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Bizarre Alien Reproduction
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Pieter: I saw the tentacles! I know what that means!
Wuffles: My reproductive organs are in my mouth! It doesn't work that way!
Okay, you've got your Humanoid Aliens. But no matter what you do, they don't seem alien-y enough. So you add some Bizarre Alien Biology. What's the easiest way to do this? Sex! Guaranteed to appeal to somebody, and if done right, it can look like something other than just being a pervert or possibly Fanservice. It should be added that no matter how deviant it seems to us, Good People Have Good Sex and this counts as good sex, even if it is interspecies.
Sometimes related to G-Rated Sex. May fall into Artistic License - Biology, if the reproductive method fails to generate enough offspring to maintain a population. Note for examples to not include anything related to cultural practices; we're limited to the biology of reproduction here. Put Non-Mammal Mammaries, Exotic Equipment, and Mr. Seahorse on their own page, please. See also Face Full of Alien Wing Wong.
Frequently involves Bizarre Alien Sexes.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- The Twelve Kingdoms has a truly weird reproductive system involving marriage but apparently no sex: when you get married, a fruit called Ranka grows on a tree, and out of it pops your baby. What makes it far weirder is that sometimes the Ranka fruit gets blown across the sea and is implanted in a Japanese woman - this is how the central character of the anime, Youko Nakajima, would have been born, though she thought she was a normal Japanese girl until she was taken by force from her high school. In addition, royalty and other immortals can't marry - and since Nakajima becomes a queen, that includes her - and so they can't have children unless they were married before they become immortal.
Comic Books
- The X-Men have fought The Brood, a race of intelligent Captain Ersatzes of the creature from Alien. A human implanted with a Brood egg will eventually be physically (and mentally) transformed into a Brood member, and will retain any genetic-based abilities (e.g. mutant powers) the victim had.
Film
- The Xenomorph lifecycle in Alien goes roughly as follows:
- Queen lays eggs
- Egg waits for host (Human, Predator, Dog Etc) to come by
- Egg hatches, facehugger crawls out, jumps on host's face.
- Facehugger hangs on to host's face for day or two, host unconscious, facehugger keeps Host alive but tightens tail around neck if attempt to remove facehugger is made.
- Facehugger lets go and promptly dies.
- Host acts normal for another day or two (may/may not be aware of pregnancy).
- Chestburster bursts out of chest, with some of host's DNA (eg; Chestburster from dog becomes quadropedal drone instead of bipedal drone).
- Chestburster quickly grows up into either Drone or Queen.
- If Queen, cycle starts again.
- Although not actually alien, the creatures from the Tremors series have a bizarre life cycle that qualifies for this trope. Eggs hatch into dog-sized "dirt dragons", which transform into bus-sized "Graboids"; multiple bear-sized "shriekers" (each capable of rapid parthenogenesis) burst from the mature Graboid; mature shriekers pupate, then emerge as "ass-blasters", which lay eggs. It's unclear whether there's any actual sex required at all.
- In K-PAX, K-PAXians are known to have a very painful mating experience, "like having your nuts in a vice, but all over". The process also involves nausea and a terrible smell.
Literature
- Aliens from Isaac Asimov's novel The Gods Themselves are from a universe with different laws of physics. They have soft bodies of three genders (rationals, emotionals and parentals) which reproduce by fusing at the intermolecular level. This creates a mature solid form with the fused mind of the three soft ones, which forget this little fact after the act.
- Just to clarify this a bit, when a triad of Soft Ones "melt" (that is, mate), they temporarily form a Hard One, but don't remember that after they separate (the Hard One does, however, remember its previous periods of consciousness when it is formed again). Nonetheless, this fusion is related to reproduction, being the means by which new Soft Ones are conceived (one at a time) to grow to term inside the Parental of the triad. It's not said outright, but there is the implication that there is an order to the pregnancies so that each triad will produce at least one full triad of offspring before they grow out of the breeding stage and finally merge permanently as a Hard One. The Hard Ones are genderless and act in a parental/mentor advisory role to the Soft Ones (though the Parental Soft Ones act as parents to the babies when the latter are very young).
- The Khommites from the Star Wars Expanded Universe can only reproduce by cloning. They also only eat dietary supplements.
