Editing Female Space Marines (section)

=The Canon Part=
While for a time GW's official stance was that it was impossible to create Female Space Marines, leading to spammed complaints about gender equality and claims that male-only Space Marines are sexist on their forums. Therefore, a minor concession was made. According to new [[fluff]] the Emperor of Mankind ''did'' see fit to attempt the creation of female Space Marines, whether in the spirit of equality, for the sake of a larger recruiting pool, or [[/d/|because he had an incest fetish to indulge.]] Emphasis on ''tried''; since he had based his Sons off of himself, and then Space Marines off of the resulting genes, it was impossible to twist that base around to reliably make a female Space Marine. The Emperor tried again and again, but could not find a way to reliably create a Female Space Marine in a reasonable time frame and soon found that if Male Space Marines were one in a million, then Female Space Marines were one in a trillion. There were many semi-successful female Space Marines that showed promise, but nearly all of them died shortly after implantation due to organ rejection and various hormonal imbalances causing their biology to shit itself. Quickly realizing that this shit was a waste of time and resources better spent conquering the galaxy, he decreed that Space Marines would be male-only, '''NO GIRLS ALLOWED.'''

TL;DR GW got tired of angry letters, so they said that Female Space Marines were possible but stupidly impractical (even by 40k standards), so that's why there aren't any Female Space Marines so stop the angry letters ''please''.

This all could have been avoided if [[SJW|some of the complainants]] had simply asked for (and GW gave) more focus on the [[Sisters of Battle|''real'', pre-existing Female Space Marines]] complete with a unique, empowering flavor all their own - not to mention [[Imperial Guard|other]] [[Sisters of Silence|the other]] [[Eldar|non-sexualized]] [[Tau|women]] available in the setting. [[Fail|Naturally, this seemingly obvious solution was lost on all parties involved]].

On the Black Library front, it was mentioned in one of the [[Horus Heresy]] books that [[Malcador the Sigillite]] had suggested making one or two of the Primarchs female, half-jokingly saying that it might help to defuse competition between them (a laughable proposition). The Emperor was not amused by this at all and insisted that it simply couldn't be done, thinking Malcador was joking about the idea entirely. And really, who wants to try to argue with him about it? He may have had time later to uplift all of humanity, but he is busy with that little "ten thousand years on life support while fighting various eldritch horrors" business.

==[[Sindri|SSSSSIIIIIINNNNNNDDDDRRRRRRIIIII!!]]==

And now a bit unexpected salvation - there are indeed (99.46% possible) Female Space Marines!... in The [[Eye Of Terror]]. Well, they're possible out of it too - see, due to the nature of [[Chaos]], mutations are often a fact of life. Some desired, some not. What if one hulked out, burning, warped Chaos Space Marine [[Moot|secretly wishes he was the cute little girl who got flowers? Who smiled with joy? Who was so sweet?]]

This was ''confirmed'' in one of the earlier Chapter Approved articles - one that re-introduced mounted Daemonettes - in which a Governor-Militant fighting a Slaanesh warband mused that there were (apparently female) creatures that [[Heresy|were once Space Marines, but no longer]]. Considering Chaos can cause [[Chaos Spawn|that which must never be named]], is anyone surprised by this?

Furthermore, in the [[Fabius Bile]] series, there was a female Chaos Champion who'd been mutated up to Space-Marine equivalent levels, and was a subcommander in an Emperor's Children war band. Note that this isn't actually a female space marine, just a woman who was juiced up enough to be a marines' equal in combat.

==[[Honsou]], You Sick Fuck==

We know that you among the fans, despite all our attempts to dissuade you, want cute FEMALE SPHESS MAHREENS! And there is good news - technically, there ARE Female Space Marines IN OFFICIAL LORE. The catch? Yes there is a catch. And this one is the worst.

Your new waifu is a bloated, twisted, undying, insane, mutated pregnant mother-slave only alive because she's in the Eye of Terror.

