I’m currently in the process of writing my first thesis article, which is about lots of stuff but mostly about transmedia universes. One point we have talked about a lot with my supervisors is the definition and meaning of canon. One thing my other supervisor has asked me multiple times is a question that also runs through this text. We’ll get to that later.
Let’s talk about female Space Marines.
For those uninitiated to Warhammer 40,000, the poster-boy faction of that game is the Space Marines, genetically enhanced super-soldiers that are the first thing anyone sees who gets into this story world. They have more miniatures than any other faction in the game, they are in every advertisement and star in novels, animated shows, and video games. You can even buy Space Marine toys, which are totally different than miniatures. At this point, Space Marines are eponymous with Warhammer 40,000. While the term “space marines” outdates Games Workshop by a few decades, it’s now almost only used in Warhammer 40,000. They come in all the colors of the rainbow, from the red of Blood Angels to the happy boys in blue of the Ultramarines. About that word, boys.
In the model line and stories depicting them, there are only male Space Marines. All their named characters that are important in their backstory, novels, and other narrative media are men. From Marneus Calgar to Uriel Ventris, Space Marines seem to be a no-girls-allowed club. This has been the norm for the last 30+ years and during that time there have been no female space marines in any media affiliated with Games Workshop. Why? There are two reasons for this, one diegetic and one non-diegetic. Let’s start with the diegetic.
Space Marines are genetically-enhanced superhumans, that are made from children. The process involves multiple surgeries, hormone therapy (why does that sound so familiar), the creation of new organs and glands, and excessive brainwashing. The most important piece is the gene-seed (originally called the gene-sperm), which has the genetic code of Space Marines in it. This turns some starved kid into a 7'-tall human with gigantism and the ability to spit acid and learn things by eating corpses. They have two hearts, three lungs, and a black carapace under their skin. And as it is said, “[space marine applicants] must be male because the gene-seed zygotes are keyed to male hormones and genetic structure.”. In-universe, this is the reason why they are all male.
The non-diegetic reason is that Citadel Miniatures actually made female Space Marine miniatures in 1988, and they sold badly. There were two, “Gabs and Jayne”, who wore power armor similar to their plastic male counterparts. Alan Merret, former head of intellectual property at Games Workshop, opened this up in a Facebook post years ago. The reason was that retailers kept complaining that they weren’t selling, which Games Workshop interpreted as that their customer base was not interested in female miniatures. The reason why there are no female space marines “has nothing to do with lore, background or characters or Marines. It’s to do with simple logistics of making miniatures and selling miniatures” (Merret).
This issue of gender within Space Marines is a “controversial” issue within the fandom. Those who oppose the idea of female Space Marines use diegetic reason to defend their position, and those who support the idea use the non-diegetic. We can’t have female Space Marines, because Marine Sperm is too spicy for females. The only reason we don’t have female Space Marines is marketing decisions made in the 1980s, and we should not adhere to those. People are making their own female Space Marine conversions, and then dealing with harassment and protests from those who oppose the idea. Round and round we go.
So the non-diegetic reasons are pretty clear. It was a business decision made 30 years ago, and for the longest time, the issues of inclusivity were not key issues for Games Workshop. This has changed in recent years, and these days mixed-gender armies are pretty common, especially in the Age of Sigmar. Stormcast Eternals started as a similarly mono-gendered faction as the Space Marines, but with each new model line, they have increased the variety in gender, and now a 50/50 gender split is pretty much the norm in Stormcast Eternal models. In modernity, the same reasons don’t hold water anymore, and it could now be a profitable marketing decision. But the opponents of this do not care about that. They care about the lore, and female Space Marines would go against the lore. It would break the lore. Go against the canon.
Canon can be interpreted as “events presented in the media source that provide the universe, setting, and the characters” (Hellekson & Busse, 2006, 9). This term is coined from the biblical canon which means the collected texts that were agreed to be true or canonical. According to Hellekson and Busse, canons don’t necessarily need to be exclusive, but it is often their nature to establish criteria that will result in the exclusion of certain material. In Warhammer 40,000, canon provides the background in which game missions occur, describing both the history of the universe and the inhabitants, which together offer a fictionalized vision of warfare in the 41st millennia to inspire gameplay (Walliss 2012). Canon is the context in which the narrative is set, and fictional history you are part of. There are certain parts that are considered canon, although the company line seems to be more open to wider interpretation. According to Gav Thorpe, the notion of canon is “a fallacy”, and that exclusion is a disservice to the writers and fans who have been taking part in this universe for decades.
Here’s the question my doctoral thesis supervisor has been asking me: why does it matter? Does having a strict or even defined canon matter?
Warhammer 40,000 fans deal with the canon in very different ways than the fans of other similar media franchises. When talking about other big transmedia franchises, say Marvel Universe or Star Wars, the notion of canon seems much less strict. Iron Man was captured by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. But then he was captured by the Taliban. Boba Fett died in the Sarlacc Pit. But then he survived and continued his career of being a bounty hunter. Then he instead became a crime boss in Tatooine. These are all true — from a certain point of view. And Warhammer 40,000 is actually very similar. Horus was the Emperor’s finest general, but then he was his favorite son. 13th Black Crusade failed to destroy Cadia — until they succeeded. Custodians never leave the Imperial Palace — until they do. As it turns out, fiction is not history. There is a term called “the Thermian Argument”, derived from the Thermians from the movie Galaxy Quest. Thermians do not understand fiction as a concept, and they think the exploits of the fictional Galaxy Quest TV show are historical records. Thermian Argument is when you oppose the criticism of a fictional world by using the text as a defense against the criticism. For example, “this fantasy story has a lot of racism in it” is countered with “Well you see when the Kingdom of Chud was enslaved by the Minions of the Dark One and the Elves of Libertaria didn’t help so now the Chuds hate them.” That does not answer the original criticism, which is about the narrative choice of showcasing racism in a fictional setting.
