Woke: That doesn’t even make sense, stop being weird

Bespoke: Space Marines can’t be feeeeeemale because they’re all gay for each other. It’s just a giant polycule. they ain’t talking about war when they call each other “battle brother”.

  • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    13 hours ago

    So a couple years ago my ex asks me for my opinion. I didn’t know anything about Warhammer at the time but he was all pissy and wanted to know if I thought his game was anti-feminist. “Some woman on the internet says they should be allowed to play women Astartes!”

    …I didn’t know what that meant. So, I asked some questions, followed up on them, and I’ll tell you what I boiled it down to;

    “In this super future game where science can grow people from cells, it can only grow men, and that’s because they’re clones of some guy?”

    “Okay… but they’re not actually clones of that guy. Or the guys they’re patterned off. So why is it that whatever magic super future science stuff you’re suspending your disbelief for, you can’t suspend it long enough to make women?”

    Never have gotten an answer to that one.

  • This is an actual passage from one of the books I cribbed online (I refuse to read any of their pro-fascist books)

    It’s gay as fuck

    Santor watched as Ferrus Manus stood nearly naked before him, his servants washing his iron hard flesh and applying oils before scraping him clean with razor edged knives. […]

    ‘I am your humble servant,’ said Santor.

    Ferrus Manus waved away his armourers and moved to stand before Santor. Though Santor was tall for an Astartes and was clad in his full armour, the primarch still towered over him, his silver eyes shining and without pupils. Santor suppressed a shiver, for those eyes were like chips of napped flint, hard, unforgiving and sharp. The scent of lapping powder and oil was strong on his flesh, and Santor felt his soul open up beneath that gaze, his every weakness and imperfection laid bare.

    ‘You are much more than that to me, Santor,’ said Ferrus Manus, placing his hands on his equerry’s shoulder guards.

  • CascadeOfLight [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    23 hours ago

    It would be SOOOOO easy for them to just say that AFAB people can undergo the Spacemarinification process, you just end up with a being that is physically indistinguishable from an AMAB Space Marine.

    Either invent some “gene-wash” process that tweaks literally a single one out of four dozen chromosomes, or, frankly, say there always was one and the chapters using it just didn’t broadcast the fact.

    It’s the laziest option that resolves the problem, while also being almost kind of interesting - a warrior order that doesn’t select only men, but that joining causes you to become a man.

    In fact fuck it, I paint Space Marines, from now on under their armor half my dudes have non-functioning vaginas instead of non-functioning penises.

  • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    1 day ago

    To GW’s credit and I mean this in the most CRITICAL support way possible, they do seem to be slowly working up the courage to bring back female marines

    1. They gave the Primarchs a mom
    2. They introduced female Custodes
    3. One of Fabius Bile’s creations is a female SUPER-totally-not-space-marine who can rip the head off regular marines barehanded

    They really need to rip the band-aid off and ignore the chuds

    • Baaahb@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 day ago

      Incoming solution from GW: bile virus bombs sisters of battle to make them SUPER-totally-not-space-marines. Similarly to how blanks make people mega uncomfortable, “Sisters of Marines” give of a psychic field that reverts space marines anti-horny bonk mechanism. Sisters and marines procreate to produce turbomarines that found the Imperial Astartes power party and restart the Horus heresy to try and claim their rightful possession of the.imperium of man, as mankind clearly cannot self govern.

      • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 day ago

        I agree that Bile is the key, he becomes the chaos version of Cawl and introduces female space marines into the setting, the chuds can’t get angry (tho they still will) because hey it’s the “bad guys” who did it, it’s out of our hands here at GW “oooooh that tricky Bile he’s such a cad”

        The chuds are probably dumb enough to get unironically mad at a fictional character and direct their anger away from the new faction

