Aslan

[far-trader]

...(The "two souls" term Dan found doesn't have the baggage bardache does, but it's also clumsy.)

I agree. But it's just the technical (as it were) translation of the idea from the native tongues into something us Whites might understand better. I quite like some of the native terms for it, without the translation. I'd suggest the same, in Aslan of course*.

I was also leaning to a not direct copy of the idea either. Not a "two-souls" concept so much as a "true-soul" idea. Not exactly a wrong gender assignment either though to be clear.

I'm having a hard time getting the idea clear in describing it.

Aslan are born physically two gendered (and it really doesn't matter much socially which you are to them, physical gender is only applied in one function) but without a social gender. Over time each Aslan finds their social gender by what interests them and what they are physically and emotionally suited to doing well. At this point they become socially gendered. They find their "true-soul". It doesn't (imo, in my take, imtu if I ever get to use it) affect their chances or role in physical gender. Meaning physcial gender males with a female social gender may and do father (there's another human term that doesn't fit) children. They are in no way neutered, castrated, or mutilated in any form. They may even appear to anyone but another Aslan as male. But subtle clues (too subtle for most non-Aslan to pick up on) ensure that it's easy to pick the social females from the social males even in a group of chummy physical males without any dress or job clues.

If that's any clearer.

* I don't have the Aslan language background to take a worthy stab at it.

It would be a superb curveball to throw at your players because, while their perception has been changed, nothing else has actually changed at all. It's a sociological equivalent to the Pathfinder story.


Regards,
Bill

Talk like that may have me sending you a bill for a new hat

 

[far-trader]

Isn't it just another human cultural extreme grafted onto an alien race?

Not the way I (imagined and) want it to be But it's hard to explain without using human terms. And of course it was inspired by a human practice so there's that baggage.

Ehem:

"[FONT=arial,helvetica]Gender: Aslan may be either male or female. Aslan biology dictates
that there are approximately three females born for every male.
As a result, males are in the distinct minority. "[/FONT]

AM:1 page 9 character generation section.

Touche mon ami.

You have won, this round...

(skips forward to page 13 hoping to find another reference leaning the other way :smirk: )

One wonders why that wasn't clearly stated the FIRST time it was mentioned

 

[mike wightman]

(skips forward to page 13 hoping to find another reference leaning the other way :smirk: )

One wonders why that wasn't clearly stated the FIRST time it was mentioned

Probably because this is CT canon and little nuggets like this are found all over the place

I only found it because I was looking for the psionics rules lol

 

[Whipsnade]

Ehem: AM:1 page 9 character generation section.

Mike,

D'oh!

I must have read parts of AM:1 a half dozen times over the last week or so while discussing this topic and the Aslan psionic topic and I completely missed that.

As the young people say... Hurr durr urrp derp


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

A biological explanation is a nice option, but this is the IMTU forum and I'd like to explore more outre explanations. Like Ish, I'm very interested in making the Aslan more alien.

By making them more like humans? That I don't get.

That's why I'm intriuged with the berdache ideas. Assuming a roughly 1:1 birth gender ratio, you'd need only 50% of males to become "berdaches" to produce the canonical 1:3 social ratio.

Indeed. I thought it was a very interesting way for biologically-Human Aslans to conform to the Aslan pattern when someone suggested it, a number of years ago.

(Please remember, canon never mentions "birth" specifically, just "society" or "culture".)

Canon never mentions berdaches either. If the one is evidence, then the other is too. It's not exactly the sort of detail a competent sociologist would leave out of a writeup, is it?

Another thing AM:1 canon mentions is the fact that "lower class" males make do with one female. It's only the upper classes that get the 1:3 harems.

The very highest get 4 or even 5. But probably not enough to matter. With a goodly percentage of females never getting married, some males have to make do with less than 3. I'm not sure of the significance.

I seriously doubt there are as many upper class males as lower class males, so the number of females needed shrinks a bit. If the upper class is 33% of the overall population, the male-female ratio drops to 3:5. If the upper class is 25% of the population, the ratio becomes 2:3. If the upper class is 10%, something more plausible IMHO, the ratio becomes 5:6.

I'm convinced that somewhere I've seen a table that gives the percentages of Aslan belonging to each of the GURPS social ranks. IIRC the landholding levels (SL1-7) made up 28%. I thought it was in AR2, but when I looked, I couldn't find it. Was it somewhere else? If so, where? Or is my memory playing me false?


Hans

 

[far-trader]

...I'm convinced that somewhere I've seen a table that gives the percentages of Aslan belonging to each of the GURPS social ranks. IIRC the landholding levels (SL1-7) made up 28%. I thought it was in AR2, but when I looked, I couldn't find it. Was it somewhere else? If so, where? Or is my memory playing me false?


