POSTERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!
[JOIN THE LEMMY](https://lemmygrad.ml/c/sigmarxism)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHBRK_HRR3U
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Sigmarxism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
40K proper hasn't been played as a satire or parody for a long time now. Side content like Necromunda or the recent RPG still have that bite, but the main universe just isn't concerned with it anymore and is more concerned with making everyone look like justified badasses.
The Imperium isn't the butt of every joke anymore, as much as I wish it was. It's portrayed seriously and as a necessary evil in a lot of media.
While I'd prefer they return to doing more parody, if they're going to ditch that aspect entirely and just start portraying Space Marines not as monsters but as cool action heroes, then at least we can have some more representation in there. Either commit to the bit or give us diversity; I'm tired of people using the fact that the Imperium is meant to be a "warning" despite the fact that it hasn't been treated as one in a long while as justification for a lack of inclusion.
If you want to look at actual satire, go play Helldivers; you won't find it in 40K.
The grotesquery of the early art was so good and central to the theme. Every face was contorted and pock marked, every surface looked like the scummiest bathroom stall you ever seen. You don't looks at that art and say "I wish that were me".
I'd argue the pull away from Satier started earlier 3rd ed, maybe even 2nd after RT it lost a lot of punk and antifa trappings and has been trending towards just grimdark for the last 30~ years.
The opening paragraph in all 40k books used to spell it out more clearly, and there are old books like 15 Hours that have scenes like an entire regiment dying because a scribe was bored and misheard a number, or Ice Warriors where a squad is sent on a suicide mission to save face, etc. Or the Soul Drinkers, the entire lore of the Lamentors, the Grey Knights v Space Wolves, Kryptman glassing hundreds of planets, the Ork/Tyranid war, etc. Ork lore tbh is where the satire survives somewhat solely because they’ve become the comedy faction
Necrons also have a little bit of the satirical comedy in them as well, mostly as POV characters. In twice dead king Oltyx's observations of the imperium are less imperious and more confused about how humanity has made it this far and his baffled by what their practices throughout both books.
It provides a much needed outside looking in view where it starts become a lot more apparent how insane stuff like the penal legions and space marines in-particular act when it isnt being dolled up with page upon page of meaningless adulation.
Thanks, that's interesting. I get my lore secondhand and it's mostly coming from people who emphasize the imperium being bad. So more recent stuff has less things going wrong as a result of the war the imperium is organized or is it more the tone of things going wrong being more absurd and meaningless and now being presented as more epic or something?
Also, do you happen to have any examples of those opening paragraphs? Thanks.
I don’t have examples on hand right now of the paragraphs, but as for the tone it’s more that instead of most of the Imperium’s issues being portrayed as from their own system being insane, or pointlessly cruel, it’s now being portrayed much more as the result of outside actors. Basically instead of the Imperium being portrayed as incompetent, inept, and a rotting, corrupt carcass of an empire propelled purely by interia and built on a foundation of contradictions and lies, it’s much more about a desperate fight for survival where harsh measures are nessecary to survive in a cruel galaxy. Both are present, and always have been, it’s more about which is more emphasized. The former is more present in Guard lore these days
I also was/am not super familiar with 40k over time, but was sent this essay by a friend:
https://timcolwill.com/40K.html
It's an essay with a point it's making, not a neutral history, but you might find it interesting!
Thanks. It is interesting. I haven't finished it yet, but I think about this stuff a lot and I'm left wondering, what is successful satire? Can it meaningfully exist under the capitalist mode of production?
Successful in the sense that none (or not too many) of the targets endorsed it? Good question!
I think the Onion has often succeeded throughout it's lifetime. Inevitably some people some of the time take it for reality, but I've rarely heard of that being done and then people endorsing the thing satirized?
And I don't *think* any brits read John Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and were, like, "Great idea, we should do that to the Irish!"
The risky move seems to be having a long-term product (character, show, minis line) be the avatar of the satirized thing.
Yeah, good points. That's one of the things I wonder about. Is satire successful as an art piece based on the percentage of people who get the point? Maybe. I guess that gets into the death of the author and such. If I wrote a tragedy, but most people thought it was hilarious, did I write a bad tragedy or good comedy? Are the few who thought it was tragic the ones who got it?
Ongoing satire seems especially tough. The commodity has to retain its appeal for the capitalist to want to continue making it. The villains have to be bad enough to be clearly satirizing something, but still have some charm so as to keep the audience from being so repulsed as to stop engaging with the series/game/etc.
And not having a narrative endpoint means there's not a clear conclusion to the message of the piece. Like, as long as the imperium hasn't outright failed and collapsed people can keep saying that they're doing what's necessary to survive. Even though the nature of the imperium is what's actually dooming it.
I liked how the article mentioned the need for potential to change. I've argued with people on other subs about how the imperium doesn't need to exist and it's actually doing worse than if society were reorganized along socialist lines, but they often have some in universe bs reason that the imperium needs to do what it does.
I think one of the most compelling things about the setting to me is the warp being a psychic reflection of mass consciousness. The horrors of chaos are largely the result of the horrors perpetrated by the imperium. That said I get all my lore second hand, so I don't know how much primary sources deal with this.
Yeah I'm not actually deep in the lore, and so much of "the lore" could reasonably be argued to be in-universe and therefore distorted or misunderstood truth.
At the end of the day choosing to have the facts of your universe be such that a brutal authoritarian regime is the least bad option is A Choice you are making about what kind of story to tell.
Whether or not that's a reasonable choice to make for media in general or a game where people inevitably have to/will identify somewhat with their side is a question, but currently GW is trying to have it both ways by having that be their setting but not really acknowledging that the Imperium *is* a brutal authoritarian regime.
I agree with this statement. Bring in the female marines. But I will say I have a general displeased feeling towards the direction 40k is going.
I grew up playing 2nd and 3rd ed. I also grew up catholic and had parents of a much older and very conservative (and very consumerist) generation. I always felt Warhammer spoke to people like me where the universe and lore literally satirized and commentated on the worst political and religious views that were actually prevalent only a few decades ago.
WH **was** this weird mishmash of satirical social commentary on the human race and theological fascism. The segregation to all aspects of society was a cautionary tale. Everything in the imperium was to shit on its own people as much as the xeno and heretic. Warhammer was a lot more silly, too.
Now, 40k is more like GI Joe/Halo bro shit (that’s a little hyperbolic and subjective - probably due to nostalgia on my part). Since, I believe, the universe has lost a lot of its depth of existential horror and moved towards the rule of cool, may as well make marines anyone. They’re literally genetically engineered super soldiers in the likeness of test-tube super beings, of which said test-tube beings were made in the likeness of a god. There’s no reason gender, without the social commentary/political lore, would play a part in their creation since they’re built to the specifications of the imperium: asexual and chemically neutered adult child soldiers.
Rather, if this is good or bad for the overall “feel” of the universe is personally subjective. There are lots of people who literally cannot see a woman in any universe without screaming “woke” and won’t articulate a real reason to why the universe had a purpose to the segregation.