- And Selonians have one fertile female and a handful of males per 1,000 births. They're subterranean mammals; the queen and the males - presumably not from the same colony - basically do little but breed while the rest of the colony runs civilization. A little like naked mole rats.
- Humans and Selonians can apparently be allergic to each other. Or at least Corran and that one Selonian were.
- Falleen pheromone work on anything in the galaxy.
- Animorphs: Yeerk are implied to have No Biological Sex, but have a form of sexual reproduction: three individuals fuse into one, which then disintegrates into hundreds of "grubs" which develop into baby Yeerks. (Occasionally one grub will turn into twins.) The Yeerk parents die in the process.
- The Skrit Na are even stranger. The "Skrit" look sort of like giant roaches and are fairly stupid. At some point during their lives they spin a cocoon, die, but then out of their dead body a Na (basically a Grey) pops out. It's never explained where new Skrit come from, but the Na certainly have a weird way of coming into this (or some other) world.
- From Everworld: male Hetwan, though usually little more than perfectly obedient drones for their deity Ka Anor, will immediately go nuts and mate with any female they see, which looks like a living collection of guts. A collection of eight to ten offspring are born immediately—-which is good, because the males rip the females to pieces while having sex.
- Bruce Coville's stories often mention aliens having as many as eight genders, where five may produce an egg and three more hatch it. This being a kid's book, the exact mechanics of this are never explained.
- Though they can breed perfectly fine with humans, Martians in the Barsoom series lay eggs for some inexplicable reason. Yes, even the Half Human Hybrids.
- When asked, the Puppeteers of Known Space say they have three genders, but its not quiet accurate. What they have is a "sperm depositor" male, an "egg depositor" male, and a nonsentient female belonging to a related species (in the same way humans are related to monkeys). The Puppeteer ova is deposited in the flesh of the third species, the egg is then fertilized, and when the egg hatches, the infant puppeteer eats its way out of the body of the "female", like a digger wasp.
- Actually, pretty much all species in Known Space other than humans (and other hominids) and dolphins have a pretty thin time of it when it comes to sex. It's kind of Niven's trademark. It's likely that the Moties, who die if they don't get pregnant, were Niven's idea rather than Pournelle's.
- The hominids of Ringworld kind of make up for it by having robust interspecies sex a regular part of trade and politics.
- See also the Fuxes (below).
- The Doctor Who New Adventures novels suggest that Time Lords are all sterile and are "born" from a "Loom", a machine in their giant sentient semi-organic family Houses. Each Loom weaves Family members according to a common template, ensuring that they're related; every Family member is a genetically a cousin to each other. This is ignored, if not outright contradicted by the TV series when it resumed airing.
- In Iain Banks' The Player of Games, the Azadians have three sexes: Males with testes and penis, an intermediate ("Apex") sex with a reversible vagina and ovum, and a female sex with uterus and a retrovirus that slightly modifies the implanted egg.
- Ender's Game: Pequeninos. To reproduce, the male has to turn into a tree. Infant females are brought to the Fathertree and crawl around on its bark, absorbing sperm through its dust. Also: any female that survives to adulthood is completely sterile; the young eat their way out of the infant mother's body. Both male and female young are nursed in the Mothertree, which is what happens when a sterile adult female turns into a tree, which exudes a highly nutritious sap the young feed on until they're large enough to walk around on the ground.
- Vonda N. McIntyre's Starfarer series has the squidmoths, who are born male. The males exchange sperm packets with each other and keep the packets they receive (the packets can stay fresh for a long time). At some point the male consciously chooses to undergo a metamorphosis which turns him female, consumes the collected sperm packets, lays eggs, and dies.
- The alien city dwellers from Blind Lake have two stages in life. The sentient adult form is neuter and has a special feeding apparatus which the parasitic larval form require in order to survive. It's the larvae that actually do the breeding. On occasion, a larva is infected by the virus present in the adults and will transform into an adult itself.
- The mantis-like Ki! from Chess With A Dragon are hermaphroditic parasitoids, who implant eggs in "host-grubs" of various non-sentient species including feral human children they only think are dumb animals.