You see, [[Honsou]] of the [[Iron Warriors]], in an effort to squeeze new MAHREENS into the ranks without having to pay that other sick fuck [[Fabius Bile]] for clones and because he was too lazy to do it the normal way, created a system of hideousness and sadness that pushes [[grimdark]] to a whole new level. He invented the [[Daemonculaba]], a system whereby a woman is chained and fed stuff which will morph her and her womb into something that was never meant to be. A boy is then (yes, a child), jammed, shoved or cut INTO the vagina and stays there for a while. When his time is ready, he, now XBAWKS HUEG and STRONG, will have to [[rip and tear|rip, tear]], or otherwise push his way out of his adoptive mother's womb/vagina. When he emerges, he will either be a skinless mutant abomination, or will emerge as a fully functional (albeit skinless) Chaos Space Marine in a fraction of the time, with all his growth stages and bionics and gene-seed already taken care of. How? [[Meme|It's fucking science]].

This goes back to our Female Space Marine - you see, while she was being morphed and changed, [[Dark Mechanicus]] Biologis hereteks worked on her body, implanting gene-seed and making her physically a Female Space Marine, even if the form is rather off. Thus, her womb can turn children as well into Space Marines by having her womb 'grow' the required organs and stages directly into their bodies in a fraction of the time - days and weeks instead of years. Thankfully for the entire universe, this horror was [[Uriel Ventris|destroyed]] before Honsou realized he could stick girls in there as well, and get double the recruits, and stumble upon the secret to true Female Space Marines.

==A Slightly More Reasonable Answer==

The problem really is one of terminology. Women can wear power armour, certainly; the Sororitas practically make it formal wear. Women can, through steroids, incessant bodybuilding, a high protein diet, psychological and emotional conditioning if not already manly enough in the brain, and a little genetic modding to bring it all together (mostly to change how their bodies react to testosterone and to accept and produce laaaarge amounts of it), be as buff and rocking as a Space Marine though obviously without whatever biomancy Warp bullshit makes Marines so much stronger than their bodies should be physically capable of (and to reach this level, the woman would ''maybe'' still have female genitalia but otherwise be physiologically indistinguishable from a very manly man). Pointlessly expensive and inefficient compared to grabbing a guy and shoving a growth hormone in him.  Although, this does bring up the possibility that there already ''are'' "female" Space Marines but they just...[[Grimdark|aren't female anymore]].  We'd never even know.  But what really makes a Space Marine a Space Marine is all of the [[Geneseed|extra genetically-engineered organs and DNA and whatnot]] cloned from the Primarchs and implanted in the right way, which is impossible for women for reasons the Emperor himself ran afoul of. The closest thing to an exception in the fluff is any experiment involving Fabius Bile. It should be noted that the said woman is effectively lobotomized (and even there, the potential Chaos Space Marine candidate must be male since even that sick thing requires gene-seed to 'work'). And even if he did make you a Female Space Marine for reals, she still wouldn't be a "proper" Space Marine, just a weird, mutilated, Chaos-infused entity that approximates a Space Marine but [[Ultramarines|can never truly be one.]]

On the note of the Fabulous one, the crazy old fuck basically cloned himself but then decided to make the clone female and have a [[Warhammer High|'daughter']] just for the [[lulz]]. And the best/worst part is, he still made a better job out of parenthood than Big E. Bile's also experimented on damn-near everything (including the entire civilian populations of several planets) at some point or another for his attempts to duplicate the methods for creating new Space Marines, so there's ample evidence to suggest that [[/d/|he's tried it at least once]], ''going as far as saying Big E. was an idiot for making gene-seed only compatible with men and thus cutting off half the potential supply of warriors''. Fucking [[Slaanesh]]. In his own recent novels, his retinue has included a champion who is effectively, but not technically, a female Space Marine; when she claimed some Emperor's Children power armor on the battlefield, it bonded to her like Chaos Armour from Fantasy does, and she's tougher in a fight than most true Space Marines.

