Why has GW never acknowledged female space marines?

[Denzark]

And once more into the fray - the FSM issue is raising its head in another thread. So, I thought I would canvas why people think GW has never acknowledged female Space Marines.

In fact, quite the opposite - a quote from a WD article on the Legion Astartes, re-printed in the W40K compendium:

"...These considerations mean that only a small proportion of people can become space marines. They must be male because zygotes are keyed to male hormones and tissue types, hence the need for tissue compatibility tests and psychological screening."

Now, lets ignore the science. Real life science obviously does not apply, 40K science is full of paradoxes (how come only a handful of jetbikes in the 41st millenium imperium but 'harder' technology such as titan mind impulse links still in abundance?

Staying on topic, why do you think GW has not rectified this fluff? After all it would not hurt sales - I think there must be a reason for specifically not doing so. My reasons as follows:

1. Within the paradoxical 40K science it makes sense (lost technology, females weaker whatever).

2. Within the socio-political climate of the imperium, it makes sense. (same sex military units more cohesive than mixed, attitude to females [outside cadia etc]).

3. GW just like f*cking with us.

4. GW feel no need to pander to (transatlantic?) political correctness.

5. GW couldn't give a stuff either way about PC but like the idea of an all male preserve - after all you couldn't get away with it in real life.

6. They think it would absolutely nothing to the fluff - if it ain't broken don't fix.


For myself, as it would not hurt and might enhance sales, I think reason 6 most likely.

PS don't consider the old females in power armour models to be opposing proof - I consider them precursor SoB and along the lines of the drunken Christmas Marine in terms of import to the canon.

Have at it.

[Mr Mystery]

Meh. The background is well explained.

And perhaps the Emperor was a bit of a fruit....hint of lavender around the Golden Throne...

[DWest]

Couple of thoughts on the lack of Y chromosomes within the Adeptus Astartes:
1- Until the GW team can reliably sculpt good-looking female models, I can't see them trying to mess with the 'poster boys'

2- Space Marines especially market to the adolescent audience, and female models would probably draw a lot of heat from people who shouldn't really care, but do.

3- From reading several of the Heresy books, the Astartes are portrayed as tremendously broken, nearly non-human figures, and the lack of female Astartes or even the ability to interact on an intimate level is definitely part of that. I may be reading too much into the situation, but it seems deliberate from what I've read for the Legions/Chapters to be missing large chunks of what would otherwise make them human (but then again this is a world that says you would live a life of thankless drudgery and then die horribly and portrays that as being cool, so who knows?)

[Deadlift]

Maybe worried that if they did introduce FSM it might end up in a nerd rage meltdown and cost them business. Anyway theres always Sisters of battle, I think they are quite cool as they are. For those who really want their ladies in proper power armour, Female inquisitor in Terminator armour. That would be one cool model/kitbash.

[Fantomex]

I'd have said it was a combination of factors.

GW simply has no need to do it, and if anything I think it would dehumanise and denigrate in some really odd, warped ways.
We see enough examples in the background of humans reflecting and observing on the horrible, scarring, process of creating an Astartes, and I think it would be a bit of a leap to say "oh yeah, check out these sweet girls, about to go get sliced up and turned into almost inhuman hulks of pure single-minded killing".

It's a minefield of personal emotional responses and perceptions of decency and good taste, essentially.

We see little boys fighting and playing with toys that involve guns, conflict, etc, but it's less common in girls. As a blunt generalisation, that rings pretty true.

By simplifying the entire background of 40K, it generally shows the futility and wastefulness of war and conflict, and if we look back similarly simplified in our own history, for the most part war has been a very male-oriented event.

Simply, it all fits, both real-world logically, and background-logically.

I'd have said that the pseudo-science behind the creation of the Thunder Warriors, the Custodes and the Astartes chimes in pretty well with things we already know about genetics today.

Testosterone is shown to have proven links to aggressive behaviour and fighting, I imagine that tweaking that would be a whole lot easier than having to create something from scratch and experiment with it.

Making something as a readily-usable genetic base that works on a large majority of male subjects is obviously the simpler solution, as is done with the gene-seed.

Add in the fact that you're essentially creating hyper-autistic children in the bodies of acid-spitting supermen with concrete-bones, unable to fall prone to almost every malady afflicting regular humans, you're tweaking them to be almost psychopathic (yet controllable) with rage at the thought of fighting their enemies, and you've basically got the perfect army.

Why would they need to bring women in and do similar? I'd have argued that they would be a lot more important in siring the next generation of kids who will become Astartes.
Plus, with the synthetic hormones and other organs implanted into a male human, who knows what the effects would be?

The menstrual cycle alone would be either highly disrupted or highly disruptive should you implement such sweeping change, though I'd have imagined a grim process like is witnessed in the creation of an Astartes would have possibly involved even a hysterectomy in order to balance the body and "normalise" the subject?