- One of the Star Trek: The Captain's Table books presented the Anjiri and the Nykkus, apparently two species of Reptilians whose gender (female, male, neuter) was determined by the temperature at which their eggs were incubated. Originally, they were presented in a fairly straightforward Planet of Hats way- the Anjiri were matriarchal, with the females running the planet and the males being basically incompetent Space Pirates; the Nykkus were initially presented as a sort of Henchmen Race to the Anjiri. It later turned out that the Nykkus and Anjiri are actually one species with two forms; females of either "species" in fact lay eggs for both, apparently regardless of whether their mates are Nykkus or Anjiri. All the Nykkus shown in the original appearance were "Coldborn" (neuter and not very bright); the male and female Nykkus shown later have little interest in working for the Anjiri, although the females are a lot better disposed towards them. Oh, and incubation temperature also determines, or at least strongly influences, both intelligence and physical strength (with females being the strongest/smartest for each race).
- The Phagors from the Helliconia trilogy have a cyclical libido, such that males are compelled to mate once every few days. They barely ever think about sex otherwise, yet the fact that such matings are conducted without any pretense of privacy, just as a human might sneeze in public, leads most humans to consider them lustful perverts.
- The life cycle of the Tyr in The Madness Season proves important to the plot of the book. Their homeworld has a century-long highly elliptical orbit. At the closest approach, the Raayat-Tyr, which serve as drones, return to the homeworld and fight each other through the hive in an attempt to reach the queen. A Raayat who mates with the queen will be killed. But, if the Raayat kills her, he will transform into the new queen.
- There is a lot of this is Piers Anthony's Cluster series; every species has a different, exotic way of breeding, and of course the hero, as he Body Surfs between the species, experiences them all. Perhaps the best example not covered by another trope is the Spicans: they have three sexes, and whenever all three are present in the same area, mating will occur- not might, will. There are three roles that can each be assumed by any of the three sexes, and the gender of the offspring is determined by which sex takes which role.
- The Rozes, troll/giant hybrids from the Garrett, P.I. series, claim to be "triplets with different mothers". Garrett has never been inclined to ask for details, so we don't know if it's this trope or a cultural thing.
- The stsho from the Chanur Saga have three different sexes and form mating trios instead of mating pairs. None of the sexes can exactly be called male or female, since a stsho which fills the young-bearing role in one trio can simultaneously fill a non-young-bearing role in a different trio. Nothing beyond that is known, since the stsho are an extremely private and xenophobic race which refuses to share details of their biology with any other species. For further strangeness, sufficient psychological stress can cause a stsho to spontaneously change sex.
- In the Star Trek novels, Dr. McCoy comments that the Sulamids (like ensign Hwa'vire from Engineering) have twelve sexes, and all of them claim to be male... especially the ones that give birth.
- Medea: Harlan's World was a collaboration between a number of major SF writers to create a single setting, and a series of short stories set on the titular moon. In Flare Time by Larry Niven, the reproductive cycle of the native sentients known as fuxes is described. They start off as six-legged females. At around seven they have their first litter, during which their rear body segment tears off, leaving them as four-legged females. The hindquarters contain the eggs, and function as a nest which the newborns eat their way out of. Around seventeen they have a second litter, leaving them as two-legged males, with the male organs exposed through the loss of the second body segment. The male guards the nest until the young are born, then goes into heat for about three years, and eventually ends up a 'post-male'.
- Between their advanced knowledge of the universe, their shape-shifting nature and the wide-range of powers they are able to borrow from each other, the Gods and Demons of Divine Blood are capable of this even if it's not their normal choice. They are canonically capable of:
- prot[sic] from the novel series {K-PAX}} describes the K-PAXians' mating process as being extremely unpleasant, involving profound pain, nausea and a potent terrible smell. The books tie this in with a kind of Immortal Procreation Clause - since the K-PAXian lifespan is over a thousand years, combined with the unappealing mating process, there's no problem with either under OR overpopulation.
Live-Action TV
- Star Trek has plenty of examples, having been on TV for so long:
- The Vulcans have "Pon farr", a mating season every seven years, where the male must mate or he'll die. Alternatively he can beat another male to death, which is just plain weird.
- Xyrillian females can impregnate human males without the human noticing.
- The Q can chose to have sex by touching fingertips, but being nigh-omnipotent that's not saying a whole lot we don't already know from the "omnipotent" label.
- The Varro mate for life, and to ensure this they intermix their body chemistry, causing symptoms of physical withdrawal if a mate leaves.