Hans

That does sort of ring a bell. Could it have been a SJG JTAS article? I let my subscription lapse and don't have access to check. I really should have archived before dropping it

 

[Ishmael]

Regardless of what any source says, I still feel birth ratio near 1:1 is best.
The reason has nothing to do with genetics or "alien-ness" , but with game theory.

Both sexes are required to produce offspring
both sexes pass on genetic information
offspring must be one sex or the other
The object is for each individual to pass his/her genetic information to as many grandchildren as possible.

Assuming males and females require equal effort to produce and raise, then the birth ratio will converge to 1:1 as the most effective strategy.
But
If you can describe or set up conditions where the 1:3 ratio is the winning strategy, then it'd work great. Of course there's no telling what it'd say about the rest of the written society.
I really don't care if they become more human or more alien so long as they become rich and complex beyond tacking a bit of fluff just for the purpose of making them alien.
Aliens think like most other creatures ( including humans )
"I'm hungry." ( diet and food production.... leads to economy and trade )
"I'm horny" ( sex/mating ...leads to population and culture considerations )
"I don't want to get killed" ( security... leads to certain behaviors and military )
" I want all that to be easy... I don't want to work too hard" ( leads to social structure and technology )
Appearance means nothing... its about how they act.

I will say that ranke's off-hand suggestion of them genetically altering themselves sounds interesting;
Given the level of animal-husbandry skills the females have, perhaps early in their history, the females saw that males cost society with the incessant wars ( which damaged pastures and herds ). Therefore, they began to implement techniques used to control herd breeding upon themselves as a race so that males were born only 25% of the time... more than enough to ensure all females were mated yet not so many as to force more wars in the name of territory expansion. In order to prevent allee effects that might harm the race should the number breeding males drop too low due to violent male competition, they implemented a series of programs to encourage the non-lethal competition that ultimately became the honor system. ... just an idea.... dunno if its feasible in terms of population ecology.

mtu!=otu

 

[Whipsnade]

By making them more like humans? That I don't get.

Hans,

All RPG aliens are human to some degree and those that can be used as player-characters are more human than not.

The "bardarche" tradition is entirely human, but it was practiced by a minute number of human cultures. It was nothing like the transsexual or transgendered subculture we now see in the 21st Century West, so it's hard for us to "grok" what it was all about. Among other things, bardaches weren't necessarily homosexual. They were female culturally and they were honored for it.

This is a bad analogy, but it's the best I have at the moment. Look at the Japanese geisha, we assume they were prostitutes and judge/view them accordingly. In fact, only a minority of geisha were prostitutes. The rest were something akin to "personal entertainers", although that still misconstrues their cultural role. It's hard for us to "grok" geishas and it's hard for us to "grok" the bardarche too. We've got nothing even remotely similar so it's hard for us to "grok" their existence and role in society.

Canon never mentions...

IMTU forum, remember?

The very highest get 4 or even 5. But probably not enough to matter. With a goodly percentage of females never getting married, some males have to make do with less than 3. I'm not sure of the significance.

I was using the numbers to whittle away at the canonical 1:2 assertion. Upper classes males have 3 or more wives, lower class males make do with one or none. Depending on what percentage of the population is upper class, you can finagle the numbers. If it's around 10%, you end up with a male-to-female ratio of 5:6 which is far closer to the biologically more plausible 1:1 ratio.

Or is my memory playing me false?

It rings a faint bell with me too. Someone will dig it up but, when they do, it's a canonical number and we're talking IMTU here.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

IMTU forum, remember?

But you were using canon for justification. I didn't say canon was evidence; I said that if one part of canon was evidence (rather than just inspiration), then the rest of canon is evidence too. You can cherrypick your inspiration, but no fair cherrypicking your evidence.

I was using the numbers to whittle away at the canonical 1:2 assertion. Upper classes males have 3 or more wives, lower class males make do with one or none. Depending on what percentage of the population is upper class, you can finagle the numbers. If it's around 10%, you end up with a male-to-female ratio of 5:6 which is far closer to the biologically more plausible 1:1 ratio.

Except that you've left out all the unmarried females.

It rings a faint bell with me too. Someone will dig it up but, when they do, it's a canonical number and we're talking IMTU here.

Surely that doesn't mean that you're forbidden to make use of canon? If it does, you can't call them Aslans, you know. Which might be a good thing, now that the quote about the ratio being biologcal has come to light. Seems like you're talking about another race with the same name .


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

But you were using canon for justification.

Hans,

I'm using canon as a starting point. That's slightly different.

You can cherrypick your inspiration, but no fair cherrypicking your evidence.

It's all about cherrypicking my evidence because it's IMTU. I only need to deal with what bits of OTU canon I wish.

Except that you've left out all the unmarried females.

Unmarried females that may be biologically male.

Surely that doesn't mean that you're forbidden to make use of canon?