  • Esoteir [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    masterstroke: warhammer lore reeks now, the setting takes itself too seriously and isn’t enjoyable satire anymore, and if they released women space marines in 2002 they would have just said “The Lost Primarch Guineverus brings her cyberglaive to the empire’s aid as Amazis Prime is released from the warp along with the previously thought lost Venusian Geneseed, buy our new figures to fight for the empire” or something instead of this weird beating around the bush to appease the unironic nazi ass fanbase

    not that the setting wasn’t always cryptonazi with the tradcath aesthetic but the pandering has become real and any pretense of satire or goofy elements has pretty much been abandoned

    RETVRN to dawn of war 1 cutscenes, franchise fuckin peaked there

    • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 day ago

      Begging Hexbears to plz read the Warhammer crime novels or you know anything past 2014

      It’s not 2009 anymore, the lore rebounded, the satire returned and everything lorewise is pretty decent, besides the BULLSHIT neglect of the Leagues of Votann and the occasional dipping into ugly tacticool aesthetics

      • somename [she/her]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        1 day ago

        I say this as someone who does enjoy some 40k media. It’s not a real satire.

        It can’t be a satire until there’s a real alternative shown to the empire, at least hypothetically. Not while there are things in the lore that actually ‘justify’ a fascist response. Not until every rebellion stops being chaos or genestealers.

        Speaking of genestealers, take them as an example. Nothing about them adds to a satire of fascism. They do the opposite. They show fascism as correct. Evil outsiders coming into poison the bloodlines of the people, to drive them to madness and revolution, and the only solution is to kill all of them. That’s not a satire.

        • Murple_27@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          edit-2
          24 hours ago

          It can’t be a satire until there’s a real alternative shown to the empire, at least hypothetically. Not while there are things in the lore that actually ‘justify’ a fascist response. Not until every rebellion stops being chaos or genestealers.

          You should play 40k Rogue Trader then, and just take the Iconoclast options all to their logical conclusions. I would rather not spoil the effect of it, but I can DM some good outcomes if you like.

        • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          1 day ago

          All I know about satire is that satire is supposed to exaggerate the real-life target it’s mocking and real-life fascists have specialized cum extraction units that anally probe their fallen brethren in order to extract their precious seed. So, if WH40k was an actual satire, then geneseeds should be stored in the prostate and can only be extracted when a battle brother anally fists their fallen brother with a specialized power fist. It’s not satire if your fictional portrayal of fascists downplays how ridiculous fascists are in real life.

            • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              11
              ·
              23 hours ago

              Fascists are grossly incompetent, and that’s one of the things that’s missing in almost all “satirical” portrayal of fascists, which makes sense since Western society was only ever against fascism during WWII when they were forced to be. And it’s very telling how it was during 1939-1945 when satirical portrayal of fascists actually highlights how stupid and incompetent they are. Part of it was just how popular slapstick was during that time, but seriously, go watch actual satirical portrays of fascists during that time. The tone is completely different from modern “satirical” portrayals.

              There’s the classic Schichlegruber Doing the Lambeth Walk, which took footage from Triumph of the Will and edited the footage so it looked like Nazis were dancing to some popular music that the Nazis themselves denounced as “Jewish mischief and animalistic hopping.” The obvious message of the short film was that Nazis were incompetent buffoons who only knew how to march and not even march that well.

              The stupid and incompetent WH40k faction are orks, not space marines. Space marines are what fascists think they are while orks are what fascists actually are. Hell, even calling them orks gives them too much credit because orks aren’t that cowardly.

              • Murple_27@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                5
                ·
                edit-2
                20 hours ago

                Fascists are grossly incompetent, and that’s one of the things that’s missing in almost all “satirical” portrayal of fascists

                It is present in 40k tho.

                Space marines are what fascists think they are while orks are what fascists actually are. Hell, even calling them orks gives them too much credit because orks aren’t that cowardly.

                TBH, not all Space Marines are sane, or competent. That’s really just a handful chapters, and specifically usually the Ultramarines. Marines Malevolent function basically in the exact same way that IRL special forces do (gleefully sadistic, murderhorny, criminal psychos), and basically everyone hates working with them as a result of that. It’s really only when viewed at an absolute surface level that any of the things that fascists supposedly “like” about 40k appear to be even remotely correct, and even then only if you’re wearing blinders.

