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 Wyldhunt wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.

Bonus: if it drives away people who have tantrums about the idea of femarines, then you're less likely to end up playing a game against people who have tantrums about femarines.

Disagree. The people who have the really big, world-ending tantrums about the idea of femmarines aren't playing anyways. They're hobby tourists, there just long enough to spout outrage while dramatically quitting as publicly as possible.

All it really does is make people like myself who would rather see different factions be different and see genuinely interesting ideas get a chance out there care less about the setting and care even less about discussing it. We've seen how this goes with how lazily handled AdMech+Skitarii have been, with how lazy they have been with GSC+Brood Brothers, and to an extent we're seeing it again with the Custodes. Mostly this is on GW's own head though as they keep cutting the books to the bone to squeeze more rules related crap into them, while removing the hobby and lore side of things.

For the record, since I'm sure I'll have people taking this whole thing out of context shortly? I don't care about Custodes having women in their ranks. I don't have much of a care about Custodes in general. I think the faction's been poorly handled since they first received a codex. It felt like them just shoving the releases for 30k into 40k too. They missed a golden (no pun intended) opportunity to just make the 'basic' Custodes into an all Imperial factions bodyguard unit with a low model count.

I do think that Custodes now just randomly getting women as being mentioned in their ranks feels a bit reductive, but part of that is the nature of how things seemingly were done. They could have made a mention of how the names of Custodes are names passed down from myths and legend, taken up by the Custodes during their service...whether the Custodes in question be man or woman.

I personally would rather have seen a third "talon" added to the overall faction(maybe a good place to rehome Militarum Tempestus or Inquisitorial Stormtroopers?), consisting of mixed genders, and a striking of the name of "Adeptus Custodes" as the codex title and instead a focus upon how it is "The Talons of the Emperor" along with an expansion of the Sisters of Silence range to parity with the Custodes.

In my experience, female marines would help sell the game. When I played Space Hulk and WH40k 4th edition with my wife, she never wanted to play as the marines, which meant I never got to be the Tyranids. And that made the game even more not fun than it already was.

Women* want to play as female marines without dealing with the fan BS that comes from female marines not being canon. GW should let them.


*Yes, I know “not all women”.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.

Bonus: if it drives away people who have tantrums about the idea of femarines, then you're less likely to end up playing a game against people who have tantrums about femarines.

Disagree. The people who have the really big, world-ending tantrums about the idea of femmarines aren't playing anyways. They're hobby tourists, there just long enough to spout outrage while dramatically quitting as publicly as possible.

Also very true.

I personally would rather have seen a third "talon" added to the overall faction(maybe a good place to rehome Militarum Tempestus or Inquisitorial Stormtroopers?), consisting of mixed genders, and a striking of the name of "Adeptus Custodes" as the codex title and instead a focus upon how it is "The Talons of the Emperor" along with an expansion of the Sisters of Silence range to parity with the Custodes.

I'd have been interested by this. Putting the Tempestus in the same "book" as the Custodes would've been a really cool move, and moved the Tempestus away from the Guard and more towards their new role as non-Guard special forces who undertake elite operations. Buff SoS more to be debuff machines and asymmetric forces (give them more than just "power armour with bolter and null powers", make them FEEL POWERFUL), and keep Custodes as the super-ultra-mega-powerful badasses.

And ultimately, GW could've done all of the above. I don't think the resources that went into making women Custodes would've been enough or even used to uplift the other elements of the Talons.

I can also see from GW's perspective why they didn't go full on female space marines with primaris, even though we all agree that it would have been the best time.

GW had just finished squatting fantasy, AoS was just getting started, has the space marines and to a lesser extent the Imperium lose the 13th Black Crusade in full color, and with primaris, GW was basically creating an environment where a lot of hobbyists were worrying that their current space marine collections would also be squatted and no longer supported--maybe even not having a new release every 18 weeks.

With all that volatility, I can see why they were hesitant to be a big change like that.

Not that I agree with it. They should have done it then, or at least left the door open to do it later. But I understand why they didn't.

Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.

 MalusCalibur wrote:
Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.

Which is also why they take Custodes from Death Worlds, where the people are capable of wrestling a beast the size of a bear and win, instead of taking from posh nobles who have servitors catering to their every need. Right?

 MalusCalibur wrote:
Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.

They’re only men because the female models didn’t sell when the game first came out, so they dropped them and made up something saying only men could do it to explain away the lack of women. Also, don’t bring “gender politics” into this as that has no relevance and will only derail the conversation

I am fondly recalling the cartoon "Space King" with Holy Globules, and the first two minutes showing what they do to little girls on the planet.

It's kinda case and point. This faction really has an entrenched hatred of anything remotely female getting near it's toys.

