News:

Cammerz brings us some fantastically painted and customised Alpha Legion. Check out their work with detail shots and design insight.

Main Menu

'Are Female Space Marines Plausible?' -A Persuasive Essay.

Started by Lord Sotek, December 12, 2012, 08:32:36 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Lord Sotek

Hello, everyone;

For a while now, I've been a supporter of the idea of female space marines. This means that I have been involved in or spectated through several of the infamously contentious arguments about the matter, on various forums.

A while back, my interest and drive regarding the matter was sparked again. Wargamer had posted an Index Astartes on the Bolter and Chainsword forums about his own chapter, the Supernovas; who include a very small number of female space marines ('Adepta Astartes,' as his chapter calls them). Wargamer and I had spent a LOT of time together figuring out whether their existince was plausible, and what methods and reasoning could plausibly have been used for them to exist. The ensuant firestorm of blindly antagonistic nonsense and the BnC's attitude of "Avoid the contention by hushing up anyone who wanted to talk about it" got me rather mad. The BnC's moderatorship claimed that 'everything that can be said on the matter has been, and has been argued over uncivilly dozens of times, so just don't sayin anything." So I decided to respond.

However, thankfully I didn't respond in anger. Instead, I started to think over the matter very thoroughly, and realized that in my discussions with Wargamer about his adepta, I had stumbled across or engineered some entirely new concepts and arguments on the subject. Since I realized this meant I had something novel to contribute, I wrote it up and got it posted.

I went through the BnC's mods to do this. Little did I know, but the location on the forum I was directed to post it meant that it would effectively never see the light of day; rather than initiating the thought and discussion I'd hoped for, it got a half-handful of cursory comments, then sat collecting dust for months.

Well, I'm tired of that, so I decided to repost it on a forum I felt was better suited to look it over and respond with the thoughtful discussion I'd been hoping for. So, here it is.


Quote from: 'Brother Daeger Helsir' date='May 18 2012, 11:38 AM' post='3064128'
Good morning, everybody.

As I was motivated by a renewal of this controversy in a recent IA by my friend Wargamer, I decided to write a post outlining the methodology and justification behind why I've concluded female Astartes are, in fact, justifiable by the fluff. The line of reasoning I'm going to lay out here is something that I haven't seen in this thread, the Librarium debate essays, or in any other discussion of female Astartes that I've seen on this site, so hopefully this means I have an opportunity to contribute something new and meaningful to the discussion. I will warn you in advance that I'm about to throw a text wall at you, but I've tried to break it up and keep it as readable as I can.

______________________________________________

Introduction:

Quote from: 'Gree' post='3059626' date='May 12 2012, 01:45 PM'"These considerations mean that only a small proportion of people can become Space Marines. They must be male because zygotes are keyed to male hormones and tissue types, hence the need for tissue compatibility tests and psychological screening. If these tests prove successful, a candidate becomes a neophyte. With the completion of organ implantation and attendant chemical and hypnotic training, the subject becomes an initiate. An initiate receives training before joining the ranks as a full brother. A Marine usually joins the ranks between the ages of 16-18, but such are the hormonal changes induced by the process of creating a Space Marine that recruits are physically fully grown before then. Pressures during wartime may accelerate the process. " -Index Astartes I

This here should be eminently recognizable to those of us who follow the debate. It is the critical quote from Index Astartes I, the White Dwarf article outlining the process of creating a Space Marine. I thank Gree for providing it so that I didn't have to.

There are (in my opinion fairly convincing) arguments that can be made against this fluff being taken as ironclad or still relevant. However, I will actually be ignoring them today. I am going to address this piece of fluff and the ways beyond it, through it, alongside it and around it that my friend Wargamer and I reasoned out together, that justify the existence and possibility of Female Astartes. I am also going to try to do so in a candid, levelheaded, and non-inflammatory fashion, as this debate has far too often been tainted with ad hominem insults and charged emotions by both sides.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The basic assumptions of the analysis are as follows:

-If true and accurate, the excerpt in question is enumerating the process as it was initially designed and intended. Most things can be put to uses different than those they were designed and intended for, albeit with varying degrees of success. It's up to us here to figure out how and to what degree this process could be used beyond its intent.

