If that's true then I admit my error.
I must have been going of gender stereotypes.

Because just adding something like an Aromatase Inhibitor would be a bodge. And like any other bodge it will be a point of failure increasing chances of rejection.
To do it properly you would have to tailor for female-specific biochemistry.

A retroviral.
But what if they're immune to that. Or have antibodies for it. And wouldn't such a retroviral have some risk of mutating? It is a big Galaxy after all.
If so, you've just made a proportion of the population unable to undergo the process, or made the process unreliable.
And there's enough factors against candidates already.

So besides the fact that male humans are best for producing genetically modified killing machines, that the Astartes are, the problems with producing a female Astartes are numerous.
Like incompatability with the genetics and biochemistry of the geneseed.
The resultant creation would usually either need new patterns of power armour, or seriously adapted power armour.
The same with Terminator armour.
And it would take an initial investment of time and resources to do this that the Imperium probably can't afford, or is no longer capable of meeting.

Fine, its a "SPACE aromatase inhibitor. Much better for this.

The joy of a retro viral vector is with a large enough dose it would be damn easy to overcome an immune response (sure there is a chance you kill them but we're making space marines not cupcakes). Even still, you can always pick a different RNA shell that they don't have existing anti-bodies for pretty easily. (Retro spits "geneseed" into cells, inserts itself into host DNA, boom Super Soldier).

Care to point out where the problems with producing female astartes are any more numerous than the problems with producing males? As long as they end up in the same place, I don't see why starting with a female template would be impossible or even just as likely given the drastic changes that are undergone. They sure wouldn't look female at all by the time they were done yet. In fact, my argument is they would look exactly like any other Space Marine, because the base DNA just needs to be human for it to work (in this hypothetical scenario). Bone remodeling and increased muscle mass to the nth degree and you can't tell a difference between one that was male and one that was female. Just kinda, asexual.

Your reaching there, don't you think?

It's 40K. As in generating tech, science, and knowledge.
What makes you think they'd know this?

Besides the fact it is geared for a male template as that produces superior Astartes?

And have you compeletely missed the references to the Ossmodula, or are you not that familiar with Astartes Geneseed?
It only alters the hosts skeleton in preset ways, it does not change the skeleton to something Androgynous, and with the Biscopea only enhances what is there.
So the differences between male and female skeletons would persist. As would the way the muscles attach to it.

If they don't look female at the end of the process then there's really no point in changing the lore, it would be only to pander.

"They shall be my finest warriors, these MEN who give themselves to me."
That should just about settle it. Its clear the Emperor wanted them to be men.

I read all of this, from start to finish.

And my honour brother Loken hit the nail on the head. The Emperor wanted MEN. Thats all there really is to it. We can get as sciency as we want, but the Emperor specifically said "these MEN who give themselves to me"

Okay but A) hat had nothing to do with any statement from the bit you quoted and B) why are you even arguing that given it's something we both agree upon.

Sorry, i'll clarity that point. Half the descriptions of marines list them as having arms the size of tree trunks, oversized muscular structures which are beyond anything a human is capable of and emphaisses that they utterly dwarf those around them. However, once you actually go into some of the descriptive details and point cited when it goes into details about a marine's proportions, and even if you accept that there might be some level of exaggeration, they're certainly not anything akin to those of a human. Have a read of pretty much any time Graham McNeill outlines a marine's body structure or even Loken's introduction in Horus Rising (sorry, i'd add quotes but I honestly don't have time to type down several pages worth of borderline purple prose at the moment). When it goes into just about anything in relation to a marine's torso or larger aspects, they're exaggerated and overdeveloped in comparison to the head, hands or what the expected size would be even for a standard human. "Barrel-chested" in this case was more citing one of the more common or basic descriptive elements used to cite this aspect

Though, if you wanted to take it further, there is always that statement from Xenos which stated a marine's pinkie finger was the thickness and length of the average Arbites combat truncheon.

In regards to the first, yes but that still shows that the proportions are off even with something akin to that scale. They're broader and misshapen compared to human proportions.