Hell, I'm likely looking far too deep and trying to rationalise something totally impossible to do so to..

End of the day, it's the fluff!
I like it, the female Astartes argument has been done to death, far as I'm concerned, if the Emperor made them like that, who am I to argue? :D

[Denzark]

Very considered Fantomex - but whilst I agree 'its the fluff' I would like to hear why people think GW have left the fluff in this state - people will and have been arguing both sides of the coin but the fact is is that no FSMs IS the current fluff - so why is GW happy with that?

[Fantomex]

Denzark, I reckon, purely as a popularity-with-the-fans point of view, it'd be so HUGE a step to retcon such a thing that it would honestly appear to be as if they were acquiescing to "political correctness" or similar perception of social dilemma..

I suppose the most obvious point is that to rock the boat in such a way would not please everyone, and that is something they'd not be willing to do, considering that tabletop 40k itself is over 50% of the value of the entire company and all its divisions..

With any other bit of the background, changes can sometimes be subtle, sometimes more than subtle, but never something so drastic.

C'tan changing from being actual gods to broken amnesiac controlled shards of gods? I'm good with that.
T'au Ethereals being created by the Eldar as controls to use in the fight against Chaos? Cool by me.

Heck, look at the Squats.
Spontaneous ULTRA RACE DEATH BY TYRANIDS RAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!

That was throwing a match at a very flammable pile of fanboy rage, it's the 40k equivalent of Greedo shooting first..

The fact they've been subtly slipped back into the fluff as Demiurg and now in the 6th ed BRB? I'm fine with that too.

I reckon it'd simply come down to lots of hardcore fans doing the OMGZ ITZ NOT RITE WHY IS THERE LADY MARINEZ I HAET DIS thing and getting worked up over nothing.

Why risk the fallout when you've done pretty well so far?


Plus, in a purely sensible argument, I'd say just look at the models.

Astartes are hulking slabs of muscle so utterly different from even human bodybuilding champions that if you did the same to a girl, she'd surely come out looking the same, wear the same armour, and be indistinguishable from a male Astartes once suited up.

Even GW wouldn't sculpt curvy boob-and-butt plates for female Astartes.. Would they? :confused:

[Denzark]

Very fair again - although I wonder how many fans would be as you describe, how many are meh and how many FSM zealots there are.

[Durendin]

You could ask why only adolescents can be Space Marines? Perhaps Games Workshop are being deliberately age-ist along with their being sex-ist! I bet the Power Armour isn't made in a Carbon-Neutral way either!

Why are Space Marines all blokes? Because the writers wrote it that way, pure and simple. They didn't feel the need to fulfil a minority political agenda or cow-tow to some specific social-engineering programme of inclusiveness. Instead they simply put together a back-story with some specifics that aren't really worth mulling over. This back-story has worked well enough to push 40K to the success it has become and Games Workshop are unlikely to want to change this lest they kill the goose...!

[Cpt Codpiece]

fluff wise, isnt it all down to the fact that they need adolescent boys, as they have not started to 'mature' or have not matured fully so they take the various implants and chemo therapy needed to create the astartes.

men have a void in the abdomen (where uor beer guts reside eventually) that thankfully women dont have as its taken up by the reproductive system (uterus grows to hold babies... duh :)) they probably fill that void with the extra kidneys and what not.

but like fantomex said, even if there were female astartes, would we be to tell them apart form males? i dont think so.

[Montpup]

Couple of thoughts on the lack of Y chromosomes within the Adeptus Astartes

Adeptus astrartes have lots of Y chromosomes they lack XX chromosomes

[Montpup]

but like fantomex said, even if there were female astartes, would we be to tell them apart form males? i dont think so.

well not the way GW does the female form anyway

[Durendin]

but like fantomex said, even if there were female astartes, would we be to tell them apart form males? i dont think so.

It would explain the pre-Heresy Emperor's Children being so prissy!

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Because that's the way they wrote the fluff and there's no reason for them to change it - after all, they wouldn't change the setting, add anything to the plot overall and a non-cringeworthy depiction of female marines would look nigh-exactly male marines. These are 7-8ft tall people who had bone extenders jammed into their bodies, after all.

But there's nothing wrong with people fanfluffing about female marines or speculating about 'em. Most know there's some obscure fluff restricting them to being male, but it's not exactly a cornerstone of the fluff. A fair few of 40k's various writers have gone on record talking about how canon isn't much of a concern in 40k, and we should consider all information unreliable.

---

And no idea where you're getting the whole "PC" thing from, I have not seen a single person call it sexist.

[Kirsten]

because space marines are the iconic image of 40k, and if they were female, it would blow gamer's minds, literally, and GW don't want that on their conscience ;)

[Fantomex]

It would explain the pre-Heresy Emperor's Children being so prissy!



