History Main / ExtraParentConception

* In Conway's [[TheGameOfLife Game of Life]], a grid-based model of emergent complexity, a square will light up, becoming "alive", if it is surrounded by exactly three other "live" squares, i.e. "parents".

* ''ANightmareOnElmStreet'': Freddy Krueger is implied to have been conceived this way. His mother was a nun who worked at a mental institution where she became trapped alone with one hundred of the inmates over a period of several nights. [[ChildByRape Freddy was the result]], and became taunted all his life as the "Son of a Hundred Maniacs".

* In Conway's Game of Life, a "cellular automaton" model of emergent complexity, a square will light up, becoming "alive", if it is surrounded by exactly three other "live" squares, i.e. "parents".

* Mr. Fusspot, the canine bank Chairman from ''[[{{Discworld}} Making Money]]'', is metaphorically described as "the son of many fathers". His spoonhound mother got loose while in heat, and her owners never learned what male dogs she'd encountered before coming home pregnant.

* In the ''{{Gor}}'' series, the alien Kurii have three (or four) sexes, or genders. They basically work out to be male, female, a "blood nurser" which the females lay their offspring in and then the babies eat their way out of, and a fourth sex which is essentially a male with low testosterone, which is shunned by the community, but in certain circumstances becomes a breeding male; hence they're not sure whether to consider it a separate sex or not.

* River Song in ''Series/DoctorWho'' is Amy and Rory's daughter, but because she was conceived on the TARDIS, somehow has Time Lord DNA incorporated into her genetic makeup as well, prompting the Doctor to call her "the child of the TARDIS".

[[AC:Video Games]]

* There is a story by StanislawLem about aliens who, among other things, have five sexes.

* ''TheEpicOfGilgamesh'': Gilgamesh claimed to be "two thirds god, one third human", implying he had three parents.

[[AC:{{WesternAnimation}}]]
* In the ''JusticeLeagueUnlimited'' finale ''Epilogue,'' it is reveal that Terry Mcginnis is more than just the son of Warren and Mary Mcginnis, but [[spoiler: the biological son of Bruce Wayne thanks to Amanda Waller of CADMUS secret acquisition of Wayne's DNA in an attempt to create a Batman successor. Waller had Warren injected with Wayne DNA while claiming it was a flu shot. That injection overwrote Warren's reproductive genes. This last-minute RetCon actually helps explain why Terry, and by extension his younger brother, Matt, have black hair while Warren and Mary have red hair]].

* It is however possible for a woman who has released two eggs simultaneously to have them each fertilized by a different man. The two fertilized eggs, instead of producing fraternal twins, may then merge to form a chimera, ie. an individual that is a mixture of two different cell lines. Some tissues and organs would thus contain DNA from one father, while others would contain DNA from the second father. All tissues and organs would contain the mother's DNA, although not the same subset of her DNA. Thus this individual would have three biological parents. Chimeras made in the lab may have multiple "mothers" as well as "fathers".
* There is an in-vitro fertilization (IVF) technique where the nucleus of one egg is inserted into a different donor's egg, then fertilized and implanted. The Mitochondrial [=DNA=] of the donor egg would be from a third person.

* There is a story by Stanislaw Lem about aliens who, among other things, have five sexes.

* It is however possible for a woman who has released two eggs simultaneously to have them each fertilized by a different man. The two fertilized eggs, instead of producing fraternal twins, may then merge to form a chimera, ie. an individual that is a mixture of two different cell lines. Some tissues and organs would thus contain DNA from one father, while others would contain DNA from the second father. All tissues and organs would contain the mother's DNA, although not the same subset of her DNA. Thus this individual would have three biological parents.
* There is an in-vitro fertilization technique where the nucleus of one egg is inserted into a different donor's egg, then fertilized and implanted. The Mitochondrial [=DNA=] of the donor egg would be from a third person.