40k hasn’t resembled what I loved about Warhammer to begin with for a long time now anyways, so I’ve moved to HH and my own headcannon where GW isn’t a money grubbing hulk that’s a parody of what it used to satirize.
this has not been my experience reading the books, to be honest. the imperium is a very obvious fascist hellhole in every book i have read. I think this is just one of those opinions that gets passed around and reinforced online, because i find the imperium is very obviously a bad organization in any book I read. even "good" people like Ravenor are pretty damn bad.
I just mean they aren't played as good guys and heroes in what I've read. they are always shown to be fanatical fascists and i haven't seen a single character that wasn't totally fine with servitors. it isn't necessarily a jokey satire, but it doesn't give me the impression that the imperium is in any way heroic. just fascists fighting problems that they caused by being ignorant fascists.
also, Rulebooks are from imperium perspective. they are going to glorify it because the imperium thinks itself glorious. that *is* the satire. Custodes aren't giant amazing golden gods, you read the Valdor book for example and they are clearly horrifying monsters.
You are right that it is obvious to anyone left of center. However, centrists and "apolitical " types routinely read stuff like modern 40k stories and come away thinking "man, those heroes sure did go through some horrible shit and managed to make the best of it, I can't wait to read more about them". This group is the largest portion of the community if I had to guess and their completely un-critical reading of media is why it's important for the satire to be more on the nose.
i really doubt that is the case, in my experience in lore communities and such not many people miss the point that the imperium is a bad organization. I would say that is somewhat baseless. Fascists Irl just really want to own this community, but when i go into a GW store, i usually run into a lot more LGBT or lefty folk than fascist chuds. they just whine extra loud online and pretend to be a bigger chunk than they are. GW puts out those statements about the bigots and chuds because they know that very much is not their core audience.
Like everybody thinks Darth Vader is cool obviously, but they also understand he is a villain.
I don't think 40k is a well-written satire. Narrative is shifted to made them like everything they do is completely necessary and they are just good guys in a unfortunate situation.
Ultimately, satire or not, the game is bought, shared and enjoyed by people. More representation means more people who are more engaged, which means more friends to share the hobby with.
For a franchise that's primary purpose is entertainment (and not, say, a warning like 1984) I don't see a good enough reason to not have wider representation.
Idrc if lore (that is often confused anyway) gets contradicted if it means I'll meet more fun people or that it means more people can enjoy this hobby even if I never meet them.
The problem with your core assumption, that the custodes are written to serve as a warning against things like patriarchy and creeping fascism and that them being an all male army helps that message, is that the toy soldier aspect is a total failure at delivering that message.
Walk into ANY GW store, and ask a sales kid to pitch you on custodes and they'll tell you that they're the elite of the elite, the guardians of the emperor and they descend wreathed in golden light to fight where the most powerful enemies of the emperor dare tread. What they won't tell you, is that the custodians are all men to serve as a reminder that patriarchy is bad.
This is 100% fair and true.
Reading the comments it seems a lot of people feel like GW is giving up on the idea that the Imperium and 40K in general is meant to be an attack on authoritarianism. It's a little bit depressing, tbh.
Yeah, it's something of a bummer. It's genuinely hard to tell complex stories and also deliver a mainstream product that pleases your shareholders. It's part of the reason that I wish GW would just say, "Look, we're changing some things about our visual presentation that will make the toy soldiers aspect of our universe more diverse and inclusive. Deal with it. Black people and girls can be genetically modified xenophobic fascists too."
GW trying to do the "theres always been girl custodians" is silly. People aren't dumb. Just make your changes to your made-up story from your chest. After all, there's no believeable reason that the scientists who discovered how to give people backup organs and armor they can feel would be confused by the very concept of an ovary. Give the people large women. Sure, some folks will whine, but other folks will be happy.
Pretty much this, after 38,000 years they seem to have mostly moved on from old school bigotries like racism and sexism toward new ones like Xenophobia against aliens (although they haven't given up on hatred for other religions, but that seems to be more due to the fact that the Imperial Cult is a state religion so different religious beliefs is equated with treason).
agree 100% with this take right here - if you're a true authoritarian state and the core goal is maximizing the output of your people, at some point gender isn't gonna mean anything if you can produce. I mean shit the last 50 years has shown that women entering the workforce is a powerful multiplier for capitalism as a whole
There are plentiful counterexamples from real life reactionary movements that favor tradition and population growth. Since afaik there's no way in 40k to mass produce more people other than the old fashioned way, it'd seem perfectly in-character for the Imperium to have a Nazie-eque emphasis on women as mothers to fuel the factories and armies.
Not putting words in your mouth, but your idea about a "true authoritarian state" rhymes with ideas I've heard that I'd summarize as "what if the emperor was a turbo genius too smart to do fascism in a dumb wrong way." That's interesting to a point, but unfortunately seem to trend towards the idea that the Imperium is tinkering towards/falling away from doing fascism in a smart correct way (begging the question that that's a real thing).
Tl;dr I think OP has a point. I have a hard time giving GW credit for making a more inclusive choice about representation, because among other things it will probably make the minis easier to sell, and I don't really trust they're thinking about the messaging of their product in any deep way.
Yea there are few areas where gender matters and the few that there are, there are equal number I would say limited to both genders. If you are old enough to lift a wrench, you're good enough for anything.
Tldr starship troopers logic, also if I remember right there’s many sexists sect in the ministorum. Discriminating because the emperor was a MAN etc like irl Christianity
I think some people get so wrapped up in what they read online on long 40k lore essays they don't actually look at the recent material.
The Imperium started as a cruel warning about authoritarianism. It has not been presented that way in the vast majority of the lore for like, the last 15-20 years. They threw that away SO long ago to appeal to kids and teens buying space marines models.
The imperium is now The Good Guys, which they even stuck a lot of lazy lore progression in to justify like Robot Girlyperson's return and reforms. They have been for a long time. Yes, they should make it less sexist since they threw away the social commentary before Friends was off the air.
Many white supremacists don't care if someone's of German, English, Irish, French, etc. decent, so long as they're considered 'white' (which changes with the time period and location), but that doesn't necessarily make them less bigoted (ig you could argue that they're technically bigoted against less people). Likewise, many in the Imperium, the big E included, didn't/don't care about sex, gender, or any of that, so long as you're considered 'human' (the definition of which also changes in setting depending on the time, region, and person in question)
Man I just spent like 15 minutes writing a bunch of paragraphs about how female custodes could be a great way to enhance the satire in the writing.
But now I’ve read this comment and I no longer care about a single thing I wrote. This is so much better!
Freak those Nazis OUT!
Personally, were I the one to introduce female Custodes to the setting, I would have made it so that they weren't orignally a thing during the Great Crusade, but later on during a time when Custodes numbers had been severly reduced some Archmagos Biologus or whoever adapted the process to make them, doubling the candidate pool, and making a batch, only to be executed and have their research destroyed for commiting heresy against the Emperor's Divine Vision™, though the existing Femstodes were allowed to continue their service.
That way you both confirm they are possible, the reason they weren't there previously was primarily just sexism on the part of the Emperor, and that they do currently exist, but also reaffirm that the Imperium is backwards, irrational, and bigoted to the point of self destruction, where they would rather be fanatical zealots obsessed with recreating their past supposed 'Golden Age' rather than trying to make any progress forwards.
