Female Custodes and Marines | 40K Discussion
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- Опубліковано 20 кві 2024
- Grab your popcorn and orange juice and lets beat this dead horse. Seriously though, I think there are some interesting discussions to be had on this issue and its lame that its getting simplified so much on the internet. So here what I have to say on the matter!
With these discussions I want to engage with the community. Feel free to share your opinions in the comments and keep any discourse civil please. In the end anything discussed in these videos are just my opinions, feel free to disagree.
As always if you have any constructive criticism, advice, or suggestions please share!
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Hello everyone, I hope you enjoy this video. I tried fixing the audio since I know it’s been a bit wonky in the past. Please me know if it sounds better👍
What I dislike about female custodians is that GW said : um achtually there have always been female custodians!!!! And now anyone who dislikes female custodians is literally hittler. Also, the only reason they did this was so they could appease Amazon executives with a new girlboss.
Thank you for explaining your opinion clearly and providing the example of the space marine. Instead for crying for diversity and inclusion without any reason, other than ‘because’. Your argument for the non-necessity of female space marines was well explained. And also, for the most part, fits the Custodies as well. I too believe that retcons, if done well, can only enhance the standing lore of the setting. But there in lies the problem. The ‘if done well’, part has not been GW strongest attribute. Going as far back as the Necrons, GW fiddling with the lore has been passable at best. And in the case of the primaris and femstodies disastrous.
Let’s look to another franchise that has had many retcons. With many of them also being terrible, but the one I’ll highlight was actually good. The MCU (marvel comic universe) for the longest time, up to just before the release of Iron Man on the big screen. Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, was white. But then they chose to have Samuel L Jackson take that role. It was inspired, and really added depth to the character.
Now let’s look to the lore change for the custodies… does adding female custodies do the same… No, in fact it takes away from the Sisters of Silence. As you stated when discussing the possibility of female space marines. Them being a monastic order of brothers with the Sisters of Battle being their counter part. So to the Custodies have the Sisters of Silence. To change the custodies lore now just to appease the obnoxious minority would be a disservice to the Sisters of Silence as well as going against long standing lore. And saying that there have always been female custodies leads to the issue of… well where have they been for the last 10,000 years. (In the kitchen?)
Finally I have to disagree with you on the lack of female representation in the game. There are already many strong females across all the factions that have that binary distinction (Orks and Nids excluded of course)… although I’m not sure about these new Necrons. There entire regiments of the Imperial Guard that are wholly female. ( read about them in a Ciphas Cain novel) so in the end. I like many others will rightly sneer at any one who decides to field female custodies. We’ll still play against them of course, and complement them on their paint job if it deserves it. We will even graciously congratulate them should they win, but we will never accept female custodies. Unless of course they bring out the strip-stodies models for them like they had with the Emperors text to speech youtube series.😂😂😂
6:15 This is not true. Human are physically superior in a number of ways.
There is another reason all Primarchs and Astartes are male: The Emperor was male, so he has an XY chromosome. So his genes can't possible make female Primarchs without a mother, and thus the genes of his Primarchs would be incompatible with females.
i personaly thunk that the emperor created the astartes as a combat unit and as a helper troop to run the empire (hence why the ultramarines love filling tax forms and why the thousand sons where made twice) but ultimatively they where never ment to procreate to a larger number than required. also theres at least a tiny chance of transexual space marines wich would make them female but i guess not in the way the most agressive proponents for femstartes want them to be.
I think whether someone is for or against the retcon, we should all agree that making a lore change this big via social media should not become an acceptable method of updating lore.
Didn’t it originate from the codex? But then it got leaked before the codex was out and GW had to clarify on twitter?
@anothernerd6464 The story was leaked from the codes with no context. We didn't know how or why there are female Custodes now. Then they "clarified" on Twitter, but the way it was done was to say they've always been around.
This was a mistake for 2 reasons, the first obviously being that people who were concerned about the overly nerfed state of the Custodes were explicitly ignored in favor of clarifying a lore question. Second is that in clarifying, they made the retcon cannon over social media when they could have also left the question unanswered and taken more time to flesh out a better reason than "they've always been here, we just haven't mentioned them."
Yup, social media is a terrible way to update the lore.
Im looking at you sea of thieves mysterys. They were both terrible
AKA: The JK Rowling method.
For me I’m more annoyed that they would rather create female Custodes, than actually give love to the Sister’s of Silence. Kinda kills the dichotomy that the “Talons of the Emperor” presents. That and now all the horny redditors can’t stop gooning to the art, shit is annoying.
Just have both.
It's not so bad. They never took anything away from the Sisters of Silence or really gave anything to Custodes. They still both have a role to perform and specialise in, and they do it well.
Add brothers of silence!
@@a_lethe_ion I'd rather they respect the lore for what it is rather than shoehorning in bullshit for the sake of political talking points
@@KopitioBozynski you know, not everything is for political talking points, you might disagree but it's pretty arrogant to decide that the side sharing your 'political' talking points is the one not disingenuous just because you want to keep things how they were
I honestly don’t care about female custodes, just make a better excuse for the retcon than just “yeah they always existed”
Especially when they were never mentioned before
@@brobandit2944 i mean they could easily just make the excuse of “oh they were lost in the warp and the emperor kept the warp hidden and nobody ever knew”. correct me if I’m wrong. It’s better than “oh they always existed we just never mentioned them”
@@mahmoudsalaheddine8358 I agree
@@mahmoudsalaheddine8358
I would have rather liked one of two ways:
1. The females always existed but their "creation process" is way harder to do during the great crusade and there where like a total of 50 of 10.000 making them an even rarer ressource (and no one wants to be responsible for the loss of such a valuable person) and the Emperor wanted to perfect the project after the great crusade and we know the rest of that story.
2. The Emporer had the blueprint always in his mind but due to his shattered psyche he couldn't tell anyone.
Now with opened great rift he can do more (as seen with him helping G-Man out) and gave the blueprint to make them one of those custodes who frequently "talk" to him.
Those would give an actual as just "they always existed".
@@dominikreinhart3457less numerous, focused on secrecy and the Blood Games, being a crazy experiment made after the Emperor took the big sit just like all the many foundings and now Primaris, so if female Custodes are ever explained they kinda go against what the Emperor wanted.
I see that you are a Sam O' Nella 40k version. Nice👌
"Hey kids!"
lol thanks! I love Sam’s videos
THis was litteraly my first thought to
It is sad that salmonella channel kinda died, but i am glad that there enough people to take up the flag!
@@KrakDuk sam is a generational icon
@@nolanbaker2360 for real. He’s my hero
My problem is that they won't give respect to the sisters of silence
They didn't need to. The Sisters still perform their function and do it well. They haven't lost a thing.
@@dalemallon2924the sisters are just strictly worse assassins now
@@dalemallon2924 If the custodes project allows the flexibility for both males and females to be inducted then what's to stop blanks?
Amazon wants a female girlboss who can talk. That is literally why they didn't want a Sister of Silence.
@@KopitioBozynskiBlanks can't be Custodes or astartes due to their blankness interfering with the process . If you're saying why no males in the SoS then that's simply due to their tradition and origins .
I believe that what i'm more mad about the fact that now people want to protest when games workshop had done a ton worse, when they created the primaris and make thousands of fans lost valuable armies, when they literally rewrite their own rules of the lore, when they cancel fan made series that everyone loved and everybody want, when they treat to demand every fan that dare to use a 3D printer, when they put back the squat just to never give them any source of lore, but ohhh no there is ONE woman in the custodies! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE
Yeah it’s pretty silly.
I really think it’s just that this is a monetizable topic rage baiters can jump on. Ive seen “anti woke” channels that haven’t ever talked about 40K suddenly make multiple videos on the topic. It’s pretty ridiculous and makes the people who have reasonable complaints about the retcon look stupid. Sucks the internet is so reliant on outrage culture now, but it’ll blow over I’m sure.