- All we know about Klingon sex is that it's not uncommon for both partners to break bones. Ow. A broken collarbone on the wedding night is a sign of good luck. Of course, given how Klingons tend to act, that might simply be a cultural tendency towards very rough sex.
- The Taresians are born 90% female and claim to reproduce by implanting embryos in the wombs of females of other species, but the child will be fully Tersian. The truth is even weirder: They spread a retrovirus that turns males of other species into pseudo-Teresians, and then he's driven to return to the planet where they'll extract his DNA, fatally.
- The Vissians have three genders, the third of which is a "Cogenitor" which contributes no genetic material to the child, but provides an enzyme which is required for conception.
- Female Ocampa go through "Elogium", a puberty-like stage where they can successfully conceive a child (in a growth on their back), but it only happens once. Also leads to a very large bit of Fridge Logic, every Ocampa female can only conceive once, and multiples births seem to be rare to non-existent... so if every female Ocampa can only produce one child in their entire life... how is the species not extinct already? The Fridge Logic factor of Ocampan reproduction goes far further than that: Despite only being able to reproduce once and only living for nine years, the females have constantly engorged breasts. The reason why humans have breasts and dogs don't is because we can reproduce whenever we feel like it - there is no biological reason why they should grow breasts a good four years before they can conceive. Secondly, they reproduce through a bizarre system of massaging feet and gluing their hands together for an entire week using a thick, sticky mucus - in the wild no creature could do this without being eaten by predators. This would logically mean both the males and females have nothing between their legs and are around about the same size - if this was real life and not being played by human actors and actresses the only way to determine a male from a female would be those anomalous breasts.
- Denobulans have a mating season, and their breeding drive is regulated by powerful pheromones generated by their females. Males can become violent under these pheromones' influences. Culturally, they practice group marriage, and also remain promiscuous outside such formal relationships.
- The Kobali resurrect, and genetically alter, the corpses of other species.
- Andorians - in the Expanded Universe - have four genders and need to form a telepathically bound quartet comprised of one of each gender before they can hope to conceive.
- The hostile "Species 8472", at least according to Voyager's medical hologram, is reported to have as many as five distinct sexes, but he admits they don't know anything else about their reproduction.
- Babylon 5's Centauri have six prehensile tentacles for sexual organs, which are flexible enough to (as Londo demonstrated in a first year episode) snake under a poker table and pick up a card on the other side of the table. There's also the Pak'ma'ra, for whom the only reproductive information mentioned in-show is that the "hump" on their backs is actually their reproductive area. (According to Usenet postings by the creator, female Pak'ma'ra are tiny, non-sentient beings who live inside said hump.) Finally, in one episode Ivanova tricked one alien into believing that a strange dance (with nonsensical chanting), and rubbing of hands was Bizarre Human Reproduction. At the end of the episode, Ivanova is left a gift by the alien: A trinket of some kind and a note saying "next time ... my way."
- In Alien Nation, three Newcomers are required to make a baby: a male, a female, and a binnaum who catalyzes the impregnated female. Part way through the pregnancy, the female transfers the fetus to the male, where it slips inside his belly somehow and attaches an umbilicus to one of the male's nipples. It is the pregnant male who gets to have the wacky Born in an Elevator scene at the end.
- In the original V miniseries, Willie recognizes Robin is pregnant because she's developing a ring of discoloration around her neck, which suggests that such rings are normal for Visitor mothers-to-be. His comments imply the ring becomes more complete as the pregnancy progresses.
- The Greys in The X-Files are capable of incubating inside a human host that has been infected with Black Oil. When the hosts gets hot enough, the alien hatches into a long-clawed, violent creature that desires more heat. Eventually, it sheds its skin to become a "normal" grey alien.
- The Vespiform can mate with a human thanks to phase-shifting capabilities. Thanks to phase-shifting capabilities.
Oral Tradition
- The Greys are apparently extremely interested in human sexuality for some reason, so we are ourselves a case of Bizarre Alien Reproduction, inverting this trope among UFO nuts.
Radio
- We're never told the details, but the Betelgeusians Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy share three mothers (with the implication that Zaphod at least has more mothers who they don't share), which makes them "semi-cousins".
- And Ford's father "both fathered and uncled" him, which could mean Ford is the product of incestuous relations, or just more of this trope.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons includes multiple examples, mostly among the Aberration creature type.
