Aslan

[aramis]

Given that the Terran mammalian norming for 1:1 is based upon the XX/XY chromosome pair, but that several other orders in the terran sphere are not (reptilia, piscea, to name but two)... Crocodilians, for example, determine gender by incubation temperatures.

Given that canon provides that Aslan have more dueling amongst males than amongst females (although both genders duel within gender), the 1:3 is probably not the birth ratio, which is probably closer to 1:2 or 2:5...

When the issue came up IMTG, I decided that birth ratio was 1:2, and that that was selected for by male hormone levels from the first fertilized embryo causing the other embryos to feminize, and gender fixation occuring by week 7.

 

[zonk]

Originally Posted by JustinInOz
In short, we have two main ways to account for this ratio. The first is that they are simply born that way. That is least interesting for me. More interesting is that their society causes 2 out of 3 males to be killed. This is genetically beneficial for their race - The breeding males are the "most fit". It allows for their polygamy. It also makes for older Aslan males to be incredible bad asses.
My vote is for the latter.

The problem with this (somewhat) bloodthirsty interpretation is there is no sound reason to stop at 2 out of 3 -- just kill every post-pubescent male but one, to insure only the absolute most fit male breeds with the entire rest of the race -- or at least the clan. Otherwise, Aslan clans may develop different traditions: 2 in 3, 1 in 10, 1 in 100, whatever... and there goes the otherwise-consistent ratio across the culture.

I know I should leave this for JustinInOz to reply, and I'll probably get it wrong, but I don't think he was implying there was a strict 1 to 3 ratio PLANNED. Just that, on average, about 2 out of every 3 male Aslan die doing stupid things. Part of that could be when a younger Aslan takes over a pride and kills the immature males, that's just part of what makes the ratio what it is, not that the Aslan only kill 2 out of 3 males. No he kills ALL of the males in the Pride he takes. But not all Prides have new owners, so in those Prides the male / female ratio is equal (maybe).

 

[JustinInOz]

but I don't think he was implying there was a strict 1 to 3 ratio PLANNED. Just that, on average, about 2 out of every 3 male Aslan die doing stupid things. Part of that could be when a younger Aslan takes over a pride and kills the immature males, that's just part of what makes the ratio what it is, not that the Aslan only kill 2 out of 3 males. No he kills ALL of the males in the Pride he takes. But not all Prides have new owners, so in those Prides the male / female ratio is equal (maybe).

You are exactly right. I was not proposing that any part of the ratio was planned, just the product of circumstances.

In answer to the criticism, "why not kill all of them?", I am sure such a tendency is self limiting after a point. I would guess that if the process of elimination got too severe, the gene pool would get too refined and restricted. There would then not be enough diversity to cope with environmental shocks and diseases. Maybe the females will gang up and kill such an Aslan when they sleep? The process of only a select portion of the males getting access to breeding can not be too bad. If it were, this would not be the process used by many herd animals and our close relatives the gorillas.

 

[rancke]

I know I should leave this for JustinInOz to reply, and I'll probably get it wrong, but I don't think he was implying there was a strict 1 to 3 ratio PLANNED. Just that, on average, about 2 out of every 3 male Aslan die doing stupid things. Part of that could be when a younger Aslan takes over a pride and kills the immature males, that's just part of what makes the ratio what it is, not that the Aslan only kill 2 out of 3 males. No he kills ALL of the males in the Pride he takes. But not all Prides have new owners, so in those Prides the male / female ratio is equal (maybe).

But there is no evidence that Aslan males kill each other off wholesale. On the contrary, they've evolved elaborate rituals to avoid doing just that. The clan lord's sons don't fight it out to see which one gets to take over, Aslans made up a rule about primogeniture. They even have ritualized wars to avoid killing each other off during their border disputes. (Which makes perfect sense; it doesn't help a clan to conquer another if it loses so much strength that a third one can just take over both of them; nor does it help a clan to fight off an attack by one clan if it leaves it so weak a third clan can just take over).

Even the strongest clan is outnumbered by its neighbors. Every bit of strength is valuable. Killing off two thirds of your fighting strength seems extremely shortsighted.

Maybe its just my innate conservatism that makes me react badly to this idea, but it really isn't the way I interpret the statement.

Wasn't there something said somewhere about biologically human Aslans? How they had a problem emulating "proper" Aslan society because of the lack of gender imbalance? Or was that just non-canonical speculation?

