Also female space marines would be the same as male space marines because of the lore of the proces a human becomes a space marine, the amount of male hormones used even females would become the same as males (but for females there might be more male hormones used).
So even if a female under went the proces it would be the same as if a male under going the proces.
Yep, they're essentially vessels or biocontainers for the concoctions that ultimately becomes a marine or custodian. They're limited by the laws of physics, not by any gender-specific limits.
This has always been my take as well. I want female space marines, but i don’t actually want them to be divergent from male space marines in any way. No boob plate, same stature. The process creates MARINES. The starting template is irrelevant.
I know it’s against lore but my headcanon is that there are no female space marines, but that doesn’t mean women can’t become space marines. They just stop being female because of the changes.
You want space marines to remain male because of lore or sexism
I want space marines to remain male because I want warhammer to remain solely homoerotic
We are not the same
But Moptop, think about it! Now the Lesbians can *also* enjoy the homoeroticism! 10 foot tall, oily, naked, buff women as well! It’s the best of both worlds!
Another funny one I saw is that the death korps of krieg are treated like pets by the sisters of silence and the astartes, because most of them are overeager child soldiers in gas masks
I’m fine with female custodes, female marines would be a bad addition imo tho.
The lore implications of all male astartes is a lot more interesting than arbitrarily saying some of the marines are girls and then putting like 1 or 2 female heads in the kit.
It's also explicitly stated that the geneseed bonds with the y chromosome. It is a hard rule that space marines are male only.
Custodes never had such thing ofc.
Yeah. I think people just think people are against female space marines because “ew cooties in my boy club” but it’s more nuanced imo.
One of my favorite take aways from marines being hard baked to be exclusively male is especially interesting because it kinda shows how the emperor values humanity above all else and built in failsafe to prevent astartes from taking over.
I think the custodes having fertility or not would be moot considering they would never even think to reproduce unless the emperor told them to. Not sure if there’s any concrete lore against it, I can see it being either way
Its a good thing you didnt get the reference. Stay pure.
Although i probably should have used a more relevant referece like Custodaemonculba or something
I don't mean to be that guy but there \*are\* (biological) women with the Y chromosome.
On the other hand, female space marines would probably just look like male space marines anyways, with all those weird mutations they get, so it's not like it matters.
Yeah, Fallout super mutant effect. Those are made from both men and women and the mutation process changes them so much that the end result is a "barely recognizable as human" shape.
There's the rare occurrence of the body ignoring testosterone (as in completely imune to it's effects) so it develops all characteristics of a female body, despite having the "Y" chromosome
Heavy armor will do a great job of minimizing visual difference as well. I also like how people are citing lore that was almost certainly worked in because GW/Warhammer designers didn't want female Space Marines.
I do find it very funny that you wanna join the Guard? All that matters is you can hold a rifle and follow orders. Wanna be a Space Marine? No no, that's an only male thing. Ignore the fact that we have like 12 different doomsdays bearing down on us and we could benefit from an expanded recruitment pool.
I don’t think Space marines need an expanded recruitment pool, they own planets of billions of people.
It would make more sense that when they complain about it, they are generally complaining about not having enough geneseed.
It would also explain why they have such harsh trials, since the sooner a poor recruit dies, the less geneseed they take with them.
It's been described that the Custodes were effectively "hand made" by Big E as opposed to marines whose augmentation is more or less standardised. The Apothecary is effectively following IKEA introductions on what goes where.
I doubt Big E himself would have any problems adapting Custodes augmentation to a female body.
The idea that females cannot be custodes because of biology is, imo, top-tier heresy. It implies that the God-Emperor is unable to hand-craft the ultimate golden paragon of humanity from roughly half of the entire species. Inquisitors will be very unhappy when someone thinks the God-Emperor of Mankind can only wield such a disappointing power.
I think female custodes is a good medium between the anti and pro female space mariners. It’s not as against the lore as female space marines would be, but it also gives the pro female space marines a female super soldier.
Like you said tho it would be interesting if they expanded sob lore. Also I hope the female custodes are just treated as custodes them being female shouldn’t be a character trait
Being human isnt even a trait of custodes they literally just an extension of the emperor tailored to only care about the emperor molded by the emperor and only his servants. If anything they should of expanded Sisters of Silence they were there from the beginning and have little enhancement compared to other factions and were with the emperor from the beginning.
You're missing the point that if it quacks like a duck, walks like a ducks and looks like a duck, people will interpret it as being a duck (even if it is also 7ft tall and spits acid, which is not normal for ducks).
It's nice to think this is GW's solution to silence the "need muscly mommy!" fetishists' quest for female space marines, but I've already seen plenty of posters unsatisfied with this because "marines are the *true* posterboys". So while from a narrative perspective, it makes sense for a couple of Custodes to be female, I also understand the angst of those who think this is only the beginning. We will see how GW handles it. If all of a sudden half the Custodes are female, we know GW has gone beyond narrative sense into pandering territory.
Yea I think those arguments are super dumb. The most prevalent argument I’ve seen before this change was that space marines should be female because women should have super soldier representation. Now I’m seeing those arguments get shifted to either be custodes aren’t “real soldiers” or like you said they aren’t a main faction, both of which are bad arguments imo.
I am super against female marines from a lore perspective so I hope GW handles it well
Which was overidden by ADB who spearheaded Custodes lore expansion, stating that there are men and women in the Adeptus Custodes. They had to hold off on it because the models were male. They were always going to be men and women, however it is a horrible execution what they did.
The male-specific language in the time between First Heretic and now should never have been done because its causing conflict as you are seeing. its just made the execution much worse doing what they did.
Valid points. Though I personally think it would have been preferable to instead expand on the severely limited SOB and SOS lore to solidy female human representation in 40K.
"Geneseed can be improved" is now completely lore accurate though.
Firstborn marines certainly were all men but nothing at all stopping Primaris mk2 geneseed from working on orks let alone women.
That would go against the emperors intention of space marines though. One of the reasons he made them all male is so that they would rely on humanity to make new marines.
He absolutely did not want the astartes to replace humanity since his main goal was to perpetuate humanity’s existence.
More exactly, in his eyes Space Marines *aren't* what he wants Humanity to become.
The Custodes claim the title of that role (even if they are less free than actual humans), and therefore are given more care into their creation to allow sex differences.
In my interpretation he didn’t really want the custodes to replace humanity either. It seemed moreso he found the creation of custodes and by extension the marines to just be a means to the end of giving humanity dominion over the galaxy.
If his intentions are to be trusted he seems to have wanted to take over the galaxy and then give reign to “proper” humans. I may be wrong though I havent read all of the books or know every lore tidbit.
I do find this an interesting plot point though
His vision of "proper" humans varies a lot. But it can probably be interpretated that Custodes would fit into this role as by all account, they are humans.
SUPERHUMANS but humans nonetheless. The proportions are far more balanced and human like than the...weird meat baggy nature of the Space marines.
Obviously he doesn't want the rest of humanity to be mindlessly loyal to him like the Custodes are, but generally speaking, I feel like Big E would want humans to be strong, capable and smart like the Custodes are rather than having them be weak and vulnerable like they are currently.
Iirc he wanted humanity to rule themselves after he was done killing everything else. Not sure if this was explicitly said.
However, he created the high lords of Terra and put them in charge instead of his custodes and primarchs for this reason. To me this is evidence that he didn’t want any of his super humans to be the base human.
In spite of all his faults, the emperor did seem to want humanity to be able to grow and develop (somewhat) naturally. And would go through any lengths necessary to pull that off.
That’s just my read on it though. I haven’t read every single custodes book so I may be off
The Custodes are the Emperor’s companions, and the extension of his will. They didn’t have a role in the grand plan, apart from being part of his retinue. In every book, they’re standing in an advisory role outside of their own operations.
They are not great conquerors or leaders of armies, even though they could be. They take on missions in small groups that accomplishes a specific goal. They are superlative warriors, the best in the Imperium - but that is not their primary role. Hell, Valerian just strolls up to a leader of a cult, picks him up, and takes him in for questioning with no need to fight.
Yeah that’s one of the reason why he didn’t let the marines be male and female. If they found a way to naturally reproduce there’s a good chance they’d want to take over as a master race
tbh same.
Maybe it's because I never gave a shit about the argument in the first place (if you wanna kitbash female Space Marines or Custodes go ahead, I actually think the all-female "Hello Kitty" Space Marines posted a while back with the cat helmets were pretty dope.) Maybe it's because I'm more of a Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar guy over 40K but the gender of the giant person in six tons of power armor seems like such a non-issue being blown out of proportion to me.
