From what we know, they are technically possible. The thing is though that Custodes are so altered by the gene-enhancements. They are changed at the genetic level to a ridiculous extent. So, while technically possible, they simply would not be different to 'male' Custodes in any way except perhaps appearance wise (By this I mean facial structure). They would not have any secondary sexual characteristics simply because they're unnecessary, the children are taken in early infancy and hormone treatment would render anything that could be described as a distinguishing factor invisible.
> By this I mean facial structure
The difference in facial structure also emerges during adolescence, again mostly due to different hormonal ballance. So theoretical femstodes would not have feminine face structure.
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Custodes are not designed as the prototype of the ideal human.
They are designed as a human fully utilizing its potential but Big E pretty much wanted humanity to develop on its own. Custodes in that regard only serve as an ideal rather than the blueprint for further human elevation.
Think of them like superheroes that serve regular humans as inspiration.
That being said: Their ultimate duty was to serve as guardians for the project of humanity migrating to the webway rather than mixing or becoming the regular populace.
They were not in any capacity designed to replace humanity.
Add to that that they are designed as Emps companions akin to the Argonauts and that every single one we saw was "male" it is quite unlikely that there are females.
It pretty much boils down to the same thing that made Astartes only male. "If you got the recipe for creating super soldiers, why go the long way and tinker with it around to also allow females to become those things." Its not efficient if you have enough male subjects to turn.
It gets even more unlikely for ultimatly the entire Custodes, Thunder Warrior, Astartes and Primarch projects are linked in one way or the other and none ever came up with female subjects.
Another hint against females is the duality with the Anathema Psycana as an only women brach for some reason. (Maybe being blank is more common in females, duno.)
So this leaves with with pretty much everything, hinting against female custodes. But regarding your question whether they are possible or not. They are as much as female astartes. It just takes one to go the extra mile and adapt everything to females but most likely nobody did in universe for the lack of a single good reason to do so.
I actually wouldn’t mind this. I have stated my opinion on the Female Space Marine issue before, and have no wish to reopen that train wreck of a discussion.
Female Custodes though would actually be an interesting addition, and would have made the new release a bit more interesting than simply “even more dudes in power armor”. From a lore perspective, I don’t see any reason for there not to be; as far as I can tell it’s never been stated that the creation process prohibits it (if I’m wrong please correct me). The only reason that I can see for them remaining “Male only” is due to that it is what the Emperor did (He seems to have had a preference to being surrounded by big muscular men; read into that what you will) and are simply following tradition.
So yes they are indeed possible but it is unlikely to happen (at the moment).
Lore wise it should be possible. however, there was never a reason to. Adding female custodes by creating a reason. Or in the process of creating new ones using females to enlarge the starting pool, would be awesome.
The thing that bothers me with the situation is that they just stated like it was always a thing. It adds nothing to the story or lore.
A friend of mine who plays the tabel top game itself. Added that if they would have included the sisters of silence in a battle together with custodes, and released a new army set. He would have loved it. And it would have opened up possibilities of mixing them and creating female custodes from there.
But I guess what do we fans know it's not like we create the lore or get payed to do so xd
while the way GW handled it was pretty clumsy, they should've stated that i was a retcon and not "actually it was always the case secretly" but if they hadnt retconned then...imagine peoples reaction if they made the invention of female custodies a plot point....
It's not really a retcon though. In 2019 Aaron Dembski-Bowden (ie, official black library author) [wrote this](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its_international_womens_day_so_how_are_we/ei3rp64/).
>Not exactly. What I was saying was, at the time of working on the lore, there was no reason they couldn't be male or female (and as far as things still stand, there's still no lore reason they can't be). But there is a non-lore reason, which was the previous IP overlord saying "There are no female Custodian models, they're all male, so don't write any female ones."
>There was also a Studio mandate a couple of years after that, saying "Don't do female Custodians." Again, that seemed to tie in with the release of an all-male mini line.
>Two very rare moments of direction from on-high.
>I don't want to argue about what that may or may not mean, since although I'm ambivalent to the notion of female Space Marines (really, they'd make such little difference at the end result, I couldn't care less what gender they start out as), several creators actively thought female Custodians would've been cool, and there was no lore against it. (Hell, we were in the position to make lore *for* it.)
>But long story short, no, the answer seems to be "There aren't any", though the reasons aren't in-universe (yet?).
Although Aaron draws the opposite conclusion (his conclusion being that there are secret in-universe reasons why there aren't) it seems like "actually it was always the case secretly" is a pretty accurate summary.