Anyways thanks for watching! I appreciate your thoughts
@@KrakDuk thanks man, love your videos i already subscribe
@@KrakDuk keep doing this great videos
@@MISTERTR-rh9mg thank you! I really love making vids so it’s awesome to see people enjoying them. Huge motivation
Its because of two parts:
1. in minor, this time they didnt just retcon but essentially lied. This is far easier to sell people when theyre not engaged with what GW is doing as simply saying "Look, the company literally lied to us and changed the lore!" is very easy to sell
2. This can easily extend outside of 40k. To those who barely/dont keep up with 40k lore specifically, whether fans of the universe or not. They understand on an easy level the idea of "company injecting female characters into non-female space" and therefor can easily rally behind it.
Try talking about what GW did with other bad stuff to people and you MIGHT get a "yea thats shitty" but they wont have any real understanding nor care about it. You can't sell someone by saying that X car has a shitty alternator that will give them problems when they dont really know (nor really care) what an alternator is.
I'd like to address another, completely unrelated problem: the models. Recent custodes models have had a bit of a redesign, with the two most recent models -- the blade champion and shield captain -- being severely less-armored, with more cloth/leather elements, making their armor look like more medieval armor, instead of power armor. They've also removed the conical helmets, which have been a classic part of the custodes' design.
My biggest gripe about it was the way they handled the retcon, however if we get a cool novel that will change. I do think what little stories we got about the Sisters of Silence will suffer unfortunately
Ya that’s totally fair, I think that’s what most people are concerned with. Hopefully they do something cool and interesting with it. I also hope sisters of silence continue to get lore, they’re very cool and have a different niche from custodes.
Thanks for watching!
If I remember correctly, the Guard is mostly men with some all female regiments while mixed regiments like the one Ciaphas Cain was attached to are a rarity.
in the guard there is only one gender: meatshield
That's probably old lore by this point. It feels more like most Guard Regiments are mixed and male only and some female only ones.
The first Cain Novel came out like over 2 decades ago so I wouldn't take any world building from those at face value.
While that is stated a lot, notice how most guard stories follow mixed regiments. Narratively mixed regiments are more interesting and while they may not be the majority, they are clearly a common occurrence.
Yeah from what i can remember, Custodes arnt like.. a sub-species of human, they're human bodies that are juiced to perfection. They're not cut up and grafted with a bunch of extra steps. They're not "rudimentary" analog-surgery cyborgs. They are human anatomy driven into genetic perfection.
The process of making a space marine relies heavily on the aspirant having a flow of testosterone in their body to acclimate the surgical stress and organ implants, making the creation of a female space marine incredibly difficult to nigh impossible with horrifically excessive fatality rates. But thats not how a custodes is made.
Which gives credence to female custodes actually existing somewhere.
It's so funny bc this description shows the writer dont know shit about human physiology.
Getting more T as woman just gonna make you hairy, atrophy your breast, will likely stop monthly bleeding, increase in muscle growth, blood oxygenation, higher blood pressure. , droped voice, male pattern baldness if you're dad had it too etc.
See female pro body builders. They're juiced.
Also turns the clitoris into a tiny peen.
Hormones are fascinating
In that case male custodian would absolutely stomp female one and given the amout of work and resources to make one it'll be a colossal waste. Why even do that? Except for woke points and sweet BlackRock money, of course.
@@vincentcrow6075
That's assuming the differences between Males and Females are the same between Custodes as they are for us genetically-imperfect normal humans.
If they're both genetically perfect, then I can't imagine the gap would exist, or would exist in a measurable quantity. Honestly, it probably wouldn't take that much genetic tampering to swap the roles if you really wanted to.
But let's say that's true,
and a Male Custodes would be better than a Female Custodes on most metrics:
A Female Custodes would still be leagues above basically anyone else.
Technique, Equipment, and Experience will in most cases out-perform physical attributes, cause most of the time you don't need 100% or even 50% of your physical potential. You only need to apply what you have effectively. A Female custodes surrounded by a chapter of space marines is still a "Custodes surrounded by fear and dead men."
The scale of a Custodes' strength and capability is so ludicrously high, that the functional margin between the sexes would likely be negligible in comparison to anything that isn't near or above a custodes in power level. Which, if we're being honest with ourselves, is anyone GW wants. (Remember the Harlequin bullshit.)
@@Adelie_in_Grey I dont think the gap would exist either tbh. As far as my rudimentary knowledge goes, muscle mass accumulation is heavily based around testosterone, and females simply dont have enough access to it in context to our current biological evolution. I think those limiters would be removed through the process of being Custodi-fied, with the female phenotype having full access to testosterone during development.
@@Adelie_in_Grey oh yeah, that's exactly why custodes retire if they aged to the point where they got slower by 0,001 second. Let's just make them slower and weaker from the start)
As a person who dislikes the change, here is my answer to any retcon you dislike.
L + everything is canon + it is written in the perspective of imperial recording + this game is just about your guys + you can just homebrew it away for the previous reasons + ratio
Ok, so I guess everything I like is canon.
@@corvus_armatura7595 its warhammer, have fun with it. A perfect example is Malice, rn he is dubiously canon, but most folks treat him like he exists just because the idea is so interesting!
@@cyrusmann5443I don't even like Vashtorr but I adore the idea of the Dark Mechanicus being their own thing and striving closer to the Interex rather than just stuffing demons inside daemon engines.
My personal headcanon for Female Custodes is they're actually Tzeentch Daemons who infiltrated the Golden Bois to Spy/Sabotage them (explaining the nerfs)
Am I correct? Probably not in the eyes of GW, but since everything is canon, that's canon now
@StarDevilRedrixsWhisper that's a pretty common idea among people in this community. I said everything is canon because gw officially said it once. Have a nice day bro
Just my own thought. Could there be female custodes....eh maybe, but ive always felt that the sister of silence were their equivalent and balanced out the weaknesses that the golden boys had and i also feels it takes away from both by doing this. Im sure if they started slow and made very small comments about it over a few years and slowly introduced them i think this would of gone over smoother than what has happened now.
I do agree that if your gonna retcon not only should it be neat it should have an impactful meaning and purpose.
I think your audio definitely sounds better though im no expert in audio.
That seems to be the prevailing point of view for most people barring those on the extreme ends of things. Definitely think it could have been handled better.
Thank you for watching! And cool, I’m still trying to figure out how to edit audio haha it’s hard for me to tell what sound good since I’ve never really audio edited before
I disagree with the " Lever argument" of having female custodies somehow lowering the impact, lore, or role of the sister of Silence.
However I will say, they certainly could had been introduced way, way better.
I dont really see Sisters of Silence being the 'Girls' for the Custodes. Personally I see them more as how they cover the Custode's weakness to Psykers. Adding female Custodians would not diminish their role, nor their importance or style, as without them, the Custodes would be just as screwed vs any daemons or psykery.
Then let’s have Brothers of Silence and Misters of Battle. Those are all female orders, imagine if they said “men were always there” despite them being referred to as Sisterhood the entire time.
@@negativezero8174 Male howling banshee.
They exist since 3rd edition
Seeing a lot of time differences between comments, so I'll toss my opinion in, too:
1. Gendered dynamic between Custodes and SoS: you touched on this, but i disagree with your assessment. The Astartes are the tip of the Imperium's Spear while SoB are the muscle of the church. They're reflections operating similarly for different authorities.
Custodes and SoS are the exact opposite: they are two arms of the same authority, and both are required for the Talon as a whole. In combat, Custodes are the muscle, the big brother protecting little sister, while SoS counter warp threats, the little sister keeping big brother's head clear and in the fight.
2.The Emperor: As you said in this video, the Emperor is a man of planning and Science. The Custodes are the perfection of human form for the purpose of war.
With both of these in mind, all Custodes would be male because the biological structure of men is best suited for the physical and mental requirements of war. Muscles structure and mass, chemical balance, bone and tendon density, etc. all result in men being able to sustained aggression and physical exertion.
3. Lore Elements: The Custodes are only referenced as male and a "Brotherhood of Demigods" throughout lore.
Even the popular counter reference of golden warriors gathered beneath a landing craft refers to Emperor's Talon, meaning SoS and Custodes.
