History Headscratchers / TheOrville

Sooo, if Pria never comes to the past, why aren't they all dead? And if they are all dead, wouldn't that prevent them from destroying the wormhole meaning Pria did come back meaning they do destroy the wormhole oh dear I've gone cross-eyed.

* Ed didn't think of it at the time, and it is something that is outwith the scope of the Orville's mission parameters so presumably left for the follow up team to deal with. Whether they want to try and make contact with their homeworld is for the people in the bioship to decide anyway.

* The ships captain in the log, admits their homeworld is so far away from the nearest inhabited planet, it was expected it would take three generations for them to reach it, hence why they built such a massive Bioship. It long past that deadline, and has kept drifting in the same direction (at presumably the same speed) for two thousand years. By this point its their probably so far away from their original home, that they would have to dedicate another thousand years minimum to get back.

Ed suggests that they'll teach the people how to operate their own ship. But what about getting their people in touch with their own species? While it's likely that the bioship group has diverged significally from their species society, it would at least be something. Now one could argue that perhaps they are all that's left of their species... but that's silly since there's no hint that they sent the bioship off with their entire population or because of any near catastrophy.

* Don't forget that OUR history has been around for more than 2000 years and we don't have a lot of records from 2000 years ago. And even within the last 100 years, you would be very hard pressed to find equipment to playback things like magnetic tapes. Beyond that, digital 'permanance' has given us the illusion that lots of things are permanent but that isn't so. Stone erodes even through handling, paper has to be carefully maintained, metal can rust, and things can simple be lost.

* Not to mention they've clearly lost (and probably been through several periods of rediscovery) a lot of their technology in the last two thousand years, in the start they could build a ship the size of a city, in the present their only around the early twentieth century. Between the disasters, no doubt historical records got lost or potentially mistranslated (language does change a lot over two thousand years after all).

* It's been two thousand years. They'll have had pocket-sized versions of wars, famines, an occasional plague, etc. Sure, the "armies" would number in the hundreds at most, the famines would be from overpopulation or bad farming practices rather than lousy weather, and any plagues would've arisen as random mutations in formerly-harmless microorganisms native to their ecosystem, but they'd still happen, and the survivors would have more immediate problems than preserving history.

Why would they lose their history? The first generation would have been fully technological, far beyond present day earth. They couldn't even make papyrus or carve it on stones?

* They weren't ''allowed'' to tell those stories or keep those records. We see in the episode that the ship has been essentially taken over by a religious-like group. Any mention of being on a ship, or mention that there is more to life than their prairie, is met with torture and execution and has been for thousands of years. When that group took over they likely silenced any dissenting voices, and so people stopped passing on their history to their children out of fear. Many, many generations of ambiguous history later, and nobody is truly sure where they started.

* The show is just using an old SF trope regarding generation ships that's been around almost since the idea was conceived.

Why would they lose their history? The first generation would have been fully technological, far beyond present day earth. They couldn't even make papyrus or carve it on stones?

*** I feel the need to point out this isn't an episode about Mochlan sexual and biology issues but Earth issues through a Mochlan lens. Which means BellisariosMaxim is in full effect.

*** This. Essentially, they're the reverse ''C. elegans'': a RealLife roundworm species consisting of large hermaphrodites and small males. With the Moclans, their natural reproductive slate would consist of large hermaphrodites and small females. The technical term would be "gynodioecy", a phenomenon seen on Earth in mint, plantains, and a few other plant species. They only appear to be "all-male" because they use gender-reassignment surgery (and possibly infanticide before that became available, if Bortus's confusion about ''Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer'' has an unspoken cultural basis) to artificially skew their natural breeding-type ratio.

*** This. Essentially, they're the reverse ''C. elegans'': a RealLife roundworm species consisting of large hermaphrodites and small males. With the Moclans, their natural reproductive slate would consist of large hermaphrodites and small females. The technical term would be "gynodioecy", a phenomenon seen on Earth in mint, plantains, and a few other plant species.