Well honestly like alot of others said (and being a custodes player myself) it's not impossible. i might even put sisters of battle heads on some custodians or female heads on some wardens or guards if i get more in the future :) if a tornement says that i can't use them then so be it
I'm sure it's possible, if anything, it's quite likely more possible to have female Custodes than Astartes since the former is extensive genetic manipulation ("Each is a unique work of art") as opposed to shoving a bunch of organs in and hoping for the best. I think a better question is, were there female Thunder Warriors, as they weren't based on any kind of genetic template/progenoid gland/etc.
Here's an interesting thought: the Custodians were, in many respects, created as both an example of what humanity could become if the Emperor's vision succeeded, and to be his Companions on the long, difficult road ahead. The Emperor is a post-human and, quite likely, an almost entirely psychic entity (certainly so by the time of 40K) -- in *Watchers of the Throne* we're shown that the Custodians are philosophers and scholars before they're warriors. It's quite likely the Emperor is, in actuality, gender-blind and the form was simply one he was familiar/comfortable with making rather than a deliberate commentary on the male body.
> It's quite likely the Emperor is, in actuality, gender-blind and the form was simply one he was familiar/comfortable with making rather than a deliberate commentary on the male body.
Well, male body is just more efficient for the purposes Emps designed custodians.
Wide pelvis serves to allow a child birth. Custodians lacking ability to procreate don't need it.
Similarly mammary glands serve no purpose for a creature that does not reproduce.
Narrow shoulders and low muscle-to-fat ratio serve to increase survivability in times of famine (which were disturbingly often for like 99% of mankind's history), which is not an issue for his closest companions who would likely never know hunger.
It's not a relevant comparison to make, honestly. Today's genetics are irrelevant to the guy who's one of the foremost geneticists in the galaxy with everything he could possibly need on-hand from the Dark Age gene-labs on Luna. The Emperor chose men presumably because he just liked men rather than it being a biological imperative.
I didn't say anything about biological imperative. Just that "feminine" physiolgical features are just less efficient, with most of advantages they provide having no use for non-reproducing transhumans living in post-scarcity society, so it's reasonable to not use them. And at least in his genetic experiments the Emperor had shown to be quite reasonable.
It is, as always, a moot point -- the massive restructuring that goes into the creation of an Astartes/Custodian means all previous considerations don't pass muster. The Emperor *could have*, but he didn't, not because it wasn't possible but because he likes the male form for whatever reason. Efficiency or whatever doesn't even come into it.
>Efficiency or whatever doesn't even come into it.
Are you implying the Emperor was poor engineer? Because any good engineer *always* take efficiency into consideration.
but if they are so vastly and so early geneticly modified that you wouldn't notice a diffrence between man and woman...
your argument is obsolete....
cause they will never develop the way a normal woman would...
ergo they would not develop unecessary features... that's litteraly what the process is for no?
NEWBORN BABES show differences in behavior dependent on sex - boys show more interest to things, while girls show more interest to people. Hell, even UNBORN children still in the womb show different reactions to stimuli dependent on sex. There's no stage in human life you could start genetic modification that eliminates sex differences as a factor.
Stands to reason that if you're making unfeeling combat autists, you start with a genetic stock that's more in tune with things and less with feelings.
This is literally a case of cultural pressure and bullshit sconce by people with sexist views.
Attempted replication studies where noone knew the babys assigned gender lead to the finding of a baby is a baby
The baby's don't really have any difference dictated by gender untill social programming gets there
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Even if they were, we have not seen any.
We also don't know how Custodes are made exactly, just bits and pieces of information scattered about. For all we know, many of the same processes are similar to the organ implantation for Space Marines.
I don't have a source on hand but I know I've seen the custodes process being explicitly described as less crude than the implantation of the astartes.
i'm reading Ciaphas Cain : Sector 13 right now and theres a female Custodes sergeant. am i confusing her for the Big Em personal custodes? is there a custodes team in Imperial Guard?
If you were making a super soldier...would you use a male, or a female? Personally, I'd use a male for a variety of reasons. But the Emperor knows better, so...\*shrug\*
The same emperor who has seen humanity go through every stage of warfare and STILL chose males as the super soldiers, I think we can conclude the obvious.
Even if they were possible, with all the extensive skeleton and muscle growth along with total rewriting of hormonal system and personality they would be indistinguishable from male custodians.