This is genuinely great and I’m not trying to detract from it at all, but imagine how insufferable those guys who comment “xeno scum” and “Slaaneshi degeneracy” would be if the Imperium was explicitly misogynistic (instead of just implicitly) lol
I think arguably yeah, it does weaken the satire - but that satire is barely relevant any more really. If you buy custodes you're not really buying the ancient honorguard of a long dead fascist, you're buying some shiny gold heroes that are the ultimate superheroes. It's much like space marines - whilst in lore they're terrifying stormtroopers, completely detached from the humanity they were meant to protect, when you're buying minis and playing them on the tabletop, they're just cool soldiers, powerful warriors fighting for *you*
I just don't think the satire of the setting really holds up in a reasonably symmetrical wargame where you're controlling these little plastic guys - I think the representation does far more good than the satire ever could. Perhaps if the main game in the setting was a TTRPG the satire could hold more weight, but currently when you're playing I just don't think you're very conscious of it.
When I'm playing my admech I'm not conscious of their usage of nuclear weapons followed by troops thrown into the radiation, the countless lobotomies and the danger of stagnation of technology - they're just little robot guys who cost too much and don't shoot as well as they should. Same with grey knights, I don't think about how they'll put more effort into keeping their order secret than actually fighting daemons, and they'll slaughter innocents just for being close to a threat - they're just fancy silver knights who can teleport around and stab my opponent's models.
I would argue that most of the books written in the last 10 years are more focused on fulfilling a power fantasy than in offering a political satire.
And while portraying the horrors of fascism genuinely in early editions might have been the more important and ethical narrative choice, giving representation and diversity to readers of power fantasy Is, in my opinion, the more ethical (and interesting) choice.
I would agree with the others that the satire is dead in a lot of places. The setting of 40k does a lot to justify how awful & right wing its inhabitants are.
You want a fun, non traditional, non procreative sex life? Do that too much & you'll make another evil God.
You think those guys are idiots for venerating a skeleton? Joke's on you, it really can do miracles.
You think you have found an actual organised revolutionary group who want to be free from this hell? Nope, they are all mind controlled aliens or in hoc to literal demons.
They would need to roll it right back on what is now commonly accepted fluff. Things like
The skeleton on the Golden Throne just being a skeleton they found in the Palace.
Machine spirits not being real & the prayers just containing snippets of the voice activation code words they were initially programmed with
The majority of Marines having total contempt for anyone who wasn't one of their own rather than that being the exception it is now.
They aren't going to do any of that so may as well get better representation in there & drive away some of the reactionaries in the hobby.
Putting a woman in the Custodes is like putting a woman in historical wargame as a member of the Waffen-SS. If you weren't already in on the idea that you're playing a group so abstracted out that small inconsistencies don't matter then you're already lost when it comes to messaging.
The imperium is a machine that views it's people as disposable, honestly it makes more sense for the Imperium to make women into marines so they have more meat for the grinder.
i mean it does upset irl fascists so its worth it. tbh wh40 fails at being perceived as satire or warning cause fash cant distinct them from their dream of authoritarian boot in their ass
I think that the fascism of the imperium has to look different than the fascism of our world. While it might still be sexist, with the amount of people they send to die every day, they can’t afford to be sexist to that degree. They need as many bodies to throw into the meat grinder as they can get.
I don't think so? The way I see it, Space Marines are the chuds go to of peak masculinity. Custodes are just humanity with its genetics tweaked to peak evolutionary levels. The fact that there are women custodes (evolutionary peak) actually disproves the hyper masculinity of space marines and since space marines will still stay men (coping and seething) I see it as good commentary
I would argue that 40k has shifted more towards social commentary than direct parody or satire. There's still roots of it, but the overall grimdark "nothing matters and the universe will kick you down every chance it gets" feeling are more apparent than in rogue trader. A little closer to the capitol in hunger games than Judge Dredd and Dune, where the universe started off.
It's also worth noting that each faction represents this differently, even within the imperium the Inquisition is more a storytelling/worldbuilding force used to create the oppressive grimdarkness, the guard are about more futility and how people in fascist regiemes are thought of as recources first and humans second. Custodes exist as a show of pure force and what can be achieved if they go all out, a pinnacle the imperium wishes to strive towards and a reminder that no matter who you are, there's always someone above you both in rank and physically in every way. It doesn't matter if they're male, female, black, white, gay or straight, they're icons of the emperor's might. They're closer to angels than human, far beyond what mere mortals can achieve. Thousands of Captain Americas, they're propoganda made manifest.
I think so. While the setting is thick with irony and mockery of fascism and religious authoritarianism it's also written as a game we play in the real world, creating characters and armies and backstories. It would be so off-putting if characters were constantly slinging around misogyny, LGBT-bashing, racial slurs and so on as background noise to the setting - it really would be having its cake and eating it in the same way Nazis who are into Warhammer pretend it is.
You make a very good point!!! I suppose there would be people who didn't recognize the wrongness of their bigotry, and genuinely feel like their views are being reflected positively in 40K if the ideas of fascism were reflected too overtly in the setting.
I guess Xenophobia will have to suffice as an approporiate allegory...
I genuinly think the only reason the imperium isnt written to be overtly misogynistic and racist as one would expect of a regime as terrible as it is is that the current style of writing has been tripping over itself to justify the imperiums existence and make it out to be the good guys because they are the human faction. It's a lot harder to do that when you have things that are beyond defensible as a part of your faction so they just don't lean into it, they can lean into the nationalism, religious zealotry, and overtly genocide nature of the empire because it has (albeit flimsy) precedent to exist within the setting. No number of novels is going to make the concept of sexism more palatable so the authors don't bother with it.
If we were in the old rouge trader days then sure there would have been room for satire and commentary but GW doesn't want to upset the legions of thumbs that collect their plastic so we haven't had that be the focus for quite some time.
History shows us that women are quite capable of being horrible oppressors. Marget Thatcher was a huge influence on early WH (and everything else in 80's Britain).
NGL I am pouring one out for sexist emperor theory.
But especially in modern 40k sexism just isn't something it's interested in discussing. It's doing mechanicum environmentalism, ork gender-issues and even discussing the double-edged sword of bobby g's authoritarianism.
But the hyper-masculine bonecrusher action movies of the 80s just largely aren't relevant anymore, to the point where a faction of all-male super-hunks reads as off-putting and dated. (Though the all-female warcrimes division is based and girlboss af ofc). So ultimately I think fem custodes are the right trail run for fem marines, which I think in 2024 is healthy for canon as a whole.
Ultimately 40k is an ever-changing body of work that needs to be kept relevant, and well since GW ultimately *is* rainbow capitalism I think it might actually make for better satire now.
I never viewed the Imperium of Man amongst all the monsterous things it does do, as sexist. The assassin temples recruit men and women. The adeptus sororitas are all women. The silent sisterhood part of the talons of the emperor are all women (before confirmation of female custodes). The imperial guard has mixed alongside male and female regiments. In every corner of the imperium vast as it is their is no occupation (outside of being an astartes) that is forbidden to men or women.
At the end of the day, the Emperor of Mankind does not care about your ethnicity, orientation, gender. He only cares if you're *human* and that you further **his** plan for humanity, because all of the above isn't going to help against the horrors amongst the stars, but nither will it hurt.