-Conclusion: The change adds nothing, doesn't make sense to the setting or the Emperor's character in creating them, and was handled poorly to the point that I'm still blocked by GW for posting a summarized version of point 2.
Agree with what you said, except that if a female would be compatible with becoming a custodes the emperor would definitely turn them into one but making female custodes 50/50 or some shit like that they definitely need to limit it, like you said he made them for war and males in general are more built towards that but there is exceptions to that
They just want to weasel in female space marines.
But what's wrong with expanding on the Adepta Sororitas?
I always found them to be more interesting than the Astartes to me.
Mainly because they're not OP like a Space Marine.
It adds scarcity to the story element(when a character has to face an army, but has one magazine left)
When a group of Space Marines wipes out a battalion(about 1k personnel) of Orks for example; it's like "oh nice, as expected". It's bad-ass, but expected.
But if a sister(and they're usually alone in stories) with a rag group of misfits wipes out the same Ork battalion without plot armor and uses intelligence along with the surroundings it's like "oh holy shit, she did it"
Right but why would those be gender specific experiences
@millanoire This person isn’t saying that these should be gender specific, they’re outlying the “against all odds” trope by pointing out the differences of trans-human monsters destroying shit, versus a lightly armored un -augmented warrior doing it and actually winning. Not sure if you just typed this just because and didn’t comprehend what you read.. This person is just saying that they think sisters of battle are cooler because they do the same shit Space Marines do, but they’re baseline humans. I personally think that that makes the story much, MUCH more engaging. This has nothing to do with “gender specifics”. There are stories of regular men and women throughout the lore doing the same thing.
Would you feel the same if say, the sisters of silence turned out to be much stronger than the custodes, and the power gap between the two were similar to the power gap between astartes and sisters of battle.
Would that make you like the custodes more or would that just make you upset?
More generally, would you accept a force of OP females coupled with a force of less OP males?
I honestly thought your number one reason that there shouldn’t be female space marines was going to be that you hate the boobiez lol. In truth, I agree with you and what you said 100% I think that this wouldn’t even be an issue if it had happened a year ago, the Internet and the rest of the world are just riled up and this is an easy target as long as they don’t touch my Grey Knights, everything will be fine lol.
Oh well I do hate boobies ofc🤣
But yeah I definitely think this is just an easy and monetizable target lol. Seems things are getting blown out of proportion.
GW seems to forget about gray knights often so they should be fine haha, poor gray knights fans having to use marines the size of guardsmen…
1. You’re incredibly brave for giving your take on this topic
2. Both you animation and writing have hit another milestone, I’m not sure if there’s anything different but you’re pumping out professional tier content and it’s been like what? Three maybe four weeks????
Edit: oh and I would have messaged you personally again but I’m permanently banned from Reddit now 😢
Haha I appreciate the kind words, brave may be too generous I just felt a lot of the discussion around this skipped over some points I found interesting.
I hope the videos not too polarizing, I was a bit disappointed that most discussion about the topic was just name calling and stuff like that so I wanted to share some interesting ideas about it.
Thank you, I’m glad the videos feel more professional! I feel putting out vids helped me grow a lot faster than when the channel hadn’t launched I was just practicing. Plus I’ve gotten some great feedback from people. Hope to keep improving and making the videos as good as they can be👍
Thanks again for watching my videos!
The first to call names was GW themselves.
@@KrakDuk honestly i really loved this. there is so many angry videos about this and no nuanced ones. its like no one wants to touch it for risk of being labeled bad or a bigot or something. so thank you for having a well thought out opinion and expressing it.
this is the first video i watched from you and i have to say love it. the art is fun and adorable which makes it all the funnier its for grimdark setting. while the script is well thought out, witty and informative. keep up the good work!!
basically agree 99% with what you said
one thing struck me as add from the redditors argument - "you are missing on the potential strong female aspirants" . The space marine recruits are 10 to 14 years old. WHAT KIND OF KIDS DO YOU HAVE AT YOUR SCHOOL??!?
What's the 1%?
Haha that’s a good point. But to be fair in 40k a fair bit of 14 year olds on some planets are probably already fighting some horrible monster lol.
Thanks for watching the video!
@@CatYah00 a wiggle room, since I'm not a girl and don't feel an inherit need for more female representation. When it's there, and it's done right, I don't care if the Cool Commissar that is leading the charge in this book is male, female, non-binary or a necron in disguise. If it's done right, it shouldn't really matter. I do like, when I'm surprised, as a viewer. "Oh this regiment is led by a hardass, no noes badass lady", but I don't NEED it like some people do >->
@@KrakDuk great job as always
@@kubastachowiak1089 Fair enough but it wouldn't hurt to add more representation to real life tomboys even if they aren't custodes or space marines
I don't really care about Female Custodes existing. That's it, that's my thoughts.
Always appreciate a chill, nuanced perspective! :)
Let us be honest: if there were female space marines, they would be indistinguishable from male space marines. And as unnecessary fat, the boobies would have to come off. That would be far from the most invasive part of making a space marine.
Never mind the numerous testosterone producing organs implanted into them. They'd just be transhuman transmen
Absolutely, and honestly, if they ever do that, that's how I want them to do it. Hulking superhuman murder machines basically no different from any other astartes aside from just a few slightly more feminine head molds and whatnot. No huge changes or anything, just an extra little cosmetic option for those who want it.
Unecessary fat? They go with being a woman.
My personal headcanon: You can turn girls into space marines, but that literally doesn’t matter because space marines don’t have functional reproductive tracks or secondary sex characteristics
Which would imply that space marines are actually genderless, but are referred to as male because of cultural reasons
@@jocylinfrancis930That is exactly how I see it too
"The internet is basically fake" and everything you said after that is one of the most true things I've heard on this platform in a long time.
1:33 my stance on that was always congratulations you have invented sisters of battle
I actually really love your take on this because it isn’t as simple as “woman bad” or “retcons are bad” it’s actually very nuanced and I think you did a great job
Love the video! The lazy retcon aspect was the part that made me mad. It takes a lot to make a custodes and most custodes were killed in the webway. It could make sense that they recruited women to fill out the ranks wince they only recruit from tera and it took a few hundred years to get them on par with the original Custodes. But instead gw just went the lazy they always been there route. I do agree tho I hope we get more books and lore that follows our existing female factions.
Ya it was handled vertically strangely, the tweet especially seemed to rub people the wrong way.
I just hope they do something interesting going forward
Thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed
This is done all the time in 40k lore. Half the time they introduce a new model it's just something that was always there and just not brought up before.
Honestly, I don't care about female custodies or female space marines, I'm just wondering why they wouldn't use something that's already established to have females in them, just because it'd make everyone happy, you get your female representation without making the fans mad that you're changing the lore.
Arminka Lesk is an awesome female character in the guard. She isn’t a lazily written Mary Sue. She barely got off Cadia in time, is psychologically traumatized by the battle of Cadia and it’s fall. Following her journey through the campaigns her regiment is engaged in. If your haven’t read them I highly recommend the Arminka Lesk books!
Fun fact: apparently there once was female space Marines, but their models sold like shit so GW scraped the models and put lore as to why they don't exist. I might be wrong I heard it from one UA-camr but it does sound like something GW would do. The End Times spring to mind.
Yeah the models looked like shit so they sold like shit. Imagine if they looked better and sold well. The 40k universe would certainly look different.
@@Kiyokoghurtthis was in the 80s, the nerd demographic back then was almost exclusively dudes in basements who were relentlessly mocked by the women in their life. No shit they wanted to play as super-powered men and not super-powered women.
The lore was also not as well defined at the time, but that was part of it. It was also probably because it was just easier to make male only marines. At one point in time half Eldar marines were a thing… so yeah… times have changed
It was a proto sister actually, the metal tab says sister and they were sold as 'female adventurers'. Nor that it would matter anyway because rogue trader lore is so diff it's basically a different game.
