BaronIveagh said:

No.

The Frateris Templar existed at the same time as the brides of the emporer.

And the Chantry guards exist at the same time adeptus soriatas.

Never did group a exist at the same time as group B.

Fraterus Templar are not Chantry Guard.

One is a miliatary organisation on the scale of the imperial guard itself, the other a small group of heretics.

The brides of the emperor are not the Adepta Soriatas

One is the personal body guard of Goge Vandire. Who eventually became the Adeptus Soriatas after having cut the head from the corrupt eclessiarch before his death and sebastian thors victory in the ages of apostasy, while the other is a galaxy spanning religious order of nuns, with orders dedicated to war, knowledge and language, good governance, and medicine, with it's militant orders acting as a mostly defensive force for the entire church, and(currently) also functioning as the chamber militant of the Ordo hereticus.

zombieneighbours pretty much got it spot on, though I'd suspect that even before the end of the Age of Apostasy there were non-militant orders of the Brides of the Emperor.

BaronIveagh said:

Well if you want to be technical, the Frateris Templars did not exist at the same time as "The Sisters of Battle," they existed at the same time as mentioned "Brides of the Emperor." And sure, the Chantry Guards are somewhat similar, but now we're talking about a heretical organization. I truly doubt even you would allow a player to just make a male character using the Sororitas career, and just say "oh, I'm a Chantry Guard with the Temple Tendancy, thats alright in our DH campaign, right?" This falls under the definition of house rules, and either a more generic class should be picked (cleric doesn't sound too far off if ya ask me), or a new class should be defined by the GM (as I would consider use of Pure Faith talents by a heretic to be slightly off).

I'll cede the idea for this discussion that marine augmentation could be made to work on women (I disagree with the idea in terms of it being general practice, but accept that most anything is possible in 40k). In the case you provided, I guess it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to allow them to serve in the Deathwatch. But for some of the other cases I've read (secret founding/secret experemints etc.) I would say there is an exceedingly large gap to cross from that to them being seconded to the Deathwatch. And really, if we're going to throw out the Deathwatch (similar to throwing out the Inq. in DH, or the idea of being a rogue trader in RT), then why not just house rule whatever? It's your gaming group, as long as the players/gm generally agree with the idea, its nothing too wrong.

The thing you really shouldn't do though, is believe that house rules you define should be treated on equal levels with published canon material by others (no matter how well the material you have made fits).

The real issue I see though, is why is there this whole notion that female gamers are uncomfortable playing male characters? It seems like one of those generalizations that we try to put behind us. If its actually occuring, I find it hard to believe someone "roleplaying" would have such a hard time accepting (what I believe to be generally accepted) canon, and want to toss it out the window. And I'm sorry to say, it strikes me as kinda weird that a male player would just want to toss out the provided material just so they can play a female space marine. Its like they're trying to disregard the stated material. If that's the case, I want to play the Emperor, I think it'd be kinda cool.

I've generally saw the idea that there are no women in the space marines as being a result of the idea that the space marines are a warrior fraternity. I see them as a brotherhood before I see them as super soldiers.

EDIT: Looks like zombie beat me there on my first couple of points, and it looks like I was a bit nicer on that, anyway...

Hesporos said:

FTW.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

...but Kage, they are just getting started!

To build upon Kommisar K's comments. I am not an authority on the setting material related to Space Marine implants, frankly Space Marines bore me a little, when compared to the guard and the holy ordos, so i haven't taken as much time to learn about them as other aspects of the setting. As a result i am unaware of any physical reason why you can't have female space marines. The issue is that it runs entirely contrary to the themes of the space marines. They are brotherhood of warrior-monks, geneticially engineered by the emperor to be the army of his totalitatian army of galactic conquest. There is not a feminine characteristic in that list. They are spartan warrors in power armour, they are beowulf with boltguns. It just doesn't match up. Would i love to have female warriors of equal prowess, sure, let them have a shamelessly ripped of Prana Bindu, that would be amazing, but currently the closest we have the sisters, who are great, but they are not space marines.

