Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-7699236-20150618150629/@comment-6078851-20150619160021

i agree that the whole gene-seed implantation process is so intrinsically designed for use in males that most, if not all, females would die from the process. however i can see at least one advantage of female astartes...

let's for the sake of argument say that the process was altered enough, by bile or some other gene-wright, to allow the creation of a fully functional female astartes. a female astartes would be a 7-foot hulking mass of muscle but would still be proportional to a male astartes - generally shorter, not as heavily muscled etc. but they would still be an astartes and therefore the pinnacle of human soldiery, just behind male astartes.

now to the advantage i see in female astartes: on earth right now females outnumber males by something like 2 or 3 to 1. so if this ratio is comparitive within 40k then the volume of females available would not only result in more aspirants, but more successful implantations, and ultimately would result in 2 to 3 times more astartes guarding human civilisation. overall they may not quite measure up to male astartes, but those are the only people they wouldn't measure up to, and instead of 1(ish) million astartes there would be 2 to 3 million.

a second, potential (and very hypothetical), advantage i see is: if the process is altered enough to make viable female astartes, then maybe the males could be made fertile, and instead of having to rely on gene seed male and female astartes could breed - pregnancy could take as long as 2 whole weeks, and their kid is grown and stomping around in his own power armour in next to no time :P (this paragraph is mostly a joke so before anyone points out the unlikelyhood of this, i'm well aware)

to me female numbers seems like an advantage worth pursuing, but other than fabius i don't see anyone else as having the capability to alter the gene seed enough (or create a new female based one) to make viable female astartes.