So time for one of the biggest internet controversies surrounding the Warhammer 40k fandom. Note that I said “internet controversies”, not “controversies”. This post therefore might be controversial itself. Oh well.

This has to do with Female Space Marines. In-game, for basically all of 40ks solidified existence, the gene-seed that produces the super-space-knights who serve as the mascots of the setting only works with men. Games Workshop has been extremely strict and clear with this. Some online advocates have opposed this and wanted a change.

I’m pretty firmly in the the “no female space marines” category, and not just because my Imperial Guard doesn’t have this problem in the slightest.

I think one of my reasons is because a Space Marine has become a very specific thing. I would even argue that if you asked a layperson unfamiliar with the setting to describe one, you’d end up with either a Sister of Battle or a female Tempestus Scion (neither of which has any issue). Those can and do exist without any issue. Female techpriestesses can and do exist without issue, if you like someone so covered in augumentations that their initial number of chromosomes becomes irrelevant. Female Eldar and Tau can and do exist…

In fact, this is the diversity argument I have. If female space marines were adopted, they’d actually make the setting significantly less diverse. It means (even) more of the already pushed setting mascots and (even) less of the factions where this isn’t an issue.

(As for diversity in the setting overall, I have three big takes:

• It’s still a pulpy sci-fantasy kitchen sink. Like Catachans are not anthropologist-approved examples of life in an inhumanly harsh jungle, they’re 80s action stars en masse. This is the least hard sci-fi setting imaginable.
• Diversity means something a lot different in 41st millennium terms than it does in 2nd millennium ones.
• SISTERS DO NOT JUST HAVE WHITE HAIR AND BLACK ARMOR, THEY HAVE AN ENTIRE RAINBOW OF COLORS IN THEIR MANY ORDERS, GW PLEASE REMEMBER THIS. )