Black Gods and Female Space Marines; A Sexy Study

[Diceman]

Oh, and there a LOADS of black guys in Warhammer. Hell, I think at least one, if not 2 of the Primarchs were.

 

[Aerodyamic]

why would they choose women to undergo the procedure when women are 52 percent weaker in the upper body and 66 percent weaker in the lower ?

Where are you getting these statistics? I'd love to know, please, because I can't imagine anything other than some study comparing male body builders to females who don't bother working out.

I also feel you've missed the whole bit about the people taken to become space marines being children, ie. before any sexual characteristics have started to manifest other than different genetalia. Here's a protip: enough chemicals can make any female stronger than a male.

Here's a website for you too.
http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/roarsgirls.html

That is absolutely fucking epic.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Yes, while I realise that men are by far mentioned almost all the time, that there are almost never any suggestion of women in the Imperial Guard (but they definitely do exist) this is simply because... well... almost everyone that plays it are guys. It's just a coincidence.

I think that gets the gist of it, although there's a little further to go. Speaking as a writer, it's just easier to write for a character that's your own sex. When you try to write for the opposite sex, it takes a lot of effort to do it believably and I think the most people just are not willing to put that much effort into it. That's why female characters written by men tend to be unabashedly fetishized, demur housewife types, or badasses and why Edward Cullen is a creepy, self-absorbed, emo pansy who talks about his feelings all the time (although, admittedly this says more about Meyer's warped psychology than the mindset of women in general . . . I hope).

 

[gunheads]

I see your point, but I raise you another. The space marines rely on gene therapy and implants into there body's, Also alot of hormone therapy, there not just trained, they need to be male because only males have the required gene's and hormones redly available in there own body's.

And there is a full female army like the space marines, they just lack the gene's and organ implants because there not compatible, there called the Adeptus soritas.

 

[Diceman]

Yes, while I realise that men are by far mentioned almost all the time, that there are almost never any suggestion of women in the Imperial Guard (but they definitely do exist) this is simply because... well... almost everyone that plays it are guys. It's just a coincidence.

I think that gets the gist of it, although there's a little further to go. Speaking as a writer, it's just easier to write for a character that's your own sex. When you try to write for the opposite sex, it takes a lot of effort to do it believably and I think the most people just are not willing to put that much effort into it. That's why female characters written by men tend to be unabashedly fetishized, demur housewife types, or badasses and why Edward Cullen is a creepy, self-absorbed, emo pansy who talks about his feelings all the time (although, admittedly this says more about Meyer's warped psychology than the mindset of women in general . . . I hope).

Yeah I agree. Some writers can, but for the most part aside from some female side-rolls it is easier for the male writers to write male roles.
And they're not even macho roles either. They're often just average guys that need to do a job or die, and they female characters they write aren't some skin-headed dyke stereotype, but just a woman that also does what she's gotta do (at least with the decent 40k writers).

Also, Meyer scares me...

 

[RJ Dalton]

Yeah I agree. Some writers can, but for the most part aside from some female side-rolls it is easier for the male writers to write male roles.
And they're not even macho roles either. They're often just average guys that need to do a job or die, and they female characters they write aren't some skin-headed dyke stereotype, but just a woman that also does what she's gotta do (at least with the decent 40k writers).

See, I have one power-armored space marine character in the entirety of my story universe and it's a woman. Not only is she a woman, but she's also a woman whose dreams and desires were totally domestic (Yeah, I completely deconstructed the character archetype). The only reason she is who she is was because of massive backstory involving invasion blah blah blah that forced the oppressive military regime that ruled them to force women into service because they just didn't have enough soldiers to fight the hoard and she was one of only a handful people with the bravery to take on mission to destroy a critical enemy base. The situation forced her into it and while she did triumph on the field of battle, her glory ultimately fucked her over because she lost all four limbs and broke her back in the process (cybernetic reconstruction fixed this, but it's just not quite the same). On top of that, because she was the only survivor, she was basically made into a hero for morale boost, but that also meant they used her as a propaganda tool and the government basically stole her identity because they needed her to be a hero to keep people in line.
In all honestly, she's not my best female character. But at the same time, she's one of the few because writing female characters is extremely hard and when I screw up it really hurts the believability of the story. But this is an incredible tangent because the subject of this post seems to be about a black Norse god.
In all honesty, though, I don't find I have much trouble with writing black characters. The sex barrier is a lot harder to cross than the race barrier. The trick to it is mostly to steer away from stereotypes, which is not very difficult, and yet somehow Hollywood finds doing so impossible. This is mostly my gripe with casting a black character in this roll. They're probably trying to just broaden the appeal of the movie, but with this will come Hollywood's inevitable need to add an obligatory rap song and scene involving the consumption of fried chicken.