In regards to the second, same point really, it shows several general builds of humans there and compares them with a quite well regarded artwork of a marine. Even accounting for the additional plating and build beneath the armour, it does show that a marine would need to have very different proportions to fill it out. Even if you were to accept that they might be massively engrossed, without limbs far longer than their standard size or a different set of joints, their hands wouldn't reach their gauntlets or match up with the curve in the plating. We'll go into this more in a minute.

Say what you will, but as flawed as it is, it does still present a key point, that the marine himself needs to be a broader build and different scale to that of a normal human to fit into it. Yes, they probably would be a little slimmer or slightly differently bulked out, but it would hardly be worlds apart from the truth. Plus, interesting point about it being based upon the models, because that seems to be the starting point and basis for both the descriptions of marines and also much of the artwork.

Take a look at a few from past years, and compare the head with the size of the body:







Even accepting the presence of an internal chest plate, the differences are still very present and very visible, and some of this art dates back from the same time the Index Astartes was still being printed. True, there's always a little bit of artistic liberty taken with just about any marine artwork, but his has been one of the single most consistent points found within 40K visual works and remains consistent even with the likes of Horus Heresy books, novels, Collected Visions or otherwise. Plus, if you really want to take things to an extreme, look into any video game mod which tries to introduce space marines and see how they stand up compared to normal humans. Most creators have to take severe liberties with their physical builds just to justify the armour. Case an point here:



So, what you end up with is the novels supporting this point, the models supporting this point, and the bulk of the artwork supporting this point as opposed to one minor half-statement which doesn't really go into the actual subject. Forgive me for saying so but, even accounting for GW's predilection for sticking with abrupt lore changes, the former sounds more substantial than the latter.

Which is of course why the opening article did bring up the fact that their skeletal structure would have some slight differences to them once development was finished, but not major ones once the full implant process was finished. Also, as briefly brought up before, if having even a slightly shorter build or skeletal structure was enough to reject an astartes from ever undergoing thee process, it would cause no end of problems for a lot of established chapters with thematic or historical ties to certain ethnicity or eras from Earth.

None of which would really affect their ability to wear power armour all that much, or their ability to actually undergo the proccess of becoming an astartes provided there was a compatible gene-seed. They're hardly worlds apart from one another and, in all honesty, it took me some time to realise which one was which once you provided it. There is no abrupt weakness here or sudden failing which suddenly makes the whole process immediately fatal to them here, or somehow incapable of fighting in any way. Plus, as discussed in other quotes, the lore itself does have suggestions that the body could and would be reshaped to a degree.

Plus, if you really want to break things down further, we do know of chapters who have undergone odd changes and alterations thanks to unique quirks. While I did previously suggest avoiding the subject of the Cursed Founding, we do know of several who have undergone major changes thanks to one organ or another overreacting to certain processes. The Black Dragons are the most infamous group, but alongside growing horns and forearm blades, the most affected marines are noted to be massively oversized and have a physical build which doesn't quite match up with those of humans. Volos in particular was noted to have far longer limbs and a differing build to the average marine. Plus, atop of that, you could even argue the Sons of Antaeus match up with this given some of their own mutations to their bone structure. Even other otherwise pure chapters end up with oddities like this, such as the Exorcists. While i'm certainly not saying that mutations should be used to justify their existence, that variation is present in certain chapters and, if we really needed to argue over this point, then the innate differences of a different primarchs' gene seed could account for a different development or build.

Which wear down the body, drag it through hell and in the case of the drug brought up often leads to death. The point wasn't hinging upon the use of combat drugs themselves, but the fact an astartes' body can accept them but also limit the toxins or basic negative effects. Okay, it's a bit of a stretch i'll admit but it still leaves some basis for their use, assuming that they were required.

Unless they were still experimenting with the build of course. The point we're discussing here is a very flexible area of the Horus Heresy left for players to basically excuse most of what they want existing in the game, so such developments or alterations to such a process could be argued, or even that the gene-seed itself might have been altered to help further justify growth to cover the areas you allege. Plus, atop of this, that is also largely sticking to science as we know and have it today. This is a setting where guns can be recharged by sticking them in a campfire for a while, mutations put the X-Men to shame at times and bolters actually work. Plus, in all honesty, there's still not much here to suggest that a gene-seed couldn't be crafted to work for them or cover these aspects if it were genetically compatible, or that the overall effects wouldn't still produce a super soldier.