 MalusCalibur wrote:
Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.

"women are weaker" is such an unscientific excuse. look at any number of female strongmen, female martial artists, female sports players. people are so against the idea of strong women that female athletes are being forced onto hormone replacement therapy because they exceed the idea of what men expect of them. biology does not state that women are fundamentally weaker than men, because human biology really doesn't differentiate between men and women all that much (and just look at intersex people for how much this strict sexual binary doesn't even work as a framework). if we're turning to biology to make an argument, then we can look at decades of hormone science to see that the barrier between male and female bodies is remarkably thing and incredibly malleable

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 MalusCalibur wrote:
Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.

"women are weaker" is such an unscientific excuse. look at any number of female strongmen, female martial artists, female sports players. people are so against the idea of strong women that female athletes are being forced onto hormone replacement therapy because they exceed the idea of what men expect of them. biology does not state that women are fundamentally weaker than men, because human biology really doesn't differentiate between men and women all that much (and just look at intersex people for how much this strict sexual binary doesn't even work as a framework). if we're turning to biology to make an argument, then we can look at decades of hormone science to see that the barrier between male and female bodies is remarkably thing and incredibly malleable

Also this is trying to apply logic to a universe 38k years in the future, for where we all know the physical differences have become negligible at best and don’t even apply

IN a setting where melee combat is a thing?
No deathkorp. that is bs as is the claim above.

Not Online!!! wrote:
IN a setting where melee combat is a thing?
No deathkorp. that is bs as is the claim above.

Spoken like someone who has never seen Catachans.

Not Online!!! wrote:
IN a setting where melee combat is a thing?
No deathkorp. that is bs as is the claim above.

Until there’s definitive proof that they are all male, I’ll chose to believe the DKoK are mixed gender regiments who all seem to be equally capable of kicking ass and dying in horrific ways like the men

 Frozium wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The custodes thing sours me because they chose to just lie and gaslight people saying "they've always been there" rather than add an actual reason.

The fact anyone pointing this out gets called an incel/misogynist/etc. is proof that this is just part of the ongoing culture war, and nothing else.

"Oceania was always at war with Eurasia"
Anyways, I agree, there seems to be an awful lot of toxicity and dissingenuity by the pro-femstodes crowd and it's honestly leaving me with such an awful impression. I am so tired of the damn culture war, man. Can't even state your opinion without being called all kinds of insults, no matter how politely you present it.

I don't feel like we're reading the same thread? The quoted text above is the only text I've found in the entire thread that uses the words "Incel" or "Misogynist" - I actually think so far, given the volatility of the subject matter, both sides of the debate have been fairly well-behaved in this thread- though if posts have been hidden/ deleted before I got a chance to see them, that may explain why I feel like we're looking at two different threads.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

"women are weaker" is such an unscientific excuse.

Especially when Strength is such a small part of winning a fight.

Speed, accuracy and strength are equally important to a striker. If you throw the most powerful haymaker in history, but I'm so fast that I'm not there to connect with, the strength you put behind it is wasted, and you're probably overextend and ripe for a less powerful rabbit punch to your kidneys or floating ribs, and despite being a weaker strike, it's going to do more damage.

(When we were taking Kempo, my step brother always used to say that he'd love to see what happened if someone tried to hit him with a baseball bat, because as soon as he dodged the first hit, the follow through would leave his opponent vulnerable to at least three strikes on exposed soft targets before the opponent could recover... While I myself have too much instinct for self preservation to wish for ANY physical conflict, I don't disagree with his assessment.)

Strength is probably slightly more important to a grappler than speed or accuracy, but only slightly- I could be the strongest dude on the planet, but I still ain't gonna be able to choke you out if you dip your chin fast enough to prevent contact with your neck.

Not to mention that in 40k, more work is typically done by guns and tech than the fitness of the user. Last I checked, women's trigger fingers are as strong as men's.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
IN a setting where melee combat is a thing?
No deathkorp. that is bs as is the claim above.

Until there’s definitive proof that they are all male, I’ll chose to believe the DKoK are mixed gender regiments who all seem to be equally capable of kicking ass and dying in horrific ways like the men

There were two successive codices DK on custodes. What else do you want? And DKoK? Total war doctrine dictates that you will waste men over women period. Especially if you are allready in a pinch due to a certain event and are allready cloning.

This particular argument makes less sense the further you up the scale of what is possible. In our current day lives the gap in physical strength between men and women is self-evident, because the only relevant displays of strength are tied to our jobs, sports and recreational activities. In a context of intergalactic horrors, power armor and superhuman strength, that gap becomes meaningless because the baseline, unaugmented human is always going to be relatively weak even at the physical extremes.