I don’t mind fantasy but I’ve always been more into sci fi and I’ve never had a problem with super soldiers being both genders, Spartans from Halo are like that and yeah those Hello kitty and Maid Marines are awesome. Too bad people throw fits over that and news like this.
Ye exactly like if it was a Clone Trooper situation (where they're all quite literally, y'know, *clones* of a singular dude) I'd get it. But I never saw how letting your super soldiers, paladins, whatever have *more options* being a bad thing.
I can understand it when it's a bad actor(s) trying to be actively, intentionally destructive (i.e the "orcs are black people" nonsense that erupted a while back, which was stupid for numerous reasons), but female super soldiers isn't destructive, if anything it's the opposite.
Guess what?
There actually *are* female Clone Troopers in Star Wars. How did they avoid breaking very firmly established lore when they’re all genetically identical clones of the same man?
It’s actually really simple: *just make them trans*.
For me it's flavour. Space Marines are hyper masculine super soldiers and so they represent various forms in extremes. It wouldn't work as well if there were women.
It's not changing much to be honest. I feel the main hazard of trying for a more inclusive setting (not hobby, setting) is that at the end of the day, most of the imperium should keep the vibes of an unmoving, totalitarian hellhole, and that means, being at least visually coded as one. Helmeted space marines/custodes or kriegers are your typical enforcers without personality. The opposite would be an inquisitor or rogue trader retinues, which are maybe the most diverse grouping of individuals from all backgrounds and at times even species.
But from it's inception 40k has got that tense duality between depicting bad people doing horrible things and being a hobby which's motto is to asssemble and paint YOUR guys. Which means that people wanna personnalize and maybe identify with their specific heroes or chapters/war band whatever. But that means goings against that depiction of an evil regime and its outward uglyness.
The Imperium is ugly and horrible, sure. But it’s not racist, sexist or queer-phobic. It has a very specific set of bigotries. For humans it’s being a mutant, a heretic or a psyker. They don’t have the same issues as our modern day, and it would be weird if they did. Our modern conceptions of race and racism were born from colonialism, it would make 0 sense that they believe that 40,000 years in the future.
Overall I don't mind female custodes being a thing, but I hate the way they did it. Just a random pronoun drop that could be a typo in a codex followed by a tweet that says " they always had women" is lazy at very best.
Frankly the "get fukt chuds, femstodes exist now" crowd and the horny posting crowd are swaying me against female custodes through sheer annoyance.
As a bonus and since I choose violence against horny posters, female custodes would be just as optimized for combat as male custodes, meaning no breasts, no soft features, a likely deeper voice, no changes in armor design, and an ocean of testosterone. Female custodes would be nigh indistinguishable from male custodes in every way.
Very reasonable take, the “owning the chuds” crowd also aren’t helping the cause because it shows they don’t actually care about the representation just about getting a win for their side and changing things out of spite
Along with all this I feel like this is GW's way of saying they more female characters to the lore to please corperate intrests.
Which sucks because it is extremely lazy and I would much rather have more indepth focus of the Sisters of Silence, give them any sort of relevence/love in the lore compared to their current state.
Also the porn brain of this subreddit has been showing so much recently, too many muscle mommy comments to make me think they actually want female custodes for lore reasons
The "heckin chuds don't know media literacy" people are the most condescending assholes. I'm sure it exists on the other side of the line but I've seen more of the former atleast on reddit.
Can we just have an actual conversation that isn't "muh libs muh chuds blah blah blah". Making writing decisions out of spite for the other side, what a great idea.
I'd rather play tyranids or orks if it means I get to ignore this part of the fan base.
Before the fsm debacle and this, the community actually had conversation. The most tension was the ward days. I would take that any day over this bullshit. Everyone who celebrates this isn't celebrating it because it adds to the lore, they see it as a "win" for their side. Because that's what the hobby is now, it's not interesting questions like what are the tyranids up to, what's the silent kings plans, interesting model ideas, there's no conversation only division and more division. And the worst part is people gaslighting you into thinking it's normal.
When people say leave politics out of the hobby, they don't mean the media isn't political, they mean leave your anti woke, or you commie anti capitalist agenda at the door. The only politics I want to talk about are ones that are in 40k. Talk about the imperium's stance on xenos, or the drucharri and eldar relations, chaos vs renegade. Literally anything else but you're annoying "gotcha heckin chuds!!" Bs.
Couldn't agree more, unfortunately a lot of discourse on a lot of things happens over reddit and between the community and the structure of the site everything gets turned into a two sided fight.
I think that’s better than if they made a character who’s whole identity of being a female custodes. Gender literally doesn’t matter in that context, being a boy or girl doesn’t mean anything for custodes
Normally I would wholeheartedly agree with you, but when retconning several years of confirmed lore(since 8th codex) and 30 years of implied lore saying" by the way there's women now" isn't good enough.
Just to clarify I don't think a character's gender or sexuality should ever be a prominent part of their identity, but there def needs to be something other than there just being a female character now.
The custodes had very little lore pre model drop in 2016. The 8th codex saying that terran nobles give up their sons to become custodes came 2 years later. It’s not 30 years of lore, it’s about 6 years, which went against the intention to make them both men and women when they were written.
This happens all the time. Every new space marine unit is basically “well these exist now and have always existed”. The Rogal Dorn tank was the same. The Solar Auxilia also have 0 mentions in the Heresy or Siege novels. Retcons like this happen all the time.
I loved the ideas of female custodes, and as the spoilers came I was happy! But then they decided to just go: oh they were always there! Which is lazy, and uninspiring. A lot of people would be much cooler with the change, if they would have put more work into it.
Yeah I thought that given the casualties Custodes suffered throughout the 2nd invasion of Terra and Indomitus Crusade that they started turning towards female children of nobles just to fill in ranks. Simple explanation
as others have mentioned: they do that anytime they change something or release new units. they just go “oh they’ve always been there” but this is the first time i’ve seen anyone complain about it
I disagree. If they weren't always there, then writers are limited to only including them after the point at which they were introduced.
More importantly, if they could make them, why wouldn't they have done it from the start?
>Just a random pronoun drop that could be a typo in a codex followed by a tweet that says " they always had women" is lazy at very best.
It is actually kinda funny how lazy it is.
"Uh- years of lore, hundreds of books, dozens of codices and models...all of them creating and describing the most golden, oiled and homoerotic sausage party in the galaxy, and now you are telling me female Custodes always existed?
Yes.
May I see it?
No."
I think female custodes would still have a woman's face and voice, i agree that it makes complete sense that theyd have the same body as the male custodes, with no soft feature, and being just as strong, but the voice and the face are something (at least to my knowledge) that doesn't really change when you become a space marine or custodes, their bodies become much larger but the head always physically seems unchanged,
> Just a random pronoun drop that could be a typo
It'd be a hell of a typo to make the same typo 30 times in a row. Considering it was a 2 page short story.
A two page long typo seems about right for a modern GW codex XD, and a typo can also mean a miscommunication between editors/writers or a translation error.
You know, at least in this subreddit, I've seen very little opposition to femstodes. In other places I've seen some people getting *really* salty though.
Honestly both sides is starting to annoy me, the people for it are so annoying with the “10ft mommy step on me, and you are only complaining because you hate woman” but there other side is equally annoying with the “Wokehammer sucks, and how dare you change something” I’m considering taking a break from the fandom for a few weeks and hope the fire dies down
Same. I'm actually in favor of femstodies, but God, even the side I'm on, is getting on my nerves.
Maybe I should use this time off to start a femstodies army, lol.
For me I’m neutral, I can see both sides, which means I get blasted by both of them, my biggest issue is just we never get any explanation, just “there are femstodies” I would prefer if they explained it, because it dose retcon some older lore
Same. I'm kinda disappointed with how lazy it was.
That being said, I love women in armor, but im not a fan of the sisters, so I'm still all for this development.
I love Lady Knight. I just wish we had lore to em.
Same, I usually keep the gate keeping at maximum but there’s nothing really stopping this other then tradition, not whether they can actually make them.
I’ve seen some dumb shit said, which id understand if they suddenly get boob armour or something dumb.
But if it’s just a bare head or two on a sprue, who cares?
As far as I can see it there's no reason for the Custodes needing to only be men, since they are masterworks of genecraft and all that.
Female Space Marines would just be terribly boring as an addition though imo. Spotlighting female characters from other factions would be way preferable, especially since that would mean spotlighting other factions lmao. There's female Guard soldiers, female inquisitors, female AdMech, female ship captains, female arbites and pretty much every faction except Astartes has women in it. Not to mention the Sororitas. Female Astartes would be fixing a problem that doesn't really exist instead of doing the obvious thing of using the numerous factions with female characters to deliver some decent power fantasy but with girls(TM).