I really enjoy Space Marines being all male, it has a unique sense of male/brotherly, rivalry and bonds. Comparing it to other modern diverse faction ranges it now feels genuine and intentional rather than a range limitation. But I don't really mind female custodies especially if they are only few and I like when custodies are presented to be more than just better gold Space Marines, this creates a little degree of separation. Though female Space Marines being compromised with already having Sisters of Battle, or Custodies already having Sisters of Silence, feels like it creates redundancy for those female factions and diminishes there own unique lore.
Ya I pretty much agree with all your points. I do like how the change subtley kinda shows how the emperor gave more attention and care to his custodes as opposed to the marines
@@KrakDuk I see Custodes debate more along the lines of the physical aspect of males and females. Males are physically stronger than females in bone density and muscle mass. Plus you need a source of testosterone to help make those muscles grow. You can create a far stronger male Custodies then a female version. In order to get a female to the same physical strength as a male would take far more resources to accomplish this.
In lore it has been stated that they are a Brotherhood of Demigods. The 10k Custodes are also only from the noble houses of Terra. Noble families would willingly give up their sons for the honor of becoming a Custodes.
As a sisters of battle fan it always frustrates me when people call them female space marines because they serve entirely different purposes in both lore and gameplay and comparing them makes little sense
Also I find the lack of female space marines would not be so bad if literally any of the female dominated branches had as much care and screen time put into them but they don’t primarily due to the idea that they are less powerful and thus less cool then the masculine symbol of the space marines
Also there is nothing to the existence of being a women that should disqualify her from being a space marine women and men are structurally and in dna almost exactly the same and this is only talking about the avg women and men which we know space marine candidates are not. I imagine the transition process would pick similar traits in candidates not matter what and then completely eliminate the rest. In trans warhammer spaces there’s an idea that space marine itself is both an occupation and itself a new gender put in place and the he/him usage is just the same way boats get called she which I think is very interesting in a series which mostly brushes off gender because it doesn’t want to think about it.
Something I also found reading the books is that even in the background non wartime sections women are by far the minority which I know just means the authors simply did not think about how it would look or thought that having a Strong Female Character makes up for that lack of background because sometimes when I read a book and women are like at most 10% of the characters I can only think things that have terrible implications for the setting that makes it hard for me to root for those trying to keep the status quo.
Almost all explanations for why women can’t possibly be space marines almost entirely rely on limited notions of sex and what women are like the process involves growing to like 8ft and gaining just so many organs women aren’t inherently predisposed to reject that process because of lack of a dick it makes 0 sense unless you view gender as the unscientific notion of women and men have completely different everything and nothing can cross ever when current views is that women and men are broadly more the same then different and any individual woman or man will have many others of the opposite gender that they will have much more in common with then others of their own gender. It makes sense to me that there are female candidates they just get forcemasced when they transition because they now serve the patriarchal machine of the imperium
And this is only from a cis perisex perspective
Tldr; I understand for this one sorry: sisters of battle have never been treated in lore the same way as space marines and saying they’re just female space marines is disrespectful and the view that the process of creating a space marine is only for men involves a view of gender and sex thats incredibly limited
@@reverendofprimordialvents3985sisters of battle aren't the flagship faction because they don't sell as well as space marines. Like it or not, 40k is primarily a dude hobby and so a brotherhood of enhanced super vikings, or Mongols, or knights etc... will always be more popular than space nuns.
Your whole headcanon about space marine being a gender is just flat-out wrong. The genetic enhancements from Geneseed come specifically from the primarchs, who themselves derive from the emperor. Malcador suggested to the emperor that he put in extra work to make some primarchs female, but the emperor insisted on all of the primarchs being his sons. Not children, sons.
Even if the capability for non-men to become space marines existed, it simply makes no logical sense. Geneseed requires testosterone to work with and change a space marines body, which is normally supplied by male puberty. To create a female space marine you would not only have to find the aspirants much younger to preemptively block puberty, you would then have to spend more testosterone to get them on the same level as a man. There are no female or trans or whatever new nonsense space marines because you are spending more time and effort to get less results.
@@reverendofprimordialvents3985 Behold the actual quote from the Codex. "It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." To view gender and sex in a limited capacity is the core of 40k. You wanting the imperium to be inclusive goes against what 40k is. There is no Hope, there is no future, there is only pain and suffering. If you want a trans space marine, then play on the side of Chaos with Tzeentch or Slannesh. For only they care about your gender.
A pretty interesting argument against female Custodes I've heard was that people simply do not like the implication that the Emperor build himself a bunch of giant golden space concubines
Also, I've heard the very reason this retcon was made was as a sort of compromise for Amazon, who originally wanted to include female Space Marines in the pitched 40K webseries, because apparently they thought the Sisters of Battle, Sisters of Silence, female Guardsmen, or female Assassins were not good enough to be included among the main cast of characters
(apparently they wanted a female character who'd be super strong even without power armor, and they were too cowardly to add a female Ogryn)
1. The emperor had erda, also he had more important things to do than sex and the point of the 10,000 wasn’t just to have a bunch of male dude bros and another bunch golden sexdolls
2. Custodes are not space marines for the 1 millionth time
3. The only speculation to this was from a 4chan post which I wouldn’t really say is in good faith a a majority of Amazon’s adaptations have been good as they have people who care about the IPs working on them which is why for every rings of power there are fallouts, the boys, and invincibles which are all widely popular series with fallout probably being the best preforming and truest adaptation we’ve gotten yet
Besides any decisions being made is only made through cavil which directly contradicts the idea that “cavil would leave the show” because of Amazon’s plan for female custodes and if anything if it were true the idea for female custodes would be his own as to avoid another Witcher he guaranteed hiself total creative control over the show meaning any decisions on how the show will go are made by him and him alone
@@karlwes6273 That's the thing tho
people are afraid of another Rings of Power and Witcher situation
@@Dr.Mlieko seeing as cavil has full control over the show and hes the single biggest nerd on earth, we’re gonna be fine
My take in female custodes is that it fits with the non-war elements to their lore.
People forget that unlike Astartes, Custodes are actually useful if ever there was not a war. The empreror designed them to be perfect examples of mostly normal humanity. They aren't unstable dumb tools like the Thunder Warriors or crude modified super soldiers like Astartes. The custodes are sculpted artworks of humanity designed to inspire as much as defend. Not only are their bodies shaped but their minds too. A Custodes is a genius level intellect with strength and speed at the peak if human limits. They are meant to be something humanity should aspire to be like and I think a female Custodes would be part if that. Unlike the theoretical space marine girl a lady Custodes would not have her femininity stripped from her. No. Un fact she'd be desugned with supermodel good looks and the figure of a fit and healthy woman. She would be the ideal a human woman should aspire to be in every way.
Also remember the Custodes wore those stripper pillarmen outfits for a while so let that sink in.
This is exactly the video I’ve been looking for thank god
No one, that I know of, ever complains that there are no men in the Adapta Sororitis.
And frankly I'd be totally peeved if that happened.
Totally in equal parts to how much female Space Marines wouldn't work for me.
Now that I see, we don’t need female space marines. I MEAN WE GOT LIKE 50+ NOVELS focusing on them and their daddy issues. I like it more like a fan joke/funny concept like the space maids.
If people want to see more representation, they should buy or share more stuff about female focused factions, like sisters of battle and sisters of silence . You know, GW really loves money and they would do anything for it.
While I can understand the argument of the male-female dichotomy between the Custodes and Sisters of Silence, I actually think the introduction of femstodes' treading on the femininity of the SoS is a good thing, since it highlights what is in my opinion the more interesting dynamic of "Genetic masterpiece super-soldiers" with "Crazy-ass soulless witch hunters" that the Talons of the Emperor have.
The new codex also introduced these figures called "Soul-guardians," soldiers with the Pariah gene that guard the Imperial Palace. As they are somewhat implied to be male (given they don't meet the Sisters' requirements, which are never specified), their introduction with proper units might actually further emphasize the dichotomy between Custodes and Pariahs as a whole.