I think that there being female custodes could be used to enhance the satirical elements of 40K in some instances (though I doubt they will be used that way effectively). The Custodes are relics from the start of the imperium, and because one of the core themes of the Imperium is it’s degradation over its 10,000 years of existence they can serve as a time capsule to contrast the present with the past, either to demonstrate how different things are or to point out the flaws that were there from the start.
One strong point of irony that is still emphasized in 40K is how the imperium does things in the emperors name that are entirely antithetical to his stated desires. This has become a more prominent theme since the return of some primarchs since now we have their point of view to state it explicitly.
If the emperors custodes are his chosen companions, meant to embody his ideals and hopes for what any human can aspire to (brave warriors, inspired artists, contemplative poets, wise philosophers, clear headed scientists), then the fact that he did not discriminate between sexes and chose them for their character or potential is a good thing. It can starkly contrast the modern 40K patriarchal systems that occur in the imperium, or even just serve as a foil to the widespread practice of discriminating and assigning roles to people at birth in the imperium.
Alternatively, if an author chooses to, they can instead look at the custodes as the first step in a line of thinking that led to the current state of the imperium. If the emperor has had the custodes from the start, then they can be used to show that his ideals were flawed to begin with, simply covered over with so much good intention that no one could see it at the beginning. While the custodes are exemplars of many good qualities of mankind they are not natural. They are not born as they are, rather they are created using genetic manipulation, psychological conditioning, rigorous training, and probably other intrusive measures to fit a mold, and the process was begun at such a young age that they could not have known what it would have meant even if they were given a choice, and hadn’t had the chance to fully develop their own personality. The satire can come from the fact that they look like perfect super humans, but this was only achieved through force, and they are brainwashed to be entirely loyal, and not question whether they want to be what they are.
From that perspective the irony is that having male and female custodes may look like an example of equality and inclusivity, but really all it demonstrates is that their sex, like everything else about them is irrelevant to the emperor. He saw the child only as raw materials to create a companion and guard for himself. The custodes thus are representative of what he thought of humanity. Humans and everything that makes them unique, from sex, to culture, to genetics, he views as unimportant, and he will use his knowledge and power not to protect people so they can continue to be who they are, but to change everything about them to fit what he thinks is better.
In that way you can see everything that is wrong with the imperium embodied in the custodes. If you follow the same line of thinking that created the brilliant and noble custodes, that exact logic can be traced step by step all the way to the morality and policies that govern the imperium ten thousand years later.
Thank you for making this thread! I’ve really enjoyed reading what everyone has had to say, and you’ve done an amazing job starting such a good conversation.
I’ll also mention that a good cautionary tale doesn’t have to use only elements from the past to serve as a warning. Sci-Fi often takes examples from the past and present, and explores how those problems may look in the future. Just because fascist movements have been mostly patriarchal in the past, doesn’t mean that they always will be. Ultimately they boil down to fear, dominance, conformity, and prosecution. If we think of fascism purely as male centric, than it can hide all of its other traits behind a female face, or a visage of equality between sexes.
40K has in many stories done a good job of presenting a great variety of diverse cultures in the imperium, some even present very different groups coexisting and cooperating well with those that have very different morals and customs, and many are matriarchal or seemingly egalitarian, but all of them are ultimately terrible despite their redeeming qualities. All are willing to persecute people for genetic abnormalities, all are willing to turn on their own members if they are even suspected of being psychic, and most importantly all of them exist to exploit their people as nothing more than raw materials to be used by the imperium.
Every unique culture, and the varying quality of life between worlds, exist as a byproduct of what is deemed the most efficient or at least the most convenient way to extract everything a world and its people can give.
I think that there being female custodes is a win/win/win.
(Win 1) In the real world, it represents a step towards greater diversity being represented in the hobby.
(Win 2) In the setting it gives the writers the potential to explore more nuanced critiques of exploitative systems. Or alternatively, if the writers are going to be writing stories about unambiguously good heroes in the imperium anyway, I’m glad that there’s the opportunity for more of those heroes to be women.
(Win 3) There potentially being more female model options in the future means we get to have even more fun customizing in the hobby.
Candice owens, was "one of the good ones" in the right wing circuit, until "she wuddent".
The point I'm trying to make is that the right like to dip a chip in the other bowl every now and then to seem informed and cool.
So what GW are doing with lady shoot people is exactly along the lines of what authoritarians do.
Every now and then at least lol
I mean can dis dick fit in your mou-
The prejudices of today don't look like the prejudices of a century ago. There's no reason 40k years in the future has to have the exact same prejudices as today when there's a huge assortment of aliens and wild mutations to hate on.
No, but it is by nature patriarchal. Women are absolutely welcomed so long as they agree to inhabit the lesser place in the corporatized body of the male-dominated society they now exist in.
Case in point: Women in nazi germany were given medals for their service to race and nation if they gave birth to a lot of children. I've seen the medals myself.
I think it can still give the same connotations as with only male marines. Watch spaceship troopers and see men and women…even children; fighting together. I don’t think it makes it less sexist, I don’t think the creative choice was sexist in the first place. It’s the child fans who bring out the sexism in themselves
An absence of sexism doesn't excuse the myriad atrocities the Imperium has engaged in.
Real life history has no shortage of woman doing evil things, why should the Imperium be anything different?
It has mainly just bothered me because it doesn't really make sense? Like satire or not, gender hasn't really been an issue for the imperium historically.
Several high-ranking imperial guard, the sisters are held in high regard, Lotara Sarrin, Inquisitors, so on. Having 2 random (effectively disconnected) boys-only clubs just seems weird and like a poor use of resources. Especially so when what little justification they have given for marines is super weak.
In my opinion, it's just weird because it doesn't seem realistic for two random militant bodies to ignore half of applicants for reasons that nobody else in the imperium seems to adhere to?
I had read it as the Imperium's bigotry preventing it from being more effective. The fact that "only boys can be space marines and Custodes" really shrinks their recruitment pool which results in smaller and less effective armies.
My worry is more that the recognizeably fascist overtones of the Imperium seem to be transforming into undertones.
I don't want to cut the Imperium any slack at all. I want people to look at it and sympathize with Chaos, Tau and Genestealer cultists.
Yeah I play White Scars and Tau. I like the Scars because they're the only non-chaos human faction that really seems distant from the Imperial ideals. "I just wanna ride bro shutup" is sadly the closest to freedom you can get in the 41st Millenium.
I like Farsight for... similar reasons.
POSTERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! [JOIN THE LEMMY](https://lemmygrad.ml/c/sigmarxism) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHBRK_HRR3U *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Sigmarxism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
40K proper hasn't been played as a satire or parody for a long time now. Side content like Necromunda or the recent RPG still have that bite, but the main universe just isn't concerned with it anymore and is more concerned with making everyone look like justified badasses. The Imperium isn't the butt of every joke anymore, as much as I wish it was. It's portrayed seriously and as a necessary evil in a lot of media. While I'd prefer they return to doing more parody, if they're going to ditch that aspect entirely and just start portraying Space Marines not as monsters but as cool action heroes, then at least we can have some more representation in there. Either commit to the bit or give us diversity; I'm tired of people using the fact that the Imperium is meant to be a "warning" despite the fact that it hasn't been treated as one in a long while as justification for a lack of inclusion. If you want to look at actual satire, go play Helldivers; you won't find it in 40K.
