Zzzzzzzzzz
#2: Jun 14th 2014 at 9:47:18 PM
The description you quote at the beginning says
Perhaps we're dealing with aliens or supernatural beings and it's normal for them to conceive children this way
That covers all of the aliens you list as not being this trope. The description does not need to be changed, and those are good examples. Simply put, this trope is "There are more than two parents directly involved in the conception of offspring."
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
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#3: Jun 15th 2014 at 5:16:49 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Agreed.
To put it another way, since Most Writers Are Human, why would an alien race of beings that produce children with five genders be any less unusual than an alien that normally is produced by four genders getting a fifth? If I remember my Bruce Coville correctly, he had one story where a species had between 27 to 43 parents for offspring. It wasn't actually a set number, but the more people involved, the better.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
#4: Jun 15th 2014 at 5:19:17 AM
I do not see a problem with applying this trope to species that habitually have more than 2 "parents", either. 2 is really the standard in Real Life, so all exceptions in fiction can be put under the same trope.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
No, the other one.
#5: Jun 15th 2014 at 9:43:14 AM
The way I see it, the trope is about something strange/mystical/alien about the way a child is born. I don't think it matters if it's normal for the species it applies to, but the main purpose just seems to be that there's something different about that family.
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Zenoseiya
Since: Jan, 2001
#6: Jun 15th 2014 at 5:08:53 PM
Simply put, this trope is "There are more than two parents directly involved in the conception of offspring."
The trope description doesn't say that. It says (paraphrased) "Normally children are conceived by only two parents, but in this case an extra set of genes was added." It explicitly states that this child is an aberration from the norm.
Perhaps we're dealing with aliens or supernatural beings and it's normal for them to conceive children this way
This is being parsed wrong. It's not referring to aliens who always reproduce with three parents, it's referring to aliens who added their genes to a human couple and created a hybrid child. The word "aliens" links to Boldly Coming to make it clear it's talking about human/alien relations.
To put it another way, since Most Writers Are Human, why would an alien race of beings that produce children with five genders be any less unusual than an alien that normally is produced by four genders getting a fifth?
Five sexes is less unusual than four plus a fifth because the latter example is a violation of their own biological norms. This goes over the heads of most laymen, but it makes perfect sense to biologists.
If you're right, then the title of the trope is grammatically wrong. In the dictionary "extra" means "not strictly needed," but here it's being used as shorthand for "whatever humans find unusual." If the aliens must reproduce with five parents every time, then none of the parents are literally "extra," but only so to human social norms that ignore biological context. If we tropers were all parthenogenic, then your argument would consider two-sexed systems to be extra parent conception because we'd only need one individual to reproduce whereas they need two.
The way I see it, the trope is about something strange/mystical/alien about the way a child is born. I don't think it matters if it's normal for the species it applies to, but the main purpose just seems to be that there's something different about that family.
Odd way to put it. My argument is that this trope should only apply when its abnormal for the species of the child or otherwise involves more than the required number of parents to conceive at all.
Aside from improper grammar, the current popular definition means that most of the examples from Bizarre Alien Sexes will be duplicated on Extra Parent Conception because the latter consists mostly of multiple sexes being involved.
I'll break it down with numbers:
Summary of Extra Parent Conception (30 fictional examples, 8 [~27%] overlap with Bizarre Alien Sexes)
- 21 examples count as "normal reproductive method plus extras."
- 17 examples (Giorno Giovanna, Tefe Holland, Freddy Krueger, Humor, Merry Gentry, Mr. Fusspot, The Discovery Of Heaven, MC in Salman Rushdie's Shame, River Song, Liam Kincaid, Borg baby, Mis Conceptions, Gilgamesh, Heimdall, Theseus, Drowtales, Terry Mcginnis) involve two-sex couplings plus extra partners not required for conception with varying degrees of genes donated (from none at all to a majority of genes).
- 1 example (Zaphod Beeblebrox) involves an alien whose natural reproductive method was added to by accident.
- 3 examples (Joshua, Uryuoms, Trolls) involve arbitrary numbers of parents donating genes to a shared pool. The upper and lower limits are not specified.
- 9 examples count as "aliens that reproduce with a fixed number of parents, but always more than two."
- 8 examples (Sillage, Soft Ones, Alien Adventures, Azad, Tralfamador, Newcomers, Lo'ona Aeo, tri'ballians, Andorian) involve three or more parents of varying sexes being required for the aliens to spawn.
- 1 example (Yeerks) involves otherwise sexless aliens that merge in trios to spawn.