Except that they would still probably crack under the constant strain even with significant reinforcement thanks to their flexible design and basic physics, and it would probably take bionic enhancements to overcome half the strain and serious problems power armour would cause even with the bionic implants. Not to mention the mess those extra organs would make of their interior and the near constant risk of seizures, fits, rejections and a massively shortened lifespan if we actually stick with real world biology rather than giving it some science fiction leeway.

Except that it's also a process used en mass within 40K as well, as a basic counter to Chaos, learning the affects of xenos forces or even keeping certain Imperial secrets hidden away from those they don't want to learn of it but don't want to risk killing them. Most books (The Bleeding Chalice being one) note negative affects only begin to occur over multiple extremely extensive mind wipes which take much more of a brute force approach to removing memories. Few to no stories even bring up this failing, and the closest one I can think of from any book was where a Ravenor story needed two agents to be careful about asking the right questions as a man's mind was being examined. Plus, those are from M41 where the finer points science and knowledge have degraded over ten thousand years. Stuff from M31 would probably be capable of a lot more than this.

Except as brought up before, they could also plan this ahead, single out certain legions at a time and wipe them a few at once. Given how widespread and dispersed they were, there are plenty of points during the Great Crusade which allow for this to happen, especially those which operated in intentional isolation for so long, such as the White Scars and Alpha Legion. Plus, even if you did need them all in one place, Ullanor is one obvious option to get this over and done with most of them at once.

As for the point citing populations, well, only certain ones tend to bring up who they were conquered by. Save for those who stuck around to rebuild such as the Imperial Fists, Ultramarines and Word Bearers, and Luna Wolves to a lesser extent, we tended only to know who conquered who via Imperial records rather than the populace itself. That would already skip a large chunk at a time, and the remainder could be dealt with by any number of means - Individual pre-programmed wiping implanted decades prior to their service, triggered upon a specific event (books have actually brought this up with the Inquisition using it in M41). Perhaps agents seeking out certain locations at a time and ensuring each was mind-wiped or memories replaced in a single action, or even that those survivors were shunted to the far edges of the galaxy to be forgotten by everyone else. Or, and this is just a stretch, they were kept with those same legions they served as an auxiliary force for some expedition or another. Perhaps even to help reinforce or found a new base of operations for the legion.

As for foes, really, how many of them have been shown to actually bear grudges to individual legions at this time? Those who do tend to be only other legions or the odd daemon, while xenos forces themselves either only cared about the fact the Imperium was their foe, or didn't give a damn at all. Plus, using that one example, most people wouldn't even understand the Warboss as they tend to communicate in punches, bullets and WAAAAAAAAGH! Or all at once.

Given the amount of preperation the Emperor could make, and that this is the guy whose desiccated corpse can fight back against hell, something on this level isn't unfeasible. It's even easier if you consider that Malcador could be involved or assisting with this, and there are few reasons why the Emperor wouldn't make use of his abilities given his role in the universe.

So, werewolves basically, a human-wolf hybrid with a lot of near supernatrual elements and superhero level enhancements thrown in. I'm just pointing out that you are arguing that even created from scratch that the Emperor could make someone a step away from this -



But it would be utterly impossible for him to make this -

Alright, well that just makes this all the more dubious then. This is literally comicbook science which is normally associated with a mad guy in a lab building tiger-scorpion hybrids, and has repeatedly been shown to be questionable at best if not outright impossible in most cases. Don't get me wrong, i'm not arguing that this is a bad thing or unacceptable in any way, but there is a double standard present here. We can accept Russwolf and others like him because we can disregard real-world science, but can't accept that a female primarch could possibly be created because of bits of real-world science.

And we probably never will, because 40K itself treats science as something which is a nice bonus rather than something essential. Science, physics and logic take at least one day off a week in this universe, and the rest of the time people will use the Warp or future science to excuse most things. As with the point above, this really does make a lot of the arguments hinging purely upon real-world science all the more questionable given that you can just accept this.