-Geneseed carries within it genes from the Primarch from whom it was derived; fully or in part, a Space Marine has these genetic elements added to their genome during the process of becoming a Space Marine. (This will become very important later on in the post.)


The Arch-Objection:

The root of much of the opposition's conviction and the and strongest single piece of evidence against Female Space Marines is this particular line of the IA quote Gree provides us:

"They must be male, because zygotes are keyed to male hormones and tissue types:"

If you have taken a human physiology class, you will understand why this statement is largely scientific nonsense. However, I am going to proceed anyways under the assumption that it is as true as is reasonably possible within the knowledge of scientific fact. This generates the following conditions:

*Space Marine implants are designed to respond to or function within very specific conditions, closely associated with those present in a pubescent/prepubescent male body. Namely, this would mean amongst other things certain concentrations of Androgens (Hormones promoting development of masculine characteristics, including the well-known testosterone.)

*Space Marine implants are designed to respond to or function in the presence of chemical markers and tissue types that have developed a composition consistent with masculine development.

*Additional possible interpretation: Space Marine implants require the presence of a Y-chromosome to function.

To address these:
* Male and female "tissue types" actually derive from exactly the same cellular origins and frequently even have similar to identical names, structures, and functions. The male and female genitalia both come from the exact same piece of tissue on an embryo, which simply forms itself into one of the two depending on what developmental signals it recieves. Where they differ is really not in the tissues (the building blocks, if you will) but the structures they develop into (The architecture.) To turn it into an analogy, you can have a Gothic cathedral and a Medieval castle, and sure they look distinctly different, but they're both made out of stone, and it would be possible to use the stones from a cathedral to build a castle, or vice versa.

*Furthermore, that piece of embryonic tissue is actually proto-female; it either continues developing into female sexual organs by default, or develops into male sexual organs only if suitable developmental signal chemicals from the Y-chromosome intervene. By this measure, the conversion of a female into the required male is something that already happens 50% of the time in nature.

* Men and women both produce androgens as well as estrogens (hormones promoting female characteristics.) These are the deciding factor in the way the body develops at puberty, with the normal state of things being that one set of hormones will be produced in massive quantities, the other in minimal. The normal state of affairs is, of course, a male body being flooded with androgens and a female body being flooded with estrogens, and production of the other set is there but minimal.

* This is why for athletes who abuse steroids (many of which are androgenic compounds), the secondary side effects are developing body characteristics normally associated only with the other gender. Women bulk out, then begin to suffer side effects like growing facial and body hair, deeper voices, rendering themselves sterile through overexposure to a conflicting set of hormones, etcetera. Men initially bulk out massively, then the flood of artificial androgens burns out their body's ability to produce adequate androgens naturally. This causes a proportional jump in estrogens, and so men who've abused steroids eventually lose most of their muscle mass, begin developing breasts, higher voices, render themselves sterile through overexposure to conflicting hormones, etcetera.

*Were the flood of artificial hormones to be introduced at around puberty, the effects would be even more dramatically pronounced, and if properly maintained, the end results would be even more indistinguishable from the other gender. This is actually the basis of a lot of gender-reassignment therapy for transgendered people, and if you don't believe me, believe your eyes: The following two people are genetically male, and genetically female, respectively. (No, I didn't get those links mixed up, trust me.)

*Human growth hormone, the other factor kicking in at puberty that causes massive growth and muscular development (and considering a Marine's stature, presumably a large part of why it's so important the process start when aspirants are around the age of puberty) is completely gender-neutral in operation. The statistical height and bulk differences between male and females come from the fact that the unmodified male body generally produces significantly more of it than the unmodified female body, another hormonal difference that is easily accommodated for.

*As a minor sidenote, since the notable differences between genders come largely due to the flood of androgens or estrogens at puberty, before puberty male and female humans are considerably more similar to each other than after. If the process is keyed to the body conditions of a young/preadolescent male, which is what the crucial recruitment age makes it seem to be, there is even less chemical and developmental difference between the genders to compensate for.