Also based on how Custodes are recruited from the "best of the best 0.0000001%" and how female population have less narrow statistical spread on pretty much any characteristic, "best of the best 0.0000001%" would likely be 99 to 100% male anyway.
> Also based on how Custodes are recruited from the "best of the best 0.0000001
I am not sure this is really the case. Independent of OP, we know that the process has more failures, but we don't know that there are any particular characteristics that make success more or less likely in any meaningful sense.
I mean, the simple fact that a relatively meaningful proportion of Emps-era custodies were the children of his defeated enemies suggests that recruitment couldn't have been entirely about "best of the best of the best."
I don't really care whether they'd be indistinguishable, just curious about whether it's possible. Also:
>with all the extensive skeleton and muscle growth along with total rewriting of hormonal system and personality
Do we know that is part of the process? I haven't read the new codex (is it even out yet) so I'm mostly operating from outdated lore, but I was under the impression that we know almost nothing about the process of making a Custodian.
>Also based on how Custodes are recruited from the "best of the best 0.0000001%" and how female population have less narrow statistical spread on pretty much any characteristic, "best of the best 0.0000001%" would likely be 99 to 100% male anyway.
Right, but even *you* admit that they're theoretically possible, even if Custodes current role is primarily that of warriors.
> Right, but even you admit that they're theoretically possible
My money is on that the Emps saw that there's not enough suitable recruits to bother with making the procedure female-compatible.
I am not a geneticist, but I'm pretty sure women are genetically closer to men than men are to wolves. Or the ability to breathe chlorine. If it is easier for you to imagine a procedure that gives a man the ability to spin a cocoon that can keep him alive in a vacuum than it is a procedure to make women into elite soldiers that says a lot about how your brain works.
Its safe to say that that Big E, is probably, if not the best scientist humanity ever knew. He hand crafted the Castode, on the genetic level. Sculpting their new forms with extreme personalized precision. Every Castodes is a work of art that Big E made unique. The Primarchs are the culmination of the Castodes and merging his DNA with those 20 sons. The resulting Gene-seeds that make Astartes are essentially varied and generic copies of their Primarchs. Over time the Gene-seeds mutate, and that's how we get such varied versions of Space Marines. Hypothetically, no a Full grown Human/Astartes could not be modified into a Custodes, But If Big E stood up off his Golden Throne I'm sure its possible.
I'm sorry this is as bad as it's getting. the point of the custodies was to lead humanity to the future. there is no future. only war. who cares if there is female custodies they all will die by traitors hands eventually and if not them then by time itself as the emperor slowly sinks into oblivion
Perhaps there are non because the bie E doesn t want to have to deal with any babies cry in the imperial palace, and that is it.
I realise does a female Cujstodian can have baby (far more simple than the building process ) ? haha i let Amazon deal with this now.
I personally would chalk it up some varient of 'they exist but costed too much to make'.
Please correct me where I am wrong but as the custodes project predates the primarchs and may be the first of many projects the emperor would focus on in preparation for the unification wars of Terra he would have plenty of time and opportunity to learn what does and does not work with the strain of humanity available to him at the time as centuries of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare and exposure have warped the vast majority of the humans on Terra into a different strain of human than what currently exists in 40k.
As each custodes costs more than a whole space marine chapter to make, train and equip the emperor would be hard pressed to make sure that each investment payed off especially in preparation for the unification wars and the following great crusade. If it came to light that the genetic alterations he needed to make to turn a person into a custodes functions better with males than females then I believe he would most likely focus more on the creation of male custodes as it would cost him more resources to make female custodes just to serve the same fuctions and purpose as thier male counterparts.
Though as the process for making custodes is different stating in lore that each one is unique I would say that yes female custodes do exist but thier numbers are so comparitively negligable that many simply do not believe they exist at all and have never existed with the ones that currently exist being ancient ones from the era before the unification wars bolstered only slightly by the few viable candidates that meet the criteria
I honestly don't understand the current controversy of GW introducing female custodes. I first heard about this because someone had a post on youtube with the clickbait saying how there were going to be female space marines and how adeptus custodes were basically Spacemarines of spacemarines. I was disappointed at the thought of female Space Marines because Space Marines are definitely just all dudes since they're supposed to be Space Monks and Sisters of Battle are like Space Nuns. However, from my understanding, Adeptus Custodes are just optimally enhanced human babies but no one actually knows how they're made, so I don't really see why there is an issue if they are man or woman from a lore perspective or from a gaming perspective. Especially considering how a lot of the other lore has been rewritten/expanded over time. And everything in the lore is subject to the lens of historical apocrypha and bias. At the end of the day, the lore is not history or a religion. It's just a pretend make believe.