                The instant you start looking under the hood at things like the Ecclesiarchy & the Imperial Nobility it becomes extremely obvious that the rot is terminal & inextricable from how the Imperium as a society is structured.

                • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  20 hours ago

                  Maybe the orks, but not space marines or the imperium of man as a whole. By incompetence, I don’t mean “setting up a self-defeating empire that’s doomed to failure” but “shooting yourself in the face because you held the bolter the wrong way.” In general, every single faction, even orks, gets buttered up because no one wants to be buy overpriced figures of a joke faction.

        • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          1 day ago

          “I had no compunction over using my power when it was necessary, but neither did I share the zeal for destruction that so many of the Throne’s own servants exhibited. If it had been possible to solve our many problems through the continual application of unrestrained force, then you would have thought that over ten thousand years of trying it we might have had some rather better outcomes.

          It’s not the lore that asserts the ‘fascist’ response is justified, that comes from brain-dead chuds “fans” who don’t know how to read subtext and take everything they read and see at face value, the lore is pretty clear on this point: the Imperium’s problems are its own creation (the entire meta-point of Chaos in the lore) and warfare isn’t solving it, merely delaying the inevitable and fueling the crisis

          Not until every rebellion stops being chaos or genestealers.

          That’s not satire, that’s just a story of good vs evil

          Speaking of genestealers, take them as an example. Nothing about them adds to a satire of fascism

          One of the major Genestealer Cults is literally a parody of the pharmaceutical industry and eugenics and a pretty good one at that

          • somename [she/her]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            1 day ago

            Not trying to say there are no elements that are good satire within it, or that there isn’t good writing at times. There is! I have enjoyed some 40k stuff myself, and it works well when the focus is on how terrible the imperium is.

            What I am saying is that at large, in the big picture, it’s really not doing it well. For every “Wow this is terrible.” there’s often a large amount of “Well, it’s the best we’ve got.” or focus on the heroism/glory/valor of Space Marine #39181. The IP is trying to double dip in tone, which ultimately is what lets the fascist fanbase fester. Because there are elements in the setting and content creation that specifically appeal to them, that appeal to their narrative and fantasies.

      • Esoteir [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        22 hours ago

        im sure there’s some book series that are good but it doesn’t really matter when game workshop pumps most of their advertising and budget into grayscale bolter porn like space marine 2 and that amazon ad tv show: they’re pushing the fash played straight content the most

  • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    1 day ago

    Baroque: women could be marines, there’s nothing stopping this from happening, but the emperor thought that girls were icky and had cooties and lied about it.

    Mostly unrelated,

  • Yukiko [she/her]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    1 day ago

    Games Workshop just needs to say that either Fabius Bile or Belisarius Cawl reworked some gene seed to work on women. Boom. Done. Seriously not that hard. Cawl created the Primaris and Fabius has been cloning primarchs. They can do it ffs.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 day ago

      In the book “Genefather” Fabius present his best creation and it’s a woman, who could together with Bile defeat Alpha Primus, so that’s already on the level above ordinary marine.

    • Murple_27@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 day ago

      The problem is that if they do this they can’t sell Space Marines & Sisters of Battle as two separate armies.

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        1 day ago

        I would say sisters despite the intentions of their introduction to be sort of female space marines are very much distinct faction by now and would have no problem selling.

        • SevenSkalls [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          1 day ago

          100%. I’m not an expert, but I didn’t know they were supposed to be the same faction at first when I looked at my friend explaining all the armies. Their Catholic aesthetic is so much more pronounced.

          And unrelated, but also pretty cool looking. I think I’d definitely play Sisters of Battle if I ever got into WH40K

      • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        21 hours ago

        There are two ways they could go about adding FSM. The first is say “going through the process of becoming a space marine makes whoever did, regardless of AGAB, look like a big beefy manly man” and introduce no new models. The second is to release an upgrade sprue (estimated price: $30USD) with 20 femme-looking heads. Neither would cut into SoB sales.