So what does this all mean?:
In terms of the chemical and biological analysis that are what would matter for Space Marine-style biological manipulation, "maleness" and "femaleness" of a body is primarily determined by the proportion and presence of various hormones, particularly during the key development stage of puberty (Which is when Marines are normally created). It is known scientific fact that these hormone ratios can be artificially manipulated to swing the development one way or another.

To we regular humans in the modern day, abusing steroid hormones is generally considered a Bad Thing because it tends to make you sterile and plays havoc with your body's signals on how much to express the characteristics associated with each gender. Space Marines are known to be sterile anyways, however, and in this case playing havoc with the signals that determine external gender characteristics is the entire point. It is also known that hormone therapy and manipulation is already used on male aspirants. Therefore, employing suitable hormone manipulation on a female aspirant would be a relatively straightforward adaptation of the process. The end result of this process would be a technically-female aspirant who has a majority appearance, development, and biochemical register of a male person, thus enabling compatibility with the geneseed.




The possible sticking point of the Y-chromosome:
It is both possible and plausible to interpret the Index Astartes quote as meaning that, amongst other things, an aspirant must have a Y chromosome, and that the implants must somehow detect and interact with this Y chromosome in order to be activated. This adds more hurdles to the making of a female space marine, and reinforces Wargamer's assesment that his Adepta Astartes would have far lower implant success rates even than male marines.

Even this doesn't make it impossible, though.

To address this:
The way past this requires known elements from a number of sources:

*The geneseed/the process of making a Space Marine is seen, over and over again, to reshape a Space Marine to more strongly resemble his primarch. Russ' sons grow shaggy, fanged, and feral like he was; Corax and Vulkan's descendants share their unusual pigmentation; The Luna Wolves have multiple notable examples of marines who bore extraordinarily close resemblance to Horus; Alpharius' entire legion looked exactly like him; Blood Angels frequently bear an exceptionally strong resemblance to Sanguinius; and the list goes on and on. Considering that the process of becoming a space marine is frequently described as both "genetic and surgical" but the IA1 mostly only describes surgical elements of organ implantation, the only reasonable explanation for this is that a Space Marine retroactively has a portion of the Primarch's genome spliced into his own, causing him to develop and express these characteristic traits. This is consistent with modern-day understanding of gene therapy and its results.

*It is well known that organ acceptance or rejection is an important factor determining whether a space marine aspirant succeeds, or fails (and likely dies.) In real life, organ rejection is known to be a factor of whether or not the donor's genes are close enough to the recipients' in order for the recipient's body not to attack it as foreign. Thus, it is a reasonable guess that successful marines were a closer genetic match to begin with. It is also rather likely however, considering how incredibly genetically diverse a population most Chapters recruit from, that some of the gene therapy involves adding enough of the Primarch's genome that the implants are much more likely to be accepted, and that this tampering is simply more successful for some aspirants than others.

*Given this genetic manipulation technology, which we're already beginning to see proven in real life, it would require some additional effort and trial-and-error, but actually be relatively straightforward to make part of this gene-therapy include transferring the Y-chromosome of the Primarch in question, as stored in their geneseed, to the female aspirant. For the purposes of genetic manipulation techniques, a Y-chromosome is no different from any other subset of genetic code in this regard.

*The result of this would be an "XXY" "female" capable of receiving the implants. In humans, XXY individuals sometimes even occur naturally; it results in individuals who have what is termed "Klinefelter's Syndrome." These individuals are technically genetically male, due to possessing a y chromosome, but the multiple X chromosomes cause them to develop significant feminine attributes and appearances; many eventually become transwomen.

*So, the end result is that a female aspirant has in effect been masculinized and turned into a Kleinfelter's "male," enabling them to successfully receive space marine implants. Due to the additional complications, the process is accordingly and reasonably less often successful and fails more spectacularly than with male aspirants, but in the final analysis it is still possible with reasonable, but not prohibitive, additional effort and difficulty.