 

[Diceman]

...But this is an incredible tangent because the subject of this post seems to be about a black Norse god.
... They're probably trying to just broaden the appeal of the movie, but with this will come Hollywood's inevitable need to add an obligatory rap song and scene involving the consumption of fried chicken.

Precisely what I was thinking. "Oh no! He's BLACK! That means he'll act completely differently to us whiteys. Shit, let's make him a stereotype so people know we're keeping up with society!"

 

[RJ Dalton]

Precisely what I was thinking. "Oh no! He's BLACK! That means he'll act completely differently to us whiteys. Shit, let's make him a stereotype so people know we're keeping up with society!"

Exactly. Heaven forbid we should ever think of blacks as *gasp* people; not just people, but people who have reasonable motivations and logical behavior. That's soooooo untrue to life. No, we have to lay on "homie-talk" so thick you can't understand a word their saying and lines about "the man" always trying to keep them down, because, as we all know, blacks are all living in the ghetto because they just aren't good at making money, the lazy, but appropriately pitiable things, and for some inexplicable reason think that it's all the white man's fault.

And just a disclaimer (read: attempt to cover my ass) for all those people who come in at this point and see none of the context of this conversation, I'm being extraordinarily sarcastic. The really sad thing is that I don't think that any of these studio executives realize how far off from reality they really are.

 

[JJMUG]

Female Space Marines: NO. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NO. Why? Because it's explicitly stated in canon that Astartes are exclusively male. Female Space Marines simply don't exist and, furthermore, I think it would ruin their image.

Female Marines of other sorts in other universes, e.g. Halo, are fine, just not when the universe demands that they cannot be.

Feel free to cite the source which states that females can't be space marines. If you think that what the cannon 'explicitly states' is sacred, might I remind you of Squats? Bits that don't fit have a habit of disappearing while others are written in at whim. The thing about fictional universes is that they're malleable.

I'm curious as to why you think it would 'ruin their image'. Which part of their image? The immortal badass? The commentary on hypermasculinised cultures? Details, do tell.

Used to be up on the GW (after they switched it a bunch of stuff never got put back up) website http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Creation_of_a_Space_Marine
also in the new Deathwatch book, and i am sure Codex: Space Marine as soon as i find my copy I'll check.

What will it ruin? being that you don't know much about Space Marines i guess the Monastic Knight theme never crossed your mind. Knights Templar and all of that or they Greek Hero influence.

I mean fell free to use squats but GW got rid of them becuase they were stupid and no one felt inspired to work on them. They never were had a second edtion codex, when Warhammer 40k became warhammer 40k and not Rouge Trader. A lot of Rouge Trader whent by the way side, remember Leman Russ was not a primarch, and the Ultramarines were a third founding.

The backstory has changed dramatically over the years,

only from Rouge Trader to 2nd edition, now GW is just filling in the gaps here and there. Sure there are retcons but there will always be retcons. Unless your talking about the Horus Heresy which we know happened in the universe, now GW is just telling us the whole story other then it happened.

However, this is just for the imperium, female chaos space marines? a possibility.

The Warp does not change sex, how ever some space marines that follow Slannesh do grow a breast. The warp god in question is she who thirsts which the greater daemon model has one breast. SLannesh can appear as a male or female or what ever it desires.

