The Battle For Warhammer Has Begun

there's been a bit of a Ruckus In the Warhammer 40K community in recent days after the parent company Games Workshop decided to make some changes to the lore of their fictional universe and well they haven't exactly been well received but what changes did they make to cause such a backlash you might ask well this is where I'm going to have to delve into the lore a little bit so indulge me the simplistic view is that Warhammer 40K is set in a fictional future where mankind is locked into a state of constant Warfare across the Galaxy and is devolved into a kind of Quasi religious military dictatorship where human life is cheap and all that matters is the survival of the Imperium it's a quote the company themselves in the Grim darkness of the 41st Millennium there is only War nice it's a neat setting for tabletop wargaming and there's an absolute metric ton of lore in history that's gradually been built up around it over the decades in fact you can actually ignore the game inside of things altogether and just immerse yourself in the fictional worlds there's more than enough books short stories graphic novels video games and magazine articles to keep you amused for decades anyway one of the most iconic symbols of the 40K Universe has got to be the Space Marines genetically and surgically enhanced super soldiers wrapped up in power armor that are deployed to the most critical War zones across the Galaxy they're the very Apex of human Warfare and the elite amongst them are the custodes the personal Bodyguards of the emperor of mankind in short these are not guys with whom to [ __ ] now there's a lot of lore surrounding the Space Marines and the custodians themselves how they're created and how they function but one of the most fundamental aspects of their creation is that they're all male hence the reason they're all referred to as battle brothers I know right who would have thought that an oppressive xenophobic totalitarian military regime wouldn't have diversity and inclusion initiatives the reasons for this are a combination of established LW the target audience and well well basic Common Sense from the Lower Side of Things the process for creating Space Marines is only compatible with male physiology and there's no way to adapt it to work on female bodies the super advanced technology used to do it is barely even understood by this point in history and to be honest there's never been a whole lot of incentive to pursue it because well what's the point Only the strongest toughest and most resilient individuals can even hope to survive the process of being turned into a Space Marine much less a custodies to put it into into context less than a fraction of 1% of the population would even be considered as candidates which pretty much rules women out of the equation so it always seemed like a question that basically answered itself and if I had to guess I'd say a lot of this probably comes down to Games Workshop having a solid understanding of their target audience and what they like because how can I put this not all that many girls are into tabletop War gaming you don't say there's some for sure I'm not taking anything away from them but generally if I had to pick the people who are most likely to be into things like Warhammer well it's going to be guys like this and for a good 30 years or so everyone seemed pretty happy with that State of Affairs the problem is that Warhammer started to get popular really popular and so it was only a matter of time before it attracted the attention of modern audiences not tabletop Gamers playing today of course or even just women who happen to enjoy the hobby but instead activists who totally don't give a [ __ ] about anything to do with 40K but just want to score another little victory in the endless war to dominate every single aspect of entertainment and culture the push to make the world of 40K more diverse and inclusive has been going on for a while now and one of the big objectives they've been gunned for is female Space Marines because truly what woman doesn't want to see herself represented as a psychopathic 8ft tall genetically engineered killing machine it doesn't matter to these people that 30 years of lore says it can't be done it doesn't matter that most actual Gamers don't want to see it happen it doesn't matter that there's already entire armies of female only soldiers specifically created to give women more of a presence in the game worlds all that matters is winning breaking down another barrier homogenizing and blending everything together into an indistinguishable gray sludge of inclusion gleefully taking another treasured thing away from their enemies so they can gloat about it and push for even greater victories next time and a few days ago they moved one step closer to their goal with the release of a new rule book from Games Workshop where it casually dropped in the fact that female custodies are now apparently a thing [ __ ] that's pretty interesting considering they've literally never been spoken about before and everything we know about them suggests that can't happen but okay sure Naturally fans were confused by this and when they were questioned about it on Twitter games workshop's response was simple and blunt since the first of the 10,000 were created there have always been female custodians liar you know I can't help thinking that you guys are trying to do a bit of rewriting of History here I can't help thinking that you finally started to bow to pressure from Modern audiences and you were almost certainly encouraged to do this by a sudden infusion of investment money from Black Rock I can't help thinking that maybe you're trying to Gaslight your own fans into believing we've always been at war with East Asia and apparently I'm not the only one but Drinker you absolute Titan of tabletop tactics I hear you say the 40K universe is Rife with misinformation Recons and rewrites things are constantly being changed and add to the lore so why should this be any different I don't remember asking you a goddamn thing well let me stop you there heretic because there's a few little misconceptions that I'd like to clear up on this one the development of the Warhammer Universe over the past 30 years is less of a constantly shifting chessboard and more like a telescope that's slowly coming into focus in the early days back in the8 s things were intentionally vague and a lot of details were still waiting to be filled in because the developers hadn't worked everything out yet but over the years those details have been filled in with hundreds of Articles books games and Rule sets and while certain details might have been corrected and expanded on many times over the general setting history characters rule books and foundations of the world have actually stayed extremely consistent so no that excuse doesn't wash with me anymore Boo and as I've mentioned in previous videos the lore is something you should respect enough to work around instead of constantly changing because believe it or not people actually get invested in this stuff they buy into the fictional World you've created and the more you [ __ ] with that the more difficult you make it for those people to stay invested because they know that at any moment some prick might decide to completely rewrite it to suit their own selfish [ __ ] needs but Drinker it's just one little change why do you care so much if there's female custodies an interesting question but here's an even better one why did you care so much that there weren't female custodies why did it bother you so much that you've spent years complaining about it why do you feel so strongly that this thing must be changed and why do you get so defensive when people question you about it as heel versus baby face so correctly observed it's really easy to ask the old why do you care so much question once you've gotten what you want it's easy to defend the status quo once the status quo has been changed to suit your demands until of course you've decided that it has to change again in which case you certainly will care about this stuff again and make no mistake they will demand that more things be changed to suit them and I guess that's the real Crux of this argument here it's the reason Warhammer fans are pushing back so loudly against it it's not just what the change is although that's pretty bad all by itself but it's what it represents that's the bigger issue it's the sacrifice of artistic freedom on the altar of identity politics this right here boys and girls is the thin edge of the wedge it's the first little crack in the dam that will eventually become a gaping hole because here's the thing the moment you make any concession no matter how tiny you've already given the game away you've made it known that you're prepared to bow down to their demands if they put enough pressure on you and so inevitably their demands are never going to end they'll literally never be happy because there's always going to be some other thing some other piece of problematic LW some other rule or exclusionary deal detail that has to be altered to comply with their constantly evolving demands and all in the name of inclusion and diversity because these people don't care about your hobby they don't care about integrating into a community of like-minded individuals all they care about is that the community bends and reshapes itself to suit them until eventually they bend it so much that it breaks people like that are complete and utter poison for any hobby any fandom any franchise all they ever managed to do is stir up cont conflict resentment and division driving people away and turning fans against the very company that tries to Pander to them because their very reason for existing is to undermine and destroy the thing they claim that they're trying to save and if you've got any common sense whatsoever or any love for the fandom that you're so passionate about you'll think very carefully before bending the knee to them anyway that's all I've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 1,169,347

Keywords: critical drinker, 40k, review, funny, best, feminism, feminist, female custodes, adeptus custodes, space marines, imperium

Id: rcLRqXE7Les

Length: 9min 27sec (567 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024