*There is even another possibility; It is also possible for an individual to have the normal, male set of XY chromosomes, but develop as female due to other factors impairing the expression of the Y chromosome. Though such individuals are not common, this still means that a completely unmodified, developmentally female aspirant with a female identity could already possess the required Y-chromosome.

The difficulties with Altering Geneseed: Another complication that is often brought up by opponents to the idea of female space marines is that several of the suggested methods to make them work would involve altering the geneseed directly so that it would work in women. The difficulties they point out are:

*Near-religious considerations of custom and tradition making the Imperium as a whole reluctant to mess with geneseed, if not considering it outright heresy.
*The utter lack of knowledge and skill even SM Apothecaries have on the matter, compared to the scientific genius of the Emperor who created geneseed. Evidence from fluff attempts to modify geneseed show that at best, the Imperium's greatest minds stumble half-blind in the dark here.

Thankfully for my case, the justification I've been outlining sidesteps both problems. It focuses on making the female aspirant compatible with the geneseed, not making the geneseed compatible with the aspirant, and so involves no tampering with the function or genetic code of the geneseed.




Conclusion:
In summary, between known fluff extrapolated (inclusively) with real science, and even including the information stated from Index Astartes 1, female space marines are possible; not so much more difficult to make that they would never happen; but also less likely to work out, as they are being altered to better suit a process not designed for them; and significantly more difficult enough that they would still be suitably uncommon in the 40k universe.

It is debatable whether the appearance or physiology of these female marines would be much recognizable as female, if at all. However, it is equally debatable whether regular space marines are truly male, or even human, anymore. Despite this, conventional marines continue to mentally identify and be identified as male, and so it is reasonable to assume that the "female" marines in question would continue to think of themselves as female.

So: To those who want female Astartes in 40k, this method offers one possible justification. To those who don't want female astartes in 40k, this solution still has something to offer for them, as it suggests that making female space marines this way would be difficult enough to preclude them from becoming more than a rarity. That rarity would be enough to ensure that if you find them bothersome, female space marines never crop up in "your" corner of the Imperium.


-Fin.-
Quote from: Saulus on March 17, 2011, 06:16:56 PM
Often I hear delusional ramble like "I painted and collected my army as ultramarine tyranid hunters....but Pedro is really good, so now I'm using him, but I'm just going to call him Jimbob-Fistpumper, cause that fits with my

Narric

This is an incredibly good read, and needs more discussion, though near everything I could think of is covered.

With this as my backing, I'd be less tentative about modeling female space marines, but for obvious reasons that you can see from this, you wouldn't have a space marine looking like this:


I'd recon a gender nuetral armour like here, would be best for an armour that includes both "Genders"

Chicop76

I seen some non 40k female space marines floating about. I would say I can see females being space marines, but there is a huge male tone like battle brother, and male identifiers being used in the 40k terminology when addressing marines. I always figured that sisters of battle are female marines of sorts. Model wise they have almost marine stats mixed with guard stats with divine powers to draw upon.

Going back to the previous sister's codex I would say they where superior to marines. On the table top I would be scared of the possible 10 woman squad of rending, +3 invulnerable save, strength 5, inititave 5, fearless sisters with eviserator, heavy flamer, flamer than a 10 man marine squad with two flamers and a power fist.

Not saying sisters are now garbage compared to what they use to do, I remember my two canoness laughing destroying half an army bythemselves. Not saying that St. Celestine in the past could easily beat MCs and was better than an Archon. Just saying sisters are differant.

I would dare say females either join the guard or sisters of battle.


Wargamer

Sisters are not, nor have ever been, Female Space Marines. In modern terms, calling them Space Marines would be akin to calling the police force a part of the Army. Sisters are mortal Humans, equipped with inferior weapons (Astartes Boltguns are so massive a normal person cannot use them as anything short of an emplaced weapon), inferior armour (Astartes power armour gets more toys) and less of the high-end technoarcana.

In essence, equating Sisters to Space Marines is rather like saying "So, you're a girl and you want to be part of the football team? Sure! We can always use more cheerleaders!"
I wrote a novel - Dreamscape: The Wanderer.. Available in paperback and pdf.