Another possible reason is that all of the Primarchs are men, with male genes, thus meaning that, [[Samus|unless there's secretly a girl Primarch out there somewhere,]] female Space Marines cannot be made in the traditional sense. Space Marine blood alone can eat through many durable materials due to the mess of chemicals in them. Any attempt to breed Space Marines the traditional way would be almost guaranteed to fail in a tragic fashion.

Of note is the fact that despite the names and histories of the two missing Primarchs being utterly obliterated from Imperial records, they are still unambiguously referred to as sons of the Emperor.

==Dark Imperium and FemMarines==
[[Image:YouHaven'tMadeFemaleSpaceMarinesHaveYou.jpg|thumb|right|The Emperor's reaction to [[Primaris Marines]]]]
In the Master of Mankind and Dark Imperium novels, it's revealed that the [[Emperor]] never cared for the Space Marines [[Adeptus Custodes|as much as his more favored sons]], and saw them as little more than tools to secure his [[Imperium of Man|empire]]. [[Ultramar|He never intended for them to rule over it]], as it was planned to be an empire [[High Lords of Terra|ruled by humans for humans]]. Given this revelation, it's possible that the Emperor ''could've'' made Female Space Marines, but chose not to because he wanted a reliable way to keep their population in check (that he could've just made them infertile apparently never occured to him). Keep in mind that [[Belisarius Cawl|very few people outside of the Emperor himself]] were actually involved in the [[Primarch]] Project, so he was adamant that FemMarines were impossible, and no one actually tried to prove him wrong - they mostly just took him at his word (because calling him out seems like a much less preferable alternative). It is also simply far quicker and more efficient to implant recruits. Plus the changes needed to create a female Space Marine, given the large physical abilities differences between men and women, would be extreme, with an immense fatality rate, and expensive. You could make ten male and female Space Marines or thirty male Space Marines in half the time.  The right choice is obvious.  Besides, after the changes to put the women on par with the men Marines, the only real difference left would be genetalia, so the extra expense and risk would be pointless in the end. Sure, the fem Marines would only need to outclass the enemies of the Crusade, so full body alteration wouldn’t be necessary. But, the male Marines frequently suffered heavy, sometimes dramatic casualties. Less durable, less strong female Marines added would mostly increase the body count. Not to mention the incredible risk of enemies getting DNA of both Marine types and making their own in their labs. Besides, Emps had Chaos to consider. Even if you don't buy into all the [[-4 Str]] [[bullshit]], the impracticality of the numbers is still worth noting.<!--I feel like a lot of this was restated above honestly-->

Although Space Marines have their sex drive curbed or removed, we know that [[Space Wolves]] can still sleep around (especially true for [[Lukas the Trickster]]), to say nothing of the [[Emperor's Children]], who are explicitly described going on a [[RAPE|rape rampage]] during the [[Siege of Terra]], which likely means that the reproductive suppression isn't 100% effective or irreversible, though the latter example does carry a load of salt big enough to fill a Blackstone Fortress in that they worship Slaanesh. It should also be considered that although Space Marines have a reduced or eliminated sex drive, it's never been suggested that they're sterile, meaning that [[Fall of the Eldar|accidents could still happen]]. Space Marine sex drive also seems to be born more out of culture than anything actually biological, most marines consider themselves too busy to get sexually or romantically attached to other people and are "married to the job". However the Space Wolves, having a rowdy and raunchy chapter culture where picking up chicks is a sign of manly strength and a source of tales to laugh about at the mess hall don't see any problem with their brothers spending their free time having "fun" with the local women.  However since the mass of a Space Marine would crush a normal human woman to death, said woman would be the one doing all the work. So not much different from having sex with an IRL alcoholic really.

