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Originally Posted by Path Walker
Neither of these examples take into account the surgery needed to turn a person into a marine. As I said, it's a matter of finding the right combinations to make one. Most chapters have a hard enough time filling their ranks as it is with men fulfilling all the criteria.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikhail233
Thankfully, it's a deliberately-malleable setting with very few hard rules, and the process of creating a Space Marine is steeped in pseudoscience, so we don't have to worry about it being, "incorrect." :)
I think it's more the Astartes are overly fussy.
I find it curious that in the modern era, Chapters struggle to find quality recruits, when during the Great Crusade that really, seriously wasn't an issue at all for the Legions - which were comprised of hundreds of thousands of Astartes.
Now, we do have to take into account Geneseed degradation, and that there's no new sources of Geneseed - plus the culture shock the heresy brought about.
But even then, I think it's more the Chapters wanting the best of the best than the process itself.
There's plenty of references to female soldiers in the imperium of man in the fluff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Thomas
The first Cain book is about integrating two Valhallan single sex units into a mixed unit plus some side story about shooting xenos or something.
The Lieutenant in Space Marine.
Just two easy to find examples without any effort. It's not beyond thought that something like house Escher would provide a perfect source of recruits for the Imperial warmachine. I've got a feeling there's a reference somewhere in the background to the Necromunden 7th being a female regiment.
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It could also be the rejection rates are artificially high due to the ritualisation and lack of understanding. In the great crusade they implant a neophyte and he gets a bit green round the edges they knew what needed doing to rebalance things and make him well again. M41? bollocks lost another one...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Mystery
That is also true.
Man, I love how the true enemy - the only true enemy in 40k is ignorance.
Then I look around at our world, and really start to panic
Baseline women cannot put on the same muscle mass as baseline men, I totally agree. But as soon as you add steroids into the equation that gap narrows massively until you have only slight variations, ones that are comparable to the variation between groups of male body builders. So by the time you graft on all the bits that go into making a Space Marine, you're going to get the same kind of result no matter what starting bodymass you began with.
The trials for applicants have very little to do with strength. They have a lot to do with courage, grit and determination. Because those are things that can't be taught; any weedy kid with enough attitude can be taught to do pushups, but a prime athlete can't be taught to run headfirst into gunfire. (That's one of the reasons the special forces trials are more about endurance than physical skills. You've got to have a certain minimum, but you get multiple chances at those bits. The hardest part is not dropping out before the end.) And that's not a gendered trait.
Indeed.
Remember, Astartes are raised well above human. They're post-human - an idealised vision of the perfect warrior.
And that's achieved through serious gene tinkering.
The whole gist of this thread is 'what if?', based on the sure and certain knowledge that the abduction of the Primarchs meant the Astartes we know today were essentially a stop gap measure - Mr Emperor Sir needed to find his kids, and that necessitated an army.
Who knows how delayed the Great Crusade might've been had the Primarch's not been scattered? We're told it was the clearing of Warp Storms that meant the Crusade was launched, but was that simply because it was Mr Emperor Sir's first chance to find them, and at least try to get his plans back on track? We'll never know.
We also know from one of the novels (I forget which, apologies) that Malcador had advocated female Astartes over male, so that at least suggests, if not confirms, it could be done - but given Mr Emperor Sir is, as far as we know, male, it may have been simple expedience - it was easier to work from his chromosomes than adapt it to a wider set.
The concept that women are less violent than men is entirely subjective, if not outright wrong. It's a societal expectation for the most part - and if you've ever seen women scrapping on a Friday night (affectionately known round my way as Bacardi Bruisers), let me tell you it's not a pretty sight at all - it's far more vicious than the 'grab, tussle, wrestle on the floor' you tend to see drunken blokes going for. I'm talking eye gouging, hair pulling, scratching, biting, strangulation - that's not the actions of a gender not disposed toward physical violence at all.
And if you wanna say, "yeah but women don't fight as well as men," let me introduce you to [URL="http://abcnews.go.com/International/women-war-meet-female-peshmerga-fighters-taking-isis/story?id=39142160"]the Peshmerga[/URL]. Kurdistan is actually far better at gender equality than most countries, and arguably better in some ways than the West. They've been part of the Kurdish military since 1992 facing off against Saddam as well as ISIS.
Not to mention many female units throughout history who were generally erased afterwards as women in war were historically seen as a dishonourable last resort. Their role was to be victims or to be protected in most societies, even when they weren't.
Totally not what I was disputing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychosplodge
Ah It read like you were disputing the idea of recruiting from house escher. My bad if I read that wrong.