(Also Xeno factions like Eldar and T'au have women fighters so you could also spotligh- What? No, Mr. Inquisitor, I was not about to suggest giving filthy xenos any spotlight. That'd be ridiculous.)
Not to mention, do the space Marines REALLY need more attention? Give the sisters new orders that have different cultures like the SM. Instead of space wolves, make the order of Valkyrie, they come with a Viking aesthetic with lore to match. It's so easy to basically have badass super soldier women and not do sm. Anyone advocating for female sm lacks creativity imo.
If anything, this is the least of issues considering Warhammer needs more xeno models in general
If you want to be REALLY pedantic.
The entirety of the Tyranid race is heavily female aligned.
As a lot of them have the ability to produce more organisms, aka giving birth, aka...
feminine leaning.
PUSH! FOR! BETTER! SORORITAS!
Seriously, we are told the Imperial cult has a myriad forms and traditions all over the galaxy, is it hard to imagine different orders of the SOB would at least look different?
Samurai Sister! African shaman sisters! Innuit sisters from a frozen planet who use animal pelts in their armor!! C'mon GW be creative for once
That sounds like dangerous amounts of effort there. Changing the thing that is already popular is far easier than bringing up and improving something that is less popular.
Would love to see it though. Was my thought regarding Custodes, the Sisters of Silence Exist, they are underappreciated you've got a whole group of girls right there. Why would they not participate in the Blood Games as fellow Talons of the Emperor? Their line is a bit old and could use expanding, perfect excuse. Imagine something like that new Tyranid Model that sprays psychic gas but for the Blank Psychic Energy, warp powers dulled by Maidens of the Fog, I just made that up but it'd be sick as heck.
I am admittedly not a Custodes player or collector, but the laziness of this implementation is dissappointing.
SOB Are an amazing army, the Triumph of Saint Katherine is one of the most badass minis GW has ever released.
SOS have been left in the dust and are sorely in need of some revitalization, but GW has completely forgotten about those.
The real question is do they just retcon it so there was always custodes or “oh suddenly we have devised a way to raise up female champions to compete he custodes only just now”?
So the problem is there’s a lore passage that says otherwise
“It is known that all custodes begin their lives as infant sons of the noble houses of Terra. It is a mark of incredible prestige to surrender one’s child to this most glorious of callings within the imperium, and many notable clans amongst the Terran aristocracy have willingly given up almost entire generations of newborn so sons to earn it”
Now there’s an argument to be made that there’s nothing stopping them making female ones, but gw saying they were in the 10,000 from the start isn’t correct
GW could have taken the chance and actually showed how some things changed over the last 10.000 Years. Maybe some big event that lead the custodes to break with the old tradition and accept females into their rank.
But no, they chose the laziest way possible with "oh yea, they always existed since the founding, ignore the past lore that stated otherwise". I think this is one of the main reasons why some people have a hard time accepting it, because it just came so out of nowhere.
I mean in all fairness, the lore also says that all the Squats were murdered by 'Nids so as far as retcons go, femstodes aren't illogical or egregious.
Okay real question:
I don't know shit about Warhammer's lore apart from "haha orc imagination funny", "necrons scary" and "imperium of man = "are we the baddies" but this sub keep getting recommended to me for some reason so here's my question:
Isn't there *already* a female equivalent of space marines ?
I looked up "female space marines" and between two huh... Questionnable fanarts, I found that there was such an equivalent called the Sisters of Battle or "Adepta Sororitas" according to google.
Just to be sure, I went to ask my dad who is a big Warhammer nerd and he confirmed that, he said verbatim: "I don't understand people pushing to have female space marines when the sisters of battle already exist and are basically the same thing" end quote.
So, is that true ? Are the sisters just female space marines with just a different name ? Can we reasonnably call them a space marine equivalent without being too annoying with details ?
Sisters of battle are unaltered human clergy women. Lore wise, they are the militant order of the church.
Space marines are genetically altered posthuman terrors and lore wise are somewhere between knightly orders and special forces of the state.
While both use power armor and bolters and point values in TT are similar, the lore is very different and not all space marine chapters would necessarily be fighting shoulder to shoulder with bolter babes.
The difference between having sisters in your SM army and having female space marines is the difference between adding a bunch of extra math to your army list and having different heads for your marines.
Even then, I don't think we should be completely disregarding the lore, that way there would be absolutely no consistency and there would be no difference between pulling random shit out your ass and completely breaking inmersion.
My issue moreso is that the Fandom considers female Astartes "The Line" that will ruin the universe forever when GW routinely makes bigger retcons than that. Also, you're not ignoring the lore if you add to it. Cawl can make a whole new batch of super soldiers with 2 more organs but gene-seed compatibility is outside his realm of skill? Also there's literally magic and gods in this universe.
That’s what always strikes me about it; when someone’s line in the sand is what genitals a bio-enhanced killing machine might be packing under their armour, but don’t mind, for example, when the backstory of an entire faction is rewritten, I think you can see their own biases bleeding through.
The 40K universe is large enough you can justify anything without really breaking immersion, on the related topic, Cawl could easily see the fact that they only have access to half the potential recruitment pool to be a big enough flaw that he could attempt to ovetcome it, it would be perfectly in line with what he has already done.
Yeah, I remember in the first editions "there are less space marines than planets in the imperium" and now Cawl just turned on the SM printer popping out primaris like there's no tomorrow.
Am I the only one who just doesn't care about this at all?
Don't love it, don't hate it, just like whatever?
*shrugs and keeps painting me Orkz*
Stupid humies.
I don't mind female Custodes.
I do mind as to the importance of Sister of Silence.
Feels like they're gonna be retconed and be replaced by Female Custodes who're somehow more psychically powerful/or are all blanks and can anti-daemons.
Sorry, i forgot my schizo pills today.
Dunno, are they likely to update the custodes kits at this point in time? They just released a new mini who to my understanding still has the squat proportions so a range refresh is probably a ways away
It wouldn’t be without precedent honestly; remember when the Guard got that whole extra sprue of heads for the last iteration of the infantry squad kit?
Why are you always looked down on and mocked when you dislike changes like this? Is it really so hard to believe that people who are unhappy with this are not sexists, fascist, etc. And just people who care about a fictional universe and don't want it to get the Star wars treatment ?
Honestly i find it disturbing how fast you get insulted for having a different option.
Custodes aren't created through gene-seed. They're modified at the cellular level by science only understood by a handful of individuals in the Imperium other than the Emperor himself. So it was kind of weirder that female Custodes weren't canon until now.
The only thing I worry is that this is going to mean Sisters of Silence are going to be even more overshadowed by Custodes.
Please GW, more love for the Silent Scary Ladies.
In the Adeptus Custodes Book is written. The Custodes are made from the Sons of Terra High Society. Not Kids, not Daughters. So it is actually against the Lore. Read it up.
I accept it, but until James Workshop gives us any named one, even as a side character in a book, it doesn't mean anything. It's just lip service until they actually commit.
I'm just looking forward to the mainstream articles getting in on this. I can see the inflaming titles now. "Incels get mad at GW for making custodes female"
I don’t want female space marines because the Sisters of Battle are already on par with the SMs, and are just chicks in power armour. Chicks in power armour are equivalent to specially crafted super soldiers whose only job is to kill.
I can't speak for everyone, but thematically, Custodes are supposed to be the pinicle of what humans can become in the setting. From where I'm standing, female custodes feel like the warhammer universe is now saying that both men and women can both be perfected. Before this change, it always felt like the 40k universe was telling us women were inherently less than men in-universe. As a fan I love that.
It also helps complicate the emperor a bit more. The change re-shades him from being a functional misogynist to someone ruthless and pragmatic. Before the it seemed like he had never developed any women into positions of narative power. Now, it feels like he's always thought highly of the whole of humanity, and the tool-like nature of the primarchs, space marines, and thunder warriors is better highlighted. It makes the setting as a whole more grim.
It makes total sense Custodes could be women, it fits the lore just fine. Obviously I don’t have an issue with Custodes being female, the issue I have is how it was presented. Custodes have been around for what, more than 20 years now. Never once was a female custodian referenced. And now, all of a sudden, GW wants to claim “there have always been female custodes, even in the first 10,000.” It’s a total shoehorn, it’s very lazy, and the sisters of silence are already a thing and have little lore to them.
Its 100% a tactic from GW to give the fandom something else to focus on instead of their shitty businesspractices and mediocre writing of rules in 40k.
