See, I was with you until you stapled ‘or continued in’ on the end, there.
I question your dismissal of long established lore, actually, and apparently for no deeper reason than “I don’t like it.”
The Emperor made the Primarchs as Sons, with the Astartes as their Sons in turn. For a character who didn’t want to be viewed as a God, its quite fittingly ironic how closely that mirrors a lot of religious iconography.
Also, given the fact Primarchs are/were partially cloned off Big E and, thus, by extension so are the Marines? Thats long established continuity in the magical space science.
“hey the space science mutated and now it works on women”
gosh that was tricky I don’t know how the universe will cope
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Now, if we were talking about GW as a company and the like? Sure. They’re much better than they were, and I think in part a slow uptake on staff is, at least from what I’ve seen, the fact a lot of women still dismiss it as ‘expensive toys for neckbeards’ (which… well, I’ve never had a neckbeard, either in reality or attitude, but I have had a very light wallet before). Not all; my Mrs is as avid a collector and painter as I am, and Ive seen plenty more than when I was a kid.
But I simply dont get this fascination with female Astartes, sorry.
Ok, sure, lets run with that.
Now explain why? What does that add? Or is it just tokenism, something you claim to dislike?
Edit: also, not ignoring the fact that deviations in the geneseed usually results in death? Or, worse, Inquisitorial intervention.
Again, the Imperium is Not Nice.
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They did, though. Malcador suggested that the Emperor should’ve made some of the Primarchs female but the Emperor insisted that it couldn’t be done, having tried and failed to reliably create female Astartes before. Because of those experiments, the Emperor decreed that Astartes would be boys only club.
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No, that’s the same excuse of ‘the space magic doesn’t work that way’ with a little bit more added onto it.
I was referring to a conscious decision by the Imperium to exclude women from the Astartes programme.
Now explain why? What does that add?
Removing a(n arbitrary) barrier is good because it adds opportunities for representation and representation is important. : )
It also adds a great deal of interesting story beats. How is the hypermasculinity of a Space Marine’s life changed or affected by an initial life of femininity? Does it cause dysphoria, and if so how does that effect a Marine? Would Marines form platonic relationships, or what happens if a couple both became Astartes?
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You really dont seem to be getting the ‘hide-bound behemoth, consumed by tradition and inaction and slowly canabilising itself through bureaucracy and superstition’ bit…
And then came the sisters of battle.
You really don’t seem to be getting how authorial intent works.
When someone says, ‘all X are men’, they are making a conscious choice to exclude women (and other genders). Why are they doing that?
Explaining it in terms of the work doesn’t help because the same question applies. All X are men because the writer/s decided that Y - but why did the writers decide that Y is true?
If the answer is ‘there is no reason’ (which ‘urgh change is bad’ amounts to), then there is also no reason to keep the exclusion.
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I legit don’t even understand what the hell Contrite is arguing for. You already got female mega-badasses in the Imperium with Sisters of Battle (Who arguably are cooler than the Space Marines.)
Space Marines are big beefy boys in metal
Sisters of Battle are big beefy girls in metal.
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How often does that come up as a negative, specifically focusing on the video games here?
'cos the ‘favourites’ (Dawn of War) barely touch on it, if at all. I don’t really remember it in Space Marine either, though admittedly it’s been a while since I played it.
It kinda defeats the point to have this backstory when it’s not actually brought up at all in the popular media and instead Space Marines are venerated as super cool badass boys who shoot the generic evilguys.
Yeah I think tauren should be in silver hand
There being reasons and you not liking them is not the same as ‘there is no reason’, though.
Im done here, Ive tried to approach this with as much good faith as possible, but I don’t see any way there’s going to be any resolution to this.
Its, ultimately, up to Geedubs and, rage though you might, Im pretty sure they’re not going to tear up the canon just because you want it changed. There are other settings and also RL where those issues are more prevelant and worth getting intense about, to be quite frank.
Technically theyre unisex because of the genetical modifications
Also the imperial guard does not discriminate, if it can die for the emperor it will.
It does come up a lot in the books and things like that. Which the majority of people who play Warhammer do read.
Hell. One of the first things Roboute Guilliman (One of the Primarchs) thinks about when he realizes what kind of a place the Imperium has become is the fact that it’s an utter wreck of hellis proportions that has failed everything the Emperor set out to do basically.
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From memory, Dawn of War 1 touches on it, as well as Retribution and DoW 3. Space Marine’s too contained a story to have much focus on the larger Imperium - it’s more about the squad with the Warhammer setting as a backdrop. You could make that one about, say, Republic Commandos without changing very much.
Sounds like a problem with the game devs, not the setting itself. Also, Americans (for whom the market is usually designed and who most developers are) seem to struggle with depth beyond Good Guy Shoot Bad Guy. “Are we actually the bad guys, here?” seem few and far between.
Personally, I would LOVE to see a Guard or Inquisition focused game with moral choices and a lot of very difficult decisions to be made. Like Mass Effect decisions, but ramped up to 11.
Sadly, not in this lifetime 
Dear lord just give me Imperial Guard X-com.
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You know who’d say that?
A xeno
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