Nope. Just that I use want I want for MTU's version.

If it does, you can't call them Aslans, you know.

IMTU I can call them Aslan. If a COTI or Freelance article comes out of all this I think calling them Mongeese might be appropriate...

... especially when you remember that I'm cherrypicking some canonical evidence, ignoring other canonical evidence, and are generally screwing with the OTU simply for the sake of change.

Think of all this as the Aslan being reimagined. What's good for the professionals should be good for the amateurs.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

Think of all this as the Aslan being reimagined. What's good for the professionals should be good for the amateurs.

No Bill! Don't go over to the Dark Side! Be strong! Repent! Come back to the Bright Side and we'll slaughter the fatted groat!


Hans

 

[Peter Newman]

[Reposted from another thread per request.]

There's a fairly simple explanation as to why Aslan are born in a 1:3 male/female ratio.
[This theory has no canonical standing, but seems to make logical sense.]

Being male must be a recessive trait in Aslan. [1] Aslan, like humans, could have two genes that determine their gender. We'll call them F and m. An FF Aslan is female as is a Fm Aslan, and a mF Aslan. Only a mm Aslan is male.

One interesting twist - only a Fm or a mF Aslan will bear sons, a FF Aslan will never bear anything but daughters. Once genetic analysis can tell the difference what does this do to the relative mariage prospects of these three Aslan? Will FF Aslan find it harder to mary?
Will a FF Aslan who works for a corporation be more successful because she is more likely to produce daughters to carry on the corporations goals in the next generation?

Does a male Aslan really care if his land goes to his sons or to his daughters husbands after his death when in either case it will then pass on to his grandchildren? He does if you consider that his daughters husband will probably have multiple wives and it would be a waste (from a selfish gene point) of view) if the land eventually goes to the children of one of the other wives, who are not his grandchildren. Therefore we will see different marriage patterns on different planets and at different socioeconomic levels.

[1] I won't get into why this might be so, but in biology a 1:3 ratio strongly suggests a case of 2 genes one of which is recessive. When you consider recent research on the shrinking of the Y chromosome in earth animals and postulate that the same process could have happened on Kusyu, maybe the Aslan m chromosone is just too small and weak to be anything but a recessive gene. If so than you'd expect other higher animals from Kusyu to have the same sex ratio. Will this mean that a 'cow', especially a FF 'cow', from Kusyu is more valuable as livestock than a 'cow' from earth because it will have more daughters and fewer less valuable sons?

 

[aramis]

Peter: with the two genes, and males being mm, you won't have FF females, unless FF Females are parthenogenic, since they can not be the product of union between an mm and ANY of the three females.

 

[Ishmael]

I'm going to start work on a model soon and I need some information.

At what age do males become fertile....become infertile?
What age do females become fertile.... become infertile?

How long do females care for young before returning to workforce?
How many young can a female care for?
How fast do young grow ( gain body mass )?
At what age do young NOT require constant care ( go to school of some sort, even if as apprentices )?

 

[far-trader]

Even presuming you're limiting your questions to "humans" the answers to them will vary a lot depending on the society in question.

Level of medical care available, degree of free time (i.e. sorta social status) open to the individuals, amount of work required to provide, and so on. If you can be more specific, even just generally, it would help a lot. Perhaps pick a society that models closest to what you want to work in. And if this is for Aslan also decide if they birth in multiples or not, and if the birth numbers are skewed, as in not close to 1:1, for gender.

 

[Whipsnade]

I'm going to start work on a model soon and I need some information (snip)

Ish,

Phew... Those are some difficult questions.

Both AM:1 and S&A talk about how Aslan kits are born more developed than humans. Aslan also start their chargen careers at an earlier age too.

I'd suggest you first answer your questions for an average human society and then "pro-rate" those numbers for the "compressed" Aslan life span. After that pro-rating, you could then shave some more time off the "toddler" stage due to their greater development at birth.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Ishmael]

Looks like I have no choice but to pro-rate these things compared to humans. I was fishing for info that might have been in books I don't own.

I'll be using human time, so I won't have to do any odd conversions
10.5 month gestation period
single births, twins rarely occurring, triplets virtually unknown.
maturity 14 human years ( fertile probably before that, I'll have to make sure I can adjust this number to check different scenarios )
males live to be 61 years (avg.)
females live to be 58 years (avg.)
thats the info I do have
I may try to glean more from cg tables, etc.

I hope to make the population/demographic model general enough to work for many different variables and not just Aslan experiments alone.
I hope to get something workable and graft it onto an experimental economy model I have to handle food as that would determine carrying capacity.
Here's a WIP of it if anyone cares to look it over... it's thoroughly non-otu and loosely based in principal on concepts from World Tamer ( its very very WIP )
The spreadsheet is an .ods file for Open Office as I don't own Excel

http://moukotiger.googlepages.com/econosim.txt
http://moukotiger.googlepages.com/worldbuilder.ods

just don't hold me to any deadline

 

[Ishmael]

I have another question...