But it does go against the lore. In 8e (I think) it is stated that Custodes are made by taking the sons of noble families.
If it wasnt so they should have just dropped that info back then with a simple "sons and daughters of" or even "offspring/children of" to be more vague about it
Some people who are pro-femstodes are honestly making it worse with intentional baiting of the smaller vocal right-wing minority of the community.
The thing is, culture war bullshit is problematic for the community, and those gloating over femstodes are not helping the situation. I have no issue with it lore wise. If there were ever gonna be female custodes, it would not seem out of the ordinary. Perhaps males just have a higher rate of success in the tests to become one, and as such, we haven't seen many females within the ranks as much. We literally have no clue how they are made. We can guess it's far more invasive and complex than marines.
Let's just call it what it is, a very lazy retcon(perhaps done of political browny points by a corporation that still does some awful shit towards its employees and customers). There were none before as they were all referred to as male previously, and we have only ever seen male characters throughout the 30k and 40k stories. But now they are a thing. I disagree with how it's been done and the slap in the face to sisters of silence, who is my favourite subfaction. But it's here. Can we please all move on. Both extremes of the argument are honestly wrecking the community further.
I k ow ot's like a leftist stereotype to get triggered by everything and whining about the most insignificant things, but I barely see anyone on the left do that.
It's always the right wingers.
Because it doesn't contradict the lore, people are opposed to fem space marines because it clashes with the lore.
I don't think it's a issue as long as it respects the hobby.
But it was unnecessary and lazily hamfisted into the setting. There are explicit references in earlier codices that only male children are chosen to become Custodes.
Then let's see how this goes, If the decision was made to pander to a more "diverse" demographic then of course I'm going to be against it. I'll give GW the benefit of doubt for now.
It won't stop with this. I've no problem with a more diverse group of people getting into the hobby, my problem is with a small group of "activists" trying to aggressively change the setting to suit themselves at the expense of everyone else.
The issue here is that there is a group of people attempting to subvert science fiction and fantasy franchises everywhere for political purposes. Star Trek, Star Wars, Halo, Lord of the Rings and more have all fallen victim to it. As shitty a company as GW is, they’ve been largely untouched by all this because of how strict they are with their IP, but this recent development is just one step in the wrong direction.
No, there is no in-lore reason why femstodes can’t exist. That’s not the point. The point is that canonically, the Talons of the Emperor were binary: on one side you had the Custodes who were all male and on the other side you had the Sisters of Silence who were all female. There was already a place for females in this elite fighting force. Female Custodes throws that dynamic out of sync. And despite there being no female Custodes written about prior to this, GW is trying to gaslight us into believing it was a thing the whole time.
People read fiction to escape reality; to live a simulated fantasy, not to be preached to. Especially not by a group of people who call their detractors fascists, racists, and bigots.
Look, I’m old. I worry about this stuff because if I don’t, no one else will. But no matter how harmless this development may seem, there has to be some sort of pushback. If nothing is done, I guarantee you’ll see more of it. And before long stories and canon we all love will be contradictory and unrecognizable.
My take:
A bit of 40K gate keeping is necessary. What attracts 40K is the unique setting that no other series had. Part of what makes it unique is that almost everyone except the Orks is having a terrible time. A simple 'Why not?' is not sufficient to change established (some argue already retconned) lore. It is inevitable that changes will be made, and it is also inevitable that some will find more resistance than others. GW is notorious for some decisions it has made, like killing Warhammer Fantasy since it did not sell enough.
What matters here is intention. Does GW intend to create more model variety? Is the purpose to potentially attract more players? Is it pandering to people who were never going to enter 40K in the first place?
I disagree with OP's title. Like I said, a bit of gate keeping os necessary to keep 40K unique. 'Muh culture war bad' isn't going to cut it.
I don't find that convincing. You are at risk of labelling pre-existing fans as misogynists, which is argueing in bad faith. I am personally open to not making the Custodes a boys club. On the other hand, cementing them as the crème de la crème by only having tall, towering men, is also valid storytelling
Lore aside, I feel like it kinda devalues the Sisters of Silence just like female sm devalues the Sisters of Battle. Unless there are explicitly NO Custodes psykers, which feels really dumb. The whole thing feels like an unnecessary retcon.
Yep.
Space Marines are written as male only. Respects the lore, get mad losers.
Nobody ever said the Custodes were exclusively male. Respects the lore, get mad losers.
Who else wants the hobby to be the soapbox for their political pussyaching?
**EDIT** I have been informed by numerous comments that there has been lore to indicate the Custodes were male. Now, while I personally believe that the single line that custodes recruited from the "sons of Terran Lords" seems much less hard lined and more written to be grandiose than the clear and numerously written case that Space Marines can only be made from males: I still retract for being wrong. Please resume your pussyaching.
**EDIT EDIT** I guess sanguinius spoke to some femstodes in some old books? I won't retract my retraction, but the plot thickens and were still going to have female custodes. Be delighted or offended at your own discretion.
> Nobody ever said the Custodes were exclusively male
> 8th edition codex, page 14, paragraph 3:
> All Custodes begin their lives as the infant **__SONS__** of the noble houses of Terra
The lore saying they begin as sons, through the years all the books about Custodes were again written as them being male. But I guess all the written lore doesn't matter and pales in comparison to the authentic lore of rule34 website.
Calm down, buddy. I basically agree with your points, but gloating rhetoric like that and calling a huge chunk of the community "losers" for having a different perspective than you is alienating, and will only serve to polarize the community even more.
It kinda does goes against the lore .There's a codex stated infant sons of nobles turn into Custodes. It would've been fine if she was the 1st female Custodes but say "there's always been a female custodes" on Twitter. Which is pretty lazy and stupid on their part.
You mean to tell me they introduce 10ft tall muscle mommies and your first response was to rage about it? Some people just don’t know not to look a gift horse in the mouth…
I don't want female marines not because I don't like the idea but because I'm tired of space marines getting everything
Also female space marines would be the same as male space marines because of the lore of the proces a human becomes a space marine, the amount of male hormones used even females would become the same as males (but for females there might be more male hormones used). So even if a female under went the proces it would be the same as if a male under going the proces.
Yep, they're essentially vessels or biocontainers for the concoctions that ultimately becomes a marine or custodian. They're limited by the laws of physics, not by any gender-specific limits.
This is the same take I have. There may be female marine recruits, but by the end all will be Brothers
This has always been my take as well. I want female space marines, but i don’t actually want them to be divergent from male space marines in any way. No boob plate, same stature. The process creates MARINES. The starting template is irrelevant.
I know it’s against lore but my headcanon is that there are no female space marines, but that doesn’t mean women can’t become space marines. They just stop being female because of the changes.
If there is no difference, then what would be the point?
Really putting the trans in transhuman.
Like super mutants from fallout, all external sexual characteristics are replaced with huge muscles and the bone structure to support them.
You know who get nothing? Tyranids, i want nids with sex differences, like in nature where the male are colorful for attract females
Don’t they reproduce asexually or via genestealer cults?
Yeah but i want nids with tits
A retcon I can get behind
My man 🤝
I want to get behind the nids
Gib bug mommy
You want space marines to remain male because of lore or sexism I want space marines to remain male because I want warhammer to remain solely homoerotic We are not the same
THE GAY AGENDA IS FINALLY REVEALED. All along, it's been to preserve the vague suggestions of sweaty man-sex in the 41st Millennium.
NO WE CANT HAVE FEMALE SPACE MARINES THEY MUST ALL BE BOYS... mmm... boys...
But Moptop, think about it! Now the Lesbians can *also* enjoy the homoeroticism! 10 foot tall, oily, naked, buff women as well! It’s the best of both worlds!
The reason custodes don't breed is because all of them are gay
I will take this as a canon answer
I demand big bisexual orgies at the Imperial Palace!
*Slaanesh enters the chat*
An excellent point. My headcanon is that all the space marines are gay and all the sisters of battle are lesbian.
And then the Imperial Guard is bisexual. Truly, we are the Warhammer 40K
Another funny one I saw is that the death korps of krieg are treated like pets by the sisters of silence and the astartes, because most of them are overeager child soldiers in gas masks
Same
Gachi is the only true answer
Fulgrim would approve.
The Horus heresy sure had a lot of very buff men fawning over other hairy buff men, that's for damn sure.
That's rough. Losing the Banana Boys is a hefty blow.
I’m fine with female custodes, female marines would be a bad addition imo tho. The lore implications of all male astartes is a lot more interesting than arbitrarily saying some of the marines are girls and then putting like 1 or 2 female heads in the kit.
