here goes nothing.
I'm going to make a huge huge assumption here and say that Aslan sex is determined by genes much like humans/mammals. As aliens, this might not be the case, otherwise that would give a primary sex ratio of 1:1 barring any outside factors such as a heritable male-killing Wolbachia infection such as infects some forms of butterflies.
Therefore sex ratio at birth is 1:1 unless stillborn fetuses skew the secondary sex ratio consistently to one sex. Or if zygotes separate to increase the number of male fetuses. This may be the reason lion cubs skew heavily to male directly after a coalition of adult males take over a pride ( killing existing male cubs and killing any adults that don't run away ). This seems to be a mechanism to keep such male infanticides from skewing the overall sex ratio of lions away from 1:1, which appears to be the best Evolutionary maintainable strategy.
That leaves the tertiary ratio which is 3:1 in lion prides and in lions, all males within the pride have access to all females in the pride, so the operational sex ratio is slightly higher.
This is where all the mating occurs. In lion prides, the females are related and if the males can hold off any outside challengers, incest may occur and without the eventual rotation of males, in-breeding too. Once males reach mature age of 3 or so, they are driven out. They form coalitions with other males for better survival and to increase the chances of being able to take over other prides. Unattached females do likewise, although some may stay within the pride to keep the number of females constant within the pride. Sometimes the male and female coalitions meet and form all new prides of their own.
So where does that leave the Aslan?
By that point in life, fully 2/3's of the male population is unable to breed at any given time. That's not the same thing as dead, although I'd expect high mortality during all those wars and feuds and duels in spite of rituals and non-lethal endings.... situational honor may cause duels and feuds to be more lethal than advertised (?).
I'm also not sure how the relatively low birth rate ( compared to lions ) of Aslan will affect things...more study is needed. I should point out that 'violent male competition' is a cause of skewed ratios. But that can also lead to population drops if too many males become too injured to mate.
One explanation is that the 3:1 tertiary sex ratio occurs at higher social whereas lower to middle 'prides' have fewer females. Lowest class may simple not be part of any 'pride' at all. This should be balanced in small part to unattached females, which in the case of lions, form their own groups which are often taken over by groups of unattached males. If access to females is a function of social class, then there should be some form of social mobility. Perhaps using Soc as honor in a similar fashion to how Vargr use charisma.
The social gender solution had been considered and mostly discarded as unable to cover 2/3's of the male pop, but is certainly part of Aslan society. They may or may not be low-social. There is a precedent in "rats'n'cats" for Aslan using job function to determine the sex of a human. There shouldn't be any great leap to assume the Aslan would do that within his own race too in social situations at least.
I'd think it'd mean a social castration of sorts as he'd be removing himself from the reproduction pool. I'm not 100% sure of this solution though..... it would possibly break the gender role aspects of the Aslan with the OTU material just being a matter of semantics. This requires more thought. In any case, once a male took on the female role, he'd be expected to remain in that role until death. It'd probably be chosen for the cub at a young age to give time to learn the female script, etc. Actual castration of youth so normal sex drive doesn't bollux it up? hmmm
if all males within the 'pride' have access to all females AND they practice some form of ancestor worship, I'd think heredity would be traced through the female side as there might be no guarantee which male caused fertilization. The lead male would be the defacto father, but family trees go through the mother.
In short, my own beliefs are that there is some social gender determination, perhaps with actual youth castration in some cases, but most of the unaccounted for males are just unattached perhaps forming coalitions serving one clan or another striving to improve their standing enough to enter a breeding family group. An example of this might be the mercenary group depicted in FASA's Aslan Mercenary deckplans.
These are the touchy ones eager for duels or other action to prove themselves.
These are also the ones who expand outward looking for their own holdings to form their own breeding group. Unattached females watch to see who succeeds before committing themselves to any coalition.
These are also the outcasts who do the dirty work of society that everyone pretends aren't there.
There's enough holes in all this to make my head hurt.
I still need to study more.
It just seems bad that most of the writing of Aslan concern male behavior despite the fact that taken literally, the stated 3:1 female:male ratio for the entire species would mean that the OTU focuses on only the 1/4 of Aslan population which does not handle money (economy/trade) and does not handle innovation/technology except as a black box.
We all know how human females act; we deal with them every day in real life. We don't have that luxury for Aslan and that leads to 'humanizing' them because there is so little information on them ( at least in the few materials I own ). More attention needs to be paid to the ordinary day-to-day life of the alien races. It would be nice if someone who is a good writer could author a piece from a female Aslan's point-of-view.... a female that players might commonly come across. We need more info on females here.
for what its worth, my 13 year old daughter read rats-n-cats because she thought the Aslan looked cool. She broke out laughing because it seemed to her that the females control everything and that males need assistance to even handle money.
also...get rid of 'marriage' ... it is unnecessary and leads to pre-conceived notions of how sexual relations and relations with females are.
There is no lesbianism, per se... just very affectionate females who show affection freely, but it has nothing to do with reproduction.... just sharing closeness with loved ones. Same with males although the actual sex act would be shameful except with a re-gendered male acting as female.
Coitus is for reproduction
other forms of touching are for showing affection ( privately, usually, but possibly more open for females and human observers put their own lewd thoughts in the reports ). Aslan don't share human attitudes towards sex. They're not stern and stoic all the time.
am I on the wrong track?
or in the right ballpark....
