Reproduction in other species

Reproduction is something fundamental to a species – even viruses, which don’t do much else, use other cells to make copies of themselves. So it’s fun to play around with this in speculative fiction, and here are a few ideas.

Skew genders

How would a society which consistently produced fewer males than females – or vice versa – handle the issue of reproduction? Polygamy still takes place on Earth, but in such a society there would at least be less marginalization of men who are not allowed to breed for whatever reason – e.g. the Lost Boys.

And what about polyandry? I’d love to see more of that in speculative fiction – especially with attention paid to how the husbands form a pecking order and how children’s paternity is established. Or if it’s simply not an issue.

Make reproduction mandatory

Between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, a woman is required to have two or more children. It’s a bit like National Service, and the woman is free to do whatever she likes from then on.

The children might be raised by someone else, if that’s what she wants. Or they could be preserved at birth age for her until she’s ready to raise them. I prefer the first, because it’s a way to divorce reproduction (no pun intended) from marriage and love. The vast majority of humanoid SF races have that in common with humans: love and marriage are intrinsically linked with children. But what if they weren’t?

Confine reproduction to one class of the population

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale did this for a group of women who were simultaneously controlled and envied, but it doesn’t always have to be the case. If only a small subpopulation of women were capable of reproducing – but could do it with consistent success and without forming strong ties to their children – they might occupy a prominent place in society. They could travel from place to place offering their services and being paid very well for it. Or they might become the third person in a legally and socially sanctioned menage.

Or reproduction might be restricted to just one person, like the humanoid version of a beehive. A similar situation operates in Karne, one of the lands in my manuscript Dracolytes, where very few women breed – but those who do give birth to over a hundred children, which kills the mother.

And what if reproduction couldn’t occur unless the offspring – while conceived by humanoid parents – had to be incubated in someone else? It would be the cuckoo’s strategy raised to a whole different level.

Don’t be too unrealistic

I don’t expect rigorous science from Star Trek, but on the other hand, there are some things which can’t withstand a suspension of disbelief. One of them was the reproductive capacity of the Ocampa from Voyager. An episode established that Ocampa women have only one fertile period, called the Elogium, in their lives.

This means that each woman has to give birth to twins to at least keep the Ocampa population stable. Producing only one child – which happened in the show – would cut the population in two with each generation. That was one reason I stopped watching Voyager (by the way, there was also an episode where a race of aliens became children as they grew older, which makes one speculate about what they’re like when they’re born).

But there are better methods of producing offspring that could be used – borrowing from science, prionic reproduction or parthogenesis a la David Brin’s Glory Season. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as the Vulcans would say.

Aliens and Alien Societies

I borrowed Stanley Schmidt's Aliens and Alien Societies (Science Fiction Writing Series) from the library, but I plan on getting a copy of my own as soon as possible. It’s an informative and inspiring read for writers of speculative fiction – and just plain entertaining as well.

The book starts with the hard science and physics, taking a look at galaxies and stars, before drawing closer to delve into the biochemistry of aliens. Then we get into the softer sciences of the psychology and sociology of aliens and how they interact with humans. The entire second half of the book, in other words, would be helpful to fantasy writers.

Although I don’t plan to use many of the concepts in the hard-science part of the book, they were illustrated with references to stories that sound fascinating. For instance, I learned from this book that there’s a short story called “Microbe”, by Joan Slonczewski, that postulates an ecosystem based on DNA arranged in a triple helix. Not sure how that works, but I find it fascinating.

This book also shows why such creatures as the giant spiders so beloved of old-style SF/horror are not biologically feasible unless writers do more than simply making said spiders larger. Or unless we’re dealing with a fantasy world, which makes me relieved that I don’t have to deal with this. Science is a beloved but cruel mistress. On the other hand, the explanations of what you would have to do to compensate might well give writers further ideas of how to make their spiders or giant creatures different.

This book provides dozens of examples of pushing the envelope – races without emotions (which find an evolutionary advantage to this), planetwide single organisms, creatures which evolved wheels (I immediately thought of the Wheelers from “Return to Oz”), jet or rocket propulsion, tripedalism, different kinds of manipulators – e.g. tongues that function like an elephant’s trunk, modifications to eyes.

In my story “…And Comfort to the Enemy”, I took this a step further: the tsapeli, one of the few nocturnal civilizations I can recall, have “searchlights” built into their eyes.

