i’m making 8 foot tall women in power armor and you can’t stop me
Something about them being fine with 6 foot tall women in power armor being fine, but not women Space Marines has always rubbed me the wrong way
But then again, I was always more fond of the Imperial Guard
Get my large woman fix with the Catachan Jungle Fighters
When you start an Imperial Guard army you get a little text popup that says “Choose one of these fascist or communist regiments or fuck off”
cope like this can only mean that there are like, explicitly canon female space marines right?
So, I only exist on the fringes of the deep pit that is 40k so what I know tends to come what lands on the beach for me.
Supposedly there has been a long battle for the heart of 40k. And leftist types have made big wins and has pulled 40k from mostly a chud thing to a general popular thing that a variety of people are into. (I think you can mostly thank Trans women for that).
So now the remaining chud hold outs are having hissy fits because the shitty developers have been slowly replaced with “woke” people.
Please take with salt.
It originally started woke, mocking Thatcher and other rightwing Brits and mocking the American/British empire and their Romeabooism while still reveling in it a bit. It wasn’t very serious, nobody took the lore of some tabletop game as a serious political battleground so it was kind of just silly and dumb and exaggerated.
Then it gradually got taken over by Chuds who were obsessed with the lore, read all the books, well akshually’d everything, etc. This is when Warhammer almost died out.
Then the company, in a bid to bail out the sinking ship, rebranded as inclusive and tagged onto D&D and other nerd subcultures rise into mainstream popularity. They sanded off a lot of the rough edges, kicked out a bunch of the creeps and became very corporate woke.
Correct me if I’m wrong anyone, that’s my understanding of the culture
I think it’s a lot more organic than you’ve laid out. Also no idea what you mean about “tagging onto D&D and other nerd subcultures”, but the 40kRPG games (and Fantasy RPG even moreso) long predate the turn towards “mainstream popularity” you mention.
First off, there’s Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40k. They’re different systems with some similarities (especially earlier on) that drifted apart over time. Warhammer 40k was never at risk of dying out, but Fantasy was, and did. This was less anything to do with politics and far, far more to do with rules changes that alienated existing players and armies requiring immense numbers of minis that alienated potential players. Fantasy (and its “sequel”, Age of Sigmar) is more or less irrelevant in the discussion of “Warhammer”, and so the rest of this is just going to be about 40k.
Warhammer starts as a wargame in the 90s, and is therefore played almost exclusively by giant nerds. Compounded by the fact that you had to also paint all the minis and learn all the rules, and that the games took all fucking day, only fairly dedicated people really cared about it. As with all other things at the time, large numbers of these nerds are unpleasant people, open misogynists, etc etc.
Time passes into the 2010s, warhammer continues to exist vaguely in the background of pop culture, gaining some popularity through actually decent tie-in video games like Dawn of War or, later, Space Marine. A lot of the early leadership of GW leave and it corporatizes, which generally results in GW taking Warhammer more seriously as a product to be sold rather than a game to be played. Lore has become more established after multiple editions worth of codices and a mountain of novels, things that were originally jokes are now taken seriously, and grimdark reigns. Then gamergate happens. Large numbers of online nerds become nazis, and these same nazis latch on to the many problematic elements of 40k readily, such as any of the crusading factions or the general fascism of the imperium. GW themselves largely don’t care or take a stance because they just want people to buy their toys.
2017 and the release of 8th edition is the start of modern GW. Many clunky rules from earlier editions (vehicle facings and armor values in particular) are removed in favor of easier to understand rules in a push to appeal to new players. 2020 and early COVID lockdowns sees a huge rise in the hobby and warhammer’s profile in general. Multiple hobby and lore youtube channels all start now that people have nothing to do. GW finally issues a press release saying that Warhammer is for everyone and that bigots can leave if they don’t like it. Bigots largely didn’t leave because they like larping as fascists, and GW’s still happy to take their money so long as they can keep the swastikas hidden until they leave the store.
Generally, Warhammer remains a “politically neutral” game about the glorious fascist reich killing the evil aliens, but occasionally they’ll publish a novel with a queer character. Corporate woke, as you point out.
Fantasy is irrelevant
Shrivels into dust
It’s true though. Warhammer Fantasy is almost entirely contained within the ttrpg scene now.
E) Warhammer Fantasy Battle is from 1983 not the 90’s. GW was founded in 75. “Warhammer” was a ruleset GW created to allow you to play all of the different miniature lines they were selling at the time in one battlefield; so that regardless of what game you were purchasing miniatures for, you could use them at a table for a game.
I think that an aspect missing from your analysis is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st edition is from 86 and Rogue Trader 1st edition is from 87. There has always been this subset of Warhammer fans that acts as a generally more pleasant foil to the tabletop wargamer. This is where alot of the finer lore and setting actually gets fleshed out outside of the army list text box and faction descriptions.
tbh i already assumed it was the case that chuds were mad about The Wrong People playing “their” game
explicitly canon female space marines right?
There are female Custodes, which are bespoke mutant super soldiers made with the same fundamental tech as space marines, except tailored to the individual instead of being mass produced from goopy bits salvaged from the necks of dead space marines.
