by The upcoming third edition of Horus Heresy has made one substantial change to the wording in the lore that is likely to see a lot of teeth on edge. Older takes on the lore were often pretty clear that the path of a Space Marine was set in stone, and they begin life as boys on whatever planet their Chapters used to farm candidates for the never-ending act of finding more turbo-killers to feed into the Imperium’s murder machine.
They’d then be blasted with some psycho-conditioning, have some gene-seed implanted in them, and go through all manner of physical changes until they had extra hearts, extra lungs, and more muscles than Gold’s Gym.
The concept of the dude-only origins of Space Marines (the in-game fluff usually states that the gene-seed requires male endocrinal systems and reproductive organs to work) has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, with people wondering just how necessary it is to maintain that aspect of the lore.
The main change in the language is that it has become less gendered by adopting the word “human”, “the individual”, “adult subjects,” and “the body.” It’s all very non-specific language and doesn’t imply that the people going through the process need to be male.
Multiple threads have popped up about it on Reddit, and lots of YouTube videos are currently being cranked out, no doubt, but I really don’t know if people who dislike the notion have all that much to worry about it. The main cause for concern seems to be a recent retcon that saw women being included in the ranks of the Custodes, which seemed to set off a lot of people.
The simple reality is that the language and process around the creation of Custodes have always been different from Space Marines. I’d be loath to call this a win for the people who long for female Space Marines, or a reason to fear for those who dislike the idea, no matter the grounding of that dislike.
This just seems like a polishing of language to allow easier fanon, if you ask me, although I am sure some folks out there will still get very upset about it. Something tells me that the Space Marine applecart is just too lucrative for Games Workshop to risk any substantial changes.