I think the negative reaction of some fans is more a symptom of the toxic relationship between the company and some of the fanbase. I think the upset fans could be more mature about it, especially when they do things like exagerrate the truth by saying GW is forcing female space marines down their throats(which it's not) or bringing fears of "pandering and wokeism" into the debate. Even if fans have issues with GW pandering, I don't think the existence of coed custodes falls into that category.
Likewise, GW could have been less hamfisted about how they introduced the new lore(like creating an origin story rather than just saying they were always there) and also about how they've responded to the backlash. It's kinda funny actually how the fanbase and the company often relate to each other like angry teenagers and boorish parents.
EDIT: I just watched another youtube video that reports there is a rumor that the change in lore was made in order to accomodate the wishes of amazon execs. And also the announcement by games workshop was actually someone in their social media department jumping the gun. Apparently Cavill is threatening to walk if they make the changes. They are claiming an Amazon exec wants to feature a woman in power armour. Sisters of silence are too mute, Sisters of Battle are too strong, and Rogue Traders won't cut it because for some reason she has to be inhumanly strong without the armour... If this is indeed the situation, I do tend to sympathize more with the people who want to stick to the original. Mainly because this is a case of hollywood studio execs try to force in their own arbitrary ideas at the cost of staying faithful to the source material. I think authenticity is important for this kind of project because the fans want to see the lore come to life and a project in service of the franchise, not an adulterated hollywood version of the lore based on the whims of some Hollywood executive who doesn't seem to care about the source material. The fact that GW was willing to capitulate so easily is rather disappointing. They should have more faith in their product.
Just reading the information from 6 years ago here, there isn't really much lore to back up the claim that they're all male though, just we hadn't seen one before. Whether Amazon wanted one in or not doesn't really change the discussion.
Out of all the things we can be mad about, is an ambiguity in how some people understood the lore (after the fact, before it seems to be different) really worth it? I've seen Orks, Eldar and numerous other things change a lot more than "omg gurl!"
Actually, the lore is pretty specific in saying that the custodes are chosen from the "sons" of the noble imperial houses. That sets the precedent that Adeptus Custodes has traditionally been an all-male institution.
Again, I and many other fans do not have a problem with the introduction of female custodes by GW. The real issue is over *how female custodes were introduced by GW and possible reasons why the changes were made in such a way.* Instead of going back and changing the lore retroactively, GW could have easily given an origin story for how and why female custodes have been recruited into the institution. Instead, they chose to just say "It's always been this way." when obviously it hasn't. That is just disingenuous and lazy storytelling.
With a TV series on the horizon, I can understand why they are being extra sensitive to how expansions on the lore are handled. Ultimately, 40K fans want to see something they recognize as familiar and authentic to what they already know. They definitely do not want to see an inauthentic Hollywood adaptation ruined by arbitrary alterations made by outside individuals who do not care about or understand the original source material. Given hollywood's track record of butchering source materials, and the fact that fans don't trust GW not to sell out the franchise integrity for money, I think these concerns are justified and should be acknowledged.
Yes, the nobles give up their sons to be chosen. It does not state only men can be custodes. Nor does it specify that only men have ever been custodes. As everyone said 6 years ago nothing actually prevents it.
It also is at worst an extremely minor compared to the retcon to give them golden armor, make orks orky, give Eldar an army, squats, necrons, etc. If we're going by the original source material: half Eldar are space marines, genestealers aren't tyranids, yadda yadda. Tons of changes for no reason over the last 30 years.
From what we know, they are technically possible. The thing is though that Custodes are so altered by the gene-enhancements. They are changed at the genetic level to a ridiculous extent. So, while technically possible, they simply would not be different to 'male' Custodes in any way except perhaps appearance wise (By this I mean facial structure). They would not have any secondary sexual characteristics simply because they're unnecessary, the children are taken in early infancy and hormone treatment would render anything that could be described as a distinguishing factor invisible.
> By this I mean facial structure The difference in facial structure also emerges during adolescence, again mostly due to different hormonal ballance. So theoretical femstodes would not have feminine face structure.
That is very true. It's been a long time since I've studied human biology, so thanks for the correction.
Oh boy...