Given all this, it's possible that the Emperor didn't want to take any chances and potentially have his living weapons start reproducing and becoming self-sufficient, replacing the humans they were designed to protect. Keeping Space Marines mono-gendered and reliant on [[geneseed]] would ensure that he maintained tight control over his tools and how many there were at any given time. Of course, this is all speculation, so take it with a grain of salt. Keep in mind, Implants are not heritable, this is basic biology. Unless the Astartes-to-be DNA is altered, which once again would mean Female Astartes should be possible. Even then the theoretical baby Astartes wouldn't get the implanted organs, meaning probable miscarriage. Instead they would have to be genetically altered clones or given cybernetic implants to survive into adulthood. Maybe even artificially aged like [[Judge Dredd]]. However, these attempts have almost always created questionable results.

Also the statement that the Emperor blatantly favors the Custodes over the Space Marines? It's 100% true. Space Marines during the time of the Great Crusade were mostly just genetically engineered frontline soldiers with cybernetics, Power Armor and really big guns. Instead of being a mix of Tier 1 Special Operators and Dark Age Knight Orders like they are post-M41 . Some were even used as right out cannon fodder, more so if they were traitors during the Heresy. (e.g. Stor-Bezashk White Scars were those who were found to be on the side of the traitors and, for the lesser offenders who weren't executed after [[Jaghatai Khan]] revealed what Horus actually was doing, were reassigned to take most deadliest missions as punishment in the Sagyar Mazan, while getting all the shit jobs were one of many reasons the [[Iron Warriors]] sided with [[Horus]].) The Emperor also had no problems purging two whole Legions of them for reasons that we'll never know about, though it was bad enough that even Horus didn't break his silence on it till he died. So he wouldn't care about massacring Space Marines wholesale if they were made up of gender equal units. 

A mass Legion purge is something he never considered doing to the Adeptus Custodes, as they have no flaws that allows to be corrupted by Chaos or Xeno influence. And if it were possible, they'd be too dead to talk about. Nor would he send them to some forsaken planet to be slaughtered like he would with Space Marines. Of course, female Custodes are also a whole different can of worms in of itself and turns the discussion into [[skub]], despite Games Workshop themselves considering them potentially canon.

==On The To-Do List?==
There is a paragraph in "Ashes of Prospero" were Arjac Rockfist identifies him self as a "Son as Russ", and a woman with a spear asks "Only sons?" Arjac thinks on it, and realizes that the spirit of Fenris, and of the Space Wolves, is in all the people of Fenris, men, women and children. Then he considers that Guilliman had made an even more deadly and powerful version of a Space Marine, so it was possible. At the end he pointedly does not reject the possibility of women space marines, ending with a "Perhaps."

Whether or not this is a case of fandom baiting/lorefag trolling, lampshade hanging, or just leaving space for '[[Your Dudes]]' is debatable; the fact that this happened among the [[Viking]]-themed Space Wolves is interesting, given the Valkyrie and Shield Maiden connotations that go along with that theme. Additionally, the Wolves took a beating from the Thousand Sons, so increasing the recruiting pool would be a boon to the beleaguered Wolves. If female marines were going to be suddenly created, it happening to the Space Wolves would not be thematically out of the question the way it would be for other more 'ascetic' Space Marine chapters. This being said, Fenrisian Shield Maidens were mentioned as having fought in Wrath of Magnus, so it's also possible that the Space Wolves will stop being a Marines-exclusive force and start incorporating the native warriors of Fenris, though that would be a blatant case of legion building that would draw the attention of the already inclined to look disagreeable on them Inquisition in a way the more Inquisition friendly Ultramarine do not with the Ultramar Auxilla.

Of course, if GW were to give Space Wolves female Primaris first or just their own auxiliary troops that other Astartes factions don't have fluff equivalents for. It would end up making them even more [[Mary Sue]] than they already are. As the Wolves are considered by their detractors to be bigger Sues than the [[Ultramarine]]s and [[Grey Knights]]. If they are a vocal minority now, such an action would turn more than half of the fandom against the poodles.