Canon and lore in Warhammer 40,000 are in constant flux. Things are added and taken away. New things are revealed, and the story progresses forward. Squats were eaten by the Tyranids, except the ones that were not. Two of the Primarchs have returned from their 10,000-year absence. Some of the things we lose and re-contextualize. Necrons are no longer just soulless automatons enslaved by space gods, their leaders have personalities, and the space gods are enslaved instead. This was a huge shift in the Necron lore and their place in the galaxy changed in a big way. If the diegetic limitations behind Space Marine creation are immovable facts, does the same stand for Ilyan Nastase, the half-eldar Space Marine that’s as old as the concept of gene-seed? If your answer is no, where goes the line? What are considered to be part of the lore, and what are not? As a challenge, try not to use the Thermian argument here. The answer might be more difficult to find. Around a decade ago, Space Marines went through a big shift in their appearance and lore. This was the invention of Primaris Space Marines, the new and better Space Marines that were (diegetically )made partially to overcome flaws in the original design of their genetic code. How much of a stretch it would be to say that this upgrade could make female Space Marines as well?
It is genuinely hard to imagine the opponents of female Space Marines being intellectually honest about what their problem truly is. They have no problems with most of the aforementioned “changes in the lore”, but this one point makes their blood boil and they become incredibly defensive, even if it is just someone doing their own thing with their own models. But let me take their side for a hot minute. So yes, female Space Marines are impossible because Emperor sucked at genetics, fine. But then again, gender is not biological. It’s a social construct. Gender exists as a construction of human culture, and is a trait that is assigned at birth. If you are born in a cave without ever seeing another person, how do you know if you are a man or a woman? Trysanna Yantha writes in her essay Musings on Female Space Marines (published in 28 Mag Vol.5), that trans people have always existed, it’s an ancient part of human cultures, and statistically within the last 10,000 years, there must have been few transgender Space Marines. Problem solved! Biological essentialism is defeated, nothing in that original Space Marine creation lore is changed, and the mission is accomplished. Pop those female heads in that Intercessor kit and let’s go.
Unless there is some other reason why the opponents have a problem with female Space Marines?
What does canon mean, when things reportedly part of the canon are changed every other year? Warhammer 40,000, Marvel, or Star Wars are not religions, where strict canons are used to codify teachings. These are narrative worlds, where new stories are told constantly by different creators, expanding on what we knew before. There are over 200 novels set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, over 60 games, multiple animated TV shows, and over 30 years of historical details from multiple points of view. Gav Thorpe was right — the notion of canon here is a fallacy. At this point, the Warhammer 40,000 lore is so much different than it was 20 or 30 years ago. But people don’t seem to be angry about the evolution of Tyranids, the re-contextualizing of Necrons, or the return of the Squats. And yes, I have not addressed the question of Adepta Sororitas aka Sisters of Battle, the all-female order of soldier nuns in power armor. These questions often boil down to either “What about Sisters of Battle” and “Should there then be male Sisters of Battle”. But these questions echo with the same intellectual dishonesty that is part of this debate in any other form. If you put the They Live glasses on, you can see the true message behind these questions. Yes, the Sisters of Battle do exist and true to their name, they are all female. And similarly, there are diegetic reasons why such restrictions are in place. There are many reasons why these are not the same thing, but the message behind the question is “You have yours, be satisfied.” It truly seems that gender is the issue, not the matter of canon or lore.
Youtuber Mikey Neumann once made a video about who should play Batman next. It’s a fun video with some stellar suggestions, but the larger point of that video is to question the nature of the discussion around who can play fictional characters. Why are certain actors always presented as options, while others are thought of as impossible? The final question Mikey asks in the video is not “Who should play Batman”, but “Who is allowed to play Batman?”. Thus, I ask:
Are women allowed to be Space Marines?
The answer to this question, at this point in time, tells a sorry tale about the state of the Warhammer 40,000 hobby.
Aasa T
Sources
Hellekson, Karen, Busse, Kristina. 2006. Introduction: Work in Progess. In Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of Internet: New Essays, edited by Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson. McFarlane & Company Inc.
Neumann, Mikey. 2018. The Batman Question — Movies With Mikey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzE2J7bo0c
Thorpe, Gav. 2010. Jumping the Fence. https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2010/01/21/jumping-the-fence/
Trysanna, Yantha. 2023. Musings on Female Space Marines. 28 Magazine Vol 5. https://28magcom.files.wordpress.com/2023/05/28-vol-5.pdf
Walliss, James. 2012. Stories By/For Boys. Canon and Creativity within Warhammer 40,000 Fanfiction. In Fan Culture: Theory/Practice, edited by Katherine Larsen and Lynn Zubernis. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