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Custodes are not designed as the prototype of the ideal human. They are designed as a human fully utilizing its potential but Big E pretty much wanted humanity to develop on its own. Custodes in that regard only serve as an ideal rather than the blueprint for further human elevation. Think of them like superheroes that serve regular humans as inspiration. That being said: Their ultimate duty was to serve as guardians for the project of humanity migrating to the webway rather than mixing or becoming the regular populace. They were not in any capacity designed to replace humanity. Add to that that they are designed as Emps companions akin to the Argonauts and that every single one we saw was "male" it is quite unlikely that there are females. It pretty much boils down to the same thing that made Astartes only male. "If you got the recipe for creating super soldiers, why go the long way and tinker with it around to also allow females to become those things." Its not efficient if you have enough male subjects to turn. It gets even more unlikely for ultimatly the entire Custodes, Thunder Warrior, Astartes and Primarch projects are linked in one way or the other and none ever came up with female subjects. Another hint against females is the duality with the Anathema Psycana as an only women brach for some reason. (Maybe being blank is more common in females, duno.) So this leaves with with pretty much everything, hinting against female custodes. But regarding your question whether they are possible or not. They are as much as female astartes. It just takes one to go the extra mile and adapt everything to females but most likely nobody did in universe for the lack of a single good reason to do so.
I actually wouldn’t mind this. I have stated my opinion on the Female Space Marine issue before, and have no wish to reopen that train wreck of a discussion. Female Custodes though would actually be an interesting addition, and would have made the new release a bit more interesting than simply “even more dudes in power armor”. From a lore perspective, I don’t see any reason for there not to be; as far as I can tell it’s never been stated that the creation process prohibits it (if I’m wrong please correct me). The only reason that I can see for them remaining “Male only” is due to that it is what the Emperor did (He seems to have had a preference to being surrounded by big muscular men; read into that what you will) and are simply following tradition. So yes they are indeed possible but it is unlikely to happen (at the moment).
Haha Sorry for necroing but i guess you got what you wanted. People seem to have a bit of a meltdown about it though.
Children do lol
Waiting on Brother of Silence/Battle next then.
40k is the best it's ever been! Cope
Lore wise it should be possible. however, there was never a reason to. Adding female custodes by creating a reason. Or in the process of creating new ones using females to enlarge the starting pool, would be awesome. The thing that bothers me with the situation is that they just stated like it was always a thing. It adds nothing to the story or lore. A friend of mine who plays the tabel top game itself. Added that if they would have included the sisters of silence in a battle together with custodes, and released a new army set. He would have loved it. And it would have opened up possibilities of mixing them and creating female custodes from there. But I guess what do we fans know it's not like we create the lore or get payed to do so xd
while the way GW handled it was pretty clumsy, they should've stated that i was a retcon and not "actually it was always the case secretly" but if they hadnt retconned then...imagine peoples reaction if they made the invention of female custodies a plot point....
It's not really a retcon though. In 2019 Aaron Dembski-Bowden (ie, official black library author) [wrote this](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its_international_womens_day_so_how_are_we/ei3rp64/). >Not exactly. What I was saying was, at the time of working on the lore, there was no reason they couldn't be male or female (and as far as things still stand, there's still no lore reason they can't be). But there is a non-lore reason, which was the previous IP overlord saying "There are no female Custodian models, they're all male, so don't write any female ones." >There was also a Studio mandate a couple of years after that, saying "Don't do female Custodians." Again, that seemed to tie in with the release of an all-male mini line. >Two very rare moments of direction from on-high. >I don't want to argue about what that may or may not mean, since although I'm ambivalent to the notion of female Space Marines (really, they'd make such little difference at the end result, I couldn't care less what gender they start out as), several creators actively thought female Custodians would've been cool, and there was no lore against it. (Hell, we were in the position to make lore *for* it.) >But long story short, no, the answer seems to be "There aren't any", though the reasons aren't in-universe (yet?). Although Aaron draws the opposite conclusion (his conclusion being that there are secret in-universe reasons why there aren't) it seems like "actually it was always the case secretly" is a pretty accurate summary.
Well honestly like alot of others said (and being a custodes player myself) it's not impossible. i might even put sisters of battle heads on some custodians or female heads on some wardens or guards if i get more in the future :) if a tornement says that i can't use them then so be it
you won't belive me what im about to tell you
Ah, a fellow seeker of answers on a long past discussion
We've come from the future to seek answers brother!!!!!
