If I say the phrase “space marine,” you probably know what I’m talking about, right? Halo, Aliens, Starship Troopers, Starcraft… highly trained men and women equipped with oversized future weaponry, a thirst for alien blood, and a disdain for intellectual pursuits (except for that one guy… there’s always that one guy). It’s a name that writers and readers of science fiction have been using to describe a kind of character since Heinlein. “Space marine” is also a registered trademark of Games Workshop, the publishers of the Warhammer 4000 strategy games, and you’d think that in deference to the history of the term and the sources that inspired the genre in which Warhammer is set, they wouldn’t throw their weight around too much on its account. But as author M.C.A. Hogarth found last year, and the writing community found out this week, you’d be wrong.
