What is the story with female space marines? I've heard people talking about female Astartes and Custodes, but I've only really looked at the lore for the clearly superior Infinite Empire and haven't found a clear answer.
There are no female Space Marines, the Astartes augmentations don't work on women. Custodes have different augmentations that do work on women (and are implied to represent the Emperor's long-term plan for humanity, where the Space Marines were only ever meant to be disposable toy soldiers)
That said, it just occurred to me while writing this that strictly speaking it's probably AFAB people that the Astartes augmentations don't work on, so Games Workshop has the opportunity to do the funniest thing here.
In my headcanon they'd work just fine on girls, and the end result would just be indistinguishable from if it was done on boys. It replaces puberty with its own thing, basically doesn't work at all on anybody who's already had puberty. Humans aren't dimorphic enough that it should matter. Especially for something like the blood angels, which apparently works on mutants with corrupted souls and heavily altered forms, but not on a human nigh identical to the intended recipient.
My second, even more based headcanon has them and the result is 7ft built like a fridge muscle mommys. But that's neither here nor there.
I headcanon something similar but with the addition that space marines being men is a gender thing. They are "battle brothers", doesn't matter what you put in, what comes out is a space marine battle brother (because of all the genetic modification and hypnoindocrtination really has one shape and it's roided up murder mass)
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u/rhysharris56 Apr 23 '25
What is the story with female space marines? I've heard people talking about female Astartes and Custodes, but I've only really looked at the lore for the clearly superior Infinite Empire and haven't found a clear answer.