Just the handling of it was kind of horrible, if GW was smart about it, they would've been introduced in The End and the Death novels
Yeah the handling is definitely my biggest issue with the retcon
Anyways thank you for watching!
Weren't they first hinted at in echos of eternity?
they were introduced in a book, just because you saw it from twitter doesn’t change that
@@ce5122 which
@@gergelyosztrogonacz9464 it was in the adeptus custodes codex in a short story about a blood game
From what i have seen, it contradicts a single line in a codex that says the Custodes are chosen from the sons of important people of Terra.
And yeah, i would agree that it isn't a big deal. Though it is sad that they don't give more love to the sisters of battle or the sisters of silence.
I think the issue is that they are both kinda hard to do book series for. Sisters of battle are incredibly religious to the point where it is the biggest influence of everything they do, so you will have to run around in the head of a religious fanatic of a fantasy religion... that isn't something that hits the broadest market. The Sisters of silence are... silent. That makes it harder to make a fun protagonist too. I think they could make good stories with both, but it isn't as easy as making Guardsman stories or Space Marine stories. Especially since GW seems to want stories that are either Ciaphas Cain or Ultra Bloodshed Hardcore Warriors.
WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK THE SISTERS OF BATTLE DON’T EXIST?!
I agree with some of your points, and the argument that The Emperor deliberately made the Astartes project male only as a failsafe is interesting, but honestly that would make it so much funnier if Cawl reveals that during the ten thousand years he spent making his Primaris marines, he realised it's dead easy to make female marines, just by fixing one little flaw in the genetic code. It would also make for some interesting conflicts when a bunch of high lords suddenly begin to worry that humanity is about to be replaced - sterility or not.
Really enjoy your take on why female Marines shouldn’t be a thing. And I think the Emperor’s concern of them replacing humanity are even greater because - correct me if I’m wrong - he wants to elevate humanity to a level near that or surpassing marines and them being able to do it outside of his control is something he would not go for at all
This is well thought out and reasonable 👍
I’m pretty neutral about female custodes and I don’t really care beyond thinking the addition is neat. That said I 100% agree that the way gw handeled the implementation was lame. To coincide with the new models they we’re getting they could have made some lady heads for your helmetless options for example. But more importantly for lore sense the lions gate battle, which saw 2000 out of the 10,000 allowed to exist at a time die off, could have been used as the reason we now have some women among the old guard as new aspirants fill the depleted ranks. This would set a precedent change that’s tied to the continuing of the worlds story as opposed to the actual retcon of” they were here all along ya big goobers!”
That said this whole thing I believe was thrown way out of proportion and helped show a lot of true, ugly, colors from people who only view warhammer as an aesthetic to farther there conservative world view. Ultimately I completely agree that more female representation is important but it should come from giving the gals who’ve been in the setting the whole time (tau, guard, eldar, sisters, silence, drukari, inquisition, etc.) more and better stories made and pushed to the front, rather than just giving the poster boys even more attention.
The best way they could’ve done this would’ve been just doing it as a thing in the modern setting, before this we had constant mentions of the Custodes being men exclusive and referred to as such before this in novels such as the Horus Heresy, older stories, codexes, ETC. but just them saying “they ALWAYS had women they were just conveniently not ever mentioned” is a cheap cop out, so I’m against it, as one thing I hate above all else is forced and contrived writing that does nothing but hinder the series
Exactly, if they gave us an actual reason or story element as to why they were being added in, I feel that most people who were put off by the change wouldn’t have cared… at least that much.
Instead they just made a retcon that a high schooler could write circles around. This is proof enough that the change was never meant to enrich the lore or move the overall plot forward, it was just meant to push an agenda. They could have done something really cool here with the lore… it’s a shame.
@@romanmena7850I think people are thanking the twitter to seriously, like it’s one guy who runes the account and who is not even a writer or lore master, also I really dislike the idea of “changing/improving” custodes in modern 40K unlike the marines custodes are ment to be the best emps could do without the chaos god and the warp. There should not be a way of changing how they’re made without cheapening their lore way more that what femstodes doses. The retcon was probably the only way they could have gone without craping all over everything the custodes are. Just to add on, we rarely see custodes in HH or 40k and it’s not like they define every single ones gender when we see them so in retrospective femstodes could have existed without much problem.
“Taking”
@@rajabalitaji5289 but see that’s the thing it is outlined pretty clearly that the stodes were only guys. They’re referred to as a brotherhood in codexes, as “these men” in a direct quote from the emperor, and they’ve only ever been referred to as “he”, “him”, and with male names.
To say that femstodes have always existed and were just never shown because they were always in the background is an issue in and of itself. They should’ve just left it alone
I feel like female custodes are unnecessary because sisters of silence already kinda fill that role. Also, female custodes would look weird because their space steroids would make them look so masculine that they could not be recognizably female. To make females recognizably female would cause them to no longer look like custodes-- they would just look like sisters of silence.
I was like you, @krakDuk. Initially, I thought this would be a fine change. 2 things though, first; saying they have always been here is lazy and makes no sense, i do not accept that a smart individual such as the emperor would recruit from women when they are needed to continue humanity. 2 I also learned the population problem is 2 fold as Custodians are recruited from the upper echelon of terrain nobles, in the older lore it was acknowledged that terrain noble houses had nearly collapsed from giving away (almost) entire generations of sons to be remade into Custodians. Coupled with the 1 new Custodian every terran year level of mortality levels, and I feel like the Custodians would war humanity's leadership out of existence.
It makes no sense, a female custodes would be starting out at a disadvantage to male ones. It would make sense to start out with an aspirant who, biologically, would grow up to be bigger, stronger, and faster than others. To even the playing field, the female aspirant would need much more resources and alterations to even match a male aspirant in the first place. As the criteria for a custodes is already so steep, clearly male recruits will always be chosen.
This is perhaps the most common sense video I have ever seen.
I was against the idea, but now I see how it would make sense.
I think a lot of people, like myself, are worried that GW will fall into the same mire as many other franchises.
I came into this video thinking I was going to be really really annoyed by the end of it but I actually agreed with literally everything you said.
You put into words exactly how I feel on the whole concept down to the last letter.
From everything I have heard and read about the whole custodes situation, my view is that GW should've explained better than quite literally insulting the fanbase's knowledge of the lore, just say something like "Oh, she was the first ever female to pass the selection of a custodes." or something like that, it'll give a better opening to females to be part of the custodes.
Not sure anymore what book it was from (maybe Master of mankind?) But Malcador said something of the line to Emp "we probably should have made them daughters, not sons".
This could be seen as a hint that it was/is possible regarding Primarchs at least.
It's nice to finally see someone presenting his views with calm and reasonable arguments.
That said, I think female Custodes could be borderline ok if they were introduced in a thoughtful and interesting way, but for now I'm against it mainly because it takes away from other all female factions and groups that are already interesting and could use some more attention, and also yeah it was handled very poorly.
I also strongly disagree with the argument I heard that the sisters of silence are a problem because they don't talk. Even if they don't talk they must have an efficient way to comunicate between themselves and with the Custodes, they just need a good idea and they could make the SoS even more interesting.
One thing I would add is that there's plenty more room for female representation in the Inquisition, the Mechanicus, the Tau, the Drukari, the Necrons, the Chaos cultists and the Imperial Navy, to name a few.
I also find really silly that there's this race to push female characters where in my opinion they just don't belong, and I would think the same if the push was to have male only Inquisitiors or male Sisters of Battle etc. In my opinion the only priority should be making good stories with interesting characters.
my only real problem about it is that its a retcon because amazon wants it for the upcoming show. This didnt need to be a retcon, this could have be a story plot about adding women into the Custodes.
Custodes in the early editions of their codexes are implied to have been taken from the nubers of firstborn sons of nobles on holy terra. It was implied that emperor chose only sons for that mission. However The process of custodes creation was inhereted by the high lords, and they POTENTIALLY could make female Custodian... But it would defy the logic of any draft, war or conflict. It is because the process of creating a custodian has such a mortality rate, that only 1 custodian is produced a YEAR given the attempts on their creation happen every year. Noone in their right mind would put women through such a procces, because each woman of purest noble bloodline dead is god knows how many sons and daughters she might give birth to - lost. And therefore it is outright an outrageous loss of potential custodians!
bro knows the fish speakers :o lifelong subscriber gained.
