[Space/Aliens] Reproductive Features: alien, exotic and weird ideas

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

That reminds me of the Martians in Stranger in a Strange Land. I haven't actually read the book so I don't know the details, but I skimmed part of it. Apparently Martians are all born female. After they are fertilized and finish giving birth to some new females, they metamorphise into adult males. I don't know if the females are sapient or not.

The Martians in Stranger in a Strange Land are the same ones as in Red Planet (both by Heinlein). These Martians use r-type reproduction strategy.

Martians hatch from eggs as bouncers (Willis in RP is a bouncer). Bouncers have to survive all alone in the martian wilderness. Most don't. Bouncers are sapient but not too bright.

Bouncers who have survived long enough eventually meet up with an adult martian and are fertilized by them. The bouncers then lay eggs out in the wilderness and abandon them.

After they've laid their eggs, bouncers are taken in by adult martians. They go through a metamorphosis/pupal stage and emerge as adult martians. Adult martians are sapient and very intelligent. They have hands and acquire great psionic powers (but the latter may be from education).

At some point adult martians may fertilize bouncers as above. Eventually adult choose to die and become "Old Ones", powerful ghosts.

Other r-type aliens in SF include the Hivers from Traveller and the gukuy from Mother of Demons by Eric Flint. (Available as a free non DRM ebook.) The latter also have an interesting division into biological castes that I may write something about later.

[Johnny1A.2]

In the old Han Solo trilogy Star Wars novels, there was an insectoid species in which the larval form was sapient, but toward the end of the life-span, the larrva would metamorphose into a 'chroma-wing' flying form that was simple-minded, and lived only long enough to mate and lay eggs before dying.

Thus, for the sapient larvae, the time of the metamorphosis was more-or-less what 'death by old age' is for us. The larval character tells Han Solo that if he comes to the homeworld after his metamorphosis, the chroma-wing won't recognize Han.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

The Martians in Stranger in a Strange Land are the same ones as in Red Planet (both by Heinlein). These Martians use r-type reproduction strategy.

Martians hatch from eggs as bouncers (Willis in RP is a bouncer). Bouncers have to survive all alone in the martian wilderness. Most don't. Bouncers are sapient but not too bright.

Bouncers who have survived long enough eventually meet up with an adult martian and are fertilized by them. The bouncers then lay eggs out in the wilderness and abandon them.

After they've laid their eggs, bouncers are taken in by adult martians. They go through a metamorphosis/pupal stage and emerge as adult martians. Adult martians are sapient and very intelligent. They have hands and acquire great psionic powers (but the latter may be from education).

Biologically, this is hard to see happening. The problem is that there's no biological reason for the 'adult' form to be so advanced. Once the 'adult' has fertilized a bouncer, it's not clear why nature would equip it with such a long lifespan or high abilities, since they apparently play little further role in the life-cycle.

If they protected the bouncers, that might be different, but lacking some such connection, there's not much obvious evolutionary pressure to bring about the 'adults'.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

The reproduction of plants can be an inspiration, too. Plants have what is called "alternation of generations." It isn't noticeable in seed plants, but in some spore plants the two generations both consist of separate, free-living plants that are generally very dissimilar.

Animals do this too. It's common in Cnidarians, which often alternate a fixed (polyp) and free swimming (medusa/jellyfish) form, and various kinds of sexual and asexual reproductive methods.

For anybody who missed it, I'd recommend Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation (the book form) for an entertaining glimpse at some of the odd schemes used in terrestrial organisms.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Biologically, this is hard to see happening. The problem is that there's no biological reason for the 'adult' form to be so advanced. Once the 'adult' has fertilized a bouncer, it's not clear why nature would equip it with such a long lifespan or high abilities, since they apparently play little further role in the life-cycle.

If they protected the bouncers, that might be different, but lacking some such connection, there's not much obvious evolutionary pressure to bring about the 'adults'.

sexual selection can do it - the longer an adult lives, the more bouncers it can fertilize, and it may also become more skilled at locating bouncers. There may also have been eras when conditions disfavored egg and bouncer development for long periods, so that longer-lived adults were more likely to have survived past the end of the period, or would have remained available when bouncers from neighboring areas spread into the depopulated region.

[nondescript handle]

The Titanides (centaurs from Titan) in John Varley's Gaea Trilogy.

Three sets of genitals per individual (rear vagina and penis, and either a front vagina or penis), 29 (!) different constellations to create a child, and two socially different sort of sex (frontal and rear)!

Don't even tryto explain it with evolution -- an insane bio-tech habitat created them...

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Animals do this too. It's common in Cnidarians, which often alternate a fixed (polyp) and free swimming (medusa/jellyfish) form, and various kinds of sexual and asexual reproductive methods.

But aren't the medusa and polyp different life-stages of a single individual? The gametophyte and sporophyte are separate individual plants.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

But aren't the medusa and polyp different life-stages of a single individual? The gametophyte and sporophyte are separate individual plants.

No. Or only in the same sense as anything reproducing asexually is. For most species the polyp buds a medusa (and continues as a polyp), or it breaks up into a stack of medusas. There are species that reproduce sexually while fixed too - though I think usually by budding medusa forms that don't detach.

Actually I suspect "individual" is not a natural concept, humans are deceived because it seems to make sense for them, but similar problems come up all the time when in all kinds of life extension or brain modification or uploading contexts, another aspect of the "reproduction" issue after all.

[vicky_molokh]

The Selk seem like a well-thought-out parahuman idea, detailed and workable. The only thing that makes it look a bit off is that it marks your setting as a quote 'lesbian utopia' unquote.

(I hope that didn't sound offensive. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.)

[Trachmyr]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

The Selk seem like a well-thought-out parahuman idea, detailed and workable. The only thing that makes it look a bit off is that it marks your setting as a quote 'lesbian utopia' unquote.

(I hope that didn't sound offensive. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.)

Thank you... while they mostly have just been background info for my much grander Alpha Centauri setting, I've put a lot of work into them and am quite proud of the results.

Yes they do fall into that "Lesbian Utopia" cliché, though minus the Feminist Doctrine that normally accompanies it. (it never had the environment to develop anyways). The Selk are rather gender blind, but display a high level of Speciesism. All in all, I believe they rise above the stereotype of that genre.

Soon I'll be running a "historical" game set solely within their society, so I'm a bit excited about the prospect of fleshing them out even more.

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Back to the OT, highly advanced races may ofcourse free themselves of reproduction and sexuality altogether, relying on cloning. This "method" has been used by many Scifi stories.