* It is however possible for a woman who has released two eggs simultaneously to have them each fertilized by a a different man. The two fertilized eggs, instead of producing fraternal twins, may then merge to form a chimera, ie. an individual that is a mixture of two different cell lines. Some tissues and organs would thus contain DNA from one father, while others would contain DNA from the second father. All tissues and organs would contain the mother's DNA, although not the same subset of her DNA. Thus this individual would have three biological parents.

* Polyspermy, in which two sperm penetrate a single egg simultaneously, ''can'' happen, even in humans. It's just incredibly rare, due to the egg's sperm-excluding cortical reaction, and the resulting triploid zygote cannot develop any further. Thus, a human ExtraParentConception is theoretically possible, but a natural Extra Parent ''Birth'' is not.

A child is conceived, but instead of simply mixing one male sperm and one female ovum, a third set of genes becomes involved.

Most often used in a FreeLoveFuture or as a result of BizarreAlienBiology, a child turns out to be the [[MixAndMatchMan genetic offspring of multiple people]] -- except, it was ''natural conception''.

Perhaps we're dealing with [[BoldlyComing aliens]] or [[DivineParentage supernatural beings]] and it's normal for them to conceive children this way. Or maybe, this was just some freak occurrence which took ''everybody'' by surprise. However it went down, [[CoitusEnsues Mass-Coitus Ensued]] and a baby happened.

Do not confuse with HomosexualReproduction or HasTwoMommies, where a child is conceived or raised by two members of the same sex. Of course, this ''could'' overlap, if all parties were the same sex.

May be related to {{Polyamory}} or occur during APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy. The situation may spawn (or should that be "conceive") an {{Aesop}} about such activities.

!!Examples:

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* ''ANightmareOnElmStreet'': Freddy Krueger is implied to have been conceived this way. His mother was a nun who worked at a mental institution where she became trapped alone with one hundred of the inmates over a period of several nights. [[ChildByRape Freddy was the result]], and became taunted all his life as the "Son of a Hundred Maniacs".

[[AC:Humor]]
* A joke using this: two new parents stare at their newborn in disbelief, wondering how one child can have so many different attributes (sometimes they're listed: blond hair, black skin, small nose, huge ears...). Then they recall having participated in an orgy some nine months back. The baby starts crying, at which point the mother expresses relief that [[ButYouScrewOneGoat at least he isn't barking]].

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* In ''Agent to the Stars'' by JohnScalzi, the alien race who visits Earth [[BizarreAlienBiology can conceive children from arbitrary numbers of parents]]. The most prominent alien character, Joshua, is the child of the entire ship's crew, as well as the first human to visit the ship.
* In IsaacAsimov's novel ''The Gods Themselves'', the alien Soft Ones have three sexes, all of which are required for reproduction.
* In the ''{{Gor}}'' series, the alien Kurii have three (or four) sexes, or genders. They basically work out to be male, female, a "blood nurser" which the females lay their offspring in and then the babies eat their way out of, and a fourth sex which is essentially a male with low testosterone, which is shunned by the community, but in certain circumstances becomes a breeding male; hence they're not sure whether to consider it a separate sex or not.
* There is a story by Stanislaw Lem about aliens who, among other things, have five sexes.
* ''MerryGentry'': Merry eventually gets pregnant with twins, and the twins have three fathers each.
* A gag to this effect appears in the ''RodAlbrightAlienAdventures'' series, when one alien mentions that normal honorifics and pronouns don't apply well to "him", because he comes from a species that requires five genders just to produce an egg, and three more to hatch it. Perhaps fortunately, he doesn't go into detail on this absurd arrangement.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

* In ''EarthFinalConflict'' Liam Kincaid is the result of three biological parents: two human parents and one alien. Agent Sandoval, Agent Beckett and Ha'Gel, who was possessing Sandoval.
* Zaphod Beeblebrox of the ''HitchHikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' franchise has way more direct parents than anyone can count, due to [[NoodleIncident an accident involving a contraceptive and a time machine]]. Because of this, [[GrandfatherParadox his ancestors are also his direct descendants]], and he shares at least three mothers with Ford Prefect, making them semi-half-cousins.