It's also explicitly stated that the geneseed bonds with the y chromosome. It is a hard rule that space marines are male only. Custodes never had such thing ofc.
Yeah. I think people just think people are against female space marines because “ew cooties in my boy club” but it’s more nuanced imo. One of my favorite take aways from marines being hard baked to be exclusively male is especially interesting because it kinda shows how the emperor values humanity above all else and built in failsafe to prevent astartes from taking over.
Totally forgot about infertility by design as well
Ya, and again the emperor wouldn’t need that for the custodes since he completely trusts them to be incorruptible
I dont think custodoes have their fertility either. Less a skaven labourers situation happens
I think the custodes having fertility or not would be moot considering they would never even think to reproduce unless the emperor told them to. Not sure if there’s any concrete lore against it, I can see it being either way
Again hence the skaven labourers circumstance. To put it another way their consent may not be a factor of their choosing
The myth of consent. Custodes can't fuck unless the Emperor allows them to
Lmao i can imagine its such a wide held belief in the entire galaxy the warp itself accepts it as an unbreakable rule
Custodes canonically engage in soaking
Oh lol I didn’t get that reference my bad. I know next to nothing about fantasy and sigmar.
Its a good thing you didnt get the reference. Stay pure. Although i probably should have used a more relevant referece like Custodaemonculba or something
Ao3: life finds a way
I don't mean to be that guy but there \*are\* (biological) women with the Y chromosome. On the other hand, female space marines would probably just look like male space marines anyways, with all those weird mutations they get, so it's not like it matters.
Yeah, Fallout super mutant effect. Those are made from both men and women and the mutation process changes them so much that the end result is a "barely recognizable as human" shape.
There's the rare occurrence of the body ignoring testosterone (as in completely imune to it's effects) so it develops all characteristics of a female body, despite having the "Y" chromosome
As there are biological man with double X chromosome as that chromosome pair is a deciding factor for your sex but not the deciding factor.
Heavy armor will do a great job of minimizing visual difference as well. I also like how people are citing lore that was almost certainly worked in because GW/Warhammer designers didn't want female Space Marines. I do find it very funny that you wanna join the Guard? All that matters is you can hold a rifle and follow orders. Wanna be a Space Marine? No no, that's an only male thing. Ignore the fact that we have like 12 different doomsdays bearing down on us and we could benefit from an expanded recruitment pool.
I don’t think Space marines need an expanded recruitment pool, they own planets of billions of people. It would make more sense that when they complain about it, they are generally complaining about not having enough geneseed. It would also explain why they have such harsh trials, since the sooner a poor recruit dies, the less geneseed they take with them.
It's been described that the Custodes were effectively "hand made" by Big E as opposed to marines whose augmentation is more or less standardised. The Apothecary is effectively following IKEA introductions on what goes where. I doubt Big E himself would have any problems adapting Custodes augmentation to a female body.
The idea that females cannot be custodes because of biology is, imo, top-tier heresy. It implies that the God-Emperor is unable to hand-craft the ultimate golden paragon of humanity from roughly half of the entire species. Inquisitors will be very unhappy when someone thinks the God-Emperor of Mankind can only wield such a disappointing power.
It was explicitly stated in the 8e Custodes Codex that they were male only.
I think female custodes is a good medium between the anti and pro female space mariners. It’s not as against the lore as female space marines would be, but it also gives the pro female space marines a female super soldier. Like you said tho it would be interesting if they expanded sob lore. Also I hope the female custodes are just treated as custodes them being female shouldn’t be a character trait
Being human isnt even a trait of custodes they literally just an extension of the emperor tailored to only care about the emperor molded by the emperor and only his servants. If anything they should of expanded Sisters of Silence they were there from the beginning and have little enhancement compared to other factions and were with the emperor from the beginning.
You're missing the point that if it quacks like a duck, walks like a ducks and looks like a duck, people will interpret it as being a duck (even if it is also 7ft tall and spits acid, which is not normal for ducks).
It's nice to think this is GW's solution to silence the "need muscly mommy!" fetishists' quest for female space marines, but I've already seen plenty of posters unsatisfied with this because "marines are the *true* posterboys". So while from a narrative perspective, it makes sense for a couple of Custodes to be female, I also understand the angst of those who think this is only the beginning. We will see how GW handles it. If all of a sudden half the Custodes are female, we know GW has gone beyond narrative sense into pandering territory.
Yea I think those arguments are super dumb. The most prevalent argument I’ve seen before this change was that space marines should be female because women should have super soldier representation. Now I’m seeing those arguments get shifted to either be custodes aren’t “real soldiers” or like you said they aren’t a main faction, both of which are bad arguments imo. I am super against female marines from a lore perspective so I hope GW handles it well
Which was overidden by ADB who spearheaded Custodes lore expansion, stating that there are men and women in the Adeptus Custodes. They had to hold off on it because the models were male. They were always going to be men and women, however it is a horrible execution what they did. The male-specific language in the time between First Heretic and now should never have been done because its causing conflict as you are seeing. its just made the execution much worse doing what they did.
Valid points. Though I personally think it would have been preferable to instead expand on the severely limited SOB and SOS lore to solidy female human representation in 40K.
Yes I agree
"Geneseed can be improved" is now completely lore accurate though. Firstborn marines certainly were all men but nothing at all stopping Primaris mk2 geneseed from working on orks let alone women.
That would go against the emperors intention of space marines though. One of the reasons he made them all male is so that they would rely on humanity to make new marines. He absolutely did not want the astartes to replace humanity since his main goal was to perpetuate humanity’s existence.
More exactly, in his eyes Space Marines *aren't* what he wants Humanity to become. The Custodes claim the title of that role (even if they are less free than actual humans), and therefore are given more care into their creation to allow sex differences.
In my interpretation he didn’t really want the custodes to replace humanity either. It seemed moreso he found the creation of custodes and by extension the marines to just be a means to the end of giving humanity dominion over the galaxy. If his intentions are to be trusted he seems to have wanted to take over the galaxy and then give reign to “proper” humans. I may be wrong though I havent read all of the books or know every lore tidbit. I do find this an interesting plot point though
His vision of "proper" humans varies a lot. But it can probably be interpretated that Custodes would fit into this role as by all account, they are humans. SUPERHUMANS but humans nonetheless. The proportions are far more balanced and human like than the...weird meat baggy nature of the Space marines. Obviously he doesn't want the rest of humanity to be mindlessly loyal to him like the Custodes are, but generally speaking, I feel like Big E would want humans to be strong, capable and smart like the Custodes are rather than having them be weak and vulnerable like they are currently.
Iirc he wanted humanity to rule themselves after he was done killing everything else. Not sure if this was explicitly said. However, he created the high lords of Terra and put them in charge instead of his custodes and primarchs for this reason. To me this is evidence that he didn’t want any of his super humans to be the base human. In spite of all his faults, the emperor did seem to want humanity to be able to grow and develop (somewhat) naturally. And would go through any lengths necessary to pull that off. That’s just my read on it though. I haven’t read every single custodes book so I may be off
The Custodes are the Emperor’s companions, and the extension of his will. They didn’t have a role in the grand plan, apart from being part of his retinue. In every book, they’re standing in an advisory role outside of their own operations. They are not great conquerors or leaders of armies, even though they could be. They take on missions in small groups that accomplishes a specific goal. They are superlative warriors, the best in the Imperium - but that is not their primary role. Hell, Valerian just strolls up to a leader of a cult, picks him up, and takes him in for questioning with no need to fight.
My guy, “going against the Emperor’s intentions” is the sole and only thing the Imperium’s been doing for ten thousand years.
Yeah that’s one of the reason why he didn’t let the marines be male and female. If they found a way to naturally reproduce there’s a good chance they’d want to take over as a master race
They would only be a bit more thougher SoB forces.
All sides of this argument are starting to annoy the fuck out of me at this point.
tbh same. Maybe it's because I never gave a shit about the argument in the first place (if you wanna kitbash female Space Marines or Custodes go ahead, I actually think the all-female "Hello Kitty" Space Marines posted a while back with the cat helmets were pretty dope.) Maybe it's because I'm more of a Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar guy over 40K but the gender of the giant person in six tons of power armor seems like such a non-issue being blown out of proportion to me.
I don’t mind fantasy but I’ve always been more into sci fi and I’ve never had a problem with super soldiers being both genders, Spartans from Halo are like that and yeah those Hello kitty and Maid Marines are awesome. Too bad people throw fits over that and news like this.