*** The birth of a female wouldn't impair their racial reproductive rate, as a female would still be fertile ''as'' a female, i.e. could still lay eggs. She'd just have to find a non-female mate, which would only pose a problem if the same cultural prejudices that forbid raising a female ''as'' a female also make every male she encounters too disgusted to mate with her. Even so, it's the prejudice that's the problem, not her ''being'' female.

*** But none of that is brought up. The only thing that is argued is how Moclan society won't accept a female, it's portrayed completely as a prejudice. If female moclans are all sterile then switching the gender becomes more of a biological issue (maintaining the population levels). That's something the Union and the other characters would understand slightly more.

*** The show doesn't get into it but it's clear they ''are'' socially male purely because they chose to all become male by gender identity normalization and surgery. Note, they are not all ''biologically'' male and clearly don't follow our rules. It doesn't make much sense but: A. Lots of Earth gender identity things make no damn sense. B. Star Trek had the same level of weirdness with many of its species.
*** No, sexual reproduction does ''not'' require two sexes. Earthworms, for example, reproduce when two worms copulate, both inseminating the other. Other organisms like flatworms might have two individuals compete, with the "winner" inseminating the "loser", but the winner might be the loser when the next flatworm comes along. Hamlet fish, when two individuals mate, take turns with one laying eggs, the other fertilizing, and then switching roles. Moclans would likely be hermaphroditic, with either partner potentially the one inseminating the other. "Females" are perhaps individuals who, for physical reasons, are incapable of inseminating another--say they're missing the equivalent of the penis, or it's somehow deformed so unable to function--and could only be inseminated. This would explain why Moclans treat the condition as a birth defect...for them, it ''is''. The opposite condition, not being able to be inseminated, wouldn't be as much as of an issue since they normally identify as male anyway.

*** The show doesn't get into it but it's clear they ''are'' socially male purely because they chose to all become male by gender identity normalization and surgery. Note, they are not all ''biologically'' male and clearly don't follow our rules. It doesn't make much sense but: A. Lots of Earth gender identity things make no damn sense. B. Star Trek had the same level of weirdness with many of its species.

*** The show doesn't get into it but it's clear they ''are'' socially male purely because they chose to all become male by gender identity. Note, they are not all biologically male and clearly don't follow our rules. It doesn't make much sense but: A. Lots of Earth gender identity things make no damn sense. B. Star Trek had the same level of weirdness with many of its species.

** That still doesn't make sense. Unless they reproduce asexually and saying they're all males is more of a social statement instead of a biological fact. No matter how the offspring is born (egg, live birth, cocoon, etc) sexual reproduction involves genetic materials from two sexes (male & female).

** episode three revealed that there is a second gender, albeit rarer, so however they made the egg they seem to be male. Perhaps they use a different definition of egg and it was more like a cocoon for example.

** They probably are biological hermaphrodites, but identify as male gender for cultural reasons. This may be venturing into WMG territory, but perhaps once they evolved into a hermaphroditic species that superficially looked male, the chauvinism common to ancient cultures blended with the tendency to judge things for superficial reasons to cause them to think of themselves as all male. If, for example, the Ancient Greeks had evolved into superficially male looking hermaphrodites, their intense sexism would almost certainly have caused them to see themselves as male and despise those few remaining evolutionary throwbacks even more than they despised women already.

** They probably are biological hermaphrodites, but identify as male gender for cultural reasons. This may be venturing into WMG territory, but perhaps once they evolved into a hermaphroditic species that superficially looked male, the chauvinism common to ancient cultures blended with the tendency to judge things for superficial reasons to caused them to think of themselves as all male. If, for example, the Ancient Greeks had evolved into superficially male looking hermaphrodites, their intense sexism would almost certainly have caused them to see themselves as male and despise those few remaining evolutionary throwbacks even more than they despised women already.

* How are the Moclan able to reproduce if they're all male? Biologically wouldn't they be hermaphroditic?