Why Female Space Marines Make No Sense

Recently, there has been push for more “female representation” in Warhammer 40.000. This includes female guardsmen as well as female Space Marines.

But neither makes much sense, and especially the latter. I will be discussing here why female Space Marines do not make sense.

There already are female Space Marines

First reason why female Space Marines do not make sense is that they already exist – and they are called Sisters of Battle. If somebody were to ask for male Sisters of Battle (Brothers of Battle?), he would be rightly laughed at, because such a request makes no sense.

Sisters of Battle have literally everything that makes Space Marines different from Imperial Guardsmen:

1. Elite units? Check.
2. Superhuman physical abilities? Check.
3. Power armor? Check.

Neither Space Marines nor Sisters of Battle have a direct counterpart of the opposite sex. Rather, they are each other’s counterpart. In fact, the image (seen below) often shown to “prove” the existence of female Space Marines in early lore are really the Sisters of Sin – the early-days precursor of the Sisters of Battle.

This makes sense with the pseudo-Catholic inspirations of both. Space Marines are essentially space knights. And historical monastic knightly orders did not allow women to join for both practical (women make poor soldiers) and ideological reasons. On the flip side, however, nuns are women who dedicate their life to religion. So where Space Marines are sci-fi knights, Sisters of Battle are sci-fi battle nuns. And it works.

Thus, introducing female Space Marines would be a terrible move. They are completely unnecessary, and bringing them in would devalue the role and uniqueness of the Sisters of Battle. Instead of promoting equality, female Space Marines would devalue female representation already existing in the setting. Already, Space Marines are the only all-male army in the setting. Orks are single-sex species, Sisters of Battle are all-female, while Imperial Guard, Tau, Eldar and basically all other armies allow both men and women to join. As it is, setting is perfectly balanced in terms of sex representation.

It makes no sense within the setting

In the lore, modifications for Space Marines are heavily dependant on body’s natural hormonal secretions and growth patterns:

End result of genetic and other enhancements used to produce the Space Marine depends heavily on the starting state. That is the reason why Space Marines only accept the best of the best recruits as applicants. Women do not have the genes and hormones necessary to become Space Marines, and Imperium does not have the magic to turn women into men. Neither does the Imperium have the luxury to ignore reality and entertain delusions (as is common in many modern-day societies). And Space Marines are created from humans, not from intersex demons, and should thus follow human biology, not somebody’s Salvia and DMT-fueled dream.

Having this limitation is extremely significant for lore reasons. Imperium of Man is a civilization in decline – it is basically how people from Renaissance looked at the Middle Ages, decrepit remains of a glorious past (in reality, Renaissance itself was that far more than actual Middle Ages were). Introduction itself lays it out:

Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

Imperium having major technological limitations is a fundamental part of the setting. And despite what some people claim, men and women have significant biological (genetic, hormonal and physical) differences. Men are on average larger than women. Even when they are of the same size, men will have greater muscle mass as proportion of total mass. Male muscles themselves are generally faster and have higher maximum power output than female muscles – which, by the way, is the reason why trans athletes dominate female sports and why so many failed male athletes are keen on transgender surgery to enter female sports. Existence of intersex people is not a justification – “true intersex” person is one who cannot be classified as either male or female biologically, but they account for only 0,018% of all births – one in 5,5 thousand. It is a bug, not a feature; nothing more than a mistake in the genetic code. And even if they accounted for 33% of all births and were thus normal, that would merely mean there is a third sex, not that sexes / genders do not exist. Claiming that existence of intersex people validates the idea that sexes/genders don’t exist is like claiming that existence of Sahara proves water doesn’t exist. Lack of testosterone in men will lead to depression, weight gain, cardiovascular and other health issues.

If Emperor of Man, greatest scientist in human history, couldn’t make women into Space Marines, then nobody else cannot.

Even if we handwave away the canon explanation and make it so that women can in fact become Space Marines, recruiting women as Space Marines would still remain nonsensical due to simple logistics. In order to become Space Marines, recruits have to:

1. Be born on a Chapter Recruitment World – which are selected because their populations already have superhuman abilities.
2. Prove that they are capable of surviving to adulthood in the extremely harsh conditions on the world (many are actual Death Worlds).
3. Fulfill harsh entrance requirements, which include surviving the extremely lethal selection process.
4. Survive the Space Marine recruit training.
5. Survive the genetic enhancement procedures.
6. Survive the post-enhancement training.

And all of these steps are extremely harsh, because Space Marine enhancement procedures depend on extremely rare (and in some cases non-renewable) resources which cannot be wasted on the unworthy. Claim that Imperium would profit by doubling recruitment pool for Space Marines is nonsense, because vast majority if not entirety of the expansion would be worthless anyway.

Biological differences that men and women have mean that women are far less likely to survive every single step of the above-noted selection process. Even if we assume a minor difference in average survival rate per step – say, 32% for men and 28% for women – this would result in 1% of men and 0,6% of women surviving to the end (calculation is number^4 as there are four steps beyond the second one, and canon survival rate is 1% which results in 32% per step for men). Essentially, 4% disadvantage in survival rate means that number of women making it to the end is barely more than half that of men.