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[[AC:Mythology and Legend]]
* ''TheEpicOfGilgamesh'': Gilgamesh claimed to be "two thirds god, one third human", implying he had three parents.
** To clarify, the Mesopotamians (and some other cultures) believed that if a woman slept with different men during or shortly before her pregnancy, that each of these men counted as a father. Thus the implication is that Gilgamesh's mom slept with at least two gods.
* Heimdall, in NorseMythology, has nine mothers.

[[AC:Video Games]]
* The Grekim from the [[RealTimeStrategy RTS]] {{Achron}} have three genders (octo, pharo, and sepi). They also have three 'classes' (basic, pod class, and ligo class). Any two different genders can mate to produce a member of the third gender of the same class or the next one up. (E.g. a pharo and a sepi can produce an octo or an octopod, or an octopod and a pharopod can produce a sepipod or a sepiligo.) This is actually the species' primary method of producing units in the game.


[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', the trolls reproduce by mixing the genetic material of thousands of different trolls together within the womb of a Mother Grub, who then gives birth to hundreds of thousands of grubs. As such, they have no taboos against homosexuality or incest, and why they even have separate genders is [[ShrugOfGod unlikely to ever be explained canonically]].

** In reference to the spoiled content, this is also why they divorced. Two red heads '''will''' produce red-haired children, not any other colour.

* In the ''StarTrek'' ExpandedUniverse, Andorians have four genders, two that approximate male, two that approximate female. Since they have a low birth rate, it's a HandWave for why that race isn't seen much in space, despite being one of the Federation's founding species.

* Uryuoms in ''ElGoonishShive'' reproduce this way. The egg can merge DNA from multiple sources, [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2004-02-25 not necessarily]] including Uryuom at all. As they say (in the strip titled "[[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-09-09 Uryuom Sitcoms Are Insane]]"),

* In ''{{Homestuck}}'', the trolls reproduce by mixing the genetic material of thousands of different trolls together within the womb of a Mother Grub, who then gives birth to hundreds of thousands of grubs. As such, they have no taboos against homosexuality or incest, and why they even have separate genders is [[ShrugOfGod unlikely to ever be explained canonically]].

* Happens at least twice in GreekMythology:

** Leda, after getting sexed up by Zeus in swan form, proceeded to have a clutch of four eggs. Of the four babies that emerged, two were fathered by Zeus and two by her actual husband. To make it even more interesting the two boys, Castor and Pollux, were twins but one was fully human while the other was fully divine.

* The Newcomers in ''Series/AlienNation''. Tenctonese have three sexes -- male, female, and binnaum -- all three of which are necessary to have a child. Because binnaums are relatively rare, they traditionally live monastic lives, only having sex when they are asked to help fertilize an egg for a male/female couple.

Do not confuse with HomosexualReproduction or HasTwoMommies, where a child is conceived and raised by two members of the same sex. Of course, this ''can'' overlap, if the same sex was involved twice.

* The Yeerks of {{Animorphs}} are sluglike aliens whose reproduction apparently involves three of them fusing into a single mass, from which larvae spawn.

* The MercedesLackey song, "Mis Conceptions" features a character who was apparently the result of a party with several mythological beasts as guests.

* In the ''StarTrek'' ExpandedUniverse, Andorians have four genders, two that approximate male, two that approximate female. Since they have a low birth rate, it's a HandWave for why that race isn't seen much in space, despite being one of the Federation's founding species.

* an in-vitro fertilization technique where the nucleus of one egg is inserted into a different donors egg, then fertilized and implanted. The Mitochondrial [=DNA=] of the donor egg would be from a third person.

* Polyspermy, in which two sperm penetrate a single egg simultaneously, ''can'' happen, even in humans. It's just incredibly rare, due to the egg's sperm-excluding cortical reaction, and the resulting triploid zygote cannot develop any further.

* In sluggy, the [[http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20050129 tri'ballians have 82 sexes]], [[http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20050129 elaborate mating rituals]] and [[http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20050205 major interpersonal issues]] as a result. Their continued existence is a cross of AWizardDidIt and RuleOfFunny.