Sadly, people have made that arguement before, and the complainers ignore it and keep on going.

Good news! Just got the Book (You know.... Deathwatch) And I checked the Character Sheet - There is NO GENDER SPACE! So its a non-issue!

Sitting back and actually looking at this thread, i don't think their are safe words i could use to describe it.

But i occured to me that this whole argument is far sillier than it ever occured to me it was, when i first stumbled into it, without realising actual discussion of the topic was impossible, due to one or two people on each side being unreasonable. Why sillier? Well because we are talking out space marines. Just, for the sake of argument, marine augmentations did work on woman, the result would not be a woman, it would be a space marine, a bio-augmented, trans-human super-soldier, whos been ritually indoctrinated to such fanatical loyalty as to appear insane to our world view.

Their are no female space marines, but their arn't really any male ones either. So the out cry for female space marines falls doubly foul of theme, mood and setting, because gender is perhapes the least defining aspect of who and what a space marine is.

I was just planning to wait for the self made chapter rules and just toss them in like that. Nothing to fancy, just no junk hidden behind a near foot of armor and black carapace....

I just thought that i might add this short TED talk.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/93

The Theme of that talk is the idea that their is such a thing as to much choice.

zombieneighbours said:

I think the problem is more that the marine still appears as what we socially accept as male. Certainly they are more masculine than feminine. So even if gender is irrelevant as it has no impact on their social standing/treatment or sexual conduct, they still appear male.

And therein lies the crux of many but not all femarine arguments. Bewbs in power armour. The number of people I've seen trying to get sexyfine space marines is mind boggling. Aparently they not only have to be female, but despite all logic to the contrary, should also look like Buffy the vampire slayer. Because when women get buff their breasts get bigger and their waists narrower; when they get pumped full of testosterone they just look hotter .

Hellebore

But wouldn't a female who became a Space Marine lose her breasts (because they are essentially useless to them, and a waste of good fatty acids to use up in the transformation that becoming a Space Marine involves), probably lose her internal genitals (because the space is better used for additional organs), and with the changed bone structure and hormones, both sound and look like a man? I mean, that much testosterone would make their voice break, and their bone structure would change too.

So.... basically what I'm trying to say is that a woman who became a Space Marine would basically go through a sex change (in the manner that 21st century medicine conducts sex changes) in the process of transforming into a Space Marine? Any other way (Space Marines with boobs) is just silly, and plain doesn't make sense.

So go ahead, have female Space Marines... they'll just look, sound, and act identical to a male Space Marine

MILLANDSON said:

Except that to build all that muscle mass they'ed have to use myostatin inhibitors. Testosterone would actually be counter productive. The internal genitals would remain unchanged, since there's no reason to remove them, due to the fact that no extra organs are located in the pelvis. (since in Male space marines, they wouldn't fit there.)

I agree on the breasts issue, fatty deposits would be reduced due to increased caloric demands of muscle tissue. (the exception to this would be if they were derived from iceworlder stock. Fatty deposits are a defensive measure against cold that would be a strong genetic trait)

Not too clear on why the proportions of the skeleton would change. Or why you would even want them to, since the wider stance and lower center of gravity give an advantage in hand to hand combat. Even women who suffer from gigantism still have broadly the same proportions (except in cases where the growth is limited to the long bones, which would be bad for any space marine, male or female). Though thier voices would be deeper, they'ed probably have a higher pitch then a male space marine.

Just couldn't let the thread die, could you?

It went a whole day without any posts, but someone just had to ressurect it?

*grumbles*

Blood Pact said:

Says a person feeding the thread.

Come on, if your not interested, stop reading it, and stop posting in it. The rest of us will get board of it, when it stops being of any interest to us.

MILLANDSON said:

How unsexy.

Alex

PS Even if the thread would run out, a new one likely will be started in no short time. I expect the controversy to remain for as long as there are no female SMs.

ak-73 said:

Certainly would. Considering this is the second thread on the topic. The first had dropped off for about two or three weeks (I think) before this one got started up by someone else.