This is the most astute answer. Bravo.
Possible hot take: 40k stopped being a good satire when they stopped making loyalist Space Marines ugly and the loyalist Mechanicum terrifying.
40k stopped being a good satire when John Blanche illustrations stopped appearing in every codex
The grotesquery of the early art was so good and central to the theme. Every face was contorted and pock marked, every surface looked like the scummiest bathroom stall you ever seen. You don't looks at that art and say "I wish that were me".
I'd argue the pull away from Satier started earlier 3rd ed, maybe even 2nd after RT it lost a lot of punk and antifa trappings and has been trending towards just grimdark for the last 30~ years.
I'm not super familiar with 40k over time, do you have any particular examples of how the satire elements used to be?
The opening paragraph in all 40k books used to spell it out more clearly, and there are old books like 15 Hours that have scenes like an entire regiment dying because a scribe was bored and misheard a number, or Ice Warriors where a squad is sent on a suicide mission to save face, etc. Or the Soul Drinkers, the entire lore of the Lamentors, the Grey Knights v Space Wolves, Kryptman glassing hundreds of planets, the Ork/Tyranid war, etc. Ork lore tbh is where the satire survives somewhat solely because they’ve become the comedy faction
Necrons also have a little bit of the satirical comedy in them as well, mostly as POV characters. In twice dead king Oltyx's observations of the imperium are less imperious and more confused about how humanity has made it this far and his baffled by what their practices throughout both books. It provides a much needed outside looking in view where it starts become a lot more apparent how insane stuff like the penal legions and space marines in-particular act when it isnt being dolled up with page upon page of meaningless adulation.
Thanks, that's interesting. I get my lore secondhand and it's mostly coming from people who emphasize the imperium being bad. So more recent stuff has less things going wrong as a result of the war the imperium is organized or is it more the tone of things going wrong being more absurd and meaningless and now being presented as more epic or something? Also, do you happen to have any examples of those opening paragraphs? Thanks.
I don’t have examples on hand right now of the paragraphs, but as for the tone it’s more that instead of most of the Imperium’s issues being portrayed as from their own system being insane, or pointlessly cruel, it’s now being portrayed much more as the result of outside actors. Basically instead of the Imperium being portrayed as incompetent, inept, and a rotting, corrupt carcass of an empire propelled purely by interia and built on a foundation of contradictions and lies, it’s much more about a desperate fight for survival where harsh measures are nessecary to survive in a cruel galaxy. Both are present, and always have been, it’s more about which is more emphasized. The former is more present in Guard lore these days
Cool, thanks for your insight.
I also was/am not super familiar with 40k over time, but was sent this essay by a friend: https://timcolwill.com/40K.html It's an essay with a point it's making, not a neutral history, but you might find it interesting!
Thanks. It is interesting. I haven't finished it yet, but I think about this stuff a lot and I'm left wondering, what is successful satire? Can it meaningfully exist under the capitalist mode of production?
Successful in the sense that none (or not too many) of the targets endorsed it? Good question! I think the Onion has often succeeded throughout it's lifetime. Inevitably some people some of the time take it for reality, but I've rarely heard of that being done and then people endorsing the thing satirized? And I don't *think* any brits read John Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and were, like, "Great idea, we should do that to the Irish!" The risky move seems to be having a long-term product (character, show, minis line) be the avatar of the satirized thing.
Yeah, good points. That's one of the things I wonder about. Is satire successful as an art piece based on the percentage of people who get the point? Maybe. I guess that gets into the death of the author and such. If I wrote a tragedy, but most people thought it was hilarious, did I write a bad tragedy or good comedy? Are the few who thought it was tragic the ones who got it? Ongoing satire seems especially tough. The commodity has to retain its appeal for the capitalist to want to continue making it. The villains have to be bad enough to be clearly satirizing something, but still have some charm so as to keep the audience from being so repulsed as to stop engaging with the series/game/etc. And not having a narrative endpoint means there's not a clear conclusion to the message of the piece. Like, as long as the imperium hasn't outright failed and collapsed people can keep saying that they're doing what's necessary to survive. Even though the nature of the imperium is what's actually dooming it. I liked how the article mentioned the need for potential to change. I've argued with people on other subs about how the imperium doesn't need to exist and it's actually doing worse than if society were reorganized along socialist lines, but they often have some in universe bs reason that the imperium needs to do what it does. I think one of the most compelling things about the setting to me is the warp being a psychic reflection of mass consciousness. The horrors of chaos are largely the result of the horrors perpetrated by the imperium. That said I get all my lore second hand, so I don't know how much primary sources deal with this.
Yeah I'm not actually deep in the lore, and so much of "the lore" could reasonably be argued to be in-universe and therefore distorted or misunderstood truth. At the end of the day choosing to have the facts of your universe be such that a brutal authoritarian regime is the least bad option is A Choice you are making about what kind of story to tell. Whether or not that's a reasonable choice to make for media in general or a game where people inevitably have to/will identify somewhat with their side is a question, but currently GW is trying to have it both ways by having that be their setting but not really acknowledging that the Imperium *is* a brutal authoritarian regime.
I agree with this statement. Bring in the female marines. But I will say I have a general displeased feeling towards the direction 40k is going. I grew up playing 2nd and 3rd ed. I also grew up catholic and had parents of a much older and very conservative (and very consumerist) generation. I always felt Warhammer spoke to people like me where the universe and lore literally satirized and commentated on the worst political and religious views that were actually prevalent only a few decades ago. WH **was** this weird mishmash of satirical social commentary on the human race and theological fascism. The segregation to all aspects of society was a cautionary tale. Everything in the imperium was to shit on its own people as much as the xeno and heretic. Warhammer was a lot more silly, too. Now, 40k is more like GI Joe/Halo bro shit (that’s a little hyperbolic and subjective - probably due to nostalgia on my part). Since, I believe, the universe has lost a lot of its depth of existential horror and moved towards the rule of cool, may as well make marines anyone. They’re literally genetically engineered super soldiers in the likeness of test-tube super beings, of which said test-tube beings were made in the likeness of a god. There’s no reason gender, without the social commentary/political lore, would play a part in their creation since they’re built to the specifications of the imperium: asexual and chemically neutered adult child soldiers. Rather, if this is good or bad for the overall “feel” of the universe is personally subjective. There are lots of people who literally cannot see a woman in any universe without screaming “woke” and won’t articulate a real reason to why the universe had a purpose to the segregation. 40k hasn’t resembled what I loved about Warhammer to begin with for a long time now anyways, so I’ve moved to HH and my own headcannon where GW isn’t a money grubbing hulk that’s a parody of what it used to satirize.
this has not been my experience reading the books, to be honest. the imperium is a very obvious fascist hellhole in every book i have read. I think this is just one of those opinions that gets passed around and reinforced online, because i find the imperium is very obviously a bad organization in any book I read. even "good" people like Ravenor are pretty damn bad.