- 2 examples (Stanislaw, Species 8472) have more than two sexes, but never specify whether they involve more than two parents. More than two sexes does not equal more than two parents (as real world fungi can attest).
- 3 examples do not belong here by any stretch of the description
- 2 examples (Kurii, Puppeteers) involve two parents who parasitically implant their ravenous larvae in another creature
- 1 example (Grekim) only ever involves two parents of varying sexes.
Summary of Bizarre Alien Sexes (41 fictional examples, 21-25 [~51%-61%] overlap with Extra Parent Conception)
- 21 examples clearly state they require more than two parents to reproduce (Sillage, Soft Ones, Azad, My Teacher is an Alien, Venus and the Seven Sexes, Tralfalmador, Squelchers, stsho, Andorian, Vissians, Oankali, spicans, "name forgotten", pupfish, leospiders, Lo'ona Aeo, Newcomers, Droyne, Hydrans, tri'ballians, Orion's Arm)
- 4 examples are ambiguous
- 2 examples don't mention the number of parents (Sulamid, Paranids)
- 1 examples involves a third parent being valued, but optional (Boron)
- 1 example involves third partner to act as a womb, but it's unclear if they actually contribute genes (Qlaviql)
- 16 examples unambiguously do not overlap with Extra Parent Conception
- 1 example involves two males producing eggs (Pog)
- 2 examples are parasitoids with two parents (Puppeteers, Kurii)
- 9 examples involve more than two sexes with no details given (Boov, squales, Jelna Rigelians, Damiani, Last Men, Jokka, Stanislaw, Species 8472, Banned from Argo)
- 1 example involves a race where each indvidual is a unique sex/gender (Paws).
- 1 example involves males and hermaphrodites (Goa'uld)
- 2 examples involves multiples sexes but only two parents needed to reproduce (Grekim, Triaformica)
- 1 example should be moved to One-Gender Race (Sontarans)
If the Extra Parent Conception trope is defined as "involving more than two parents regardless of context", then more than half of the Bizarre Alien Sexes examples would be duplicated.
If the Extra Parent Conception trope is defined as "involving additional parents that are not necessary for reproduction", then less than a third of the examples on the page would need to be trimmed.
edited 15th Jun '14 5:36:16 PM by Zenoseiya
No, the other one.
#7: Jun 16th 2014 at 6:39:53 AM
Overlap isn't a problem of its own.
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KingZeal
Since: Oct, 2009
#8: Jun 16th 2014 at 6:48:21 AM
This is being parsed wrong. It's not referring to aliens who always reproduce with three parents, it's referring to aliens who added their genes to a human couple and created a hybrid child.
No it isn't. I know being the trope creator doesn't give me any extra say in how it's defined, but what Septimus Heap says is exactly how I wrote the definition to sound.
A baby being born from more than two parents is weird to us, in Real Life. Any example of it in fiction, no matter how normal for that culture, is an example as I initially intended.
edited 16th Jun '14 6:48:48 AM by KingZeal
#9: Jun 16th 2014 at 1:41:41 PM
It seems that the only issue here is the presenter reading the trope wrong. Is there any reason to keep it open or should I lock it up?
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Zenoseiya
Since: Jan, 2001
#10: Jun 16th 2014 at 4:14:13 PM
Overlap isn't a problem of its own.
I don't follow. If one trope has over half of its examples overlap with another trope, then the tropes are too closely related and one of them is too broad. Fast Eddie told me, concerning this, that:
We sometimes call the practice of modifying the definition of a trope in order to better fit a specific example "chasing the examples." You can't just keep modifying the definition to fit in more and more examples. The definition slowly becomes way too general and murky. Also, the definition will eventually come to a place where it even disagrees with itself. Another danger is that it could end up with more text explaining what the trope is not, rather than what it is. If you think a definition needs to change, the place to discuss it is the Trope Repair Shop.
I'm attempting to do the opposite, making the definition less murky and more strictly defined.
No it isn't. I know being the trope creator doesn't give me any extra say in how it's defined, but what Septimus Heap says is exactly how I wrote the definition to sound.
That's all fine and good, but then the trope name is gramatically incorrect.
A baby being born from more than two parents is weird to us, in Real Life. Any example of it in fiction, no matter how normal for that culture, is an example as I initially intended.
The phrase "extra parent conception" literally means "conceived with another parent beyond the required mininum." This includes any instance where a human child has multiple mothers and/or fathers or where species reproduce with an arbitrary number of parents.