Reopen for business. Massive thanks to those who are having this discussion in good faith and honesty, lets see if we can keep this thread open permanently. Last time we managed 17 pages so I know it can be done.

For the other posters, Rules 1,2&3 are not optional, follow them or get the hammer.

There of course are financial considerations, but I believe that for the most part the people who work at the GW are just increasing the diversity and representation because they think that it is the right thing to do.

40K was created by people who were pretty liberal and punk, the whole thing started as a satire of right wing dystopia in Thatcherian UK. Over the years the satire has unfortunately dimmed, but despite this I don't think folks at the GW are pleased with various regressives trying to claim 40K, and have taken steps to fight that.

 Crimson wrote:
There of course are financial considerations, but I believe that most part people who work at GW are just increasing diversity and representation because think that is the right thing to do.

40K was created by people who were pretty liberal and punk, the whole thing started as satire of right wing dystopia in Thatcherian UK. Over the years the satire has unfortunately dimmed, but despite this I don't think folks at the GW are pleased with various regressives trying to claim 40K, and have taken steps to fight that.

Indeed. If they really wanted to just get more profit there are easier and safer ways like offering some more specialized Marine chapters like they did for Templars or Wolves, or investing in new miniatures for guard like HWT’s models for DKoK or updating the Catachan line. These are much less likely to backfire here. This was done because many people keep asking for this expansion of representation and I’m sure many employees did too.

madtankbloke wrote:Female Custodes. Ok, I prefer the aesthetics of female miniatures.
If this female custode is the first one, that could be interesting. It would raise a lot of questions, how, why? perhaps Guilliman saw a sister of silence standing next to a Custode, and said, turn that (SoS), into that (custode)
But no, there have always been female custodes. Ok, so where have they been? why have they never been mentioned. why are all the custodes we've met been men? or at least had male names. Are the writers sexist? is this a case of female erasure up until now. how is GW going to tackle the bigotry of the writers they have used up til now, fire them I say!

If they have always been present, then why is the organisation called the Adeptus Custodes? the name is high gothic, which is essentially latin, and the correct way to decline nominative nouns to reflect genders is -a (female) --us (male) and -um (neuter) hence, adepta sororitas (female) adeptus astartes (male) so the custodes should be, adeptUM custodes, to reflect that the organisation is gender neutral.

So why are they still the adeptUS custodes? GW needs to change the name ASAP to reflect the fact that the organisation practices gender equality, and is a proponent of Diversity Equity and Inclusion. anything else and GW are just proving they are bigots by erasing women.

It’s actually correct Latin for once and consistent with 40k’s wider usage. Things only decline neuter in Latin if they’re genderless. Mixed gender groups decline masculine (as they do in say French).

The Adepti Titanicus, Mechanicus Arbites and Terra* have always been mixed sex since RT and always been ‘Adeptus’.
Adepta Sororitas declines female because it’s a group of only women.

True that’s not how we necessarily like to do things in modern English, but it’s correct for Latin.

*though ‘Terra’ itself is actually a female noun.

insaniak wrote:Or... Custodes can be women now because the designers thought that would be cool, and there's not really any larger agenda here.

This is pretty much it IMO. Not really any reason for them not to be tbh.

Claims of gaslighting is pretty spurious as well, the ‘there’s always been female Custodes’ is clearly in universe.

A retcon sure, but not gaslighting and frankly not that significant a retcon.

I think it great that a writer now has the opportunity to show a masculine brotherhood in Marines and a different bond in custodes

 MalusCalibur wrote:
Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.

There has never been any background that states custodes genetic engineering is antigirl. THey stated that marine geneseed is locked to men (which is itself a very far fetched concept), but have never said the same for custodes.

All custodes start as the sons of nobles and 'custodes engineering is only compatible with men' are two entirely different things.

 Hellebore wrote:

 MalusCalibur wrote:
Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.

There has never been any background that states custodes genetic engineering is antigirl. THey stated that marine geneseed is locked to men (which is itself a very far fetched concept), but have never said the same for custodes.

All custodes start as the sons of nobles and 'custodes engineering is only compatible with men' are two entirely different things.

Even with marines, the 'incompatibility' issue only exists because in Citadel's early days mixed blister packs with women in them didn't sell well. Marines being only men is in itself a retcon.

And the 'physically stronger' argument goes straight out the window in a game setting where women have the exact same physical profile as men.

Brickfix wrote:
I think it great that a writer now has the opportunity to show a masculine brotherhood in Marines and a different bond in custodes

I can't help but think that a lot of the world's problem will be solved when people stop seeing a need to differentiate between bonds of 'masculine brotherhood' and any other type of close friendship.