The Space Wolves break canon in so many ways already

Nope, nice try though. If GW wrote that the Space Wolves don't follow the Codex Astarters then they do not break fluff. Also they recruit from Fenris, a death world, where life is hard. Men are expendable on Fenris women are not. Taking part of the Female population is dangerous and reduces the amount of children that can be born to be recruits. For a Space Wolves player you don't know much about Space Wolves.

 

[MagnusShalefist]

Welp, this thread has convinced me. If I ever start playing 40k I'm going to design an all-female chapter of Space Marines, if only to annoy parts of the player base. Or maybe I'll design a mixed chapter.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Fair enough, it doesn't explicitly state that they can't become Astartes. However, the total lack of them does suggest that it doesn't happen. Furthermore, from a biological point of view, men generally are stronger, tougher e.t.c. than women. Some women can be stronger than guys, but the very strongest will always be men, and only the very strongest are capable of even surviving the creation process.

As to their image: can you even imagine a female Marine? Astartes have a certain... feel to them, a sort of psychotic Spartan Knight Templar aesthetic. All of the virtues that they embody are masculine ones. There are hard women in the universe, but none of them can be as hard or as other as the Astartes, much in the same way that men wouldn't really fit the Sisters of Battle theme.

The people taken to become Sphess Muhrens are pre-pubescent children. I don't see how male/female toughness factors into it at age 8 or 9.

As for imagining female space marines, you missed the bit where I brought up just how fundamentally changed the physical form would be, regardless of their starting gender. Here's a quote just for you.

Of course, the catch all of "Well, chicks just can't handle that, bro." gets in the way here as Ultrajoe said. It's a cop out, and a shitty one at that. There's no reason that a male body could handle the amount of chemicals pumped through them to produce space marines, yet the fluff allows it. Hormone treatment of F to M transsexuals is evidence that it would no more kill women than it would men. Of course they wouldn't be feminine afterwards, they would be as grotesquely mutated and bloated with muscle as the male space marines.

I'm not asking that they produce space marine models with breasts. Not only would that be an integrity flaw in the armour, but it wouldn't fit the pseudo-science.

Of course, if Games Workshop were really going to change things, they'd just cut all this shit out and do it. There's nothing to prevent female space marines popping up in relatively unknown chapters, or even new chapters. As I said fluff is malleable.

Fluff is indeed very malleable. 40K fluff most of all. I have a lot of 40K books and other materials at this point and am completely resigned to the fact that half of it does not really fit together all that well.

As for females marines: why the hell not? I had this discussion with a girl friend a few years back and reminded her that there are a few lost legions. If she so wanted she could take those and say that one of them was a female legion, now lost. A bit of creativity and some Sisters of Battle sprues, some green stuff and glue later she would have her very own female Legion/chapter. After all that's the reason the lost Legions exist, to allow players to make their won stuff.

I don't get all the "Canon can never be broken" attitudes I see. 40K is broken frequently by Games Workshop in any case, so why not add your own female chapter? Go nuts I say! Of course it wouldn't be official, but really, who cares at this point?

Note: most of this post was not really aimed at you Labyrinth. Your final words just served as a nice stepping stone.

 

[Ultrajoe]

A lot of talk in the last page has seemingly assumed my original post was about female space marines and why they should exist. While I'm flattered that people like my title so much they posted without reading what I wrote, it does mean they tend to repeat what's already been said or carefully tell me what I already know. Not to mention they ignore that this post is actually about the inclusion of a black Hiemdall into the Thor movie.

I have no want to argue canon or 'theology' in either case, as I've already said the canon is against Femarines and so is the narrative intent. However, holding up a fact that can be easily retconned in the face of change is like holding up wheat before the reaper. My point isn't that there should be Female Marines, it's that the reasons people use to try and say they shouldn't exist are often stupid as hell. Just like the reasons for not having a black Norse god.

There are good reasons to oppose such inclusions, although having people come into a thread about using the right ones and parroting the bad ones is pretty depressing.

 

[Labyrinth]

You can't make a woman by cloning a guy. If this is not the case, i don't neccecerily see the problem.

Genetically, the difference between male and female is that make is XY and female, XX. So yes, you can make a female from male cells, you just need to get two cells, add the second X to one and take out the excess Y. You cannot however clone a male from female cells.