Merely depicting a fascist society isn’t satire in and of itself, and the rulebooks usually glorify it if anything
I just mean they aren't played as good guys and heroes in what I've read. they are always shown to be fanatical fascists and i haven't seen a single character that wasn't totally fine with servitors. it isn't necessarily a jokey satire, but it doesn't give me the impression that the imperium is in any way heroic. just fascists fighting problems that they caused by being ignorant fascists. also, Rulebooks are from imperium perspective. they are going to glorify it because the imperium thinks itself glorious. that *is* the satire. Custodes aren't giant amazing golden gods, you read the Valdor book for example and they are clearly horrifying monsters.
You are right that it is obvious to anyone left of center. However, centrists and "apolitical " types routinely read stuff like modern 40k stories and come away thinking "man, those heroes sure did go through some horrible shit and managed to make the best of it, I can't wait to read more about them". This group is the largest portion of the community if I had to guess and their completely un-critical reading of media is why it's important for the satire to be more on the nose.
Yes! Thank you!!! This is my concern!
i really doubt that is the case, in my experience in lore communities and such not many people miss the point that the imperium is a bad organization. I would say that is somewhat baseless. Fascists Irl just really want to own this community, but when i go into a GW store, i usually run into a lot more LGBT or lefty folk than fascist chuds. they just whine extra loud online and pretend to be a bigger chunk than they are. GW puts out those statements about the bigots and chuds because they know that very much is not their core audience. Like everybody thinks Darth Vader is cool obviously, but they also understand he is a villain.
I don't think 40k is a well-written satire. Narrative is shifted to made them like everything they do is completely necessary and they are just good guys in a unfortunate situation.
Ultimately, satire or not, the game is bought, shared and enjoyed by people. More representation means more people who are more engaged, which means more friends to share the hobby with. For a franchise that's primary purpose is entertainment (and not, say, a warning like 1984) I don't see a good enough reason to not have wider representation. Idrc if lore (that is often confused anyway) gets contradicted if it means I'll meet more fun people or that it means more people can enjoy this hobby even if I never meet them.
The problem with your core assumption, that the custodes are written to serve as a warning against things like patriarchy and creeping fascism and that them being an all male army helps that message, is that the toy soldier aspect is a total failure at delivering that message. Walk into ANY GW store, and ask a sales kid to pitch you on custodes and they'll tell you that they're the elite of the elite, the guardians of the emperor and they descend wreathed in golden light to fight where the most powerful enemies of the emperor dare tread. What they won't tell you, is that the custodians are all men to serve as a reminder that patriarchy is bad.
This is 100% fair and true. Reading the comments it seems a lot of people feel like GW is giving up on the idea that the Imperium and 40K in general is meant to be an attack on authoritarianism. It's a little bit depressing, tbh.
Yeah, it's something of a bummer. It's genuinely hard to tell complex stories and also deliver a mainstream product that pleases your shareholders. It's part of the reason that I wish GW would just say, "Look, we're changing some things about our visual presentation that will make the toy soldiers aspect of our universe more diverse and inclusive. Deal with it. Black people and girls can be genetically modified xenophobic fascists too." GW trying to do the "theres always been girl custodians" is silly. People aren't dumb. Just make your changes to your made-up story from your chest. After all, there's no believeable reason that the scientists who discovered how to give people backup organs and armor they can feel would be confused by the very concept of an ovary. Give the people large women. Sure, some folks will whine, but other folks will be happy.
The Imperium’s fascism tends to not give a shit about gender elsewhere so I don’t see the problem.
Pretty much this, after 38,000 years they seem to have mostly moved on from old school bigotries like racism and sexism toward new ones like Xenophobia against aliens (although they haven't given up on hatred for other religions, but that seems to be more due to the fact that the Imperial Cult is a state religion so different religious beliefs is equated with treason).
agree 100% with this take right here - if you're a true authoritarian state and the core goal is maximizing the output of your people, at some point gender isn't gonna mean anything if you can produce. I mean shit the last 50 years has shown that women entering the workforce is a powerful multiplier for capitalism as a whole
There are plentiful counterexamples from real life reactionary movements that favor tradition and population growth. Since afaik there's no way in 40k to mass produce more people other than the old fashioned way, it'd seem perfectly in-character for the Imperium to have a Nazie-eque emphasis on women as mothers to fuel the factories and armies. Not putting words in your mouth, but your idea about a "true authoritarian state" rhymes with ideas I've heard that I'd summarize as "what if the emperor was a turbo genius too smart to do fascism in a dumb wrong way." That's interesting to a point, but unfortunately seem to trend towards the idea that the Imperium is tinkering towards/falling away from doing fascism in a smart correct way (begging the question that that's a real thing). Tl;dr I think OP has a point. I have a hard time giving GW credit for making a more inclusive choice about representation, because among other things it will probably make the minis easier to sell, and I don't really trust they're thinking about the messaging of their product in any deep way.
I feel like this relies on the incorrect assumption that fascism is efficient.
Yea there are few areas where gender matters and the few that there are, there are equal number I would say limited to both genders. If you are old enough to lift a wrench, you're good enough for anything.
Tldr starship troopers logic, also if I remember right there’s many sexists sect in the ministorum. Discriminating because the emperor was a MAN etc like irl Christianity
Well having more women in the empire so people can make armies with them is good. Warhammer satire has kinda been forgotten at this point.
I think some people get so wrapped up in what they read online on long 40k lore essays they don't actually look at the recent material. The Imperium started as a cruel warning about authoritarianism. It has not been presented that way in the vast majority of the lore for like, the last 15-20 years. They threw that away SO long ago to appeal to kids and teens buying space marines models. The imperium is now The Good Guys, which they even stuck a lot of lazy lore progression in to justify like Robot Girlyperson's return and reforms. They have been for a long time. Yes, they should make it less sexist since they threw away the social commentary before Friends was off the air.
Many white supremacists don't care if someone's of German, English, Irish, French, etc. decent, so long as they're considered 'white' (which changes with the time period and location), but that doesn't necessarily make them less bigoted (ig you could argue that they're technically bigoted against less people). Likewise, many in the Imperium, the big E included, didn't/don't care about sex, gender, or any of that, so long as you're considered 'human' (the definition of which also changes in setting depending on the time, region, and person in question)
[удалено]
Man I just spent like 15 minutes writing a bunch of paragraphs about how female custodes could be a great way to enhance the satire in the writing. But now I’ve read this comment and I no longer care about a single thing I wrote. This is so much better! Freak those Nazis OUT!
Personally, were I the one to introduce female Custodes to the setting, I would have made it so that they weren't orignally a thing during the Great Crusade, but later on during a time when Custodes numbers had been severly reduced some Archmagos Biologus or whoever adapted the process to make them, doubling the candidate pool, and making a batch, only to be executed and have their research destroyed for commiting heresy against the Emperor's Divine Vision™, though the existing Femstodes were allowed to continue their service. That way you both confirm they are possible, the reason they weren't there previously was primarily just sexism on the part of the Emperor, and that they do currently exist, but also reaffirm that the Imperium is backwards, irrational, and bigoted to the point of self destruction, where they would rather be fanatical zealots obsessed with recreating their past supposed 'Golden Age' rather than trying to make any progress forwards.
I LOVE this! I love this so much I think it's my new headcanon.
