Another debate on female space marines but humor me for a second

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

Let's just chunk down to the Eldar. The Eldar have a fully integrated military - including an all-female unit, which in my opinion passes the "interesting reason for stupid gendered stuff" test, because it's entirely arbitrary and for no earthly reason at all - but we only have models for female footsoldiers and the all-lady unit

They aren't all ladies, providing Banshees are the ones in discussion. As explained in Path of the Warrior, it's just that female Eldar are more susceptible to that line of emotion.

[Psychosplodge]

There's plenty of potential ethnic models, you paint them whatever colour you want.
And in the fiction most of time a characters skin tone is never mentioned, except in things like the cain series where I think a dark skinned or dark haired trooper is mentioned due to their unusual colour for a valhallan, but outside of that sort of thing its normally left to the reader...

Yeah I think its hinted at in a cain book. His only misgivings were a slight disparity in their ranks iirc

[ElectricPaladin]

I do think that it would be great if the human heads gave us more options for racial diversity. They all have Anglo/European features, and it's really annoying. With my Space Marines, I do my best to make some of them black and use a variety of skin tones, but I need to pick my faces carefully. It wouldn't be all that hard to do some African, Asian, or South American faces, for example.

Yes, the setting could definitely do with more open homosexuality. I think it's worth noting that the same author who brought us Ravenor pretty clearly implies that the Imperium of man is a society without homophobia (reading between the lines, in any conversation about sexuality it's viewed as just another facet of a target's identity, which might or might not be useful, but has no attached cultural significance).

The thing about disabled characters - other than cybernetics and dreadnoughts - is that this is a war game. People with injuries generally get to go home. This is an actual fact - rather than a made up fact like "women aren't fit to serve in combat." If the representation for the disabled never got further than Ravenor, dreadnoughts, and cybernetics, I think that it would be more or less ok because that sort of thing being rare on the tabletop makes actual sense.

Nobody here is arguing that Warhammer 40k has to become some sort of social justicy parody of itself where everything in the setting is calibrated to obey some sort of "agenda." For myself, I'm just pointing out that with a few simple - and as Eldargal mentioned, inexpensive - changes, Warhammer 40k could be a game that does some good in the world by providing representation to some groups who have been traditionally ignored and/or pooped on in the world of speculative fiction.

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There's plenty of potential ethnic models, you paint them whatever colour you want...

No, you really can't. The features aren't right, the hair isn't right, and it shows. I mean, you can do an ok job of it with what you've got, but it could be a lot better.

They aren't all ladies, providing Banshees are the ones in discussion. As explained in Path of the Warrior, it's just that female Eldar are more susceptible to that line of emotion.

Having not read the book, I bow to your superior (read: actual) knowledge.

[iandanger]

This could sound incredibly sarcastic, but I don't intend it to be: do we need some gay, ethnic and disabled characters/models then? (I know Ravenor has already been covered.)

You mean beyond the weird, potentially homophobic Dark Angels winking gay references from the old days? Surely homosexuality would be present and common in the 41st milennium. Do those stories have to be told? Maybe not, but I think it would only add to the story.

[eldargal]

The irony when it comes to social justice and 40k is that there is really no reason for them to be carrying on the same prejudices as we have. When you literally have real deamons trying to tear down the wallso f reality and **** your **** up who cares if some people are attracted to the same gender? When you have trillions of enemies surrounding you trying to destroy your species why only fight with half of it? People always act like not including our current prejudices would make it into some kind of Star Trek like setting but that is just not true.

While there may be homophobic or sexist worlds in the Imperium it certainly isn't a widespread cultural thing as far as we can tell, there are far more hints to the opposite in fact. That doesn't make it a nice place, it just means the things they worry about are different.

[SuperDann]

Nobody here is arguing that Warhammer 40k has to become some sort of social justicy parody of itself where everything in the setting is calibrated to obey some sort of "agenda." For myself, I'm just pointing out that with a few simple - and as Eldargal mentioned, inexpensive - changes, Warhammer 40k could be a game that does some good in the world by providing representation to some groups who have been traditionally ignored and/or pooped on in the world of speculative fiction.

At the end of the day, though, GW investors aren't looking to be a force for good, they're looking to make money. And, to be perfectly frank, I don't choose to play 40K because I want a game that delivers social justice, and if that's what it aimed to do it'd get a raised eyebrow from me, though I'm not sure how it would affect my purchasing of the game. Depends on how they went about it.

When you literally have real deamons trying to tear down the wallso f reality and **** your **** up who cares if some people are attracted to the same gender?

Depends on population levels I guess

[eldargal]

At the end of the day, though, GW investors aren't looking to be a force for good, they're looking to make money. And, to be perfectly frank, I don't choose to play 40K because I want a game that delivers social justice, and if that's what it aimed to do it'd get a raised eyebrow from me, though I'm not sure how it would affect my purchasing of the game. Depends on how they went about it.

More inclusive = more money. Notto mention that, assuming you are a white male or male at least, you are in a position to not care about social justice. For the rest of us it is the difference between being recognised by the hobby we love or being kept to the sidelines while a dwindling demographic is held up above all others for no reason than that they were the ones who it was marketed at in the past.

If you haven't noticed things like the lesbian Guardswomen, disabled Ravenor, feminist High/Dark Elves and so forth then chances are you won't notice them in the future. You'll just see more variety of characters and hopefully more female models.

Remember this is NOT about changing the character of the setting, we love that. It is about including more people in it. No one wants 40k to be anything other than a brutal dysoptia, we just want to see women struggling to survive alongside men, and people who aren't white and so forth. They just need to be there doing what everyone else is doing, that's all.

[ElectricPaladin]

At the end of the day, though, GW investors aren't looking to be a force for good, they're looking to make money. And, to be perfectly frank, I don't choose to play 40K because I want a game that delivers social justice, and if that's what it aimed to do it'd get a raised eyebrow from me, though I'm not sure how it would affect my purchasing of the game. Depends on how they went about it.

Depends on population levels I guess

So, what you're basically saying is that it's ok to only be a good and decent person in some aspects of your life, and that it would take "looking to be a force for good" to add a few models and even things out, despite everything that's been said so far about females being the largest growing sector of the board game and speculative fiction markets?

I take issue with the idea that making a few small changes requires you to be some kind of crusading super hero. That's the whole point: adding in a few more female models and a female IC or two for the armies where it's appropriate is quite literally the least GW could do, and you characterize that as being "a force for good?"

Now, it's true that some of the things discussed in this thread - like retconning an entire faction to add ladies - would be significantly more than the least... but this conversation has gone past that initial thought.

I guess it depends on how your moral compass is calibrated. I don't see "I'm a corporation - I only exist to make money" as an excuse for failing to do the absolute least.

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Remember this is NOT about changing the character of the setting, we love that. It is about including more people in it. No one wants 40k to be anything other than a brutal dysoptia, we just want to see women struggling to survive alongside men, and people who aren't white and so forth. They just need to be there doing what everyone else is doing, that's all.

Where's my like button...

[iandanger]

The irony when it comes to social justice and 40k is that there is really no reason for them to be carrying on the same prejudices as we have. When you literally have real deamons trying to tear down the wallso f reality and **** your **** up who cares if some people are attracted to the same gender? When you have trillions of enemies surrounding you trying to destroy your species why only fight with half of it? People always act like not including our current prejudices would make it into some kind of Star Trek like setting but that is just not true.

While there may be homophobic or sexist worlds in the Imperium it certainly isn't a widespread cultural thing as far as we can tell, there are far more hints to the opposite in fact. That doesn't make it a nice place, it just means the things they worry about are different.

Not just that, the Imperial Truth certainly insists on challenging superstition and dogma, the only potential issue would be the inevitable issue of an imperial planet falling behind its reproduction projections and blaming it on homosexuality.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

In your butt?