  • joaomarrom [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 day ago

    well, Astarte is an ancient Levantine goddess of war, so essentially Adeptus Astartes already have a bit of the Female Chaos Dragon in them if you think about it

    Space Marines are all eggs, confirmed

  • CrawlMarks [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    1 day ago

    FtM space marines are not outside the possibility of geneseed

    Most space marines start the process before puberty so they could work it out pretty easy

    • SchillMenaker [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      1 day ago

      I’m pretty sure the canon is that their dicks are all genetically removed by the emperor already, and they also receive a massive dose of medical-grade hormones to undergo a massive physical change. One could argue that all space marine stories are already trans.

      • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.netOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        23 hours ago

        There’s nothing that says they don’t have prosthetic technodick replacements that can withstand all the gay sex their flesh couldn’t.

        • SchillMenaker [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          21 hours ago

          They’re all psychically connected to one another so they are able to psy-fuck but they can only do it with their brothers and their dads. 40k is basically an Adam Friedland joint.

    • Baaahb@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 day ago

      Never really called this, but space marines are all non-binary. They cannot reproduce sexually and are supposedly unable to experience sexual attraction, along with their inability to feel fear. According to the agab crowd, astartes have all basically had extensive genger affirmation surgery.

  • SchillMenaker [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 day ago

    I was actually thinking about it the other day and I can buy that it only worked on male subjects because the genetic technology was rushed and shitty. I would think there would be zero constraints on custodians because they’re supposedly each “custom edited” or whatever, and it would be very easy for them to be like “oh yeah, Belisarius Cawl fixed that shit in the Primarus Marines now.”

    I know that the real reason is because the IP is created by turbo nerds on terf island in the late 70’s though, which makes me care basically nothing about maintaining that part of the continuity.

    • Beaver [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      I was actually thinking about it the other day and I can buy that it only worked on male subjects because the genetic technology was rushed and shitty.

      The text is of course inconsistent, but I get the impression that Big E gets way too much credit for being a super genius mad scientist and is instead just cribbing from dark age tech that he doesn’t fully understand. The Space Marine and Primarch program in particular gets a lot of pushback from other characters who are in positions of trust and power, with Malcador going so far as to asking “yo, why are they all dudes” and not getting a really satisfactory answer. The writers mostly play it straight, but the setting is ridiculous and reflective of sexism IRL.

      • SchillMenaker [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        21 hours ago

        He definitely is a super genius mad scientist but he gets credit for omniscience that he absolutely doesn’t possess. In-lore you could say that he (or really his team) figured out how to do it for males first and since he was all gas no brakes he just sent it. Then if someone asks why your super incredible trans-human technology only works on half the people you either admit your shortcoming or you say “it’s because dudes rock obviously” and pretend you meant to do that.

        Again though, the reality is that they thought it would be cooler that way and wrote themselves into a corner way before they realized anyone who doesn’t spend their weekends at the comic books store in the 80’s would ever see it.

    • DefinitelyNotAPhone [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 day ago

      The “rushed and shitty” explanation is literally canon. The Imperium was a oh-shit-oh-fuck moment by the Emperor to try and unite humanity to stave off total extinction by smashing the major threats to humanity’s survival while also collecting enough resources to breach the webway so that Old Night couldn’t happen again when the warp gets too fucky to traverse.

      Of course the Emperor is also an idiot who failed to realize that Chaos would never allow such an outcome, so all of this blew up in his face and now everything is terrible forever.

      Astartes are all male because Big E was both desperate enough and utilitarian enough to think that it’d be easier to make geneseed work for the sex that already starts off with more physicality and aggression by default for his rabid disposable shock troops than to try and make sure it all jives with any and all possible recruits (and is totally fine with ludicrous attrition from the implantation process even with those parameters, because they were never going to stick around long term in his vision anyway). Nobody’s fucked with that since because the original work is considered sacred beyond compare and the only people both smart enough and free spirited enough to fuck with it are either desperately trying to pump out even more Astartes to keep the Imperium crawling along longer and don’t have time to futz with the gender settings or are busy creating a new race of superhumans that does include all genders.