But that aside, writers will still be able to do that when GW do eventually add female space marines, because male space marines will still exist.

The genetic restriction to men for geneseed is a ridiculous ass pull anyway.

Modern medicine puts organs from either sex into the other.

there is nothing in our biology that would put a hard lock on something like that. It would take deliberate design in the geneseed to stop working in the presence of too many X chromosomes, or only activate in the presence of a Y chromosome.

Because testosterone is produced in all humans regardless of chromsomes, so there is nothing you can tangibly tie the geneseed to for any practical reason - it would have to be entirely ideological.

 Hellebore wrote:
The genetic restriction to men for geneseed is a ridiculous ass pull anyway.

Modern medicine puts organs from either sex into the other.

there is nothing in our biology that would put a hard lock on something like that. It would take deliberate design in the geneseed to stop working in the presence of too many X chromosomes, or only activate in the presence of a Y chromosome.

Because testosterone is produced in all humans regardless of chromsomes, so there is nothing you can tangibly tie the geneseed to for any practical reason - it would have to be entirely ideological.

This is a setting where the chief mechanics literally worship the machines they make and read lengthily latin to them to make them work.
Where holy oils are applied; where rites of instruction are used; where they will literally build the same machine with zero innovation for hundreds - nay thousands of years because that's what is written in the manual.


It's perfectly fitting that the Geneseed system for Marines could work on women and yet never is used on them. Or even the delivery system itself is built to reject women to prevent it being used incorrectly according to the original design manual etc...

Heck the Imperium, until Primaris, wouldn't even make more marines that a set number because of ancient reasons; even though the war effort could seriously do with more of them .

 Hellebore wrote:
there is nothing in our biology that would put a hard lock on something like that. It would take deliberate design in the geneseed to stop working in the presence of too many X chromosomes, or only activate in the presence of a Y chromosome.

Because testosterone is produced in all humans regardless of chromsomes, so there is nothing you can tangibly tie the geneseed to for any practical reason - it would have to be entirely ideological.

IIRC, they did try to work this into one of the Horus Heresy books, with Malcador suggesting that marines be both and the Emperor insisting on boys only. Which suggests both that the process could work on women, and that the reason there aren't women marines is purely down to the Emperor's preferences.

 Overread wrote:
It's perfectly fitting that the Geneseed system for Marines could work on women and yet never is used on them. .

Honestly, that would be my pick of the ways to introduce women to the Astartes... Have a Chapter that is desperate for recruits and running out of candidates try it on some girls out of desperation and ... woah, look at that, it works after all!

Hell, that even gives an out for those who prefer to stick to their male-only Marine forces... some Chapters would embrace the potential to broaden their recruitment pool, and others would object to it not specifically on gender grounds, but simply because the Emperor said 'no' ten thousand years ago... That's pretty much bang on as a totally 40K-themed schism, right there.

 Hellebore wrote:
The genetic restriction to men for geneseed is a ridiculous ass pull anyway.

Modern medicine puts organs from either sex into the other.

there is nothing in our biology that would put a hard lock on something like that. It would take deliberate design in the geneseed to stop working in the presence of too many X chromosomes, or only activate in the presence of a Y chromosome.

Because testosterone is produced in all humans regardless of chromsomes, so there is nothing you can tangibly tie the geneseed to for any practical reason - it would have to be entirely ideological.

the only difference there could be is that some bodies naturally create more testosterone, while others create more estrogen— of course, this is a problem that we can easily fix here in 2024, let alone 40,000 years in the future

which does bring me back to a suggestion i had when this conversation first started. say that the process of becoming a space marine requires such an excessive amount of testosterone such that hormone replacement therapy is a part of the process. anyone can become a space marine, but all space marines will be men, cis or trans


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

 Overread wrote:
It's perfectly fitting that the Geneseed system for Marines could work on women and yet never is used on them. .

Honestly, that would be my pick of the ways to introduce women to the Astartes... Have a Chapter that is desperate for recruits and running out of candidates try it on some girls out of desperation and ... woah, look at that, it works after all!

Hell, that even gives an out for those who prefer to stick to their male-only Marine forces... some Chapters would embrace the potential to broaden their recruitment pool, and others would object to it not specifically on gender grounds, but simply because the Emperor said 'no' ten thousand years ago... That's pretty much bang on as a totally 40K-themed schism, right there.

i like this idea too, tho

As an Ork I don't care what giblets you have it's all getting chopped. You know, for fun.

I think anyone who is actively upset by the idea of female Custodes or Marines really needs to have an honest conversation with themselves about why.

Honestly, do marines or Custodes even need a sex? I am not 100% sure about this but I’m guessing marines don’t go around having sex or anything