Quote from: Liberate the Warhammers
People who have no sense of Sportsmanship have NO PLACE designing any Gaming system

Lord Sotek

#4
Quote from: Narric of 4th Sphere on December 14, 2012, 12:26:58 PM
This is an incredibly good read, and needs more discussion, though near everything I could think of is covered.

With this as my backing, I'd be less tentative about modeling female space marines, but for obvious reasons that you can see from this, you wouldn't have a space marine looking like this:


Glad you approve of the article!

Yeah... That's "How Not to Model Female Marines," if you ask me. Doctor Thunder may be one of the most prominent advocates for female marines, but I would not exactly call him our most convincing champion.

The thing is, power armor's already so bulky there's no real need to put 'boobplates' on it, of any size. Kenton Kilgore's Fighting Tigers of Veda have loads of female marines, and most of them are just a female mini's head on a regular space marine body, but it works out just fine.

Quote from: Chicop76 on December 14, 2012, 02:05:04 PM
I always figured that sisters of battle are female marines of sorts. Model wise they have almost marine stats mixed with guard stats with divine powers to draw upon.

No... SOB's are IG vets in power armor, plus funky faith powers. That doesn't remotely make them space marines.

Quote
Going back to the previous sister's codex I would say they where superior to marines. On the table top I would be scared of the possible 10 woman squad of rending, +3 invulnerable save, strength 5, inititave 5, fearless sisters with eviserator, heavy flamer, flamer than a 10 man marine squad with two flamers and a power fist.

Completely missing the point. The tabletop effectiveness of Sisters and Space Marines has absolutely nothing to do with a discussion about whether Female Astartes could happen.


Quote from: Wargamer on December 14, 2012, 02:37:12 PM
In essence, equating Sisters to Space Marines is rather like saying "So, you're a girl and you want to be part of the football team? Sure! We can always use more cheerleaders!"

More like saying... "Oh, you want to join the New Orleans Saints? Well, I hear the high school JV team's got openings, it's almost the same thing!"
Quote from: Saulus on March 17, 2011, 06:16:56 PM
Often I hear delusional ramble like "I painted and collected my army as ultramarine tyranid hunters....but Pedro is really good, so now I'm using him, but I'm just going to call him Jimbob-Fistpumper, cause that fits with my

Charistoph

On the subject of "Could they happen", of course they could.  Anything CAN happen.  For all we know that 1 of the missing Primarchs (or even BOTH) was female, as was her Legion.  There are too many (deliberate) empty holes in 40K lore for the possibility to exist. 

That having been said, the general consensus is that all CURRENT loyal Astartes are male and are picked from male stock, and regular fan-made lore should reflect that.  For Chaos Marines, well, they do get warped a lot, and Slaanesh does like certain attributes...

If you want to model a female space marine army, that is your choice, and I would probably raise an eyebrow at it, but I would still play against/alongside you.  I would hope you do a good job of modeling it, though.  I do like to see well built armies.
Are you a Wolf, a Sheep, or a Hound?

Quote from: Megavolt-They called me crazy.  They called me insane!  THEY CALLED ME LOONEY!! and boy, were they right."

Lord Sotek

Quote from: Charistoph on December 14, 2012, 04:12:58 PM
On the subject of "Could they happen", of course they could.  Anything CAN happen.  For all we know that 1 of the missing Primarchs (or even BOTH) was female, as was her Legion.  There are too many (deliberate) empty holes in 40K lore for the possibility to exist. 

That having been said, the general consensus is that all CURRENT loyal Astartes are male and are picked from male stock, and regular fan-made lore should reflect that.  For Chaos Marines, well, they do get warped a lot, and Slaanesh does like certain attributes...

If you want to model a female space marine army, that is your choice, and I would probably raise an eyebrow at it, but I would still play against/alongside you.  I would hope you do a good job of modeling it, though.  I do like to see well built armies.

This is a classic response I've seen many times. I call it the "dismissive agreement." I.e; "Sure maybe it COULD happen but really it wouldn't, because flying giggling lovey dovey pink Warp elephants COULD pop into existence and save the day, too. Oh and because I say 'consensus' says it doesn't."