Darq said:

There are reasons for that too:

1. Some people desire female Space Marines becoming part of the Canon. (I'm not in favor of that because I think it's silly to rewrite a setting to please everyone.)

2. A desire to create a house rule way of allowing for female Space Marines without contradicting the official statements, only exploiting loopholes, if you will.

That's what is fueling these conversations.

Alex

BaronIveagh said:

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

"The Frateris Templar was an all male military order and operated effectively as the private army of the Ecclesiarchy. At times it was used to crush revolts against Ecclesiarchy power.
The Frateris Templar were founded soon after the Ecclesiarchy moved away from Terra and to the planet Ophelia VII in order to escape Administratum domination. With the previous restraints removed, the Ecclesiarchy began to grow in power, forming its own interstellar fleet and armies, which became known as the Frateris Templar. "

"The Adepta Sororitas date their founding from the 36th millennium, and more specifically from the later events of the Age of Apostasy. The majority of their initial influx was recruited from the pre-existing Brides of the Emperor, the all-female bodyguard force employed by Goge Vandire. Loyal to the Emperor, the Brides (initially called the Daughters of the Emperor, but renamed by Vandire) were misled by the insane Vandire into fulfilling his own designs. When the truth of the matter, and Vandire's corruption, was revealed, the leader of the Daughters executed Vandire in his own audience chamber. The Daughters of the Emperor were at a loss after this event, and so the Ecclesiarchy took the opportunity to recruit and indoctrinate them into the newly formed Adepta Sororitas, the Ecclesiarchy's all-female military, circumventing the Decree Passive's strictures against the Ecclesiarchy possessing an armed force. "

Achem: Sorry, HBMC: they were neither a small nor short lived unit. The Daughters of the Emperor, on the other hand, only numbered about 10,000. The Ecclesiarchy simply recruited them on site, en mass, and changed the name.

As far as the Frateris Templars go, it's not entirely clear how many of them there were after the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath eliminated a fair number, but it was enough that between them an proto-SoB, they gave the Martian Tech-Gaurd and four space marine chapters a hard time.

They were officially disbanded, however, as is often the case, the Church of the Emperor Acendent does not recognize the authority of the Thorians, claiming they are heretics, which is exactly the same charge leveled back at them by the Thorians.

And mind you, the only ones engaged in the fighting were those units in the Segmentum Solar.

How does this get further than one page each time it's brought up?

Deathwatch (really any Space Marine-centric RPG) is essentially an enlisted military RPG, just like any WW2-setting RPG would be. There weren't fighting women enlisted with the GIs or SS or so forth, it didn't happen in the 'setting' of WW2. I don't think you'd see people complaining there's no entry for the 'tough as nails sergeant, Marcy Marine.' Similarly, in the 'setting' of Warhammer 40k there are no female Space Marines, therefor asking for something that doesn't exist setting-wise doesn't fly. It can be house ruled to kingdom come, but the storyline doesn't allow for female space marines, that's the truth of it. Nothing sexist, it just doesn't work the way the story's written.

Let it go.

keltheos said:

No, not at all in WW2, and certainly not 89 Heroes of the Soviet Union, 200,000 lesser combat decorations, 30,000 combat aircraft sorties, 2 fighter aces...

And thousands of casualties.

Nope, never happened...

He did say GIs and SS, which I don't believe Soviet forces come under...

Blood Pact said:

You forgot to mention how the Litany for the Holy Handgrenade of the Emperor was invoked.

MILLANDSON said:

IIRC actually women were part of the SS Helferinnen Corps, and assigned on an as needed basis.

BaronIveagh said:

While I was considering politely correcting him (as that is a fact about WW2 that people may in fact may not be aware of), his argument is still fairly sound.