Space marines are jobbers and suck, anyways. They basically exist to show up, do the dumbest thing possible, suffer >60% casualties to establish threat, and then one designated protagonist with plot armor carries the day before also dying in a big heroic sacrifice - through this, they accounted for .01% or less of their side’s forces and killed maybe .02% of the enemy’s forces at best. They are the most deeply unserious faction in an already silly setting that struggles with having numbers make any kind of sense at all, and at their best they’re just a football player sized guy in heavy armor who runs in with reckless disregard for his own safety because he does not understand what “death” is and who shoots pretty good because he’s spent a long time practicing shooting at things.
They used to sell them in the old rogue trader days but they didn’t sell very well. Now that Warhammer has gone WOKE they have introduced female custodes, who are essentially space marines but better.
I for one want my space fascist thugs to only be non-binary
Talking about the Primarchs not SM, but there is no justification. Totally possible in-universe.
Real oldhead 40k fans know that there were already female space Marines in the early days, if anything the boys-only-no-girls-allowed take is the retcon
Also magic space genetics are good enough to grow extra organs and make you basically immortal but a Y chromosome is too much to get past?
Gender essentialism runs deep in Western culture. I remember a tabletop homebrew WIP someone showed me where one of the races could magically shapeshift into other species as a basic ability. At the very end of their skill tree, the most expert-level technique, was changing sex. I wasn’t nearly as clued in on trans issues as I am now, but I still remember thinking “But we can do that now, in the real world! We don’t even need magic! That should be one of the easiest, most basic transformations!”
reproductive function is still mostly out of reach isn’t it? there was a uterus transplant birth a few years ago but medical science is full of cowards so i haven’t heard of a trans woman being the beneficiary of that technology or of stem cell gametes. Even in a cool place that would be a massive intervention
you could design a ritual in that fictional culture where if a couple has multiple children they swap sexes for each gestation. Excuse me i have a novella to write.
Shoutout to when Space Marines were brainwashed and drugged up shock troops who generally died in massive numbers in Ren and Stimpyish ways but got missions done that normal soldiers wouldn’t be unhinged and fanatical enough to do and in the spare time they were ultra violent riot cops.
Really want to make a homebrew chapter that are like that but I don’t have £506558 to spend on Warhammer stuff.
To be pedantic, “Female Warrior Jayne” and “Female Warrior Gabs” weren’t space marines, because space marines didn’t exist yet. They were part of the adventurer line of minis IIRC.
The better own these days is the named female gland hound made by Fabius Bile from the same gene cum as space marines, anyway.
There’s literally no argument here that can’t be countered with “yeah but space magic.” So this guy clearly isn’t a real 40k fan
Well the human empire is a fascist shithole so it kind of makes sense that they would have arbitrary and strict gender norms that make no sense given their advance bioengineering technology. Making the empire woke includes its own critique of rainbow imperialism though. Either one works for me, the universe is big enough for whatever story wants to be told
Make then all trans. Problem solved.
I was thinking of homebrewing an emperors children warband the Dick Slaughterers who are all tfem and got srs, hence Dick Slaughterers. Or maybe dysphoria slaughterers or something idk.
Alpha Legion enbies feel more right to me than alpha legion men.
Agreed
GW are just grossly underestimating how much profit big muscle titties could make. That’s the only logical explanation for why there aren’t more female Astartes
yeah and the resulting chud civil war between these losers and the newcomers who are here for the waifus would be hilarious
With female Astartes you will be the waifu
Resetting a sign with “Days since I was embarrassed to be a Warhammer 40k fan” to 0
It’s also kinda funny they’ve had to overcome this in the lore by having Malcador say that they should create female Primarchs which would probably allow for female Space Marines and the Emperor is literally like:
Look, if James Space wants to be surrounded at all times by massive throbbing muscular men hypnotized to obey his commands, that’s his business and his alone.
Bro literally said that only men will receive his seed, I mean, c’mon.
Imagine if the second or the eleventh is revealed to have had a woman primarch. That would make me very happy and make me buy more plastic than I should.
Yeah, that would be super cool
My new all female renegade chapter the Lore Destroyers
I’m just sitting here, waiting for the day that Perturabo or Lorgar pays Fabius to research female gene seed. Oh the fallout will be sweet. Fuck those chuds for ruining the social side of this hobby for me.
Fabiu: We already have it.
Lorgar: What do you-
Fabius: Gene seed is inherently compatible with any combination of chromosomes, so there is no need to “engineer” female gene seed.
Lorgar: Then that means…!
Fabius: Space Marine gender is a social construct.
Fabius was already doing that a decade ago, the book Primogenitor has a female “homo novus” (his DIY space marines).
He specifically mentioned that they weren’t supposed to be the follow-up to Astartes. They’re his specific project to bring forth a new human species.
They would destroy 40k if they existed?
The channel name makes me think he’s a guy who dances around in public wearing only a speedo
space marines should be so gene jacked and organ modded that gender doesn’t fucking mean anything
I’m pretty sure that space Marines have lost all lower functionality after the gene modding.
space marines are cononically genderless in this regard and it is now against the law to use any pronouns for them other than they/them sorry i dont make the rules
I’m long disconnected from the lore, but I seem to remember there being some canonical female space marines.