Edit: It just struck me. Even if the statement is ambiguous, why would we want to interpret it in a way that makes the Aslan more like humans?


Hans

 

[boomslang]

In answer to the criticism, "why not kill all of them?", I am sure such a tendency is self limiting after a point. I would guess that if the process of elimination got too severe, the gene pool would get too refined and restricted. There would then not be enough diversity to cope with environmental shocks and diseases. Maybe the females will gang up and kill such an Aslan when they sleep? The process of only a select portion of the males getting access to breeding can not be too bad. If it were, this would not be the process used by many herd animals and our close relatives the gorillas.

The problem is, herd animals (K'kree excepted) and gorillas do not have access to weapons of mass destruction; if you create a culture in which bloody competition for mates exceeds even bloody competition for land, you create a culture that devalues the lives of its own members to the point that it will become destabilized.

Note that the code of honor the Aslan are so famous for exists precisely to limit mortality in struggles for dominance -- otherwise the feudal nobility would degenerate into no-holds-barred gangster anarchy...

In Human culture, widespread willful polygamy always produces significant social unrest; for the Aslan, then, it must be a natural state from which sentience arose, rather than a cultural artifact imposed after ascension to intelligence.

I mean, seriously, the word 'civilized' does not even properly apply to a group of people who murder each other simply for breeding rights. Ergo, a genetic basis makes more sense (and is a more charitable interpretation of Aslan culture and intelligence).

 

[mike wightman]

Just a heads up that the latest Signs and Portents has a write up of an Aslan minor clan.

(There is also a new OTU adventure called Tripwire mentioned in the next months releases section of the mongoose website - a new Duke for the Jewel sub-sector no less)

 

[rancke]

Just a heads up that the latest Signs and Portents has a write up of an Aslan minor clan.

(There is also a new OTU adventure called Tripwire mentioned in the next months releases section of the mongoose website - a new Duke for the Jewel sub-sector no less)

The Emperor is separating out the County of Jewell from the Duchy of Regina and upgrading it to a duchy? That's a major rearrangement. When is this happening? In 1120+? Is it perhaps set in the GTU instead of the OTU? :devil:


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

Don't know the date (pre or post FFW), but it does look like the MTU is diverging already from both the OTU and the GTU. Which is probably going to get split into a new topic...

 

[JustinInOz]

A little math

I am not particularly blood minded.

A bit of dueling math. Assuming that the the duels are made as "safe" as possible. All it takes is a 5% mortality rate from duels over 1 duel a year for 20 years and you have 36% of your original population surviving.

Change this to 4% mortality from duels and you have 44% of the population left. Add in 11% from bachelor foolishness and hairbrained schemes and you have 33%. This is without recourse to infanticide.

I does not take much to reduce populations.

 

[rancke]

A bit of dueling math. Assuming that the the duels are made as "safe" as possible. All it takes is a 5% mortality rate from duels over 1 duel a year for 20 years and you have 36% of your original population surviving.

Change this to 4% mortality from duels and you have 44% of the population left. Add in 11% from bachelor foolishness and hairbrained schemes and you have 33%. This is without recourse to infanticide.

It does not take much to reduce populations.

And you can use the same numbers to argue that the mortaliy rate and/or frequency of duelling can't be that high, because society would have adapted to a less lethal model. I'm not saying we can't explain killing off two thirds of the male population. I'm asking why we'd want to?


Hans

 

[JustinInOz]

Why we would want to have them kill each other off?

To make them more alien to us.

They kill each other and they are civilised.

To echo what Hans said, why do we want to make them like humans?

As a real world example, I would regard the classic Maya as highly civilised. They had an ordered society, large cities, class diversification and large polities. I would also regard a lot of their practices very alien. In particular, their practices of bloody torture and human sacrifice. I like the Maya, but I find it pretty difficult to come to terms with this aspect of their culture.

Maybe the Aslan believe that those who remain are worth more in battle than those who have been killed in the passage to adulthood. If their pracitces were out of control, the society would collapse. If they stopped the winnowing of their males, the Hierate would expand and dominate its neighbors.

There are several ways that the males could drop off, mainly bachelor foolishness and fatal duels. Just maybe, they don't fudge their survival rolls. Any combination of these, even with a small chance of mortality, is ample to drop a population over time.

My main reason for persisting with this is that I think it makes them more interesting to play if they are quite accoustomed to death of the males. More so than simply 75% of those born are females. The mortality option makes them even more fearsome.