- Illithid Elder Brains (composed of the disembodied brains of dead illithids) asexually produce eggs in pools of water. The eggs hatch into tadpoles that cannibalize each other until the survivors reach maturity. Mature tadpoles are inserted into living adult humanoids to devour and replace the nervous system. This results in an adult illithid.
- Beholders also asexually reproduce. After becoming pregnant, they gorge themselves until the fetuses become too large and pinch the esophagus shut. When the children come to term, the parent vomits up its entire uterus (which does not regenerate).
- Star Fleet Battles has the Hydrans, who have three genders: Male, female, and 'enabler'. The enablers are barely sentient (some sterilized enablers are used as servants on their starships). It requires all three genders to produce more Hydrans; the male and female deposit their genetic contribution into a special pouch on the enabler, which also has a genetic contribution of its own. After a few months' gestation, it always gives birth to triplets... one male, one female, and one enabler, of course.
Video Games
- The Real Time Strategy Achron has the Grekim, a race of Time Travelling alien cyborg squid with three genders (octo, pharo, and sepi). Any two members of different genders may 'progenerate' a member of the third gender. The exact details of this process are unclear, but it does not seem to require direct physical contact, although a certain amount of proximity is still needed.
- The Galka in Final Fantasy XI are an all-male race. They reproduce by "reincarnation", whatever that means.
- In Mass Effect, asari reproduction is based on 'melding'. During said process, the asari scrambles and changes up a DNA sample of her own, using the DNA of her partner, whatever sex and (sentient) species it may be, as a map/inspiration. The randomized version of the asari's genes is then combined with an unchanged sample of them for purposes of producing offspring. Physical contact is not required, but not uncommon. Even more weirdly, mating within their own species is discouraged in order to avoid certain extremely nasty genetic defects that can occur from such a union.
- Much more disturbing with the Reapers, which melt down an entire sentient species into some sort of goo, which they mold into a new Reaper.
- In Patapon, you create new individuals by burying certain materials under a special tree.
- In an old Maxis game, Unnatural Selection, genetically engineered creatures reproduce via "melting into a skin colored blob, combinating and laying a baby version of themselves" you can watch this here
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- The tiny Pikmin apparently reproduce by bringing plant matter and insect corpses back to their hives/'onions', which spits out seeds that first plant themselves into the ground, mature for a while, and then get uprooted as new baby Pikmin. It is also possible that they require another creature (such as the player) to uproot them in order to enter their mobile phase and complete the cycle.
- While it's All in the manual, Gears apparently lay eggs or the children come out in a protective cocoon they later hatch out of.
- One of Atrus's journals from the Myst games describe an other-Agely creature called a "ting", which seals itself in a rock crevice, from which a bunch of lizard-like "solastings" emerge a couple of months later. It's unstated how the solastings give rise to the next generation of tings.
- In Spore, Alien Animals dance together, then one of them lays an Easter egg (and then you can see if you have enough DNA stored up to tweak your critter for the next generation.)
- Chao from the Sonic Adventure series reproduce when one Chao sits in a bed of flowers and it joined by another Chao, the two proceeding to nuzzle until an egg containing attributes from the two appears. Most Chao enter this mating phase naturally with time, though it's possible to force mating to occur by feeding them a certain fruit,
Web Comics
- Uryuoms from El Goonish Shive have this in spades. They have one sex (but identify as male or female, meaning they do have genders). It normally takes two individuals to make an egg, made by secreting a certain substance - it takes two only due to the amount needed. Once the egg (which looks like a meteor) is formed, it lacks any DNA of its own. DNA of anything can be put in (through the openings that make it look like a meteor), and it will naturally create a new viable chimeric being inside it. Any number of sources can be used, (the current record is twelve). There need not even be an Uryuom as one of the genetic parents!
- Basically, they reproduce via a genetic engineer's wet dream.
- In Homestuck, the Trolls reproduce by "mixing genetic material"* implied to be via sex, but the open audience of the comic limits a direct answer, letting the audience's imagination run wild with their lover and their archenemy in separate pails, and then giving the material to a drone. Gender is irrelevant to reproduction. All of the combined material is then basically mixed together, and a mother grub takes the best material and lays eggs for the whole species. As said in comic, Trolls sure are weird!
