No, because the Emperor worked for Ubisoft and female Primarchs would have meant, like, quintuple the budget or something.
In seriousness, nah I don't think so. The Emperor always struck me as quite sexist and more than a bit ****-esque in his methods. In his mind, women were probably there purely to breed more males to become soldiers and the idea of female Space Marines probably wouldn't even have occurred to him, echoing the way the ****s viewed women. Love the notion of him being Doctor Manhattan-esque btw, I'd love to see that explored!
I'd love the idea of female marines and Primarchs though. Not even as some separate legion but mixed in amongst the males.
If you think your civilisation is under threat of extinction then you'll try to keep women out of harms way for biological reasons. So, it depends on the context in which The Emperor was creating the Primarchs. The Heresy stuff suggests The Emperor was working under a high level of threat, so the creation of female marines doesn't make much sense. It makes even less sense if there was any (any at all) greater risk in the process. The Emperor, though, may not be gendered at all depending on how things turn out. Old fluff said 'he fathered children' but this could be explained as genetic manipulation.
I always saw the Emperor more as a Stalin-esque figure in the lore... At best he is a benevolent tyrant, and at worst he is a genocidal despot.
That said, I don't think it would be in his character to create female primarchs or marines, because dictators usually tend to be a bit sexist, and he isn't really anything more than a dictator once you boil him all the way down to his core.
On a side note, I could have sworn that I've seen female space marine figures from old school 40k back in the Rogue Trader days. I mean, the space marines did have autonomous robots as heavy weapons platforms, so it isn't a big stretch.
"This creature was death! His very existence was a refutation of Life; Wherefore he now lies here, where Life itself refuses to acknowledge him."
The thing is Space Marines (Adeptus Astartes), AFAIK, are neither male, nor female, they are both.
GW based Adeptus Astartes on biblical Angels, hence the Emperor's "Angels of Death". They certainly begin as "male" but once all of their implants are received and their geneseed matures and after extensive mental and chemical conditioning they give up their sex and become androgynous post-humans.
Angels in the Old Testament were neither male nor female, had no sex organs and were unable to naturally reproduce which is why they were so jealous of mankind, who they felt were unworthy of the ability to procreate.
Marines maintain their male sexual organs (although it is unclear whether they choose not to use them through psycho-conditioning or can't due to hormonal changes) and but they also gain geneseed, which is effectively the female part of reproduction that allows them procreate asexually.
So the question of why aren't there any female Space Marines is moot, as technically there aren't any male ones either, they forgo sexuality in order to gain their post human status and are effectively androgynous.
Now I know that might not fly as they certainly look male, but then so do all pictures of Angels in the Old testament which is pretty much what they are based on, and of course all Adeptus Astartes begin as male aspirants, but that's because their bodies are strong enough to undergo the changes needed.
However as has been already stated all foetuses begin as female and eventually become male or female in the womb.
Marines start life as Male and then become both male and female when all their implants are finished.
My point being is that I believe that the Primarchs, although clones of the Emperor were also effectively androgynous and therefore technically neither male or female.
And of course the Emperor himself was the result of multiple Shaman combining into one being, and it's never clear that they were all necessarily male.
Last edited by StraightSilver; 12-10-2014 at 08:42 AM.
All the other Primarchs were male, and all the lost unknown ones just happen to be female? That's way too convenient. If the Emperor was interested in creating female Primarchs, why would he have created 96% of their number as males? That's not the action of a man capable or willing to allow women into his legend.