What percentage of females are 'unmarried'
I'm assuming 'unmarried' females are out of the breeding pool

I'll never understand why some folk go bonkers about 'making them more human' yet accept that they have distinctly human concepts like marriage and fidelity to the husband placed on them. What about cheating wives and cuckolds?

I also tried to play a round of tech 0 Aslan assuming ten times the food neccessary because they're carnivores...World Tamer can't do it without modifying it. I'm not ready to touch that yet.

 

[rancke]

What percentage of females are 'unmarried'
I'm assuming 'unmarried' females are out of the breeding pool.

That's the general impression one gets. Anything a married female owns belongs to her husband, so to keep company assets in a family, unmarried members of said family (whose possiessions belong the father or brother) remain unmarried. There is perhaps a slight fallacy here... if something 'belongs' to a female's brother, how can it be transferred to her husband when she marries? Still, social concepts do not have to be self-consistent.

I'll never understand why some folk go bonkers about 'making them more human' yet accept that they have distinctly human concepts like marriage and fidelity to the husband placed on them.

You feel that socially codified exclusive access to females would be solely a human concept? I think it sounds like a thoroughly universal concept.

What about cheating wives and cuckolds?

What about them?

I also tried to play a round of tech 0 Aslan assuming ten times the food neccessary because they're carnivores...World Tamer can't do it without modifying it. I'm not ready to touch that yet.

I still think that if you're taking humans as a baseline, you should go with something in between completely herbiverous and completely carniverous diet as the baseline, making the Aslans only, say, 3 times (or 3.33 times) as 'demanding' as humans. Humans hunted (and gathered) long before they farmed. A lot of early hominid (hunting) behavior is probably applicable to early Aslan behavior.

Edit: About the original question: This has not been specified anywhere. My guesstimate would be that in a modern Aslan society, roughly 50% of females are unmarried. This is built on several asssumptions. 1) That 28% of Aslan males (the upper classes) averages three wives and 2) that 72% of Aslan males (the middle and lower classes) averages one wife. If this is somewhere near the truth, out of every 400 Aslans (100 males and 300 females), 144 females, or 48% would be unmarried. Since this is a guesstimate, 50% seems a better (less precise) figure. YMMV.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

What percentage of females are 'unmarried'. I'm assuming 'unmarried' females are out of the breeding pool.

Ish,

I'll re-read S&A to see what I can come up with. I do know there is at least one Aslan "megacorp" who demands that their female executives pledge not to "marry".

I'll never understand why some folk go bonkers about 'making them more human' yet accept that they have distinctly human concepts like marriage and fidelity to the husband placed on them. What about cheating wives and cuckolds?

First, I think the term "marriage" is just the best of several poor choices to attempt to neatly and quickly describe whatever the Aslan use for "reproductive groupings". Hell, you can see that by just noticing how clumsy my attempt was at coming up with an alternate term for that last sentence!

Marriage has a lot of cultural baggage attached to it, but I think you can leave the baggage behind. If the baggage keeps intruding into your thinking, make up a nonsense word as a placeholder instead; Rather than marriage in a human sense, Aslan engage in grobsnu whose precepts include yakkity smakkity blah blah blah...

Second, I see males and especially high class males as being very interested in ensuring that any children their "wives" bear are actually children they've sired. Until technology provides the Aslan with paternity testing(1), only maternity is a certainty and paternity can only be partially assured through physical control(2). Because of this, I'd think reproductive fidelity would be a central fixture of any Aslan honor code. While "cheating" and "cuckoldry" would definitely be violations of the code, they could still occur and be dealt with appropriately.

Concerns about cheating, cuckolds, and even female Aslan in comfortable shoes also presumes a sex drive very similar to that of Homo sapiens. This might not be the case with the Aslan. I'm not suggesting that the Aslan have "seasons", "pon farr", or no interest in sex, but I am suggesting that we and our nearest cousins the bonobos might not be the best models for alien sex drives. Quite frankly, humans and bonobos would get busy with a woodpile if there was a chance of a snake being in it.

I also tried to play a round of tech 0 Aslan assuming ten times the food neccessary because they're carnivores...World Tamer can't do it without modifying it. I'm not ready to touch that yet.

WTH is definitely human-centric and it models food production with an eye towards discrete "rations" instead of whatever actually makes up those rations. I know it mentions different food animals by size, but the linkage between that and the "rations" they result in is rather simplistic.


Regards,
Bill

1 - I've seen data derived from something as simple as blood typing that proves that many children in the US simply cannot have been fathered by the man listed on the birth certificate. I'm talking about numbers north of 20% in some cases.

2 - Or infanticide as practiced by lions and barn cats.