I have a cold so now I’m just sitting here in a blanket binge watching your videos.
Great video! The lamp shading was a little thick, but I did like the overall vibe. I felt like you really nailed the heart of the issues, which was the handling of the retcon and the fears of making female astartes.
The zoom in on your face in the beginning will haunt my nightmares for DAYS.
My gripe about it is how/why they did it and the numbers of the female custodians since we haven’t seen them like at all they need to make it that they’re like a very small percentage of the custodian guard that way the retcon would make sense and not shit all over the already established lore
The real current problem is that no new female model. Just check the updates for the Eldar and Dark Eldar factions, their new models don't have female models. And those unit models lore never stated that it's exclusively males.
I dont think skill is really the main factor os SM recruitment. Main factor is survivability and endurance to the procedure
I'm of the personal opinion that Female Custodes make sense. It wouldn't be a 50/50 split, but if they're really the best of humanity with the highest potential taken from birth, then you'd definitely have a few females in the bunch. Female Space Marines is an entirely different topic, but we'll burn that bridge when we get there.
What's actually pissed me off this past week, is how many "culture war tourists" are pretending to care for clicks. Most can't even pronounce "adeptus" let alone "Custodes" and have never bought a model or a codex, and have never consumed the lore.
It's just heartbreaking that this has to be what pushed our hobby into the mainstream news. I'm worried soon we'll look just like Marvel and Star Wars fans; fighting a culture war that was never ours to begin with.
Ditto
Sure but you have to admit how they did it was lazy and not interesting at all. Can you imagine if they had been forced to turn sisters of silence into custodies because they were losing to many and resources had gotten to thin. Just something more than their no lube approach
A lot of longtime fans I know barely know how to pronounce Custodes and Adeptus lmao
But honestly, I think the split would be pretty close to 50/50, aside from what could mostly be a cultural reason
There is no reason that, when you're taking someone from birth and changing them completely and utterly, that you'd find better stock in men. Men only get stronger after puberty, before then, it's pretty much equal. It's kinda the same reason that I feel female astartes isn't all that far off either conceptually, really the main complaint of not having female astartes is the lack of representation in the actual media being produced, kinda just relegated to the sidelines. Sisters always playing second fiddle to someone, etc. The amount of novels of space marines is just way too many in comparison to the other factions tbh. That's always been the operative problem.
@@aaronmontgomery2055 "Sure but you have to admit how they did it was lazy and not interesting at all?"
They were introduces the exact same way most retcons are: through a codex story. Custodes have also not been around on the tabletop for a while, and their lore presence was minuscule until 7th edition. All they did before then was stand around and make rare appearances, and that's me being generous, and even now, they have a tiny amount of characters. The only reason some people find it strange is because to most people, custodes are just big, golden space marines.
@@andyroobrick-a-brack9355 Are we saying GW does their retcons well? Lets compare to "good" retcons like the dwarves. At least they gave us lore and reason.
I simply want GW to give me good reasons for things instead of their lazy approach live with the rogal dorn or even the primaris. I can at least accept the primaris as they gave me some type of lore and reason but this and the rogal dorn are just lazy.
I have another reason for Space Marines and Primarchs being boys only: Emps wanted an army that's basically a bunch of Krorks and advanced Orks, that's what the Primarchs and Space Marines essentially are. Emps knew of the Old Ones and their war against the C'thon and Necrons, he knew fighting Chaos would essentially be just as bad and since the Aeldari even back then proven themselves unreliable self-centered pieces of poop he skipped the pscyher bs and just went with the Krork model of warfare. Of course he did not want to commit the same mistake the Old Ones did and create a damn infestation so yes, the population control makes sense, especially if he was thinking along the lines of the Krorks. Also, Krorks wore highly sophisticated power armor, even the concept of power armored warriors may have came from the original Krorks.
No wonder some think Emps might just be an Old One masquerading as humanity's master.
Eh, I'm not a fan of female Custodes. Was a needless retcon imo.
My issue was that GW gaslight the community and treated us like morons. If you're gonna retcon something this big at least do it with style.
Dropping massive lore on twitter is beyond stupid, next thing you know the lore is at the whims of whoever using the official Twitter account.
I 100% agree with all your points, esp regarding female marines.
I wish GW would just make a generic "female human heads" kit that could be used for all custodes, guardwomen and whatever other Imperial model you would like to make so we can stop having these arguments quite so much, I feel a big part of the problem with female representation in 40k is that despite the lore supporting it GW doesnt make enough products to support it. Or heck, a generic female heads kit that supports Tau and Eldar too, ala Citadel Skulls and its selection of non human skulls to complement all our traditional bony needs.
Nice to see a video where someone thinks for more than a moment, and dosen't say crazy things like "This hobby was made by men for men."
What did ferrus do to you that you didnt shown him in the primarch picture?
Knowing some Trans-man, the most obvious Thing that came to my my mind when Thinking about Space Marines was that any chosen female recruit would just undergo a Transistion on...well Space steroids :D they would maybe still have their old female personalities (whatever that means), forgetting all the Psychological conditioning, hypnotherapy and so on....all in all, it would be incredibly difficult to write, the models wouldn't be different...it's just Not worth the effort for a barely noticable Change.
The Geneseed wouldn't work with female aspirants, since it's essentially a copy of the primarch's DNA overlayed on the aspirants, where female and male DNA conflicted there would be rejection and probable death for the candidate
The more the problem is GW will ignore more the Sisters of Battle and the Sister of Silence that both will be overshadow by a Fem Custodes. As the previous editions always the Custodes were Males as the Space Marines as Both Sisters Factions were always Females.
One other reason that the space marines are all male is because the physical trials you have to go through meam you have to be the top 0.5%
I am a woman and i can accept the fact that the peak of female capabilities are not at the same level as men. There's a reason why there arent any women in most special forces and that's because women are not built for it
One argument ive seen from arch is that geneseed is a valuable and rare resource, wasting that resource would be irresponsible
I think that’s a fair perspective. That one I can see getting excused as some planets just having naturally stronger people, something like catachan. So that alone wouldn’t be enough to discount female space marines for me, however it does work as an additional fluff reason.
Anyways thank you for watching!
@@KrakDuk about female custodes though, I would've been fine with it if it was done 10-20 years ago. The reason why many people aren't happy with this is because it is a change done for outside political reasons
Whilst in a vacuum it is fine, I do have worries about Blackrock and vanguard and the whole DEI thing because it led to the ruination of things I used to like
Luke skywalker and han solo emasculated by rey. The hulk emasculated by she hulk, the way katara was handled in the new avatar show, captain marvel ETC
Changing the custodes to have females in their ranks smacks of diversity and inclusivity pandering which is frankly insulting because I am not a mouth breathing ape who just goes "hee hoo has tits ima buy"
As for representation, well frankly its a mostly male hobby so it'd be fine for there to be male only factions. Instead of changing the space marines or custodes, why isn't there build up for the sisters of silence?
Sorry for slamming this thousand mile long comment / response. You just seem reasonable and I think I could have a civil discussion with you instead of being immediately called a neckbeard or a gender traitor
@@raptorimperium5757 tbh idrk about the meta factors/outside influences much since I only really care about the lore and in universe stuff so I can’t really speak on those aspects.
I’m just hoping they do something interesting with the change. One of the writers has been wanting to add them for a while iirc so hopefully he has some cool plans
@@KrakDuk yeah it's a good idea to avoid the outside politics at least if you value your mental stability.
But the only time people mention male sisters of silence/battle is when they're called out for only wanting representation in the boys clubs.
