalate them with Custodes solely off of the Heresy. It honestly sounds like saying you are confused why Black Templars aren't codex compliant when Dorn and Guilliman were such good friends and you can use a Codex-compliant detachment as Black Templars in gameplay.

 

They are not 'normal' by any means, including the Blank kind and the fact they outnumber Custodes is not a feat or indicative.

 

Aleya, the most well-developed SoS character we have in the novels, specifically notes that they have a high mortality rate and several sources note that they are enhanced to the point where one of the Highlords (well, technically their collective secretary who is lowkey functionally one) lists them with the Imperial Assassins, Space Marines and Custodes when he recites the monsters the Imperium stripped of their humanity to ensure survival.

 

We literally see them hack dreadnoughts to death in squad numbers and are repeatedly noted to outstrip the Astartes superhuman reflexes for Terra's sake (even if the relative lack of strength, endurance and lighter armour still makes it a fair-to-bad fight on average). They can do alot more than just kill Daemons because they happen to be Blanks.

 

Seeing them reduced in these debates where folks kind of unwittingly do them this disservices kinda bothers me.

 

Calling them 'normal humans but Blanks' with 'any Blank is an SoS sans the training' is like saying Jimmy can decide he is a Space Marine because he found some power armor.

 

I do apologize for the tone but... Justice for the Oblivion Knights! (Officer rank, I know, but thats such an insanely awesome veteran name that should have an awesome Dark Souls-looking kit attached to it!)

Edited September 9 by StrangerOrders

[Gamiel]

 

 

 

You're conflating "knowledge" with "belief." Again, these were the words of the omniscient narrator of the Codex. They didn't refer to people BELIEVING that all Custodians were male. They said it was KNOWN. And unlike the POV you reference, the omniscient narrator IS in a position to know whether something is a justified true belief (and thus "known") or a false belief (in which case they would have said it was "believed.")

The problem with your argument is that the Codex narrator is not omniscient. We have examples of them stating things that are the "common" knowledge but not the whole/actual truth - e.g. the SM Codex saying that the Mentors and Exorcists are of unknown gene-seed after it has been established that they know their gene-linage (Um and IF gene-seed respectively).

Edited September 9 by Gamiel

[Timberley]

 

 

The problem with your argument is that the Codex narrator is not omniscient. We have examples of them stating things that are the "common" knowledge but not the whole/actual truth - e.g. the SM Codex saying that the Mentors and Exorcists are of unknown gene-seed after it has been established that they know their gene-linage (Um and IF gene-seed respectively).

Except that the Exorcists have also been stated to take their gene-lineage from the Grey Knights.  If we further extend the your logic, the Anathema Psykana must also contain male Blanks, as it's not stated that they do not within the Codex.  

[Rob P]

I don't think that's the natural logic of the point being made. It's merely that stuff in the codex that's supposed to be neutral or factual can contradict stuff in previous codexes or index articles. Whether this is an editorial blip or intentional (probably the former) is another matter. Usually the intentional stuff is cheeky and obvious like the dubious primaris successor chapters, rather than an overt contradiction. Out of setting, it does seem to be a get out of jail free card for lore changes.

 

Completely off-topic, but I am curious about the origin of Grey Knights being the parent chapter for the Exorcists. Was that a pre-2021 codex or Index Astartes or from a novel (on a quick Google I could only see the sources as lexicanum and an in-world understanding of an Exorcist in a Black Library story)?

[Brother Tyler]

The official statement about the Exorcists being descended from the Grey Knights was only in the story "Headhunted" and it was based on conjecture derived from the Third War for Armageddon lore (hobbyists mistaking the Grey Knights being present at an initial test of the nascent Exorcists as being an indicator of the latter Chapter's lineage). No other official lore even implied that the Grey Knights were the Exorcists' progenitor. And then the Index Astartes article reversed it, making the Exorcists' descendance from the VIIth Legion official.

 

None of that is really relevant here, though, and further discussion about the Exorcists should be taken up in the Imperial Fists forum, and other Chapters within their respective forums. There have been numerous discussions about that subject over the years here at the B&C (as an Exorcists fan-boy, I've participated in most ).

 

The Sisters of Silence and Sisters of Battle are really only relevant here as examples of single-gender factions (despite conflation of the Eclessiarchy as a whole with the Adepta Sororitas). I don't know that either the Sisters of Silence or Sisters of Battle provide practical alternatives since neither represents transhumans. While I'm not a fan of unnecessary retcons, I've shifted my thinking and now accept that the introduction of female Custodians was necessary. The alternatives [for providing a method for female transhumans] would have been to introduce female Adeptus Astartes (and that would have resulted in considerably more uproar) or introduce an entirely new transhuman faction into the setting, which would have been derided by many. Ultimately, female Custodians are a very minor retcon and don't really harm the setting in any way. And if they help some [potential] members of the community to feel that they are represented, thereby increasing/sustaining their interest in the hobby and the overall health of the hobby, that's a win for everybody. After all, what is it about the Adeptus Custodes and Adeptus Astartes that appeal to a great many male hobbyists? Don't females deserve to have something that they find similarly appealing?

[Rob P]

Thank you for entertaining my off topic - no further discussion will be had here on it!

[Scribe]

 

After all, what is it about the Adeptus Custodes and Adeptus Astartes that appeal to a great many male hobbyists?

 

I'd say different things.

 

Custodes to me, are encapsulated by Valdor. The faction itself does not have enough depth to really push things beyond what I already consider the peak of their representation. You could easily sum it up in one word. Duty. That same thing is easily transferable to SoS and SoB.

 

Astartes, are so variable that it can be anything, but there absolutely is a brotherhood aspect and you really only need look at some of the best examples of the lore to see that male brotherhood is an underlying point which is something disappearing in North America at any rate, there are studies on this if one cares to go looking. SoS and SoB have the parallel, in sisterhood, and so again, we are covered here.

 

There is no 'representation' in transhumanism. Nobody on this planet is operated on, stuffed full of extra organs, psycho-conditioned into a killing machine, and modified at a molecular level to be a perfect tool for a Corpse God who's government is bent on the genoicde of anyone who stands against them.

 

So what are the human tropes and stories these factions tell? That's the point.