Let us, for the sake of argument, imagine some fictional setting (purely made up for this discussion). In this setting, there is a war going on, between multiple factions. Let us say one of them, "faction A," has a military force. Due to some fairly meaningful description of the culture of faction A, the soldiers in faction A's armed forces consist of only one gender. Here in the real world, the owners of this fictional setting's IP decide to give the rights to some intrepid RPG designer to make a table top game out of. In the setting for this RPG, the character options in the rules only detail making characters under faction A's armed forces.

Obviously that sounds a whole heck of a lot like something else here, and I imagine I know what the other side's major contention here is (the statement about a single gender), but roll with it.

So in this game, people who buy the RPG are able to GM and run their own game, and experience an adventure in the fictional universe. Now, some creative players may have a disagreement with the idea of faction A's single gender army, and petition their GM to allow them to mix it up. With the consent of the players, something like this can be house ruled. However, it still is not actually part of the fiction.

Now, of course, there are a few holes in this analogy, such as how it is not 100% proven that women cannot become space marines (its just that the existing fluff does not specifically identify it occuring, the entire structure and style lends it to being all male, such as the entire warrior fraternity notion, and some referenced materials appear to state males are selected for space marine iniation). Even if it was physically possible in the setting, its still another stretch to (within the current fluff), to make the argument that such a chapter lends its battle brothers (sisters? wait, thats what we refer to Sororitas as) to the Deathwatch.

For a moment, let us assume we are running a Star Wars game, set in the clone wars period. The system has rules for playing clone soldiers. Would it be "proper" to play a female clone? Of course, there may be some that would argue that yes, it would be fine. And the awesome part of RPGs, is that this is perfectly OK (as long as the players/GM go along with it).

Once again, I have to say this: why do people specifically want female space marines? If such a group existed, they would basically be a warrior sorority (if they are not, then they pretty much would not be usable in the Deathwatch setting), which, last time I checked, is a very good way of describing the Sororitas. I refuse to accept the argument that there should be female space marines in DW because female players "dislike" playing male characters. Roleplaying is about defining a role within a fictional setting, and playing that role. The key part there is that whole in "a fictional setting" thing. RPGs are built to prevent munchin types from mary sue'ing themselves into being the Emperor. Constraints on character creation exist to provide a connection to the setting. A rank 1 DH character really shouldn't be able to describe themselves as a planetary governor. In other words, roleplaying shouldn't be about throwing out the fiction because its inconvenient, but forming to it for immersion in the setting.

Of course, if the setting you are going with is some rogue experiment involving female space marines, well, have fun. The key thing is to work within the setting defined within the gaming group.

You know, after typing all this, I still don't see what the discussion/problem is here. I think Hesporos really summed it up very well in reply #18.

Hmmm....

Well, I think the answer has several aspects:

Fluff holes:

1st: If GW had used cultural or moral bias as an excuse (the chaptermasters won't let girls in, the Emperor forbid it so it's heresy, etc) this might have actually made more sense. The problem is that they opted for the excuse that it's biologically impossible, and then failed the biology. I'm guessing that FFG will be trying to plug the hole with some sort of flim flam about genetic cross contamination from the implanted organs, if they address it at all. (The problem with a lot of these is the subject dying horribly of dozens of types of run away cancers, and the progenoid failing to work if it works like the 'Creating a Space Marine' artical says it does)

2nd: Chaos space marines seem to be able to make more with or without geneseed. (Example, the process described in Dead Sky Black sun seems to use the geneseed not in creating the marine, but in creating the daemoncabula. Which are, appearently, reusable.) Due to the increadibly odd yet all powerful nature of the warp, one wonders why neither tzeench nor slaanesh has taken this idea for a test drive.

Historical Comparison:

1st: Female knightly orders did, in fact, exist. Women in combat have been around for a long time, and featured prominently in several wars in the last 2000 years.

2nd: In many other cultures, women in combat was and is more common (the Dahoneny, Sarmatians, Sikhs, Saxons, Norse, etc.) then it is in the West

3rd: Female soldiers have been found by most modern militaries to be the equals of men.

Personal Issues:

1st: the idea of woman as warrior/soldier has been on the rise, culturally, in the west, due in no small part to the media.