Between the lines, the whole post reads as "Sure whatever kid, I'll humor your delusional antics, but no, female marines are not really plausible."

Messing with the unknown primarchs is a forty gigaton landmine, no matter how you slice it. Slaaneshi warped marines is a viable explanation, but inherently precludes the existence of loyalist Adepta. I wrote this article to explore the possibility and feasibility of creating loyal, Imperial, female space marines. The suggestions you're trotting out here are sideshows that have been brought up dozens of times already.

You also throw the word consensus around, but you can't really put your finger on who that consensus is. You just assume the weight of like-minded individuals is behind you, and use this as a rhetorical bludgeon to shut down different opinions.

I also wonder how thoroughly you read my discussion, considering the fact that in the process of justifying female Space Marines, I clearly state the caveat that they would be relatively uncommon, and male space marines would still completely be considered the 'norm' of what an astartes is, as a result.
Quote from: Saulus on March 17, 2011, 06:16:56 PM
Often I hear delusional ramble like "I painted and collected my army as ultramarine tyranid hunters....but Pedro is really good, so now I'm using him, but I'm just going to call him Jimbob-Fistpumper, cause that fits with my

Wargamer

Interesting point to mention here actually: prior to 3rd Edition there wasn't much, if any mention of Female Guard that I can find. The Codex mentioned "female regiments", but that was about it. All the artwork was of males, all the novels contained male characters, etc. The GW universe was a place of Men doing Manly things like fighting.

But... just take a look now at the novels, artwork, etc. The models are still a sausage fest, but the wider setting has much improved. We see female Guard more often. We see female Planetary Governors who aren't just things to be kidnapped and held to ransom. We see female Archmagi of the Mechanicum, female Admirals of the Imperial Navy, female Inquisitor Lords, etc. The 40K universe has, in effect, grown up. It has acknowledged that it is not only rather sad, dated and unrealistic to assume women exist solely as a back-scene baby factory (outside the rather fetishistic "nuns with guns" Sisterhood) but that it's just outright stupid as well. I mean seriously, are you going to make the argument "women don't make good soldiers" in 40K? A female Catachan civilian probably has more muscle mass than most of the US Army's best. Cadians, all Cadians, are taught to field-strip a lasgun before they can read and write. Hell, if you want to be extreme, are you telling me a female Ogryn isn't a good soldier? She's so tough small arms fire is an annoyance to her, nothing more, and strong enough to squeeze a normal human like a tube of toothpaste.

With all these points raised, it remains kind of sad that GW desperately cling to the 'cloistered boys club' of the Adeptus Astartes as a selling point.
I wrote a novel - Dreamscape: The Wanderer.. Available in paperback and pdf.

Quote from: Liberate the Warhammers
People who have no sense of Sportsmanship have NO PLACE designing any Gaming system

Chicop76

I seen some female models for the guard. I rememeber a comissar and a metal femal grenade launcher of the top of my head.

Inferior weapons?? The sisters main force have every weapon that a marine has. In the old codex you had some veteran guard elements that had slightly better guard weapons, but sisters have most of the equpiment a marine has.

A standard sister in game terms have the same bs, leadership and armour save as a marine. Everything else is on the level of a guardsmen. I have to re read the fluff from 3rd and up about the sisters since it has been a while since I have read it. The sisters however is considered more elite than a guard force, looking at how they nerf the hell out of them it is hard to see that. Thinking of them makes me remember how badly they was nerved. It's like hey blood angels let's make you into a regular marine army, while we at it let's take away all special rules like no fear, and breaking down squads, etc, and than saying" oh let's give them a +6 feel no pain that follows the 5th edition rules to make up for what they did.

Sisters standard weapon is the same as a marine. Instead of powerfist they get eviserators which are better anyway.

It's like I know you girls want to play pro footbal, but hey we will let you play in a minor league or arena football.

By the way at one point I think some high school football teams like hanville, or Saint Augustine could had beaten the Saints doing the Aints paper bag days. Lsu for sure could had beaten them.

