How can I allow phoenixes to reproduce without overpopulation?

If Phoenixes can regenerate and reproduce, there is absolutely no way to prevent overcrowding and eventually just a complete breakdown of nature. I really didn't want to have there be a single phoenix because basically the only way to explain that would be A Wizard Did It.

The only idea I've been able to come up with is that phoenixes draw upon some limited "force" that can only support a certain number of phoenixes and that after a new one tries to regenerate a random phoenix somewhere either loses the ability to regenerate or just drops dead entirely. That doesn't really seem like the best option though, and I was wondering if you guys had some better ideas.

edited 5th May '15 9:55:30 PM by Nathan2055

First, define immortality. Second, why would an immortal being need to reproduce?

edited 5th May '15 10:31:04 PM by nekomoon14

I'm curious: For your story (and I assume this is for a story you're working on), do you have some reason for this to come up? Like, does a character get a phoenix egg or something? And then, is there any way you can avoid the question?

I'm one of those guys who insists that every bit of worldbuilding serves the story in some way, which is why I ask. If a puzzle can be avoided by taking another option, I'm the guy who goes "Swerve!"

Or, to be more helpful...

Phoenixes are kind of defined by their "regeneration," with a cycle of life, death, flames, ashes, and rebirth. So it's entirely possible that they just always existed, and that there would be a limited number of phoenixes in the world.

Huh. Now that gets me thinking about "phoenixes as an endangered species."

edited 5th May '15 10:55:00 PM by AwSamWeston

That may be the oddest thing the IUCN has ever had to consider.

Some ideas:

They have a limited number of regenerations (say 5), but naturally live long lives with only one egg-laying season per life. Their habits make it difficult for them to meet (absolutely enormous territory, which they don't share with mates?), so in practice it's only one or two young per regenerating adult.

The regeneration takes forever (think pitch-drop experiment), and is not a rejuvenation so much as automatic recovery from injury or illness, so they take forever to age normally. This also means they really don't have much time to be up and about, and the incubation period for an egg is both long and only "on the clock" when both parents are alive.

The same force that revives them also prevents successful birth - they cannot become "alive" until they have died (that is, going from living to dead), and they are not alive until they have been "born". A reversal of the Chicken Vs. Egg problem, I think.

At some point, the regeneration introduces mutations. There are "original" phoenixes, which are the classic bird-type creatures, and there are the Faynocks, which are... I dunno, humanoids who basically act like large, curious cats? The Faynocks can no longer regenerate, and this keeps the Phoenix population down.

The Phoenixes dimension-hop once they reach a certain number of regenerations. The only way to keep them in our dimension is to keep them from dying... and they are dumb birds in their youth, like early season Hank and Dean-dumb. They are the orangutans of finding new ways to accidentally off themselves in captivity, too - easiest way to find out if a prisoner can die in your jail is to leave a phoenix in a cell overnight.

It's late, and that's about all I can manage. C'mon, let's see some theories, peeps!

EDIT: Also, I meant that as five different stories. I dare anyone to cram all five into a single story, and still somehow end up with something coherent.

edited 6th May '15 1:23:33 AM by DeusDenuo

The way I've always understood it, Reproduction causes irrecoverable death.

Maybe it works like fire spirits. They reproduce to bring a new face into the world of their kind, but as the offspring grows it takes the life of the others slowly so it may live.

Let's say that while phoenixes never die of old age, they can die of injury or illness.

Hence the need both to regenerate once they're old enough, as well as the need to reproduce.

But let's say that they reproduce like pandas. They're just not interested. They generally prefer hermitage or platonic relationships with one another. Almost all eggs are produced by accident and then are promptly ignored/forgotten by the parent Phoenixes. Unless the egg sustains very specific conditions, it will never hatch. Or it will rot, or get eaten by a giant serpent.

edited 6th May '15 6:52:43 AM by Faemonic

Make their reproductive success dependent on the availability of a limited resource. Nicely prevents any exponential growth and attrition ought to be able to keep up with linear growth rates even for a mostly immortal species.