2nd: Sexism (and not just from men)

3rd: Other. (in my case, my family wouldn't be around if it wasn't for Joan of Arc saving our bacon at Orlean, so I'm biased against the idea that women can't be just as good as men at war.)

BaronIveagh said:

And in no way is anyone (or at least I am not) saying that women are not. The thing is, the only basis you seem to be going off of for why there may be female space marines is due to the biology argument. It may or may not be the case. Given that all this is fiction, it just simply is not something that someone can publish an experiment on and prove. Its an IP, and as such, it is purely in the hands of GW to make the ruling on if there in fact can be female space marines. I'm going off Lexicanum here, but it cites an article in WD98 describing how the zygotes are keyed to males. I take this as at least an indication that GW does not support the idea of female space marines in canon.

Now, realize, that when I'm arguing for the no female character thing, I mean in terms of female space marine characters serving in the Deathwatch. I simply see that as being far too many bridges to have to jump to make it work, without basically saying you're disregarding lore. In which case I want to play the Emperor. Sure, there could be some crazy heretic project that produces a woman with the augmentations of a space marine, or sure, there may be some offshoot chapter roaming around somewhere. The key thing to realize though, that probably any space marine chapter that came into contact with them would probably not be on good terms (given the before stated notion that GW seems to support the idea that space marine augmentation is for males only). So if you want to basically take the DH core rules, make some characters with unnatural traits, and go ahead, be my guest. I have to admit, its not my cup of tea, I actually kinda like working for the big =I=, and eventually, being their go to person for killing foul xenos. Probably the only thing you would need from the DW book is a mechanical description of the marine implants, most of which have been reasonably well handled in other player made supplements.

Still, I would argue, that if we actually want to avoid sexism, then we really shouldn't be making a big deal about no women in the space marines (for the purpose of saying that women are unable to roleplay male characters). I would also say that women unwilling to do so are in a sense, acting with their own version of sexism. I see it as petty to want to toss out the rich background of 40k and replace it with you're own background (and I know, its been stated as being possible, but just go with the zygote thing when I say this).

On your example of female knightly orders, thats actually kinda cool to hear, but why not just go with sororitas character? I mean, realize we're at ascended ranks by this point. I would imagine most GM's would be open to cutting combat oriented non DW characters a break, maybe even offer them unnat str/toughness just for being an ascended char (possibly to represent amazing training/holy might). And I would say in terms of the average personality of a space marine, you could get similar things among orders of sororitas (and still be acting within the canon).

KommissarK said:

I actually entirely agree with that. I find it more sexist that people have to force political correctness on a fictional setting than I find the fictional setting for not having women in the Space Marines. Forced equality where it's not needed is worse than little/no equality in the first place.

The only equality in 40K is that everyone is treated like crap.

And there are no female Space Marines.

BYE

MILLANDSON said:

Actually, on this one i have to disagree slightly.

It isn't sexist to want to achieve equality. I mean, if you think that a peice of fiction is glorifying masculinity and degrading feminity based on the authors prejudices, then actually, turning away from that is probably a very good thing.

Now the reason that i think trying to change the 40k setting is a bad thing is that in truth, 40k doesn'r glorify the imperium, as a whole.

The setting maakes it very clear that it is a bigoted, ignorant and evil theocracy, which dominates through fear and repression. Every aspect of the imperium repesses freedom and chokes any form of development. The cult of masculinity is tied up deeply in that, and the cause of many of the issues of the empire, and i think you loose a little of the setting punch if you start lightening it up, by removing in setting sexism and other forms of intolerance.

BaronIveagh said:

Fluff holes:

1st. Actually, it is you who are responcible for biology fail on a fairly epic level here. There is nothing biologically impossible about gender based rejection, there are real world condition in which mothers can reject zigots, based on over active immune responce to elements of the Y chromosome, and anyone with higher education in biology will tell you that the immune system is like a schizophrenic survivalist in a world that actually full of goverment conspiracies, alien abduction and satanic cults, i.e. a basket case that is willing to shoot first and ask questions later. I mean this is a system that will attack and destroy itself.