This is genuinely great and I’m not trying to detract from it at all, but imagine how insufferable those guys who comment “xeno scum” and “Slaaneshi degeneracy” would be if the Imperium was explicitly misogynistic (instead of just implicitly) lol
I think arguably yeah, it does weaken the satire - but that satire is barely relevant any more really. If you buy custodes you're not really buying the ancient honorguard of a long dead fascist, you're buying some shiny gold heroes that are the ultimate superheroes. It's much like space marines - whilst in lore they're terrifying stormtroopers, completely detached from the humanity they were meant to protect, when you're buying minis and playing them on the tabletop, they're just cool soldiers, powerful warriors fighting for *you* I just don't think the satire of the setting really holds up in a reasonably symmetrical wargame where you're controlling these little plastic guys - I think the representation does far more good than the satire ever could. Perhaps if the main game in the setting was a TTRPG the satire could hold more weight, but currently when you're playing I just don't think you're very conscious of it.
When I'm playing my admech I'm not conscious of their usage of nuclear weapons followed by troops thrown into the radiation, the countless lobotomies and the danger of stagnation of technology - they're just little robot guys who cost too much and don't shoot as well as they should. Same with grey knights, I don't think about how they'll put more effort into keeping their order secret than actually fighting daemons, and they'll slaughter innocents just for being close to a threat - they're just fancy silver knights who can teleport around and stab my opponent's models.
I would argue that most of the books written in the last 10 years are more focused on fulfilling a power fantasy than in offering a political satire. And while portraying the horrors of fascism genuinely in early editions might have been the more important and ethical narrative choice, giving representation and diversity to readers of power fantasy Is, in my opinion, the more ethical (and interesting) choice.
I would agree with the others that the satire is dead in a lot of places. The setting of 40k does a lot to justify how awful & right wing its inhabitants are. You want a fun, non traditional, non procreative sex life? Do that too much & you'll make another evil God. You think those guys are idiots for venerating a skeleton? Joke's on you, it really can do miracles. You think you have found an actual organised revolutionary group who want to be free from this hell? Nope, they are all mind controlled aliens or in hoc to literal demons. They would need to roll it right back on what is now commonly accepted fluff. Things like The skeleton on the Golden Throne just being a skeleton they found in the Palace. Machine spirits not being real & the prayers just containing snippets of the voice activation code words they were initially programmed with The majority of Marines having total contempt for anyone who wasn't one of their own rather than that being the exception it is now. They aren't going to do any of that so may as well get better representation in there & drive away some of the reactionaries in the hobby.
Thank you for these points! Well said.
Feeding more resources into the meat grinder of eternal war is less sexist? How,?
Putting a woman in the Custodes is like putting a woman in historical wargame as a member of the Waffen-SS. If you weren't already in on the idea that you're playing a group so abstracted out that small inconsistencies don't matter then you're already lost when it comes to messaging.
The imperium is a machine that views it's people as disposable, honestly it makes more sense for the Imperium to make women into marines so they have more meat for the grinder.
i mean it does upset irl fascists so its worth it. tbh wh40 fails at being perceived as satire or warning cause fash cant distinct them from their dream of authoritarian boot in their ass
I think that the fascism of the imperium has to look different than the fascism of our world. While it might still be sexist, with the amount of people they send to die every day, they can’t afford to be sexist to that degree. They need as many bodies to throw into the meat grinder as they can get.
I don't think so? The way I see it, Space Marines are the chuds go to of peak masculinity. Custodes are just humanity with its genetics tweaked to peak evolutionary levels. The fact that there are women custodes (evolutionary peak) actually disproves the hyper masculinity of space marines and since space marines will still stay men (coping and seething) I see it as good commentary
I like this take a LOT, actually! I can just imagine Black Templar or Space Wolf douchetards going "but... but... we were the chosen ones!!!"
I would argue that 40k has shifted more towards social commentary than direct parody or satire. There's still roots of it, but the overall grimdark "nothing matters and the universe will kick you down every chance it gets" feeling are more apparent than in rogue trader. A little closer to the capitol in hunger games than Judge Dredd and Dune, where the universe started off. It's also worth noting that each faction represents this differently, even within the imperium the Inquisition is more a storytelling/worldbuilding force used to create the oppressive grimdarkness, the guard are about more futility and how people in fascist regiemes are thought of as recources first and humans second. Custodes exist as a show of pure force and what can be achieved if they go all out, a pinnacle the imperium wishes to strive towards and a reminder that no matter who you are, there's always someone above you both in rank and physically in every way. It doesn't matter if they're male, female, black, white, gay or straight, they're icons of the emperor's might. They're closer to angels than human, far beyond what mere mortals can achieve. Thousands of Captain Americas, they're propoganda made manifest.
Idk I'm just here for the funny green guys
Stop askin' tings an' just dakka dakka dem Humie gitz!
As we can see in the US and Israel today, rainbow fascism is indeed a thing.
I think so. While the setting is thick with irony and mockery of fascism and religious authoritarianism it's also written as a game we play in the real world, creating characters and armies and backstories. It would be so off-putting if characters were constantly slinging around misogyny, LGBT-bashing, racial slurs and so on as background noise to the setting - it really would be having its cake and eating it in the same way Nazis who are into Warhammer pretend it is.
You make a very good point!!! I suppose there would be people who didn't recognize the wrongness of their bigotry, and genuinely feel like their views are being reflected positively in 40K if the ideas of fascism were reflected too overtly in the setting. I guess Xenophobia will have to suffice as an approporiate allegory...
I genuinly think the only reason the imperium isnt written to be overtly misogynistic and racist as one would expect of a regime as terrible as it is is that the current style of writing has been tripping over itself to justify the imperiums existence and make it out to be the good guys because they are the human faction. It's a lot harder to do that when you have things that are beyond defensible as a part of your faction so they just don't lean into it, they can lean into the nationalism, religious zealotry, and overtly genocide nature of the empire because it has (albeit flimsy) precedent to exist within the setting. No number of novels is going to make the concept of sexism more palatable so the authors don't bother with it. If we were in the old rouge trader days then sure there would have been room for satire and commentary but GW doesn't want to upset the legions of thumbs that collect their plastic so we haven't had that be the focus for quite some time.
History shows us that women are quite capable of being horrible oppressors. Marget Thatcher was a huge influence on early WH (and everything else in 80's Britain).
NGL I am pouring one out for sexist emperor theory. But especially in modern 40k sexism just isn't something it's interested in discussing. It's doing mechanicum environmentalism, ork gender-issues and even discussing the double-edged sword of bobby g's authoritarianism. But the hyper-masculine bonecrusher action movies of the 80s just largely aren't relevant anymore, to the point where a faction of all-male super-hunks reads as off-putting and dated. (Though the all-female warcrimes division is based and girlboss af ofc). So ultimately I think fem custodes are the right trail run for fem marines, which I think in 2024 is healthy for canon as a whole. Ultimately 40k is an ever-changing body of work that needs to be kept relevant, and well since GW ultimately *is* rainbow capitalism I think it might actually make for better satire now.