For science!

I feel I should point out that only the Primarchs are genetically "Sons of the Emprah". New recruits are simply those who survived the trials they must undergo to be accepted into training. These trials occur at 9 years of age.

 

[Darmort]

I have no want to argue canon or 'theology' in either case, as I've already said the canon is against Femarines and so is the narrative intent. However, holding up a fact that can be easily retconned in the face of change is like holding up wheat before the reaper. My point isn't that there should be Female Marines, it's that the reasons people use to try and say they shouldn't exist are often stupid as hell. Just like the reasons for not having a black Norse god.

The movie stuff I'm not too worried about. I'll probably see the movie at some point, but I'm not engrossed in the lore already, thus I don't see the problem. I would have a massive problem if I was engrossed in the lore, because... well, I don't know anything about the lore. I don't care because I can't care.

Can easily be retconned. And would be one of the most stupid decisions I've have ever seen. Changing it would stop Space Marines actually being rather unique, instead they'd just be even more cumbersome Spartans. Changing something that has given the Space Marines part of their founding character would be something that I, as a writer, wouldn't touch.

 

[Diceman]

Precisely what I was thinking. "Oh no! He's BLACK! That means he'll act completely differently to us whiteys. Shit, let's make him a stereotype so people know we're keeping up with society!"

Exactly. Heaven forbid we should ever think of blacks as *gasp* people; not just people, but people who have reasonable motivations and logical behavior. That's soooooo untrue to life. No, we have to lay on "homie-talk" so thick you can't understand a word their saying and lines about "the man" always trying to keep them down, because, as we all know, blacks are all living in the ghetto because they just aren't good at making money, the lazy, but appropriately pitiable things, and for some inexplicable reason think that it's all the white man's fault.

And just a disclaimer (read: attempt to cover my ass) for all those people who come in at this point and see none of the context of this conversation, I'm being extraordinarily sarcastic. The really sad thing is that I don't think that any of these studio executives realize how far off from reality they really are.

Not gunna lie, it always reminds me of Shadow the Hedgehog getting really fucking annoyed that he's being given a gun because he's black. Also he now collects fruit not rings.

 

[Dyp100]

Females can't be Space Marines because it'd kill them, as you said, plus it's not just because of that lore (which isn't a single passage, it's been a staple of 40k since forever) but because there has never been a female space marine to proof otherwise. Either way, why would you want a female space marine? Space marines are hard to make and rely on brute strength and all that loveliness. Sorry to break it to you but on average men are taller, tougher and stronger than females. It'd make things less efficient.

Edit:

Also, I feel like allowing FemMarines would be a cop-out. Why, just because their males, does it have to be female as well? To appear like their not sexist? It seems rather silly. Either way, we don't know why GW choose marines to be male only (we can imagine it's because of the market of teenage males) though I have a feeling it has to do with 40k being the medievel era in space. You didn't get female Knights (to my knowledge) so you don't get female Space Marines, somethng like.

Also, some marines do have sex. The Wolfies and the Salamanders have kids and families and such, but those two chapters are more of the radical than the Ultra's and the Imperial Fists, who only give their marines 15 minutes a day of free time.

 

[WanderingFool]

Damn, thats well thought out. I like.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Not gunna lie, it always reminds me of Shadow the Hedgehog getting really fucking annoyed that he's being given a gun because he's black. Also he now collects fruit not rings.

I remember that VGCats comic. It was awesome.

 

[Count_A'ight]

I don't know Warhammer, but from what I'm reading in the posts those guys are clone trooper, not space marines. Then again, space marine was defined for me by James Cammeron in Aliens, so I'm biased.

Hudson: "Hey Vasquez! Have you ever been mistaken for a man?"

Vasquez: "No. Have you?"

 

[Zykon TheLich]

I don't know Warhammer, but from what I'm reading in the posts those guys are clone trooper, not space marines. Then again, space marine was defined for me by James Cammeron in Aliens, so I'm biased.

Hudson: "Hey Vasquez! Have you ever been mistaken for a man?"

Vasquez: "No. Have you?"

Just to be a pedantic ass, those guys were Colonial Marines