There is nothing biologically impossible about gender specific biological augmentation, and thats from just the perspective of the immune system.

When you start throwing in everything else, for different organs, musculature, fat lay out, and hormonal systems, all of which could easily conflict with the implants, actually, the argument for gender specific implants becomes very strong to a biologist.

2. You assuming that the dark gods are intelligent agencies. It is entirely possible that they are not, but rather something more like the idoit demon saultan azothoth, than a sentient force. Given the inability of the dark gods to organise a piss up in a brewery, i rather lean towards this view, but even so, what chaos space marines can do, with sorcery has nothing to do with the existance of female loyalists.

Historical Comparison:
40k isn't history. What happened there, does not really matter with regards to a science fantasy setting, in the distant future.

But that said, you do realises that Saxons and Norse are western right?

Personal Issues:

The 40k universe does have warrior woman, both amongst the adeptus soriatas, crusaders, Inquisition, death cults, adeptus arbites, imperial guard, and officio assassinorum. And that is sticking with only a few canon examples of imperial forces which include females, amongst the wider setting you have both eldar and and dark eldar, where gender plays almost no part in who takes to the battle field.

Infact, in the case of the eldar, you have individuals taking to the battle field in drag.

All in all, the 41st millenium is better represented for female warriors than the whole of earths history.

There's no female knights in Pendragon either (although I believe a supplement allows for it? is that correct?).

Anyway I want to play an afro-american knight in Pendragon! Change the setting! ;-)

Alex

zombieneighbours said:

Upon which the Inquisitor will ask the brother with the flamer to purge the abomination. A central doctrine in the Imperial Creed is that the human form is sacred and that only the god emperor of mankind is to change its divine form, in other words, you mess about with genes your a heretek and everything you create will be purged. Not a viable solution to have it live,

Yeah...assuming he is a mono-dominant. A less puritan inquisitor might see value in putting the abomination to us. Generalising about inquisitors, who are after all man and woman of great individuality and will, is a dangerous thing, especially when you have factions who feel that wielding daemon weapons and xenos technology is the evil, but they must soil themselves to destroy those who do not meet their standards.

In fact, the real issue here, is not the inquisitor wanting to do it, because that is entirely possible, but rather the Marines not killing him and the abomination. It is not beyond possiblity that a suitibly eliquent inquisitor, might be able to persuade them, but it is unlikely. But at the end of the day, it would be upto individual players of such marines to decide upon how thy think their character would react to it.

I dont even think it is a biological failure. I dont know the biology involved in the super evolved homo sapien psychis superior imperator's DNA. HIs enhanced advanced mutated DNA, super psychic powers and other abhuman evolutions may only be compatible with male DNA/genetics. As I seem to understand cloningin modern standards, it is the exact recreation of a animal on a genetic level (such as Dolly the sheep who was genetically identical to her birth mother). With that in mind, or as my basis for science fiction, a female can be cloned from a female and a male from a male. But only females can gestate a fetus so only females can be implanted to "give birth" to a clone.

The primarchs are cloned/made from the emperor and the geneseed from the primarchs, it is highly plausible that they geneseed canonly exist in a male host, especially after a few treatments that make them more like the original host, such a chemical and electrochemical enhancements.

So the geneseed would in general be rejected by those who have DNA anathema to the seed itself, with a high rejection rate amongst candidates as it is and an almost 100% rejection rate of generally not considered candidate (Females, Ogryns, Ratlings). Scientific/medical anomalies could exist, providing for one or two female or ogryn or ratling or eldar or whatever variations being made, but with the rate of failure why would the imperium even try.

Now a renegade Magos Biologis hellbent on implanting stolen gene seed into various other forms could be a very interesting villain as he hires mercs and xenos to hunt and kill space marines, steals their glands/seed and kidnaps various test subjects.

But on a basic level, the biology is not wrong at all.

It is, afterall, science fiction.