@@KrakDuk my worry (and the worry of the counter-group) comes from the fact that these outside influences will continue and not stop, because they never stop (my examples being star wars, marvel movies and comics, indiana jones and apparently witcher went down that route) . they will keep on moving the goal post until eventually what we do like about warhammer becomes ruined
as much as I respect ADB (the writer you are referring to) I do feel like this position is putting down the sisters of silence (kinda like what you said) and frankly it does smell of agenda
I wish IRL politics wasn't involved, but that's the unfortuante thing. it has been FORCED into warhammer from what I can see.
(by the way do you have a discord? just in case if you don't want me to fill your chat with this entire thing)
Now the sisters of silence will be even MORE ignored...
I really do think that the concept of a female custodes is possible because space marine’s are essentially made to be mass produced so the enhancement could only really be stable for males while the Adeptus custodes were genetically enhanced by the emperor to be perfect and the fact that, from my understanding, the emperor sought after each custode and that could possibly mean that he also sought after female’s.
First watch of yours and instant sub!!
My major issue is this was done so lazy. They could’ve had a book about the first female custodes explaining why until now there haven’t been any. It could be an interesting book. They could’ve had a figure and everything. Some promotion something .
I appreciate this video, you have been one of only two thus far that has managed make the idea of female custodes palatable and I am relieved to hear you're thoughts regarding space marines too.
I think it would be a crying shame if female space marines were a thing because the sisters of battle/silence would be sidelined harder than they already are.
We need more stories from the Soraritas.
My problem is with the whole female custodes thing is three fold
1. Lazy ass retcon. The only thing worse was it announced as a reply tweet.
2. Stop ignoring the women who already work with the custodes. Give the sister of silence some love.
3. This gives of the same vibes as Overwatch devs where "Oh no, we involved ourselves in some negative controversy. QUICK! MAKE A CHARACTER [insert marginalized group]!"
Someone already said this in the comments but even before I saw that you gave me the vibe of Sam O’ Nellas style of videos. It’s quick to the point and you do very well at explaining the lore or current news of 40k in a way that engages new comers like myself that’s only been into warhammer either recently or for a couple years. I’m looking forward to your channels growth and after bench watching your videos I can’t wait to see the next.
I always found it funny that Sci-Fis Gigachads were named after a Goddess.
Hi!
First of all, thank you for the level-headedness of your elucubrations, I think it's a fair and valid way to hold your position (the "marines don't need more reasons to keep shifting focus from other already neglected factions" argument I admit I found it a good point).
That said I'd like to make some counterpoints:
1. Tbf, space marines are intrinsically built to not substitute humanity, whether there were female ones or not, so basically nothing would change on that department
2. I think Cawl can be used to do something about femmarines to justify em in lore, as even if there was some magi-genetical caveat designed by the Emperor himself preventing it, I'd say it's probably not a worse ordeal than dangerously fitting even more extra organs inside a body that already has a ton of non-natural and sometimes reduntant ones (also, it's not farfetched to think he may have been working on this at the same time as Primaris, with less interest of course considering Primaris are instead a full-fledged and nominally war-changing upgrade); besides, technically, Primaris are already heresy by supposed imperial standard, as any piece of tech designed after the HH (among which basically all Primaris weapon variants), so I think Cawl could find it but an arbitrary technicality, if he had the chance
3. Space marines, for better or worse, are indeed a focal (selling?) point of 40k's narration, so I personally could accept a massive difference in lore representation with other factions if the latter got themselves their needed share of stories and lore expansions (SoS REALLY need em as we all know), and introducing female Astartes could be a big drive for further contrast and maybe hostility between chapters: some may gladly accept them, some reluctantly, other new or minor ones may be even going to the length of not coming to imperial space to avoid receiving female reinforcements because "HERESY!", ending up having their numbers heavily dwindle and/or even resorting to, ironically, corrupted techniques to keep their ranks filled. Damn, many of us complain the narrative doesn't advance, this could be a stepping stone, followed of course by many other steps, towards an imperial schism, having a big group of chapters/imp.factions becoming an independent and maybe more pragmatic force (more open to compromises with xeno factions to the point of reintroducing a "faction friendliness chart" like in some older edition), while the uber-loyalists would declare them renegades, try to keep the crumbling Imperium together and thus leaning more on the original grimdark cartoonishly totalitarian archetype.
Obviously just throwing ideas around, I have no actual position on how much to advance the plot of the setting or of individual factions, and I can live without femmarines no matter.
Sorry for the essay, I hope it wasn't too tedious if you read. Thank you again regardless, have a good one!
The biggest issue i think you left out, is that its very very unlikely that female custodes were added in order to improve the stories or the lore overall.
And 40k really doesnt have a representation problem when it comes to men and women, almost every story that isnt space marines has female characters and i wouldnt be suprised if the majority of space marine stories also had female characters.
The only stories of space marines that wont have female characters are the ones where space marines are the only imperial faction present and the enemy faction happens not to have female characters, like Orks Chaos marines, nids or necrons.
Most stories even with space marines, feature female characters, titan princeps, guard officers, naval officers, astropaths, sisters of silence or battle.
Its also worth mentioning that the custodes have always been described in lore as a brotherhood, they dont have as many stories, so it isnt as developed as space marines, but they are a brotherhood.
Its also a generally stupid and somewhat contradictory decision, the only reason to make the change is to inject references to female custodes, which will itself be a pointless change if they dont create characters and do something with them to highlight and somewhat justify the injection of female custodes.
The biggest problem with that, is that any of the deviation someobe might think to shoe-horn into a story, dont make sense because a girl being turned into a custodian, will be so completely remade that there would be functionally no difference except for the fact that the creation process would probably be more complicated because none of the biological differences between men and women would have any value to a custodian, in fact theyd just be an inconvenience at best, if not a major complication.
And frankly, whatever process is used to turn boys into custodians, wouldnt automatically work for girls because there are biological differences, changes that are designed to alter a human body would need to vary based on the sex of the body.
Whatever changes are made to a boys hormones would need to be completely different from the changes made to a female.
I think the only way this change would be worth doing is if the biological differences are actually emphasised but in a symbiotic and complimentary way, but this would detract from their whole theme of being singular perfect warriors.
I would use female custodes to create a symbiotic unity in the custodes, turning them into stronger groups rather than individuals, for instance women have a lower center of gravity because their hips are wider and their muscle strength is generally more focussed on the lower body.
Meanwhile men naturally have broader shoulders and more upper body strength.
In lore this could be translated to female custodes making better shield walls and so they generally carry shields and swords because their better suited to bracing due to a lower centre of gravity and stronger legs, doesnt have to be a major difference in strength but since custodes retire when their a fraction of a second too slow, the smallest differences could still be used, meanwhile the men would tend to feature two handed weapons more like the guardian spears, and so there could be a synergy betweem male and female custodes, and rather than individual custoses being sent out, they send pairs, a female with a sword and shield, and a male with a guardian spear or one of those halberd/axe ones.
They would be equal but different in a synergetic way, and could kind of make for cool dynamic duos, like a tank and dps kind of thing, one may be more defensive and the other offensive, it would also make for interesting relationship, and i dont mean in the fanfic sense, it would essentially allow for something like the Watchers of the Throne duo, Tanau Aleya and Valerian, which is a great Custodian and Sister of Silence duo, though frankly, theres no reason for the Sisters of Silence to be all female either, other than their name.
Writing the new female custodes any differently, especially if its about their personality and identity, is going to end badly.
Creating a new dynamic, might make for some interesting potential but will but will be very alienating to existing fans.
And doing nothing but describe the occasional custodes as female will do nothing but set a president for making disruptive, contradictory and polarising changes for absolutely no gain other than maybe having the ocasional custodes that cant grow facial hair.
Overall, it shouldnt have been done, i dont think the potential outways their existing characterisation, lore and personality, it only runs the risk of worse writing, and even if it was done well, it might not be worth it bwcause it could change them too much.
While i think my suggestion above would be an interesting approach, it also completely changes the custodes in how they operate and feel, so i dont think its worth doing, at that point id just suggest creating a new guard regiment around that idea.
I heard an idea that it couldve been handled in that due to the losses the Custodes took during the battle of the lion's gate, they had to widen their pool to include noble daughters.