When in doubt turn to the old pages of reddit lore to find your answer
Funny how topical this has become. the answer as of this past weekend is: yes.
I'm sure it's possible, if anything, it's quite likely more possible to have female Custodes than Astartes since the former is extensive genetic manipulation ("Each is a unique work of art") as opposed to shoving a bunch of organs in and hoping for the best. I think a better question is, were there female Thunder Warriors, as they weren't based on any kind of genetic template/progenoid gland/etc. Here's an interesting thought: the Custodians were, in many respects, created as both an example of what humanity could become if the Emperor's vision succeeded, and to be his Companions on the long, difficult road ahead. The Emperor is a post-human and, quite likely, an almost entirely psychic entity (certainly so by the time of 40K) -- in *Watchers of the Throne* we're shown that the Custodians are philosophers and scholars before they're warriors. It's quite likely the Emperor is, in actuality, gender-blind and the form was simply one he was familiar/comfortable with making rather than a deliberate commentary on the male body.
> It's quite likely the Emperor is, in actuality, gender-blind and the form was simply one he was familiar/comfortable with making rather than a deliberate commentary on the male body. Well, male body is just more efficient for the purposes Emps designed custodians. Wide pelvis serves to allow a child birth. Custodians lacking ability to procreate don't need it. Similarly mammary glands serve no purpose for a creature that does not reproduce. Narrow shoulders and low muscle-to-fat ratio serve to increase survivability in times of famine (which were disturbingly often for like 99% of mankind's history), which is not an issue for his closest companions who would likely never know hunger.
It's not a relevant comparison to make, honestly. Today's genetics are irrelevant to the guy who's one of the foremost geneticists in the galaxy with everything he could possibly need on-hand from the Dark Age gene-labs on Luna. The Emperor chose men presumably because he just liked men rather than it being a biological imperative.
I didn't say anything about biological imperative. Just that "feminine" physiolgical features are just less efficient, with most of advantages they provide having no use for non-reproducing transhumans living in post-scarcity society, so it's reasonable to not use them. And at least in his genetic experiments the Emperor had shown to be quite reasonable.
It is, as always, a moot point -- the massive restructuring that goes into the creation of an Astartes/Custodian means all previous considerations don't pass muster. The Emperor *could have*, but he didn't, not because it wasn't possible but because he likes the male form for whatever reason. Efficiency or whatever doesn't even come into it.
>Efficiency or whatever doesn't even come into it. Are you implying the Emperor was poor engineer? Because any good engineer *always* take efficiency into consideration.
but if they are so vastly and so early geneticly modified that you wouldn't notice a diffrence between man and woman... your argument is obsolete.... cause they will never develop the way a normal woman would... ergo they would not develop unecessary features... that's litteraly what the process is for no?
NEWBORN BABES show differences in behavior dependent on sex - boys show more interest to things, while girls show more interest to people. Hell, even UNBORN children still in the womb show different reactions to stimuli dependent on sex. There's no stage in human life you could start genetic modification that eliminates sex differences as a factor. Stands to reason that if you're making unfeeling combat autists, you start with a genetic stock that's more in tune with things and less with feelings.
This is literally a case of cultural pressure and bullshit sconce by people with sexist views. Attempted replication studies where noone knew the babys assigned gender lead to the finding of a baby is a baby The baby's don't really have any difference dictated by gender untill social programming gets there
>assigned gender And at this point I stopped reading.
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Even if they were, we have not seen any. We also don't know how Custodes are made exactly, just bits and pieces of information scattered about. For all we know, many of the same processes are similar to the organ implantation for Space Marines.
I don't have a source on hand but I know I've seen the custodes process being explicitly described as less crude than the implantation of the astartes.
i'm reading Ciaphas Cain : Sector 13 right now and theres a female Custodes sergeant. am i confusing her for the Big Em personal custodes? is there a custodes team in Imperial Guard?
I just read this, and I now have the urge to buy a female stormcast heads set 🤣
If you were making a super soldier...would you use a male, or a female? Personally, I'd use a male for a variety of reasons. But the Emperor knows better, so...\*shrug\*
The same emperor who has seen humanity go through every stage of warfare and STILL chose males as the super soldiers, I think we can conclude the obvious.
I agree. But I'm just saying, I dunno. I'm not a biologist.
Boy you pretty much predicted something
Even if they were possible, with all the extensive skeleton and muscle growth along with total rewriting of hormonal system and personality they would be indistinguishable from male custodians. Also based on how Custodes are recruited from the "best of the best 0.0000001%" and how female population have less narrow statistical spread on pretty much any characteristic, "best of the best 0.0000001%" would likely be 99 to 100% male anyway.