Also a lot of SWAT teams are prior marines and army, and can out perform your typicqal army soilder. I think people in general give our army too much credit. The reason we do so well is due to intelligence and technology. In any engagement where those two items are missing we don't perorm as well. Special Forces on the other hand is a very differant story and they should receive the utmost respect.


Cammerz

The only thing I've seen which states whether female marines are or aren't possible is the Black Crusade rulebook (for those who don't know its a 40k-based RPG where you play as a disciple of chaos).
I'm not sure whether or not the Fantasy Flight stuff counts as official in terms of fluff but it says the following;
QuoteFor Chaos Space Marines, their sex and gender must be male, due to the requirements of the geneseed (although millenia of mutation and the influence of the warp may render this distinction meaningless).

As for the whole female Imperial Guard thing, Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novels contain a number of major characters who are female guardsmen. Amongst them are found; Sgt Tona Criid, several of the snipers and Medic Ana Curth.

Chicop76



Quote from: Cammerz on December 14, 2012, 05:27:43 PM
The only thing I've seen which states whether female marines are or aren't possible is the Black Crusade rulebook (for those who don't know its a 40k-based RPG where you play as a disciple of chaos).
I'm not sure whether or not the Fantasy Flight stuff counts as official in terms of fluff but it says the following;
QuoteFor Chaos Space Marines, their sex and gender must be male, due to the requirements of the geneseed (although millenia of mutation and the influence of the warp may render this distinction meaningless).

As for the whole female Imperial Guard thing, Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novels contain a number of major characters who are female guardsmen. Amongst them are found; Sgt Tona Criid, several of the snipers and Medic Ana Curth.




http://www.google.com/search?q=Female+40k,guard+models&hl=en&client=ms-android-sprint-us&tbo=d&source=android-launcher-widget&v=133247963&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=i2nLUNesNqiU2gWflIHgBQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=320&bih=508#i=102




Here is a link which has two models I mentioned. I remember on Tau Online someone did a female guard project and the models came out pretty nice. I didn't like the arms, but other than that they wasn't bad models.

I have found female heads in the past and other model companies which have decent female models for guard. The problem being is I want majority 40 models although the models I cam across all you had to do is replace the guns and the forge world lasguns look better and you would be able to replace the guns easier using those weapons.

With marines you can slim the model down so it would have a more female apperance.


Narric

I've actually found someone currently active in making Female Space Marine parts.

http://battlesuits.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Female%20Space%20Marines

They even have the parts available to purchase.

Noseying backwards into their archive, they have a comparison shot, which to me makes the modified parts pretty decent.


Chicop76

Quote from: Narric of 4th Sphere on December 14, 2012, 06:57:51 PM
I've actually found someone currently active in making Female Space Marine parts.

http://battlesuits.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Female%20Space%20Marines

They even have the parts available to purchase.

Noseying backwards into their archive, they have a comparison shot, which to me makes the modified parts pretty decent.


http://eurekamin.com.au/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=conversion&x=10&y=10

Here is a link to female torsos. I'm thinking of getting some elysians and swaping out parts and se how they work out.

I'm going to check the marine one, but I really don't like the arms :(


Narric

Chicop, those are quite clearly Imperial Guard torsos. I posted Space Corsair's work, because it was specifically for Space Marines, which is what this thread is/was intended to be for.

Chocomel

Quote from: Cammerz on December 14, 2012, 05:27:43 PM
The only thing I've seen which states whether female marines are or aren't possible is the Black Crusade rulebook (for those who don't know its a 40k-based RPG where you play as a disciple of chaos).
I'm not sure whether or not the Fantasy Flight stuff counts as official in terms of fluff but it says the following;
QuoteFor Chaos Space Marines, their sex and gender must be male, due to the requirements of the geneseed (although millenia of mutation and the influence of the warp may render this distinction meaningless).

As for the whole female Imperial Guard thing, Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novels contain a number of major characters who are female guardsmen. Amongst them are found; Sgt Tona Criid, several of the snipers and Medic Ana Curth.

"Not even Chaos is Chaos enough to have female marines".