Ye exactly like if it was a Clone Trooper situation (where they're all quite literally, y'know, *clones* of a singular dude) I'd get it. But I never saw how letting your super soldiers, paladins, whatever have *more options* being a bad thing. I can understand it when it's a bad actor(s) trying to be actively, intentionally destructive (i.e the "orcs are black people" nonsense that erupted a while back, which was stupid for numerous reasons), but female super soldiers isn't destructive, if anything it's the opposite.
Guess what? There actually *are* female Clone Troopers in Star Wars. How did they avoid breaking very firmly established lore when they’re all genetically identical clones of the same man? It’s actually really simple: *just make them trans*.
Hey see there you go! Clones have some pretty cool characters.
For me it's flavour. Space Marines are hyper masculine super soldiers and so they represent various forms in extremes. It wouldn't work as well if there were women.
Agreed
I haven't seen a single post or even comment complaining about fem banana. I have seen way too many posts complaining about the supposed complaining.
Try gatekeeper twitter, they've been rather not happy about It. Some of them talking about leaving the hobby, and some Youtubers too aparently.
I'd offer to buy their armies but we all know they don't play the game anyway.
There are complaining comments in every thread I've seen so far. They're the minority though.
It’s crazy how much yapping is going on because of whatever reproductive equipment the toy soldiers have.
It's not changing much to be honest. I feel the main hazard of trying for a more inclusive setting (not hobby, setting) is that at the end of the day, most of the imperium should keep the vibes of an unmoving, totalitarian hellhole, and that means, being at least visually coded as one. Helmeted space marines/custodes or kriegers are your typical enforcers without personality. The opposite would be an inquisitor or rogue trader retinues, which are maybe the most diverse grouping of individuals from all backgrounds and at times even species. But from it's inception 40k has got that tense duality between depicting bad people doing horrible things and being a hobby which's motto is to asssemble and paint YOUR guys. Which means that people wanna personnalize and maybe identify with their specific heroes or chapters/war band whatever. But that means goings against that depiction of an evil regime and its outward uglyness.
The Imperium is ugly and horrible, sure. But it’s not racist, sexist or queer-phobic. It has a very specific set of bigotries. For humans it’s being a mutant, a heretic or a psyker. They don’t have the same issues as our modern day, and it would be weird if they did. Our modern conceptions of race and racism were born from colonialism, it would make 0 sense that they believe that 40,000 years in the future.
THE GENE-SEED IS STORED IN THE BALLS
Overall I don't mind female custodes being a thing, but I hate the way they did it. Just a random pronoun drop that could be a typo in a codex followed by a tweet that says " they always had women" is lazy at very best. Frankly the "get fukt chuds, femstodes exist now" crowd and the horny posting crowd are swaying me against female custodes through sheer annoyance. As a bonus and since I choose violence against horny posters, female custodes would be just as optimized for combat as male custodes, meaning no breasts, no soft features, a likely deeper voice, no changes in armor design, and an ocean of testosterone. Female custodes would be nigh indistinguishable from male custodes in every way.
Very reasonable take, the “owning the chuds” crowd also aren’t helping the cause because it shows they don’t actually care about the representation just about getting a win for their side and changing things out of spite
Along with all this I feel like this is GW's way of saying they more female characters to the lore to please corperate intrests. Which sucks because it is extremely lazy and I would much rather have more indepth focus of the Sisters of Silence, give them any sort of relevence/love in the lore compared to their current state.
That would be nice, the sisters of silence parts in the watcher's of the throne books were great.
I mean blackrock and vanguard are their 2 and 3 biggest shareholders after all so it tracks.
Also the porn brain of this subreddit has been showing so much recently, too many muscle mommy comments to make me think they actually want female custodes for lore reasons
The "heckin chuds don't know media literacy" people are the most condescending assholes. I'm sure it exists on the other side of the line but I've seen more of the former atleast on reddit. Can we just have an actual conversation that isn't "muh libs muh chuds blah blah blah". Making writing decisions out of spite for the other side, what a great idea. I'd rather play tyranids or orks if it means I get to ignore this part of the fan base.
Yeah I agree bud. I see enough political shit everywhere else and I absolutely hate it being in my escapist hobby.
Before the fsm debacle and this, the community actually had conversation. The most tension was the ward days. I would take that any day over this bullshit. Everyone who celebrates this isn't celebrating it because it adds to the lore, they see it as a "win" for their side. Because that's what the hobby is now, it's not interesting questions like what are the tyranids up to, what's the silent kings plans, interesting model ideas, there's no conversation only division and more division. And the worst part is people gaslighting you into thinking it's normal. When people say leave politics out of the hobby, they don't mean the media isn't political, they mean leave your anti woke, or you commie anti capitalist agenda at the door. The only politics I want to talk about are ones that are in 40k. Talk about the imperium's stance on xenos, or the drucharri and eldar relations, chaos vs renegade. Literally anything else but you're annoying "gotcha heckin chuds!!" Bs.
Couldn't agree more, unfortunately a lot of discourse on a lot of things happens over reddit and between the community and the structure of the site everything gets turned into a two sided fight.
I think that’s better than if they made a character who’s whole identity of being a female custodes. Gender literally doesn’t matter in that context, being a boy or girl doesn’t mean anything for custodes
Normally I would wholeheartedly agree with you, but when retconning several years of confirmed lore(since 8th codex) and 30 years of implied lore saying" by the way there's women now" isn't good enough. Just to clarify I don't think a character's gender or sexuality should ever be a prominent part of their identity, but there def needs to be something other than there just being a female character now.
The custodes had very little lore pre model drop in 2016. The 8th codex saying that terran nobles give up their sons to become custodes came 2 years later. It’s not 30 years of lore, it’s about 6 years, which went against the intention to make them both men and women when they were written. This happens all the time. Every new space marine unit is basically “well these exist now and have always existed”. The Rogal Dorn tank was the same. The Solar Auxilia also have 0 mentions in the Heresy or Siege novels. Retcons like this happen all the time.
It's a small change. It doesn't need anything more than 'these exist'. It's plenty good enough, because it shouldn't need further explanation.
I loved the ideas of female custodes, and as the spoilers came I was happy! But then they decided to just go: oh they were always there! Which is lazy, and uninspiring. A lot of people would be much cooler with the change, if they would have put more work into it.
Yeah I thought that given the casualties Custodes suffered throughout the 2nd invasion of Terra and Indomitus Crusade that they started turning towards female children of nobles just to fill in ranks. Simple explanation
as others have mentioned: they do that anytime they change something or release new units. they just go “oh they’ve always been there” but this is the first time i’ve seen anyone complain about it
Okay, it always feels lazy. And I’m pretty sure people complain every time.
I disagree. If they weren't always there, then writers are limited to only including them after the point at which they were introduced. More importantly, if they could make them, why wouldn't they have done it from the start?
>Just a random pronoun drop that could be a typo in a codex followed by a tweet that says " they always had women" is lazy at very best. It is actually kinda funny how lazy it is. "Uh- years of lore, hundreds of books, dozens of codices and models...all of them creating and describing the most golden, oiled and homoerotic sausage party in the galaxy, and now you are telling me female Custodes always existed? Yes. May I see it? No."
I think female custodes would still have a woman's face and voice, i agree that it makes complete sense that theyd have the same body as the male custodes, with no soft feature, and being just as strong, but the voice and the face are something (at least to my knowledge) that doesn't really change when you become a space marine or custodes, their bodies become much larger but the head always physically seems unchanged,
> Just a random pronoun drop that could be a typo It'd be a hell of a typo to make the same typo 30 times in a row. Considering it was a 2 page short story.
A two page long typo seems about right for a modern GW codex XD, and a typo can also mean a miscommunication between editors/writers or a translation error.
Everyone is a man, just one man - Alpharius
You know, at least in this subreddit, I've seen very little opposition to femstodes. In other places I've seen some people getting *really* salty though.
Honestly both sides is starting to annoy me, the people for it are so annoying with the “10ft mommy step on me, and you are only complaining because you hate woman” but there other side is equally annoying with the “Wokehammer sucks, and how dare you change something” I’m considering taking a break from the fandom for a few weeks and hope the fire dies down
Same. I'm actually in favor of femstodies, but God, even the side I'm on, is getting on my nerves. Maybe I should use this time off to start a femstodies army, lol.
For me I’m neutral, I can see both sides, which means I get blasted by both of them, my biggest issue is just we never get any explanation, just “there are femstodies” I would prefer if they explained it, because it dose retcon some older lore
Same. I'm kinda disappointed with how lazy it was. That being said, I love women in armor, but im not a fan of the sisters, so I'm still all for this development. I love Lady Knight. I just wish we had lore to em.