-=Brother Praetus=-

This is the third one I've seen, actually.

And there was probably one between the previous thread and the one that prompted me to join the boards.

I think this is the 37th FSM thread I've seen between all the boards I'm a member of. It's the second in space marine threads behind 'X is broken/Unbalanced' as a subject.

Though I'm still curious as to Millandson's reasoning on his assertions.

Without actually altering any fluff, besides making female SMs exist it would be really difficult to tell them apart. The reason for this is really simple Implantation and augumentation happen before puberty, and completely hijack it. Breasts wouldn't exist because with the modified Astartes generating puberty they would never grow. Feminine facial features might be noticible if you knew what to look for, but with the addition of three organs to the head and heavily modified bone and muscle structure across the entire body it would be subtle at the very least. Voice would probably deepen, due to male puberty keyed implants.

Hair would have to be short to wear the helmet for long periods, so that wouldn't be visible either.

The Astartes are not human, even if they once were. In the end though it would probably be possible to tell Astartes made from female and male "Stock" apart.

Though I don't really understand why people would want to add something like this, isn't the whole point of roleplaying trying to portray something you are not?

SomVone said:

Hmm... actually, if Lexicanum and wikipedia are to be belived, a girl would be implanted after puberty began.

If the implants worked via testosterone, space marines would all have breasts due to excess testosterone being converted to estradiol. Since this clearly isn't the case, they'ed work via myostatin inhibitor. Which, by the way, would actually work better then testosterone for increasing muscle mass.

BaronIveagh said:

If you're going to mention Lexicanum, them please state your response to the second sentence in the requirements section of the "Creation of a space marine" article. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Creation_of_a_Space_Marine

I think one problem that is had that people view space marines as purely people with implants, ignoring the mentality behind them. Even if a person has the implants (or something similar), they are not a space marine without a chapter of some sort, some notion (or lack thereof) of their founding, a history of glorious battles. So given that line of thinking, its not too terrible to consider female space marines, its just that the very idea is just so close to sororitas anyway, that why should you just break canon for it?

I think people are not giving ascension level characters enough credit, simply thinking space marines are plain better (as part of the more mechanical argument, saying that "if" (and I disagree with this notion as being nesscicariliy true) a female player does not want to play a male character, they are getting the short of the stick no matter what). 13K xp in DH is a good bit to spend, and while its not the same as starting with power armour, they could easily have access to best carapace (within RAW), or a a fair gm would probably be open to them acquiring their own power armour anyway (being sororitas, and that a 13k xp in RAW would have like 3283 thrones, sure, not enough to buy PA, but I would allow trade ins of goods like the best carapace armour for the power armour).

KommissarK said:

I think my position was made clear enough with that initial collary 'if they are to be belived'.

However, since you're trying to bait me on this issue, I'll return the favor with a Rogue Trader era FSM, excuse me 'adventurer':

BaronIveagh said:

The implantation is supposed happen before or in early puberty, it not an age count.

And I'm not saying that the actual changes are powered by testosterone, because that would be insane. The kind of muscle density Astartes have is not human. I'm saying that the growth of implants is regulated by the varying hormonal levels of male puberty. While it would probably be possible to change the hormonal keys I doubt the Imperium, or really any power except maybe the Tyranids and Necrons has the know how to change those keys without something really, really bad happening. Out of the two gene-seed alteration attempts I can think of, Corax made nonsentient monstrosities, because he tried to make the process faster. The attempt of remove the black rage from Blood Angels gene-seed gave them really terrible luck, as a result they were nearly if not all wiped out.

So changing the the gene-seed is basically out. So if someone was really hellbent on doing this they would probably change the subject, which kind of seems to defeat the point. Which might not work that well depending on whether Corax tried that.

BaronIveagh said:

Yep a female adventurer in power armour. Because pretty much EVERYONE could wear power armour in RT given the right roll on their equipment table. Inquisitors, Rogue Traders, harlequins, arbitrators etc. Because the mark of a space marine isn't wearing power armour. By your logic sisters of battle must be female space marines, because they are models of females in power armour.