While that's more interesting than a twitter comment, only problem i have is...would they even get to do anything? Iirc the Lion's Gate was practically yesterday in the lore, and, while im not sure how long it takes to make a custodes, i imagine it takes a helluva long time, especially now that the Emperor isnt around.
So it'd be like,
GW: "Yeah we have femstodes now"
"Cool! When are we gonna get stories with them"
GW: *scratches head with a nervous chuckle* "Next..big time jump...maybe 11th Edition."
The problem with this and the problem with all arguments like this is that it assumes the limiting factor is human applicants when the issue is the resource required to make a custodian or marine (pick your argument).
About a week after this happened I started painting the sisters of battle combat patrol in custodes colours.
Long story short: I now have a sisters army.
The real solution would have been to upgrade the Sisters of Silence with the same means applied to Custodians. Then GW could have their cake and eat it too.
To be honest I'm pretty sure it's like with primaris marines people wouldn't have cared about female custodes existing if they actually gave an explanation for why they exist and we only about them now rather than retconning them into always having existed all along
There used to be Female Space Marines, but the Models didn't Sell well.
When it became obvious they could start selling again... we got Sisters of Battle.
Although I wonder how... crossing the Rubicon with a Sisters would do what?
PS:
I had "Female" Emperor's Children.
Makes sense in the Lore.
I mainly take arches stance on this. Its fucking shit to have femstodes but its worse that they took no effort to introduce it properly to the lore. I can forgive alot of shit (not cawl or primaris but alot of other shit) as long as its properly introduced into the lore with a backstory that makes fucking sense
I really enjoy your video, but what are your thoughts on the Armageddon steel legion.
Thanks! I think they’re really cool, my next video is actually on the Wars of Armageddon so stay tuned
Honesty i always saw the parallels between the fantasy setting and sci-fi with all the factions
I got in during the pandemic and I always saw the SCE as Fantasy custodes
Also a way better dichotomy for nuns and monks would be sisters and grey knights, since those always have a medieval flair and are always tied to their faith and monk like themes way more than the normal space marines
9:21
Female guardsmen(guardswomen) mentioned,
Puts a smile on my face,
Speaking of representation, male representation is important too. 40k is Masculine. It's not for everyone. There's nothing wrong with that and I'm not apologizing for it.
40k has three to four decades worth of male representation. Even now, the VAST majority of main characters are men. 40k is also not inherently "masculine." Masculinity is too broad of a concept, because masculinity and femininity are socially constructed interpretations of what men and women do. Plus, we are living in an era where EVERYONE is getting into 40k. The setting needs to change in some ways, otherwise it'll become stagnant and alienate certain audiences.
@@andyroobrick-a-brack9355 So if 40k doesn't change... it will "alienate certain audiences"... Sounds like those people don't like 40k. Sounds like a win-win. 40k players get 40k, and "certain audiences" can create something else that they enjoy and that better represents them. What army do you play by the way?
@@andyroobrick-a-brack9355 You sound like a tourist, the consistency of the lore and rules of the setting of 40K are more important than "muh representation". If somebody doesn't like all-male factions in 40K then they can go enjoy any other series in the world, this one doesn't need to change to suit their ridiculous sensibilities.
@@alaskamark4562 Ah yes, the super consistent lore of 40k.
@@PoorManatee6197 Ah yes, 40K's lore has some issues with consistency, so we can just make up whatever we want and pander to everyone who whines about repREEEEEsentation. Why not make the emperor a chick while you're at it?
Fairly argued though i'd bring up a counter argument and a few pro FSM arguments.
Female Space Marines are already established to be possible in the setting. When Lion El Johnson got discovered by the imperium he requested his closest buddies to become space marines, of course they were too old but procedures were done to make them as close to marines as was possible at their age and it was fairly close. Among these special marines were women and no real issue was made of that, just their age. Suggesting that Astartes augmentations is not done out of precedent rather than plausibility. And to the argument that geneseed is not compatible... well there is the Daemonculaba, which is effectively a grossly warp mutated female space marine scout, with geneseed implanted in her.
From this we can gather that all or the vast majority of the space marine creation process is compatible with female anatomy.
FSM could be VERY interesting as they would effectively be socialized in a way where their gender isn't really comparable to most women. There is a lot of cool ways to take this, having female characters that are not at all effected with the social pressures and expectations of womanhood. Lots of interesting things to explore.
They may still act as a monastic brotherhood even if there are people with boobs in it, they would likely all act pretty much the same.
There may also still be chapters that remain all male or all female, maybe certain geneseed mutations make one more difficult than the other, or maybe they simply have different doctrine. Maybe there are weird gender segregated chapters that have completely different gender roles to our own, viewing sex as only a permutation of humanity's template suited for different tasks. Maybe their geneseed effects male and female aspirants differently. Lots of interesting possibilities, and a more interesting way to introduce the concept than just GW saying "uhh half of all marines were always women wydm??".
They made new lore introducing Primaris, they get grief. They do a minor tweak to old lore, they get grief. I'm all for some muscle mommy Custodes and Marines. It's just new miniatures potential
You know I used to take the joke of Sigmarines lightly in AoS. But now I see that it was never the Marines that were ripped off, it was the Custards. The golden bois are now quite literally Stormcast Eternals in all but name. "The Stormcast Eternals, also simply called Stormcast, are superhuman, nigh-immortal warriors whose souls have been magically Reforged." I can also see that it wasn't coincidental with the golden armor and the pauldrons too.
So when do we expect the end times and the disappointment? I can already hear a certain god cry in pain and shame as he/she/it/whatever is sealed by a bunch of flying "towers".
I fall asleep to your videos. Very soothing.
I think the chunk of these arguements is that while sisters of battle,technically can fight ,their main purpose as heralders of the emperors glory,on the other hand Custodians are the perect,not say example of a human, but more like the full fighting potential that humans can have.The crux of that arguement being custodians have little-no free will more like soldiers and thus kind of fit's the masculine thrope a little better.That said, a far more appropriate example of inclusivity into the cooler aspects of warhammer would be female Knights,since there is no thematic reason why not to,and giving girls huge suits of armor and huge heroic sagas in lore may not be such a bad idea at all.
One of my lost legion head canons is that the Emperor decided make one female primarch, to prove to Malcador that it was a bad idea. She and her legion had stable genes, unquestionable loyalty, and a respectable record suring the early days of the crusade, so the Emperor purged them out of pure spite, as their success proved he was wrong about something
The space Marines are literally named after a female scientist
IMO the whole point of "inclusivity" is moot in the first place. It is okay for dudes to have a thing. Dudes like throwing big rocks in lakes, carrying big sticks, and watching the plans of the immortal God Emperor unfold. The amount of women who are going to like a setting that is literally pitched as "THERE IS ONLY WARRR RAHHHH" is very limited, and those women aren't going to see this setting and go "hm why aren't there more ladies in a setting based around ripping people's heads off?". Like, its a setting geared FOR MEN. And that is ok. It is okay to be a guy and like guy things without worrying about "hm am I being inclusive enough in my exterminatus?"
I'm a lady and I agree 1000% percent, female space marines would mess up an interesting aspect of the lore. Better to bring representation to the game through other factions, Custodes and Guard.
I play guard so I'm aware there's ladies mixed in there, Creed, primaris psykers, a smattering of troops, it's pretty cool. Makes painting a zillion guardsmen a little bit more interesting.
Well girls have representation in Imperium. Sororitas (fookin hate them because theyre representing the most annoying type of zealots), Sisters of Silence (any Psykers nightmare if you combining with Cullexus assassin's than anti-psyker apocalypse will happen) , and of course Guard. I mean literally in Wh40K space marine a girl lieutenant leading the remnants of Guard in the planet. A cute looking proffesional. And of course Eldars. And their famous girl squads (banshees) and cute looking girl farseers. Oh and those cute looking Tau girls from water cast that can instantly convert imperials to the greater good hehehe. Girls have their representation. Just pick and enjoy)