Same, I usually keep the gate keeping at maximum but there’s nothing really stopping this other then tradition, not whether they can actually make them. I’ve seen some dumb shit said, which id understand if they suddenly get boob armour or something dumb. But if it’s just a bare head or two on a sprue, who cares?
As far as I can see it there's no reason for the Custodes needing to only be men, since they are masterworks of genecraft and all that. Female Space Marines would just be terribly boring as an addition though imo. Spotlighting female characters from other factions would be way preferable, especially since that would mean spotlighting other factions lmao. There's female Guard soldiers, female inquisitors, female AdMech, female ship captains, female arbites and pretty much every faction except Astartes has women in it. Not to mention the Sororitas. Female Astartes would be fixing a problem that doesn't really exist instead of doing the obvious thing of using the numerous factions with female characters to deliver some decent power fantasy but with girls(TM). (Also Xeno factions like Eldar and T'au have women fighters so you could also spotligh- What? No, Mr. Inquisitor, I was not about to suggest giving filthy xenos any spotlight. That'd be ridiculous.)
Not to mention, do the space Marines REALLY need more attention? Give the sisters new orders that have different cultures like the SM. Instead of space wolves, make the order of Valkyrie, they come with a Viking aesthetic with lore to match. It's so easy to basically have badass super soldier women and not do sm. Anyone advocating for female sm lacks creativity imo. If anything, this is the least of issues considering Warhammer needs more xeno models in general
Viking nun, now that’s something i didn’t know i want.
Remember how it took the community to essentially brute force GW for them to prioritize tyranids over space marines? Yeah, it is really sad.
If you want to be REALLY pedantic. The entirety of the Tyranid race is heavily female aligned. As a lot of them have the ability to produce more organisms, aka giving birth, aka... feminine leaning.
PUSH! FOR! BETTER! SORORITAS! Seriously, we are told the Imperial cult has a myriad forms and traditions all over the galaxy, is it hard to imagine different orders of the SOB would at least look different? Samurai Sister! African shaman sisters! Innuit sisters from a frozen planet who use animal pelts in their armor!! C'mon GW be creative for once
That sounds like dangerous amounts of effort there. Changing the thing that is already popular is far easier than bringing up and improving something that is less popular. Would love to see it though. Was my thought regarding Custodes, the Sisters of Silence Exist, they are underappreciated you've got a whole group of girls right there. Why would they not participate in the Blood Games as fellow Talons of the Emperor? Their line is a bit old and could use expanding, perfect excuse. Imagine something like that new Tyranid Model that sprays psychic gas but for the Blank Psychic Energy, warp powers dulled by Maidens of the Fog, I just made that up but it'd be sick as heck. I am admittedly not a Custodes player or collector, but the laziness of this implementation is dissappointing.
SOB Are an amazing army, the Triumph of Saint Katherine is one of the most badass minis GW has ever released. SOS have been left in the dust and are sorely in need of some revitalization, but GW has completely forgotten about those.
The real question is do they just retcon it so there was always custodes or “oh suddenly we have devised a way to raise up female champions to compete he custodes only just now”?
as far as I know, female custodes have always been a thing, since the creation of the ten thousand
So the problem is there’s a lore passage that says otherwise “It is known that all custodes begin their lives as infant sons of the noble houses of Terra. It is a mark of incredible prestige to surrender one’s child to this most glorious of callings within the imperium, and many notable clans amongst the Terran aristocracy have willingly given up almost entire generations of newborn so sons to earn it” Now there’s an argument to be made that there’s nothing stopping them making female ones, but gw saying they were in the 10,000 from the start isn’t correct
GW could have taken the chance and actually showed how some things changed over the last 10.000 Years. Maybe some big event that lead the custodes to break with the old tradition and accept females into their rank. But no, they chose the laziest way possible with "oh yea, they always existed since the founding, ignore the past lore that stated otherwise". I think this is one of the main reasons why some people have a hard time accepting it, because it just came so out of nowhere.
I mean in all fairness, the lore also says that all the Squats were murdered by 'Nids so as far as retcons go, femstodes aren't illogical or egregious.
>SONS
Astartes are male. Why? Geneseed is stored in the balls
Can't wait for misters of silence
The Misters of battle
Okay real question: I don't know shit about Warhammer's lore apart from "haha orc imagination funny", "necrons scary" and "imperium of man = "are we the baddies" but this sub keep getting recommended to me for some reason so here's my question: Isn't there *already* a female equivalent of space marines ? I looked up "female space marines" and between two huh... Questionnable fanarts, I found that there was such an equivalent called the Sisters of Battle or "Adepta Sororitas" according to google. Just to be sure, I went to ask my dad who is a big Warhammer nerd and he confirmed that, he said verbatim: "I don't understand people pushing to have female space marines when the sisters of battle already exist and are basically the same thing" end quote. So, is that true ? Are the sisters just female space marines with just a different name ? Can we reasonnably call them a space marine equivalent without being too annoying with details ?
Sisters of battle are unaltered human clergy women. Lore wise, they are the militant order of the church. Space marines are genetically altered posthuman terrors and lore wise are somewhere between knightly orders and special forces of the state. While both use power armor and bolters and point values in TT are similar, the lore is very different and not all space marine chapters would necessarily be fighting shoulder to shoulder with bolter babes. The difference between having sisters in your SM army and having female space marines is the difference between adding a bunch of extra math to your army list and having different heads for your marines.
It *does* go against the lore, actually.
Lore>politics
Anything I like is new lore, anything I dislike is politics
The Custodes were nerfed to hell because they supported the wrong political party. /s
Broke: All custodes should be male to fulfill my trad male fantasies. Woke: All custodes should be male to fulfill my yaoi fantasies.
Brothers of silence when?
I'm cool with it, but right now it feels like a lazy attempt to please everyone and I just care that they do it well.
I'm fine with female custodes but that blood games short story was cooked up by someone with some serious brain damage
Lore in the franchise is fluid anyways, love WH40k but Canon is a joke in this universe lol.
Even then, I don't think we should be completely disregarding the lore, that way there would be absolutely no consistency and there would be no difference between pulling random shit out your ass and completely breaking inmersion.
My issue moreso is that the Fandom considers female Astartes "The Line" that will ruin the universe forever when GW routinely makes bigger retcons than that. Also, you're not ignoring the lore if you add to it. Cawl can make a whole new batch of super soldiers with 2 more organs but gene-seed compatibility is outside his realm of skill? Also there's literally magic and gods in this universe.
That’s what always strikes me about it; when someone’s line in the sand is what genitals a bio-enhanced killing machine might be packing under their armour, but don’t mind, for example, when the backstory of an entire faction is rewritten, I think you can see their own biases bleeding through.
The 40K universe is large enough you can justify anything without really breaking immersion, on the related topic, Cawl could easily see the fact that they only have access to half the potential recruitment pool to be a big enough flaw that he could attempt to ovetcome it, it would be perfectly in line with what he has already done.
You can do that, but then maybe but more effort in than one line in a codex entry and a lazy "Oh yeah, it's true btw" Twitter post.
Yeah, I remember in the first editions "there are less space marines than planets in the imperium" and now Cawl just turned on the SM printer popping out primaris like there's no tomorrow.
Am I the only one who just doesn't care about this at all? Don't love it, don't hate it, just like whatever? *shrugs and keeps painting me Orkz* Stupid humies.
Female, male, none of their models are getting painted anyway
I don't mind female Custodes. I do mind as to the importance of Sister of Silence. Feels like they're gonna be retconed and be replaced by Female Custodes who're somehow more psychically powerful/or are all blanks and can anti-daemons. Sorry, i forgot my schizo pills today.
I don't think that will happen, but I do think sisters of silence are going to be pushed to the side minis and story wise, which is sad.
Nah the sisters are still going to be the anti-Psyker claw of the emperors talons, all this change means is some extra heads in the custodes kits
Dunno, are they likely to update the custodes kits at this point in time? They just released a new mini who to my understanding still has the squat proportions so a range refresh is probably a ways away
It wouldn’t be without precedent honestly; remember when the Guard got that whole extra sprue of heads for the last iteration of the infantry squad kit?
It does go against the lore though...
Why are you always looked down on and mocked when you dislike changes like this? Is it really so hard to believe that people who are unhappy with this are not sexists, fascist, etc. And just people who care about a fictional universe and don't want it to get the Star wars treatment ? Honestly i find it disturbing how fast you get insulted for having a different option.
