A story idea for female Astartes…

[Kaede45]

I know there is a lot of controversy surrounding the idea of women becoming Astartes, but I had been coming up with a sort of story to go toward introducing (or even rejecting) the inclusion of female Astartes. Keep in mind that my knowledge of 40K lore is extremely limited & I may get more than a few things wrong or take too many liberties, but any sort of feedback is appreciated. Also, I’m not great at writing stories so what I’m presenting will be in the format of an extremely long summary of ideas, but that just means that anyone could take this & run with it (& please, feel free to do so). In any event:

 

The story follows a female inquisitor, who wanted to be an Astartes when she was younger. When she was turned away for being female, she developed a bias against men & a special hatred for space marines. During a battle where the Imperium is losing, the call is sent out requesting the Astartes aid, much to our inquisitor’s dismay. However, when the first drop pods land, she is surprised to see women Astartes emerge & lead the Imperium to victory. She tries to speak with them, but they vanish as quickly as they appeared. While she & her gal pals are celebrating at a bar, she is mocked by a man who claims that she is celebrating heresy. She beats up the man, but as she throws him out he claims that the heresy of which he speaks is not in the existence of female Astartes, but in how they exist. Our inquisitor puts this out of her mind for a time & eventually finds herself in another battle where the women Astartes are deployed. However, the battle is not so easily won & another space marine chapter is deployed to aid them. When the battle is over, the inquisitor overhears an argument between a sister hospitaller & an apothecary regarding an injured space marine woman. Without thinking or understanding the situation, the inquisitor gets herself involved, taking the hospitaller’s side, but is surprised when the hospitaller begins to take the apothecary’s side against the inquisitor. The argument is defused by a female member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, who dismiss the inquisitor. While she believes they are going to reprimand the apothecary, she is angered when he is let go & she is reprimanded instead. After the battle she attempts to figure out what was happening after the battle, only to find that the battle records have been scrubbed of any involvement by the women Astartes. The same is true for the previous & she becomes suspicious, but her investigation is blocked by the Ministorum. Desperate for answers, she consults the man who mocked her. He tells her that women weren’t allowed to become Astartes because the gene seed is incompatible with female physiology, resulting in a 100% fatality rate, therefore experiments involving the conversion of women into Astartes was forbidden as any success would come at too great a cost. He proclaims that the only way to make even one Astartes woman would require major modifications made to the gene seed. He briefly entertains the idea that a new gene seed could have been created, but dismisses it claiming that such a feat could only be achieved with the creation of a new primarch, something which only the Emperor had knowledge of, & instead proposes the idea that whoever made them must have made alterations to a preexisting gene seed (likely the Ultramarines, given GW’s favoring them), which would more likely than not be viewed as heresy. From here the story could go into a myriad of directions, concluding with discovering that the two battles in which they fought were trial runs & the argument (between the hospitaller & the apothecary) being about the fact that the injured Astartes woman’s organs appeared to be functioning properly, but they also seemed to be killing her & none of their medicines were helping, leading to the idea that they either need special medicines for their unique physiology (which could go towards medical units being trained & equipped to provide these special medicines) or that their bodies are indeed rejecting the gene seed & they are suffering from a form of slow degradation that would eventually kill them. This could even go into a deep conspiracy where multiple branches of the Imperium are in on this & have been trying to keep things under wraps until they are 100% ready. Heck, it could even be implied that the Emperor himself is in on it, which could ultimately lead to our inquisitor having a mental breakdown as everyone she trusted had been hiding this from her the whole time. The story could end with either the women Astartes project being taken back to the drawing board or skip ahead a century or so to where Astartes women are now a thing, relegated to their own legion, etc. & perhaps having our inquisitor either joining the conspiracy or even going so insane she is turned into a servitor, which would be in line withe the grimdark themes.

 

Anyway, that is the idea. Sorry that it’s so long. In any event, thank you for your time & discussion & as always, God bless!

[N1SB]

Just FYI, Saulus Maegon was a named female Space Marine.  She was part of the 1st Legion, the Dark Angels, and one of the Fallen.

 

She's pretty much the exception that proves the rule.  Along with both her comrade Luther and Kor Phaeron of the Word Bearers, she couldn't go through the normal geneseed process as you already know, but instead had bio-therapies and augmentics to effectively make her a Space Marine or equivalent.  She was in a leadership position as the deadly mistress of the Angelicasta, the commander of The Rock fortress-monastery.  She's an established part of the lore, appeared just recently in a novel.

 

But just as there are no wolves on Fenris except, of course, for the wolves, there are no female Space Marines except, of course, for Saulus Maegon.

[Kaede45]

On 12/15/2024 at 6:54 PM, N1SB said:

Just FYI, Saulus Maegon was a named female Space Marine.  She was part of the 1st Legion, the Dark Angels, and one of the Fallen.

 

She's pretty much the exception that proves the rule.  Along with both her comrade Luther and Kor Phaeron of the Word Bearers, she couldn't go through the normal geneseed process as you already know, but instead had bio-therapies and augmentics to effectively make her a Space Marine or equivalent.  She was in a leadership position as the deadly mistress of the Angelicasta, the commander of The Rock fortress-monastery.  She's an established part of the lore, appeared just recently in a novel.

 

But just as there are no wolves on Fenris except, of course, for the wolves, there are no female Space Marines except, of course, for Saulus Maegon.

I legit had no clue about any of this & thank you for sharing. Its nice to learn more about the lore.

 

Like I said, my knowledge of the lore is very limited & the reason I even posted this was because I’ve seen videos talking about how Amazon wanted to shoehorn in a female Custodes while claiming there have always been female Custodes, as well as I joined a Warhammer group on Facebook & a lot of posts I keep seeing from them are arguments about why there are no female Astartes.

 

This was kind of an exercise in making a story to (potentially) introduce a chapter of female Astartes while trying not to break established lore too much. I’m not opposed to the idea of female Astartes, but I understand why they haven’t been a thing. Still, I find it fun to imagine what could be & I got a lot of enjoyment out of thinking up a story to accompany such an idea. I will admit that parts of the story would have real world parallels (such as the extreme feminist movement that has been pushed into everything) partially to make my thoughts on such matters known, but also because I felt such a concept would make a conflict that may be relatable & showcase the follies of such narrow views & how they can do harm those who hold to them.