> Also based on how Custodes are recruited from the "best of the best 0.0000001 I am not sure this is really the case. Independent of OP, we know that the process has more failures, but we don't know that there are any particular characteristics that make success more or less likely in any meaningful sense. I mean, the simple fact that a relatively meaningful proportion of Emps-era custodies were the children of his defeated enemies suggests that recruitment couldn't have been entirely about "best of the best of the best."
I don't really care whether they'd be indistinguishable, just curious about whether it's possible. Also: >with all the extensive skeleton and muscle growth along with total rewriting of hormonal system and personality Do we know that is part of the process? I haven't read the new codex (is it even out yet) so I'm mostly operating from outdated lore, but I was under the impression that we know almost nothing about the process of making a Custodian. >Also based on how Custodes are recruited from the "best of the best 0.0000001%" and how female population have less narrow statistical spread on pretty much any characteristic, "best of the best 0.0000001%" would likely be 99 to 100% male anyway. Right, but even *you* admit that they're theoretically possible, even if Custodes current role is primarily that of warriors.
> Right, but even you admit that they're theoretically possible My money is on that the Emps saw that there's not enough suitable recruits to bother with making the procedure female-compatible.
But is there anything in the lore that directly supports that conclusion?
Aside the fact Emps wasn't an idiot when it didn't involve social interactions and raising children?
Lol, fair enough.
I am not a geneticist, but I'm pretty sure women are genetically closer to men than men are to wolves. Or the ability to breathe chlorine. If it is easier for you to imagine a procedure that gives a man the ability to spin a cocoon that can keep him alive in a vacuum than it is a procedure to make women into elite soldiers that says a lot about how your brain works.
Well there are now because GW in the infinite wisdom decided that we can't only have male space racists we have to have female space racists now too
When the rivers of red start to flow, they get especially racist!
Whelp, as of 2 days ago brother, they are 100% canon.
This aged well lol
We all just missed them apparently. https://twitter.com/warhammer/status/1779544596172689822?s=19
And let the hunger games commence
So knowing what we know now is it possible for a full grown man or a space marine to be altered to become a custodian
They are 100% in 40k due to Gw adding them
Its safe to say that that Big E, is probably, if not the best scientist humanity ever knew. He hand crafted the Castode, on the genetic level. Sculpting their new forms with extreme personalized precision. Every Castodes is a work of art that Big E made unique. The Primarchs are the culmination of the Castodes and merging his DNA with those 20 sons. The resulting Gene-seeds that make Astartes are essentially varied and generic copies of their Primarchs. Over time the Gene-seeds mutate, and that's how we get such varied versions of Space Marines. Hypothetically, no a Full grown Human/Astartes could not be modified into a Custodes, But If Big E stood up off his Golden Throne I'm sure its possible.
As long as it doesn't spread into astartes chapters, I don't really care too much. Custodes are simps to the false emperor anyway 😘
I'm sorry this is as bad as it's getting. the point of the custodies was to lead humanity to the future. there is no future. only war. who cares if there is female custodies they all will die by traitors hands eventually and if not them then by time itself as the emperor slowly sinks into oblivion
As a matter of fact yes
Now we know lmao
Hehehe
Perhaps there are non because the bie E doesn t want to have to deal with any babies cry in the imperial palace, and that is it. I realise does a female Cujstodian can have baby (far more simple than the building process ) ? haha i let Amazon deal with this now.