We have a chaos toilet, goff rockers and now the white dwarf in 40k power armour - which isn't a squat. Despite the fact that the miniature isn't a female space marine , being a miniature isn't grounds for it being evidence anyway, as proven by the aforementioned (and many more) joke miniatures GW have released over the last 30 years. There was even an orc santa clause.

Clutching at straws because you don't want to change your position doesn't make your position look very reasonable. In fact it makes it look more like a fanatical refusal to admit the truth. Your evidence consists of circumstantial and/or erroneous material whilst there is definitive information saying the opposite.

It's perfectly fine to state that you personally like the idea and in your opinion it's true, but it is not true at all that it was so within the context of the setting.

I don't care what people personally believe, but it misleads others to try and assert that your opinion is actual fact, when it most clearly, logically and evidentuarily is not. Yes I made that word up.

Hellebore

Hellebore said:

However that power armour looks like SM armour. Sans its Mk 6 helmet.

Alex

That model isn't the original. It's wearing a 2nd ed plastic backpack and carrying a 2nd ed plastic bolter. The armour itself is just power armour which can be worn by anyone. The biggest difference between marine power armour and non marine power armour is the lack of black carapace interface and the size, otherwise power armour doesn't look that different. The sisters wear far more stylised power armour than everyone else, but in general power armour looks similar regardless of who's wearing it.

farm3.static.flickr.com/2251/2247408475_4d7d25c3d2.jpg

This isn't a grey knight or black templar or dark angel. It's a human crusader. But he looks a bit like one.

www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1250113_99060108070_WHInqplaspistmain_445x319.jpg

This isn't a sister of battle, it's a female inquisitor wearing stylised power armour. But she looks a bit like one.

And all that aside, the miniature displayed is an adventurer and not a space marine. So an adventurer wearing power armour that looks like space marine power armour, in as much as all power armour looks like space marine power armour.

hellebore

SomVone said:

Actually, the admech had varying degrees of success with different attempts over the years. And, frankly, almost every attempt at genetic engineering in the imperium has had magic bad luck,(see Alphiel Strain Soldiers) to explain why it's not more wide spread.

Frankly the thing about puberty is questionable, since many chapters seem to recruit warriors who are clearly either the biggest, hairest pre-teens ever, or are past puberty. The main reason that this would be is that the bone structure hasn't had time to fully ossify, and so can be coaxed into growing larger by increasing amounts of HGH.

Myostatin is what prevent humans (among other things) from simply growing gigantic muscles.

The mouse on the far left is a normal mouse. The mouse in the middle has a malformation of the gene to produce the myostatin receptor. The mouse on the right has a double mutation that prevents both production or reception of myostatin. The same mutation occasionally occurs in human beings.

So, if the hormones that are released by the implants inhibit the production of both myostatin and it's receptor, the logical result would be massive muscular development, which, so far, genetic testing has borne out in cases such as the 2004 case of a baby boy born in Germany with a double mutation. (Insert aryan supermen joke here)

Theoretically, the basis of a space marine would be manipulating the levels of hgh and myostatin to produce vastly increased height and strength. The tricky part would be controlling the rate certain groups of bones grew, and thier bone density. Above 7.5 feet, there's a marked tendency toward spine and joint malformations. As far as the other stuff goes, maybe possible, maybe not. Enhanced senses and cognition are quite possible, though reaction time is a bit tougher. Spitting acid, on the other hand....

Hellbore, if you can't tell I was prodding him back since he was trying to get a rise out of me, please check your pulse. Though Alex is correct. It looked so much like the SM armor that the sorters at GW mistakenly sold them as space marines for some time. This is, oddly, one of the things that got the entire FSM ball of hooey going and has incited insane levels of nerd rage ever since.

And, actually, yes, that's what she came with. See picture, left hand side, second row from bottom.

BaronIveagh said:

It's a woman wearing power armour. A wider potential array of characters did that in Rogue trader than in modern 40k. There is no more evidence that the model represents a space marine, than it does a rogue trader, inquisitor or some other powerful human.

ak-73 said: