Were female Primarchs the next step in the Emperor's plan?

[Mr Mystery]

How do!

So, background says - no female Space Marines, because there aren't. And chromosomes and that.

Yet, was that always The Emperor's plan?

Let's look at what we know about The Primarchs, and their creation.

Bare bones - They were 'spun off' from The Emperor's own DNA. Tinkered with, Gene Scienced (FOR SCIENCE!). And, ultimately, whisked away incomplete. They hadn't properly finished cooking when the Chaos Gods wheefed them away.

The Legionnes Astartes? They were the best of a bad situation. A consolation prize, created from what The Emperor had left over. Literally the scraps left over from the process of creating the Primarchs. One could argue, the Space Marines as we know them we something of an emergency Plan B.

So, being made largely from the Emperor's genetic template, and The Emperor being male, it seems likely that it was easier to make The Primarchs male as well. Yet the level of genetic engineering involved, and that we have seen from the Heresy novels there were stages in between, as The Emperor tinkered ever further, could suggest that the Primarchs were not necessarily the final step in his experiments.

We also know that The Emperor was definitely working toward a timescale. He knew the Warp Storms were about to abate, hence the Unification Wars being launched when they were (he had been waiting for a while!). The abduction of The Primarchs was something of a set back.

So what if having successfully created the pinnacle of man's potential in male form, was the next step to create female Primarchs, and thus enabling the possibility of 'purebred' Primarchs, the result of y'know, between the various Primarchs.

I mean, The Emperor was seeking to dominate the Galaxy. It makes no sense to limit his options of super warriors to just half the populace. As it is, only a minority of male candidates would survive the implantation and training. But, if his work never fully came to fruition? It makes a lot more sense. He was forced to go off, if you'll excuse the unintentional pun, half cocked.

[Dalleron]

I don't think female primarchs were the next step in the Emprah's master plan. If the main goal of the primarch program was "bigger better faster stronger" then I think he was stuck using males, because lets face it, men are, GENERALLY speaking, bigger and stronger than women. I would say that there was no plan to breed primarchs, as a primarch was supposed to be the pinacle of the science. However, were you wanting to do something along those lines, you would need a jacked up super lady to give birth to the offspring that would come from the union.

I don't agree that space marines were emergency plan B. They were created to be the army the primarchs would lead into battle across the galaxy. Perhaps they could have been made better had the primarchs not been stolen/abducted or whatever you wanna call it.

[YorkNecromancer]

I always liked the idea that the two 'unknown' Primarchs were women, and that's why they're unknown - with the coming of the Imperial Creed and its more explicit misogyny, they became deniable. Either that or Malcador the Sigillite had some super-secret plan for them - some Chaos Daemon that cannot be killed by a man, so he makes sure that the female marines are in hiding until this Chaos force rears its head.

That's obvious not the case, because Games Workshop, but it always struck me as an easy way to introduce female marines into the fluff without overturning years of fluff - just have it turn out that the whole 'Men only!' genetics codswallop was a lie Malcador put in place; a dark secret all Apothecaries are sworn to uphold as part of their initiation.

You could even use it to introduce a new Chaos power - bring back Malal or something.

[Scion_of_Terra]

I was under the impression that Malcador was in favor of female space marines - as I recall, there's a bit in one of the HH books where he suggests the potential merits of 'battle-sisters'; Big E thinks he's joking and laughs it off. So if anyone, it's the Emperor who was the misogynist.

As for the Primarchs, they were supposed to be a way for the Emperor to administrate a galaxy-spanning empire, seeing as how he can't be in two (or twenty) places at once. They're not supposed to be soldiers, but mini-Emperors for him to delegate stuff to. Having armies of them would be counter-productive, as eventually there'd be too many competing Primarchs for an effective administration.

Finally, I don't think the Space Marines were necessarily an absolute last-ditch plan - Emps already had his Thunder Warriors before he started working on his Primarchs, and he used his research to create a more stable version of super-soldier as armies for the Primarchs to lead once he had found them. So he was planning on having both Primarchs and Space Marines in his empire.

Anyway, that's my two cents. The Emperor protects.

[eldargal]

Yup Malcador was totes proposing female Marines instead of chaps, which at the very least implies the technology allows it and the prohibition against it is just bollocks rather than actual science. I don't know if the Emperor intended to make female Primarchs though, I think he was a but of sexist **** to be honest.

[Path Walker]

I don't the Big E ever thought about using the Primarchs as anything more than vassals, he wanted to rule the Imperium himself, thats why he called himself the Emperor after all, he created the Primarchs to lead his armies and thats all, after the Crusade was done, he had no plan for them because he wouldn't need them any more, he's shown in the past (with the massacre of the Thunder Warriors) to have no problem in disposing of his gene-weapons once he's done with them.

[John Grammaticus]

I always liked the idea that the two 'unknown' Primarchs were women, and that's why they're unknown - with the coming of the Imperial Creed and its more explicit misogyny, they became deniable. Either that or Malcador the Sigillite had some super-secret plan for them - some Chaos Daemon that cannot be killed by a man, so he makes sure that the female marines are in hiding until this Chaos force rears its head.

The two lost Primarchs are referred to as "brothers" a few times, so whilst it is a really interesting idea it doesn't seem to fit. If they needed a LOTR-style witch king assassination I'm sure female members of the Officio Assasinorum could help?

[Jmaximum]

I always liked the idea that the two 'unknown' Primarchs were women, and that's why they're unknown - with the coming of the Imperial Creed and its more explicit misogyny, they became deniable. Either that or Malcador the Sigillite had some super-secret plan for them - some Chaos Daemon that cannot be killed by a man, so he makes sure that the female marines are in hiding until this Chaos force rears its head.

That's obvious not the case, because Games Workshop, but it always struck me as an easy way to introduce female marines into the fluff without overturning years of fluff - just have it turn out that the whole 'Men only!' genetics codswallop was a lie Malcador put in place; a dark secret all Apothecaries are sworn to uphold as part of their initiation.

You could even use it to introduce a new Chaos power - bring back Malal or something.

I believe the name is 'Malice', which, contrary to the name, was pro-Emp/mankind and wanted to HELP against the other chaos dominant powers (there's been multiple hints that there's more than 4 major chaos powers). And, seeing as GW now has the license to LoTR, and the 'I cannot be killed by man blah blah blah'. And, no $#!t, there were two, TWO!, female space marines minis made back in the 80's.

[Guilliman's Ghost]

[CoffeeGrunt]

You brought back a year-old thread for that? C'mon man, at least try harder.