The Emperors Children? More like The Emperors Daughters! *shock face*

[Fantomex]

because space marines are the iconic image of 40k, and if they were female, it would blow gamer's minds, literally, and GW don't want that on their conscience ;)

Discussion: Ended. Brilliant.. :D

[eldargal]

GW don't want people confusing SoB and Marines, that's what it boils down to. Each have to be their own thing. Something along these lines was mentioned in The Gothic and the Eldritch where they talked about deliberately making SoB power armour different so people wouldn't think 'girl marines'. Seems logical that the same thing would apply from a background sense.

Also, what Kirsten said.

As has been mentioned the in0universe explanation makes no kind of sense, so if someone wants to make FSM (and why not, it's no sillier than many other army ideas) it's easy enough to just say 'oh its a loss of knowledge, my chapter found an STC/figured out how/Fabius Bile did it/whatever.

[Grovel]

My opinion - I'd say it's just aesthetics.
Large/butch looking women won't appeal to many people no matter how well they're sculpted, and petite/feminine looking women wouldn't suit the "Space Marine" mould. The middle ground is unlikely because to be blunt - average doesn't sell as well as extremes do.

[Chris*ta]

Denzark, I reckon, purely as a popularity-with-the-fans point of view, it'd be so HUGE a step to retcon such a thing that it would honestly appear to be as if they were acquiescing to "political correctness" or similar perception of social dilemma..

I suppose the most obvious point is that to rock the boat in such a way would not please everyone, and that is something they'd not be willing to do, considering that tabletop 40k itself is over 50% of the value of the entire company and all its divisions..

With any other bit of the background, changes can sometimes be subtle, sometimes more than subtle, but never something so drastic.

C'tan changing from being actual gods to broken amnesiac controlled shards of gods? I'm good with that.
T'au Ethereals being created by the Eldar as controls to use in the fight against Chaos? Cool by me.

Heck, look at the Squats.
Spontaneous ULTRA RACE DEATH BY TYRANIDS RAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!

That was throwing a match at a very flammable pile of fanboy rage, it's the 40k equivalent of Greedo shooting first..

The fact they've been subtly slipped back into the fluff as Demiurg and now in the 6th ed BRB? I'm fine with that too.

I reckon it'd simply come down to lots of hardcore fans doing the OMGZ ITZ NOT RITE WHY IS THERE LADY MARINEZ I HAET DIS thing and getting worked up over nothing.

Why risk the fallout when you've done pretty well so far?


Plus, in a purely sensible argument, I'd say just look at the models.

Astartes are hulking slabs of muscle so utterly different from even human bodybuilding champions that if you did the same to a girl, she'd surely come out looking the same, wear the same armour, and be indistinguishable from a male Astartes once suited up.

Even GW wouldn't sculpt curvy boob-and-butt plates for female Astartes.. Would they? :confused:

This is pretty much the two points I was going to make:
1) The ship for changing this sailed long long ago.
2) They wouldn't look any different to regular SMs, except maybe if they were helmetless, so what's the point?

[DarkDesigner]

Ok, here's my 2 cents. This isn't about whether GW have allowed the possibility of fem-marines in their fluff, it is about whether someone who wanted to collect this as an army is allowed to. There has been little distinction in some people's arguments from what the fluff states, to what people are able to interpret from it. If your vision of the 40k universe means that only males can be marines, that is fine, but I think it is wrong to tell other people what they can and can't do. If people want to bend the fluff, or even ignore elements of it, that's their own decision. If it doesn't conform to your own reading, don't play that army.

For what it's worth I agree with many of the points, particularly marketing-wise, as to why GW haven't attempted to de-gender the marines or write it into the fluff themselves. There would be uproar from purists, evidence of which we need look no further than this thread. But there is a huge gulf between what GW release pertaining to the background and conversions gamers apply to their own property.

There is one thing however I'd like to say regarding Denzark's initial mission statement for the thread.


Now, lets ignore the science. Real life science obviously does not apply, 40K science is full of paradoxes (how come only a handful of jetbikes in the 41st millenium imperium but 'harder' technology such as titan mind impulse links still in abundance?
2. Within the socio-political climate of the imperium, it makes sense. (same sex military units more cohesive than mixed, attitude to females [outside cadia etc]).

I don't agree that it's ok to ignore 'real life science', but to then rely on real life social and political contexts. Science is a far less malleable and flexible set of parameters than society. Even with science fiction, if writers take too many steps away from real world science, it will not be believable. Social context however can be adapted and explained to be so far away from any real life example, that the ramifications of it can be taken further still. There are many different societies in our modern culture, each with different customs and laws and none which can be reasonably considered 'right'. Science however, is fact.