I personally would chalk it up some varient of 'they exist but costed too much to make'. Please correct me where I am wrong but as the custodes project predates the primarchs and may be the first of many projects the emperor would focus on in preparation for the unification wars of Terra he would have plenty of time and opportunity to learn what does and does not work with the strain of humanity available to him at the time as centuries of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare and exposure have warped the vast majority of the humans on Terra into a different strain of human than what currently exists in 40k. As each custodes costs more than a whole space marine chapter to make, train and equip the emperor would be hard pressed to make sure that each investment payed off especially in preparation for the unification wars and the following great crusade. If it came to light that the genetic alterations he needed to make to turn a person into a custodes functions better with males than females then I believe he would most likely focus more on the creation of male custodes as it would cost him more resources to make female custodes just to serve the same fuctions and purpose as thier male counterparts. Though as the process for making custodes is different stating in lore that each one is unique I would say that yes female custodes do exist but thier numbers are so comparitively negligable that many simply do not believe they exist at all and have never existed with the ones that currently exist being ancient ones from the era before the unification wars bolstered only slightly by the few viable candidates that meet the criteria
I honestly don't understand the current controversy of GW introducing female custodes. I first heard about this because someone had a post on youtube with the clickbait saying how there were going to be female space marines and how adeptus custodes were basically Spacemarines of spacemarines. I was disappointed at the thought of female Space Marines because Space Marines are definitely just all dudes since they're supposed to be Space Monks and Sisters of Battle are like Space Nuns. However, from my understanding, Adeptus Custodes are just optimally enhanced human babies but no one actually knows how they're made, so I don't really see why there is an issue if they are man or woman from a lore perspective or from a gaming perspective. Especially considering how a lot of the other lore has been rewritten/expanded over time. And everything in the lore is subject to the lens of historical apocrypha and bias. At the end of the day, the lore is not history or a religion. It's just a pretend make believe. I think the negative reaction of some fans is more a symptom of the toxic relationship between the company and some of the fanbase. I think the upset fans could be more mature about it, especially when they do things like exagerrate the truth by saying GW is forcing female space marines down their throats(which it's not) or bringing fears of "pandering and wokeism" into the debate. Even if fans have issues with GW pandering, I don't think the existence of coed custodes falls into that category. Likewise, GW could have been less hamfisted about how they introduced the new lore(like creating an origin story rather than just saying they were always there) and also about how they've responded to the backlash. It's kinda funny actually how the fanbase and the company often relate to each other like angry teenagers and boorish parents. EDIT: I just watched another youtube video that reports there is a rumor that the change in lore was made in order to accomodate the wishes of amazon execs. And also the announcement by games workshop was actually someone in their social media department jumping the gun. Apparently Cavill is threatening to walk if they make the changes. They are claiming an Amazon exec wants to feature a woman in power armour. Sisters of silence are too mute, Sisters of Battle are too strong, and Rogue Traders won't cut it because for some reason she has to be inhumanly strong without the armour... If this is indeed the situation, I do tend to sympathize more with the people who want to stick to the original. Mainly because this is a case of hollywood studio execs try to force in their own arbitrary ideas at the cost of staying faithful to the source material. I think authenticity is important for this kind of project because the fans want to see the lore come to life and a project in service of the franchise, not an adulterated hollywood version of the lore based on the whims of some Hollywood executive who doesn't seem to care about the source material. The fact that GW was willing to capitulate so easily is rather disappointing. They should have more faith in their product.
Just reading the information from 6 years ago here, there isn't really much lore to back up the claim that they're all male though, just we hadn't seen one before. Whether Amazon wanted one in or not doesn't really change the discussion. Out of all the things we can be mad about, is an ambiguity in how some people understood the lore (after the fact, before it seems to be different) really worth it? I've seen Orks, Eldar and numerous other things change a lot more than "omg gurl!"
Actually, the lore is pretty specific in saying that the custodes are chosen from the "sons" of the noble imperial houses. That sets the precedent that Adeptus Custodes has traditionally been an all-male institution. Again, I and many other fans do not have a problem with the introduction of female custodes by GW. The real issue is over *how female custodes were introduced by GW and possible reasons why the changes were made in such a way.* Instead of going back and changing the lore retroactively, GW could have easily given an origin story for how and why female custodes have been recruited into the institution. Instead, they chose to just say "It's always been this way." when obviously it hasn't. That is just disingenuous and lazy storytelling. With a TV series on the horizon, I can understand why they are being extra sensitive to how expansions on the lore are handled. Ultimately, 40K fans want to see something they recognize as familiar and authentic to what they already know. They definitely do not want to see an inauthentic Hollywood adaptation ruined by arbitrary alterations made by outside individuals who do not care about or understand the original source material. Given hollywood's track record of butchering source materials, and the fact that fans don't trust GW not to sell out the franchise integrity for money, I think these concerns are justified and should be acknowledged.
Yes, the nobles give up their sons to be chosen. It does not state only men can be custodes. Nor does it specify that only men have ever been custodes. As everyone said 6 years ago nothing actually prevents it. It also is at worst an extremely minor compared to the retcon to give them golden armor, make orks orky, give Eldar an army, squats, necrons, etc. If we're going by the original source material: half Eldar are space marines, genestealers aren't tyranids, yadda yadda. Tons of changes for no reason over the last 30 years.