I gotta say, Deus Denuo: those are some really clever solutions.

That first one gets me thinking of a nature show that documents the lives of a phoenix, where the narrator says "Our phoenix friend has just crossed into the territory of another phoenixes. And it looks like these two phoenixes are both in their mating cycles! It is rare for two phoenixes to meet in the wild, so this is a happy coincidence. The phoenix is only able to reproduce in the third of its five lives, which means time is short: If a phoenix wishes to bolster the ever-dwindling numbers of its species, it only has one hundred years to find a suitable mate."

Phoenix are only immune to death by age. They can be killed forcibly.

What everyone else said above are great suggestions. Although I should note that keeping the population STABLE is not necessarily the same as "crap, too many phoenixes!"

First option: Maybe they only lay two or three eggs most of the time to keep the population stable, but if they sense some sort of magical/physical threat to their population, they start going into overdrive and lay many more eggs than usual. It would lead to a cycle of "normal population -> THREAT TO SPECIES, MAKE MORE BABIES -> threat is gone, but keep making babies for insurance -> back to normal." That's what I did with my Nanowrimo novel, where the dragons had to go into hiding but then I faced population/discovery problems. I had the females only lay two or three eggs every couple of years to keep the population stable, but when The Magic Comes Back for the protagonists' time, it triggers the shift from "many mothers laying two or three eggs each" into "a few mothers laying dozens of eggs each." I also had the gender ratio be skewed more towards males, as mentioned in my second option.

Second option: One gender outnumbers the other. Even if they lay lots of eggs at a time, it's still hard to find mates. My dragon groups can have as few as ten females to fifty or sixty males, so in times of peace, they can keep the population stable without overrunning the world even with laying two or three eggs every year.

Third option: Harem-style groups. One male won't have enough time to mate with a lot of females, but they'll do their damnedest to keep OTHER males from mating with their harem. To gender-flip it, maybe females have several mates-slash-bodyguards to safeguard both her and her offspring. Again, one female wouldn't have enough time or energy to lay eggs from more than two or three fathers.

edited 6th May '15 2:37:18 PM by Sharysa

Another option that's fairly common in nature: Overpopulation induces stress that triggers hormonal changes, leading to infertility.

Just say they can't revive in certain circumstances, like dying in water or getting eaten.

Or they can't regenerate if they're already an egg. Smash the egg, no more phoenix.

Just have death by predator. That's how the populations of species that are The Ageless (immortal jellyfish, hydra, sturgeon) are kept in control.

That does raise the question, what could possibly eat a creature that explodes when it dies?

Dragons, of course.

Energy-draining vampiric mist.

That's actually a pretty good idea!

Dragons need a lot of energy to fly. Depending on how big a typical one is, a flock of phoenixes^note What's the collective noun for a phoenix? We have a murder of crows, a parliament of owls, a blessing of unicorns... could feed a dragon for at least a few days... Among other prey, of course.

And since they'd be territorial Apex Predators (like sharks or lions in the real world), that means a dragon could ravage one phoenix population, leave for other stomping grounds, and come back in a couple hundred years to pick off some from the new generation.

edited 8th May '15 1:37:37 PM by AwSamWeston

Forget the collective noun, what's the proper plural?

I'd say "phoenices", myself...

"Phoenices" sound like gonads. I'd go with "phoenixes".

An aubade of phoenixes? A palinode of phoenixes? A bonfire of phoenixes? A dawn of phoenixes? A lix (licks, like tongues of flame) of phoenixes?

"Conflagration"? :P

Maybe it explodes only when it dies normally?

edited 9th May '15 10:10:50 AM by Bk-notburgerking

Regarding the plural, at least one dictionary cited by dictionary.com gives the plural as "phoenices" (it's the entry from Collins, I believe—scroll down)—but that's for the constellation, and the site itself recognises "phoenixes" in a search, and not "phoenices".

So, yes.

(I prefer "phoenices", myself.)

Dawn of Phoenixes sounds the most appropriate.