... Same point as above, this just makes the use and discussion of real world science surrounding the subject all the more problematic.

Well, okay but I still don't see any argument really disproving any of it thus far.[/quote]

So. I've been reading along, and in summary:

Why we don't have female Space Marines

• Games Workshop designed the game in the late 1980s in the UK, where the army presented reflected both the current day army of the time (still debating whether to allow women in all the armed forces, virtually all male) and the fact that they were making a game set in a dystopia.
• In the grim darkness of the ... late 80s ... only blokes played war. (Actually that's not true, and Lyndsey Priestly and Trish Morrison were both involved in early GW, but the misquote was too silly to miss.)

... that's it really.

In-game reasons why there are no female Space Marines

• The Emperor says so.
• Fantasy science.

Could there be female Space Marines?

• Yes.
• Because fantasy science can make up anything it wants to.

Do we want female Space Marines?

• Not really, no.
• Some people do, but most people don't. And of the ones that do, most seem to be engaging in a bit of fun speculation rather than politics. Here in the UK, for example, if you said "SJW vs MRA" to most people they'd look at you as if you'd dropped the Scrabble. Honestly, politics just doesn't figure in how most people play this game, including debating whether it should.
• The game's iconic feel has been established over 30 years without them, and changing it feels like it would change the iconic feel of the game. For a lot of people, changing anything substantial about the game makes it no longer this game.

Do we need female Space Marines?

• No, but it will colour some people's opinions of the hobby if there aren't. Because the game is not the real world, it doesn't have to reflect anything that is, but because it doesn't exist in a vacuum, opinions will ebb and flow around it regardless.

But GW has female soldiers in other armies so why does it matter?

• As a proud Eldar player I have learned the lesson of the Fall and will not be too smug here, but yes since the late 80s (in GW terms, that's since the beginning) Eldar have had complete equality between the genders, excepting only some brief nonsense about Wyches who had more female troops "because reasons". (I blame Vect.) Eldar are your standard go-to army for explaining that there are female soldiers produced by GW. There are girls in pretty much every army except Space Marines: you can have female Tau, Eldar, Necrons, Imperial Guard, and of course the all-female Sisters of Battle (insert debate about how you could have male Sisters of Battle if you please). Tyrannids are arguably male, female and drones and Orks have no gender because they're fun(guys). Basically if you want a female army, you can have one. And what do all these armies have in common? They are all much, much less important to GW than Space Marines. GW has demonstrated many times that Marines must always win, they are the only ones who really matter and their marketing revolves around them. So it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that GW is sexist and anti-female and OMG you guys.

So is GW sexist then?

• No.
• Really?
• No, it's not sexist, it just has a perma-hard-on for Space Marines.

But if it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck ...

• It's a Cadian Anatovore.
• I'm pretty certain that all this kerfuffle passes completely under the GW HQ radar. Some of the writers have started to add in female characters to the non-Marine roles in the novels, such as Admirals and Navigators, it's true. Whether from personal conviction or the desire to appeal to a wider market I couldn't say. But I honestly think that the unfortunate implications of "ONLY SPACE MARINES MATTER" plus "there are no female Space Marines" are just that, completely unintentional. There's no conspiracy here. GW don't hate women. They're just not used to girls wanting to play with toy soldiers and have you seen this latest Space Marine model? Only £39.99 for three! (Optional arms £6.99 each.)

My personal experience over many years of GW is that if you are female and you walk into a shop, they first check if you are someone's mother, wife or girlfriend. Then when they're over the shock of you being there by yourself, for yourself, possibly to buy paint, they ask you what army you are interested in. Then you tell them Eldar. Then they try to sell you Space Marines. They actually want more women and girls in the hobby. It's just that the guys who run GW can't understand why anyone doesn't want to snuggle up under a Space Wolves duvet set in Astartes-pattern pyjamas, falling asleep to More Dramas of the Space Marines Winning in Space and occasionally crying manly manly tears onto their Garviel Loken body pillow because they can never be Ultramarines.

[/QUOTE]
But but thats a blood angel!

This needs to be set in stone in a codex somewhere. Seriously this was great.