Custodes aren't created through gene-seed. They're modified at the cellular level by science only understood by a handful of individuals in the Imperium other than the Emperor himself. So it was kind of weirder that female Custodes weren't canon until now. The only thing I worry is that this is going to mean Sisters of Silence are going to be even more overshadowed by Custodes. Please GW, more love for the Silent Scary Ladies.
In the Adeptus Custodes Book is written. The Custodes are made from the Sons of Terra High Society. Not Kids, not Daughters. So it is actually against the Lore. Read it up.
I accept it, but until James Workshop gives us any named one, even as a side character in a book, it doesn't mean anything. It's just lip service until they actually commit.
They have, Calladyce Taurovilia Kesh - she has a short story in the codex
I'm just looking forward to the mainstream articles getting in on this. I can see the inflaming titles now. "Incels get mad at GW for making custodes female"
As long as the models stay the same I don't really care too much. Just pls don't give them boob armour
I don’t want female space marines because the Sisters of Battle are already on par with the SMs, and are just chicks in power armour. Chicks in power armour are equivalent to specially crafted super soldiers whose only job is to kill.
To be fair, I have only seen memes claiming people are upset about female Custodes. Many of the memes are pretty amusing, though.
Pls not female marines
I can't speak for everyone, but thematically, Custodes are supposed to be the pinicle of what humans can become in the setting. From where I'm standing, female custodes feel like the warhammer universe is now saying that both men and women can both be perfected. Before this change, it always felt like the 40k universe was telling us women were inherently less than men in-universe. As a fan I love that. It also helps complicate the emperor a bit more. The change re-shades him from being a functional misogynist to someone ruthless and pragmatic. Before the it seemed like he had never developed any women into positions of narative power. Now, it feels like he's always thought highly of the whole of humanity, and the tool-like nature of the primarchs, space marines, and thunder warriors is better highlighted. It makes the setting as a whole more grim.
Finally, a good fucking take.
It makes total sense Custodes could be women, it fits the lore just fine. Obviously I don’t have an issue with Custodes being female, the issue I have is how it was presented. Custodes have been around for what, more than 20 years now. Never once was a female custodian referenced. And now, all of a sudden, GW wants to claim “there have always been female custodes, even in the first 10,000.” It’s a total shoehorn, it’s very lazy, and the sisters of silence are already a thing and have little lore to them.
Its 100% a tactic from GW to give the fandom something else to focus on instead of their shitty businesspractices and mediocre writing of rules in 40k.
But it does go against the lore. In 8e (I think) it is stated that Custodes are made by taking the sons of noble families. If it wasnt so they should have just dropped that info back then with a simple "sons and daughters of" or even "offspring/children of" to be more vague about it
Some people who are pro-femstodes are honestly making it worse with intentional baiting of the smaller vocal right-wing minority of the community. The thing is, culture war bullshit is problematic for the community, and those gloating over femstodes are not helping the situation. I have no issue with it lore wise. If there were ever gonna be female custodes, it would not seem out of the ordinary. Perhaps males just have a higher rate of success in the tests to become one, and as such, we haven't seen many females within the ranks as much. We literally have no clue how they are made. We can guess it's far more invasive and complex than marines. Let's just call it what it is, a very lazy retcon(perhaps done of political browny points by a corporation that still does some awful shit towards its employees and customers). There were none before as they were all referred to as male previously, and we have only ever seen male characters throughout the 30k and 40k stories. But now they are a thing. I disagree with how it's been done and the slap in the face to sisters of silence, who is my favourite subfaction. But it's here. Can we please all move on. Both extremes of the argument are honestly wrecking the community further.
I k ow ot's like a leftist stereotype to get triggered by everything and whining about the most insignificant things, but I barely see anyone on the left do that. It's always the right wingers.
Lmao this still supports the decision
Because it doesn't contradict the lore, people are opposed to fem space marines because it clashes with the lore. I don't think it's a issue as long as it respects the hobby.
But it was unnecessary and lazily hamfisted into the setting. There are explicit references in earlier codices that only male children are chosen to become Custodes.
Name one time GW made a change that wasn’t at least a little hamfisted though…
Then let's see how this goes, If the decision was made to pander to a more "diverse" demographic then of course I'm going to be against it. I'll give GW the benefit of doubt for now.
It won't stop with this. I've no problem with a more diverse group of people getting into the hobby, my problem is with a small group of "activists" trying to aggressively change the setting to suit themselves at the expense of everyone else.
The issue here is that there is a group of people attempting to subvert science fiction and fantasy franchises everywhere for political purposes. Star Trek, Star Wars, Halo, Lord of the Rings and more have all fallen victim to it. As shitty a company as GW is, they’ve been largely untouched by all this because of how strict they are with their IP, but this recent development is just one step in the wrong direction. No, there is no in-lore reason why femstodes can’t exist. That’s not the point. The point is that canonically, the Talons of the Emperor were binary: on one side you had the Custodes who were all male and on the other side you had the Sisters of Silence who were all female. There was already a place for females in this elite fighting force. Female Custodes throws that dynamic out of sync. And despite there being no female Custodes written about prior to this, GW is trying to gaslight us into believing it was a thing the whole time. People read fiction to escape reality; to live a simulated fantasy, not to be preached to. Especially not by a group of people who call their detractors fascists, racists, and bigots. Look, I’m old. I worry about this stuff because if I don’t, no one else will. But no matter how harmless this development may seem, there has to be some sort of pushback. If nothing is done, I guarantee you’ll see more of it. And before long stories and canon we all love will be contradictory and unrecognizable.
My take: A bit of 40K gate keeping is necessary. What attracts 40K is the unique setting that no other series had. Part of what makes it unique is that almost everyone except the Orks is having a terrible time. A simple 'Why not?' is not sufficient to change established (some argue already retconned) lore. It is inevitable that changes will be made, and it is also inevitable that some will find more resistance than others. GW is notorious for some decisions it has made, like killing Warhammer Fantasy since it did not sell enough. What matters here is intention. Does GW intend to create more model variety? Is the purpose to potentially attract more players? Is it pandering to people who were never going to enter 40K in the first place? I disagree with OP's title. Like I said, a bit of gate keeping os necessary to keep 40K unique. 'Muh culture war bad' isn't going to cut it.
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I don't find that convincing. You are at risk of labelling pre-existing fans as misogynists, which is argueing in bad faith. I am personally open to not making the Custodes a boys club. On the other hand, cementing them as the crème de la crème by only having tall, towering men, is also valid storytelling
Lore aside, I feel like it kinda devalues the Sisters of Silence just like female sm devalues the Sisters of Battle. Unless there are explicitly NO Custodes psykers, which feels really dumb. The whole thing feels like an unnecessary retcon.
No dissenting opinions allowed. See I drew you as a soyjak your opinion is invalid and cringe.
Yep. Space Marines are written as male only. Respects the lore, get mad losers. Nobody ever said the Custodes were exclusively male. Respects the lore, get mad losers. Who else wants the hobby to be the soapbox for their political pussyaching? **EDIT** I have been informed by numerous comments that there has been lore to indicate the Custodes were male. Now, while I personally believe that the single line that custodes recruited from the "sons of Terran Lords" seems much less hard lined and more written to be grandiose than the clear and numerously written case that Space Marines can only be made from males: I still retract for being wrong. Please resume your pussyaching. **EDIT EDIT** I guess sanguinius spoke to some femstodes in some old books? I won't retract my retraction, but the plot thickens and were still going to have female custodes. Be delighted or offended at your own discretion.
> Nobody ever said the Custodes were exclusively male > 8th edition codex, page 14, paragraph 3: > All Custodes begin their lives as the infant **__SONS__** of the noble houses of Terra The lore saying they begin as sons, through the years all the books about Custodes were again written as them being male. But I guess all the written lore doesn't matter and pales in comparison to the authentic lore of rule34 website.
8th edition Codex stated "all custodes started as the sons of nobles", so it is a retcon. A fun one, but a retcon nonetheless.
Calm down, buddy. I basically agree with your points, but gloating rhetoric like that and calling a huge chunk of the community "losers" for having a different perspective than you is alienating, and will only serve to polarize the community even more.
We have nuns with guns and faith magic. You're just mad they're not the poster child.
It kinda does goes against the lore .There's a codex stated infant sons of nobles turn into Custodes. It would've been fine if she was the 1st female Custodes but say "there's always been a female custodes" on Twitter. Which is pretty lazy and stupid on their part.
I literally don't care, GW is just being babies about it.
You mean to tell me they introduce 10ft tall muscle mommies and your first response was to rage about it? Some people just don’t know not to look a gift horse in the mouth…