In real world, USMC study from 1997 found the female discharge rate was 18.2 percent and the male rate was 11.9 percent during 63 days of Marine Corp basic training at Parris Island. Medical discharge rate is 3,3 and 8,7 percent. Using first difference for the above would result in survival rate per step of 32% for male Space Marine recruits and 21% for female recruits. This would result in survival rate of women in training being only around 1/6 that of men – specifically, 1% for men and 0,19% for women. Second data point would result in 32% survival per step for men and 12% for women. In the end, men would have survival rate of 1% and women of 0,0207% for women – that is, men would have 48 times better survival rate than women.

And even then women would likely not perform as well as men, unless modifications were so extensive that they became men due to them. US Marine Corps study has shown that female marines – that is, women that had passed all physical tests – still do not perform as well as men in combat. Modern-day special operations forces have between 0% and 0,1% of women in their ranks, and for a very good reason.

Above is based on the real world however. But one of main bottlenecks in Space Marine recruitment is the body modification – genetic modification and installation of organs. Every single surgery and modification has a significant chance of killing the neophyte. Geneseed in particular is meant to make the recruit resemble the Primarch of the Chapter. And all Primarchs are male, which means that – even if zygote could be made to accept a female body, which is impossible – a female recruit would in fact be at a significantly greater chance of being rejected by the geneseed. And if she somehow made it through, process would change her so much that nobody would be able to tell the difference any more.

Therefore, it makes no sense for the Imperium to waste extreme effort of time and resources – including the single most valuable resource they have, geneseed – in order to try and uphold some misguided 21^st century ideals. Imperium is in a war for survival, now more than ever, and does what is necessary to survive. For Imperium, following real-world current day politics would be obviously insane.

The only logical explanation for female Space Marines would be a Chaos mutation bestowed by Slaanesh.

Nature of the Organization

Moving from individuals to organization, Space Marines are in fact based on the religious warrior orders such as Templars and Hospitallers. Black Templars chapter basically takes name of Knights Templar and heraldry of Knights Hospitaller. Space Marine chapters are based on religious chapters, specifically the general chapters. A general chapter is a general assembly of monks, that is, representatives from an order or congregation. Similar knightly chapters also existed. And monastic knights such as Templars were all-male organizations which practiced sexual abstinence.

This is what Space Marine chapters are. And religious orders tend to be unisex for several very good reasons. Sexuality is a powerful force, and difficult to control. Thus, discipline is made easier when entire group is of the same sex. And in universe where there are literal sex demons waiting to snack on peoples’ souls, having control over one’s sex drive is a very good idea.

It makes no sense for their purpose

Space Marines are superhuman. But they are not posthuman. Space Marines are intended to be protectors of humanity, not their replacement. For this reason, they are not intended to breed. And since Space Marines are not castrated – see above as to why – then it is better to have only men be Space Marines, in order to add yet another safety level that would prevent them from breeding.

Postscriptum: Did they ever exist?

When precursors to Space Marines were introduced in the First Edition, early Citadel ranges in fact had female Space Marines – intention was that upwards of 25% of all models would be female. Or at least that is the argument I had found.

But this argument is false. It is true that the first edition had a lot of weird stuff – half-Eldar Space Marine commander, Leman Russ being a regular Imperial Guard general, and so on. But the female Space Marines were never canon.

The so-called “female Space Marines” noted above – Little Sisters of Purification – were concieved by Game Designers Workship for their challenge magazine. This also happened during the Rogue Trader days, before the Warhammer 40k universe has actually solidified. Proper 40k only actually starts from the 2^nd Edition, and has remained fairly consistent since then. And in any case, these “female Space Marines” were using same models as male Marines.

Conclusion

Female Space Marines never existed, and never should exist. But push for the female Space Marines is not about logic, continuity, representation or anything else – after all, Sisters of Battle and Saints already exist. People who want female Space Marines do not care about women. They do not care about the Space Marines either, or about wargaming or Warhammer 40 000. They merely want to take control of Warhammer 40.000 and turn it into something it never was and never should be. The goal is to take what is popular and replace it with a bucket of excretment, preventing anybody but them from enjoying the now politicized hobby. All that maters is power and influence. And Space Marines, as the poster child of the franchise, are an obvious target. If Games Workshop surrenders to the inane demand, it will not be long before Warhammer 40k itself is turned into vehicle of political propaganda – as has happened with Rings of Power.

Space Marines, being the poster boys, are the Rubicon of the franchise: if they are taken over, the franchise falls. Surrender on this point will be used to justify further takeovers: “You have accepted A, so what is the problem with accepting B?” – and so on unto infinity. Step by step, the entire lore will be rewritten and setting turned into inane pastiche with no soul – or worse, into My Little Pony. Old fans will leave it because it will no longer have anything in common with the thing that they had fallen in love with, and new “fans” will leave it in search of other fictional settings that they can ruin. And all the while they will cry how “it is just a game, why do you care” while doing their best to destroy it.

Good representation for women in the setting are Sisters of Battle and Sisters of Silence. And Sisters of Silence could be what Custodes are to the Space Marines. But this does not give room for ideological warfare, and thus activists are not interested in it. They do not push it because neither of these goes against the lore, it does not change the setting and does not give the Left the power trip they need. Left wants to win against the community.

It is impossible for anything to be for everyone, and it is not worth it to even try. If one tries to make something that is for everybody, he will end up making something so shallow that it will be for nobody.