This book is also a collection of what-if questions. What kind of culture might evolve among lions? What if a culture which stressed cooperation over conflict devised a competitive sport? The answer to the last, by the way, is the game of bagdrag, which is original and absolutely fun. There’s also a detailed chapter on alien language, which mentions what kind of language might be spoken by creatures with very flexible lips and mouths – but no tongues.

The chapter on alien-human interactions examines some of the hoary tropes of the genre – taking humans as slaves (what can we do for aliens that their own technology cannot?), taking humans as food (are our biochemistries similar, and do they really want something that’s so bony that carnivores tend to avoid us as meals?) and taking over Earth (does its atmosphere and gravity work for them?).

And in cases where humans and aliens can share a common environment, new questions and problems arise – such as Susan Schwartz’s Heritage of Flight, where human colonists have to deal with aliens which are beautiful and pleasant in their adult stage, but ugly and lethal as larvae.

This was a great read, in other words, and would be a useful addition to any SF writer’s library.

Strangers in strange lands

I read an article about these kinds of characters, and wondered for a moment why I hadn’t written about this before. Just for a moment, though, because then I realized that I’ve been an expatriate (and sort of exile) myself. More than once, too. No surprise that I’m so close to the topic that it never occurred to me to write about it.

Also, I haven’t read too many speculative fiction novels where the main character has been exiled from his homeland or has left it voluntarily. The first examples which came to mind were R. A. Salvatore’s Dark Elf trilogy and Matthew Woodring Stover’s Iron Dawn. I’d like to find more (or write more), because now that I come to think about this, there’s a lot of potential in this setup.

1. Different customs

Characters in a very different society and culture are fish out of water. They have strange ways of thinking, alien habits and beliefs, all of which can cause problems. One of the disappointing aspects of Jean Auel’s The Shelters of Stone is how easily the heroine fits in with the Cro-Magnons despite being raised by Neanderthals.

When I went to Sri Lanka for a visit, my extended family told me not to eat cucumbers while I had a cold (I ate them anyway). We won’t get into all the things I should or should not have done three days out of the month.

2. Assimilation and adaptation

How do exiles and expatriates feel about this? Do they cling to what they once knew, or do they embrace all or most aspects of their new land? I fall into the latter category, which of course means that I don’t fit in with my original culture. Can’t have it both ways.

On the other hand, in speculative fiction, it may not be so easy to fit in. The biological or social differences may be too great to bridge. What if the refugees or expatriates were not fertile with any of the people of their new land? The two races would always be distinct – and there would be no sub-class of half-breeds – but what would happen to people who fell in love with a member of another race anyway?

3. An equal and opposite reaction

I love seeing how people securely established in another land react to foreigners who are there to stay – and how the governments of those lands respond as well.

There’s no need for them to value diversity; they’re not twenty-first century First World countries. Maybe they place much more of an emphasis on absorbing these new people, and so they make exiles and expatriates change their names to sound more native. These could be major changes or small adaptations. For instance, my first name is Marian, but perhaps if I moved to France it would be Marie and if I went to ancient Rome it would be Maria.

Maybe they insist that fugitives convert to the state religion, or at least pay lip service to it. I have an idea for a future story where a character moves to another land that has a powerful and controlling state religion; he refuses to convert to it even though he knows that will ensure a lifetime of menial work for him. But there’s a certain secret order of guards that is always comprised of twelve of the Faithful and one atheist…

4. A place in society

Exiles and expatriates might have a much-needed place in a new land. When I lived in the Middle East, for instance, most of the blue-collar work was done by people from the Subcontinent. And it probably still is.

These people might not be given the kinds of rights or privileges that one would expect in a First World country – for instance, no matter how long or hard they work, they’ll never get citizenship in those countries – and they’re sometimes treated badly. But they earn better money than they’ll get in their native countries. My parents could never have afforded to send me to college in the States if they hadn’t worked for years in Dubai.

In my world of Eden, Iternans are never expatriates, since their native land does not permit any of its citizens to leave its borders unless they are tracking fugitives. However, because Iternans have powerful magic, other lands hire them as sorcerers (until of course they’re hunted down and dragged back to their homeland to face trial for leaving it).

The ticking clock

One way to set fantasy races apart from humans is to give them an altered life span.

This is far more common in science fiction. When it comes to short life spans, the Ocampa of Star Trek: Voyager lived for nine years, but I’ve read of a short story called “Petals of Rose”, originally printed in Analog, where the aliens only lived for a day. And Robert L. Forward’s Dragon’s Egg beats that, since the aliens in his novel only live for fifteen minutes.