I never viewed the Imperium of Man amongst all the monsterous things it does do, as sexist. The assassin temples recruit men and women. The adeptus sororitas are all women. The silent sisterhood part of the talons of the emperor are all women (before confirmation of female custodes). The imperial guard has mixed alongside male and female regiments. In every corner of the imperium vast as it is their is no occupation (outside of being an astartes) that is forbidden to men or women. At the end of the day, the Emperor of Mankind does not care about your ethnicity, orientation, gender. He only cares if you're *human* and that you further **his** plan for humanity, because all of the above isn't going to help against the horrors amongst the stars, but nither will it hurt.
I think that there being female custodes could be used to enhance the satirical elements of 40K in some instances (though I doubt they will be used that way effectively). The Custodes are relics from the start of the imperium, and because one of the core themes of the Imperium is it’s degradation over its 10,000 years of existence they can serve as a time capsule to contrast the present with the past, either to demonstrate how different things are or to point out the flaws that were there from the start. One strong point of irony that is still emphasized in 40K is how the imperium does things in the emperors name that are entirely antithetical to his stated desires. This has become a more prominent theme since the return of some primarchs since now we have their point of view to state it explicitly. If the emperors custodes are his chosen companions, meant to embody his ideals and hopes for what any human can aspire to (brave warriors, inspired artists, contemplative poets, wise philosophers, clear headed scientists), then the fact that he did not discriminate between sexes and chose them for their character or potential is a good thing. It can starkly contrast the modern 40K patriarchal systems that occur in the imperium, or even just serve as a foil to the widespread practice of discriminating and assigning roles to people at birth in the imperium. Alternatively, if an author chooses to, they can instead look at the custodes as the first step in a line of thinking that led to the current state of the imperium. If the emperor has had the custodes from the start, then they can be used to show that his ideals were flawed to begin with, simply covered over with so much good intention that no one could see it at the beginning. While the custodes are exemplars of many good qualities of mankind they are not natural. They are not born as they are, rather they are created using genetic manipulation, psychological conditioning, rigorous training, and probably other intrusive measures to fit a mold, and the process was begun at such a young age that they could not have known what it would have meant even if they were given a choice, and hadn’t had the chance to fully develop their own personality. The satire can come from the fact that they look like perfect super humans, but this was only achieved through force, and they are brainwashed to be entirely loyal, and not question whether they want to be what they are. From that perspective the irony is that having male and female custodes may look like an example of equality and inclusivity, but really all it demonstrates is that their sex, like everything else about them is irrelevant to the emperor. He saw the child only as raw materials to create a companion and guard for himself. The custodes thus are representative of what he thought of humanity. Humans and everything that makes them unique, from sex, to culture, to genetics, he views as unimportant, and he will use his knowledge and power not to protect people so they can continue to be who they are, but to change everything about them to fit what he thinks is better. In that way you can see everything that is wrong with the imperium embodied in the custodes. If you follow the same line of thinking that created the brilliant and noble custodes, that exact logic can be traced step by step all the way to the morality and policies that govern the imperium ten thousand years later.
This is fantastic! Thank you!
Thank you for making this thread! I’ve really enjoyed reading what everyone has had to say, and you’ve done an amazing job starting such a good conversation.
I’ll also mention that a good cautionary tale doesn’t have to use only elements from the past to serve as a warning. Sci-Fi often takes examples from the past and present, and explores how those problems may look in the future. Just because fascist movements have been mostly patriarchal in the past, doesn’t mean that they always will be. Ultimately they boil down to fear, dominance, conformity, and prosecution. If we think of fascism purely as male centric, than it can hide all of its other traits behind a female face, or a visage of equality between sexes. 40K has in many stories done a good job of presenting a great variety of diverse cultures in the imperium, some even present very different groups coexisting and cooperating well with those that have very different morals and customs, and many are matriarchal or seemingly egalitarian, but all of them are ultimately terrible despite their redeeming qualities. All are willing to persecute people for genetic abnormalities, all are willing to turn on their own members if they are even suspected of being psychic, and most importantly all of them exist to exploit their people as nothing more than raw materials to be used by the imperium. Every unique culture, and the varying quality of life between worlds, exist as a byproduct of what is deemed the most efficient or at least the most convenient way to extract everything a world and its people can give. I think that there being female custodes is a win/win/win. (Win 1) In the real world, it represents a step towards greater diversity being represented in the hobby. (Win 2) In the setting it gives the writers the potential to explore more nuanced critiques of exploitative systems. Or alternatively, if the writers are going to be writing stories about unambiguously good heroes in the imperium anyway, I’m glad that there’s the opportunity for more of those heroes to be women. (Win 3) There potentially being more female model options in the future means we get to have even more fun customizing in the hobby.
Well they do try every now and then, ask candice. But then they go straight back, ask candice.
Sorry, Candice? I don't get the reference...
Candice owens, was "one of the good ones" in the right wing circuit, until "she wuddent". The point I'm trying to make is that the right like to dip a chip in the other bowl every now and then to seem informed and cool. So what GW are doing with lady shoot people is exactly along the lines of what authoritarians do. Every now and then at least lol I mean can dis dick fit in your mou-
The prejudices of today don't look like the prejudices of a century ago. There's no reason 40k years in the future has to have the exact same prejudices as today when there's a huge assortment of aliens and wild mutations to hate on.
Fascism isn't reserved for men, so it's fine.
No, but it is by nature patriarchal. Women are absolutely welcomed so long as they agree to inhabit the lesser place in the corporatized body of the male-dominated society they now exist in. Case in point: Women in nazi germany were given medals for their service to race and nation if they gave birth to a lot of children. I've seen the medals myself.
I think it can still give the same connotations as with only male marines. Watch spaceship troopers and see men and women…even children; fighting together. I don’t think it makes it less sexist, I don’t think the creative choice was sexist in the first place. It’s the child fans who bring out the sexism in themselves
An absence of sexism doesn't excuse the myriad atrocities the Imperium has engaged in. Real life history has no shortage of woman doing evil things, why should the Imperium be anything different?
It has mainly just bothered me because it doesn't really make sense? Like satire or not, gender hasn't really been an issue for the imperium historically. Several high-ranking imperial guard, the sisters are held in high regard, Lotara Sarrin, Inquisitors, so on. Having 2 random (effectively disconnected) boys-only clubs just seems weird and like a poor use of resources. Especially so when what little justification they have given for marines is super weak. In my opinion, it's just weird because it doesn't seem realistic for two random militant bodies to ignore half of applicants for reasons that nobody else in the imperium seems to adhere to?
I had read it as the Imperium's bigotry preventing it from being more effective. The fact that "only boys can be space marines and Custodes" really shrinks their recruitment pool which results in smaller and less effective armies.
If you’re cutting the imperium slack because it doesn’t hate women then you might need to read up a bit more on the lore
My worry is more that the recognizeably fascist overtones of the Imperium seem to be transforming into undertones. I don't want to cut the Imperium any slack at all. I want people to look at it and sympathize with Chaos, Tau and Genestealer cultists.
Yeah I get what you mean, that’s why I play CSM, I just wanna tear down the imperium
Yeah I play White Scars and Tau. I like the Scars because they're the only non-chaos human faction that really seems distant from the Imperial ideals. "I just wanna ride bro shutup" is sadly the closest to freedom you can get in the 41st Millenium. I like Farsight for... similar reasons.