I'm going to make a huge huge assumption here and say that Aslan sex is determined by genes much like humans/mammals. As aliens, this might not be the case, otherwise that would give a primary sex ratio of 1:1 barring any outside factors such as a heritable male-killing Wolbachia infection such as infects some forms of butterflies.
Therefore sex ratio at birth is 1:1 unless stillborn fetuses skew the secondary sex ratio consistently to one sex. Or if zygotes separate to increase the number of male fetuses. This may be the reason lion cubs skew heavily to male directly after a coalition of adult males take over a pride ( killing existing male cubs and killing any adults that don't run away ). This seems to be a mechanism to keep such male infanticides from skewing the overall sex ratio of lions away from 1:1, which appears to be the best Evolutionary maintainable strategy.
That leaves the tertiary ratio which is 3:1 in lion prides and in lions, all males within the pride have access to all females in the pride, so the operational sex ratio is slightly higher.
This is where all the mating occurs. In lion prides, the females are related and if the males can hold off any outside challengers, incest may occur and without the eventual rotation of males, in-breeding too. Once males reach mature age of 3 or so, they are driven out. They form coalitions with other males for better survival and to increase the chances of being able to take over other prides. Unattached females do likewise, although some may stay within the pride to keep the number of females constant within the pride. Sometimes the male and female coalitions meet and form all new prides of their own.
So where does that leave the Aslan?
By that point in life, fully 2/3's of the male population is unable to breed at any given time. That's not the same thing as dead, although I'd expect high mortality during all those wars and feuds and duels in spite of rituals and non-lethal endings.... situational honor may cause duels and feuds to be more lethal than advertised (?).
I'm also not sure how the relatively low birth rate ( compared to lions ) of Aslan will affect things...more study is needed. I should point out that 'violent male competition' is a cause of skewed ratios. But that can also lead to population drops if too many males become too injured to mate.
One explanation is that the 3:1 tertiary sex ratio occurs at higher social whereas lower to middle 'prides' have fewer females. Lowest class may simple not be part of any 'pride' at all. This should be balanced in small part to unattached females, which in the case of lions, form their own groups which are often taken over by groups of unattached males. If access to females is a function of social class, then there should be some form of social mobility. Perhaps using Soc as honor in a similar fashion to how Vargr use charisma.
The social gender solution had been considered and mostly discarded as unable to cover 2/3's of the male pop, but is certainly part of Aslan society. They may or may not be low-social. There is a precedent in "rats'n'cats" for Aslan using job function to determine the sex of a human. There shouldn't be any great leap to assume the Aslan would do that within his own race too in social situations at least.
I'd think it'd mean a social castration of sorts as he'd be removing himself from the reproduction pool. I'm not 100% sure of this solution though..... it would possibly break the gender role aspects of the Aslan with the OTU material just being a matter of semantics. This requires more thought. In any case, once a male took on the female role, he'd be expected to remain in that role until death. It'd probably be chosen for the cub at a young age to give time to learn the female script, etc. Actual castration of youth so normal sex drive doesn't bollux it up? hmmm
if all males within the 'pride' have access to all females AND they practice some form of ancestor worship, I'd think heredity would be traced through the female side as there might be no guarantee which male caused fertilization. The lead male would be the defacto father, but family trees go through the mother.
In short, my own beliefs are that there is some social gender determination, perhaps with actual youth castration in some cases, but most of the unaccounted for males are just unattached perhaps forming coalitions serving one clan or another striving to improve their standing enough to enter a breeding family group. An example of this might be the mercenary group depicted in FASA's Aslan Mercenary deckplans.
These are the touchy ones eager for duels or other action to prove themselves.
These are also the ones who expand outward looking for their own holdings to form their own breeding group. Unattached females watch to see who succeeds before committing themselves to any coalition.
These are also the outcasts who do the dirty work of society that everyone pretends aren't there.
There's enough holes in all this to make my head hurt.
I still need to study more.
It just seems bad that most of the writing of Aslan concern male behavior despite the fact that taken literally, the stated 3:1 female:male ratio for the entire species would mean that the OTU focuses on only the 1/4 of Aslan population which does not handle money (economy/trade) and does not handle innovation/technology except as a black box.
We all know how human females act; we deal with them every day in real life. We don't have that luxury for Aslan and that leads to 'humanizing' them because there is so little information on them ( at least in the few materials I own ). More attention needs to be paid to the ordinary day-to-day life of the alien races. It would be nice if someone who is a good writer could author a piece from a female Aslan's point-of-view.... a female that players might commonly come across. We need more info on females here.
for what its worth, my 13 year old daughter read rats-n-cats because she thought the Aslan looked cool. She broke out laughing because it seemed to her that the females control everything and that males need assistance to even handle money.
also...get rid of 'marriage' ... it is unnecessary and leads to pre-conceived notions of how sexual relations and relations with females are.
There is no lesbianism, per se... just very affectionate females who show affection freely, but it has nothing to do with reproduction.... just sharing closeness with loved ones. Same with males although the actual sex act would be shameful except with a re-gendered male acting as female.
Coitus is for reproduction
other forms of touching are for showing affection ( privately, usually, but possibly more open for females and human observers put their own lewd thoughts in the reports ). Aslan don't share human attitudes towards sex. They're not stern and stoic all the time.
am I on the wrong track?
or in the right ballpark....