I wonder if they ever refer to someone’s fifteen seconds of fame.

On the other side of the spectrum are races which are extremely long-lived – usually elves, building on the Tolkien mythos – though those often aren’t as much fun or as poignant as those which shuffle off this mortal coil too soon. An exception would be when such a character takes on a Bicentennial Man role and watches his friends (or even family) grow old and die while he remains the same.

That would be very moving. I remember the scene in the film of The Lord of the Rings where Arwen sees herself, dressed in black, beside Aragorn’s corpse. More of that kind of realism would be great in stories featuring elves.

One problem with having a shorter-lived race is that if the lifespan isn’t short enough, it won’t make much of an impact on the reader. With the Voyager example, my first thought was that the Ocampa character would just outlast the seven years of the series. Even then, it might have made a difference if she felt or behaved differently from the rest of the crew, or if no one wanted to pursue a long-term relationship with her, but that didn’t happen. She was just like everyone else.

In contrast, Ray Bradbury wrote a short story* about humans living on another planet, affected by radiation that limited their lives to about a week in length, and their days were marked by a frenetic activity that made them wonderfully unusual. There’s one part where two little boys get into a fierce fight, and one says, “Tomorrow I will be big enough to kill you!”

Likewise, fantasy races with an altered lifespan need to behave in an altered way. Would people who only lived for a month sleep at all? How would they feel towards those who lived for decades? They might place a lot of emphasis on thinking through matters quickly, but not on being impulsive – that often wastes time if mistakes are made, and they don’t have time to waste.

Races which live for hundreds of years, on the other hand, would take a different approach. In my world of Nux Varas, such a race institutes breeding programs to develop experimental subjects of its own kind into different species called Variants – since they have hundreds of years to live, they can afford to watch as generation after generation of Variants evolve. Such a race’s mentality and language should fit their altered lifespans as well.

Changing the simple length of the lifespan many of us take for granted could lead to a very different race - as long as all the consequences of that change are thought out.

*I can’t remember the name, darnit. If anyone else knows, please shout out.

Of Aliens and Nodkins

I’ve posted quite a few times about new races and species in fantasy, but this might be a helpful way to classify and separate them. It’s a scale of most to least alien.

1. Solaris

Or the Black Cloud. This is entirely alien. Does not in any way, shape or form resemble a human. Chances are, it either cannot be understood or is very difficult to communicate with. Usually vast, but could be small – imagine a world where there were trillions of creatures the size of a peppercorn, which built structures or communicated using complex patterns, but had absolutely no interest in dealing with humans.

2. The Dalek

Alien responds to communication, but there are major biological and social differences between it and a human. F. M. Busby’s Demu or Orson Scott Card’s Buggers are a great example of this. Most alien or fantasy races with a hive mind would qualify; a collective and gestalt intelligence is one way to instantly mark another race as very different.

This kind of alien or fantasy race may maintain relationships with humans or groups of humans (it may not see individuals as having any status or meaning outside of a community). However, close friendships or involvement are likely to be difficult or impossible.

3. The Pnume

Alien takes the basic bipedal form, but is non-human in other ways. The physical similarity means that such aliens can usually live among humans, or vice versa, often using the same types of clothing or living quarters. However, biological and social differences mean that the aliens cannot interbreed with humans and are unlikely to be physically attracted to them.

Named after the Pnume in the Tschai novels.

4. The Gaian

Alien looks quite like a human, but with subtle physical or mental differences. Key word is subtle; the Trill from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are a good example of this. If this kind of alien is physically indistinguishable from a human at first, speech patterns, behavior, social structure and mental skills should give it away, though this may not prevent it from being physically involved with one or more humans.

Named after the Gaians in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Empire. I loved the way Bliss never just used the first person singular; it was always “I/We/Gaia”, referring to her connection to her people and her world. The alien’s resemblance to a human could be used to great effect by an author; let the readers get comfortable with this nearly-human person, then use something like a very different mentality or an unusual breeding method to remind them that appearances can be deceiving.

5. The Default Race

Or “The Rubber Forehead”. I use the “default race” classification when the race is meant to stand in for humans – for instance, in several of my stories, there’s some race which is less alien than others, and the protagonist is from that race. It’s easier to describe the world from the point of view of someone who perceives it in a human way or who has human-esque concerns (though it’s also fun to write from an alien or fantasy-esque perspective).

This race becomes the Rubber Forehead when it’s meant to be alien but doesn’t have anything except for a ridge on its nose or a dab of makeup on its temples to distinguish it from the norm.