- This has the side-effect of making pails (and pictures thereof) Not Safe for Work among trolls, as seen here* note that Rose can be seen on the viewscreen with a bucket on her head.
- Universes themselves have a bizarre means of reproduction, which involves Stable Time Loops, a video game which manipulates reality and draws the players into the game, a war between anthropomorphic chess pieces which one side is always destined to lose, and sped-up frog breeding.
- Cherubs are even weirder than trolls. They can only mate with rivals, by a ritual where they typically go onto a black hole and turn into enormous, near-indestructable snakes that can only be harmed by one-another. Whoever loses the battle is impregnated with the young.
- Leprechauns are possibly weirder than cherubs, although we've been spared the details. Their bizarre alien romance involves combinations of nine emotions, one of which equates to human love or troll matespritship, and most of which involve pranks and riddles Unlike the four "quadrants" of troll romance, any of these relationships could lead to reproduction, following a "mating jig". Oh, and they seem to be a Single Gender Race.
- Sam Starfall from the comic Freefall is a Sqid. Only a small number of Sqid are fertile, and those breed early. Upon breeding, both the male and female die. A litter of young is born and, Sqids being scavengers, the Sqidlings have a ready-made food source. Other adults come along and pick Sqidlings to raise (a process described as being like picking a puppy). These "Mentors" raise the young Sqid in their race's ideals of chicanery and stealing everything not nailed down or on fire.
- The title character of Schlock Mercenary is a carbosilicate amorph, essentially a race of organic data-storage systems turned sentient. They typically reproduce by splitting off a part of themselves that contains their personality, and merging it with that of another. On top of that, due to the "sentient data-storage" bit, it's also possible to reproduce with non-amorphs through a period of observation - a process Commander Kevyn compared to marriage. On top of that, two amorphs battling it out usually results in, rather than one or both parties dying, a single amorph with merged personality traits of both combatants.
- Also in this 'verse are the Qlavo, who conceive normally with males and females, but hand off responsibilities of development to a third gender, muftales.
- Allow Volaster Jarvoc explain to you how demons of Asgard reproduce in Heart Core:
"...a demon never truly dies...but they never truly reproduce either. It's rare, but when a demon decides to renounce their life, an egg with their reincarnation appears...This egg will also have attributes from another demon they've been in contact with. Within two years' time, the new demon will require the originator's Heartcore, effectively relieving them of duty."
Web Original
- It's not what the exact process of reproduction is for aliens in Red vs. Blue, but in the end, somebody's going to get infected with an alien parasite and give birth. Even if they're male. And the alien in question is male too. It's like a miracle to see nature at work!
Western Animation
- Kiff from Futurama gets pregnant by touching someone.
- Kif's species (Amphibiosans) become receptive to DNA transfer (impregnation) when they develop a strong emotional bond with someone, their smizmar. DNA is transferred through touch, and presumably any species' DNA is compatible. While in the episode in question the biological parentage gets mixed up, the smizmar is the "true" parent.
- Dr. Zoidberg's species lay eggs into the ocean and then die off en masse. He's only lived so long because no female seeking a mate will even look at him. This doesn't prevent Zoidberg having a Jewish Mother-equivalent relative, so presumably some Decapodians avoid mating to raise the kids.
- There was an episode of the 90s X-Men cartoon where Rogue was almost turned into a Queen for the Brood, an alien race which breed by basically infecting other species and turning them into one of themselves. However, Rogue touched Wolverine, borrowing his Healing Factor and returned to normal.
- The French/Chzech cartoon Fantastic Planet features the Draags. When the Draags wish to reproduce, they go into a meditative trance, which causes a spherical forcefield bubble to form around them as they float up into the sky toward their planet's moon. Upon reaching the moon, they land on gigantic, headless Greco-Roman statues, which proceed to dance the waltz (no, really, that's all they do).
- In all fairness, that could have just been foreplay - the Oms (humans) did sort of start destroying the statues mid-dance.
Real Life
- Many of the above scenarios were based on the life cycles of Real Life organisms. Ichneumon wasps implant eggs in host species, eusocial insects have a reproductive caste, microorganisms physically merge when mating, plants alternate generations, and internal parasites (e.g. liver flukes) make all the above examples seem routine.
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