The phrase "multiple parent conception" literally means "conceived by multiple parents" (but implied to be more than two). This includes not only the above extra parent conception, but any instances where species require more than two parents to reproduce but not an arbitrary amount.
It seems that the only issue here is the presenter reading the trope wrong. Is there any reason to keep it open or should I lock it up?
Would this topic be better served under "Unclear Description"?
I've got a new draft of the page, under the author's original definition, which I will paste below:
A child is conceived, but instead of simply mixing one male sperm and one female ovum, a third set of genes becomes involved.
And I can't really blame her much, although
I would love to read the guest list for that party
And if there's another like it let me know
Most often used in a Free-Love Future or as a result of Bizarre Alien Biology, a child turns out to be the genetic offspring of multiple people — except, it was natural conception.
Perhaps we're dealing with aliens or 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, Mass-Coitus Ensued and a baby happened.
Do not confuse with Homosexual Reproduction or Has Two Mommies, 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. Truly Single Parent is the opposite, where a child still doesn't have the normal number of parents but instead of more than two it's actually one.
May be related to Polyamory or occur during A Party, Also Known as an Orgy. The situation may spawn (or should that be "conceive") an Aesop about such activities.
This is by far the most common expression of Bizarre Alien Sexes (to the point that more than half of that tropes examples involve more than two parents).
Examples:
open/close all folders
Metaphorical (the child has two biological parents, but is treated as having more):
Film
- Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street 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. Freddy was the result, and became taunted all his life as the "Son of a Hundred Maniacs". In A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, one of the maniacs is shown to look exactly like pre-death Freddy, hinting that this is in fact his biological father.
Literature
- Mr. Fusspot, the canine bank Chairman from 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.
- The main character in Salman Rushdie's Shame was born to three sisters. Presumably only one of them actually gave birth to him, but since the other two went through sympathetic pregnancies, all three of them nursed him, and none of them ever divulges which the "real" mother was, they are all considered equally his mothers.
Real Life
- The way they ovulate makes domestic cats "superfecund," meaning a single litter of offspring can have multiple fathers. A tabby can mate with multiple toms and the resulting litter will consist of maternal half-siblings with a different father for each.
- While ultimately, it's still one sperm per egg, some sex researchers postulate that this is the basis of promiscuous behavior among women, getting multiple men to inseminate them so that only the fittest sperm will fertilize the egg, thus ensuring your progeny will be prodigious.
- A similar theory puts forth the idea that this is to create uncertainty as to who the father is, inspiring all the men it could possibly be to help support the woman and child on the off-chance it's theirs. It's still, of course, one egg and one sperm, but the resulting child would have many possible fathers.
Literal (the child inherits traits, genetic or otherwise, from an extra parent):
Anime And Manga
- To some extent, Giorno Giovanna is the son of Johnathan Joestar, Dio Brando and his unnamed mother, as a result of Dio fathering him while possessing Johnathan's body. Though biologically a Joestar, he seems to inherit more traits from Dio.
Comic Books
- Tefe Holland from Swamp Thing. Swampy and his wife wanted a child, but since he doesn't have the necessary equipment, John Constantine did it instead, although he was being possessed by Swamp-Thing. This resulted in Tefe being born human but with powers over The Green.
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 at least he isn't barking.
Literature
- Merry Gentry: Merry eventually gets pregnant with twins, and the twins have three fathers each.
- In The Discovery Of Heaven by Harry Mulisch (also made into a film), the child who brings the Laws of God back to heaven has one mother and two fathers. Ada, the mother, has sex with both men on the same night.
Live Action TV
- River Song in Doctor Who is Amy and Rory's daughter, but because she was conceived on the TARDIS while in flight in the Time Vortex, she somehow has Time Lord DNA incorporated into her genetic makeup as well — enhanced by a little manipulation from the Silence. The TARDIS considers herself River's mother.
- In Earth Final Conflict 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.
- In a rare non-human example, Zaphod Beeblebrox of The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy has way more direct parents than anyone can count, due to an accident involving a contraceptive and a time machine. Because of this, his ancestors are also his direct descendants, and he shares at least three mothers with Ford Prefect, making them semi-half-cousins.
- On Star Trek: Voyager, after a transporter accident involving Seven’s nanites, The Doctor’s holographic projector, and a random Red Shirt’s tissue sample, a Borg baby is "born."
Music
- The Mercedes Lackey song "Mis Conceptions" features a character who was apparently the result of a party with several mythological beasts as guests.
And I can't really blame her much, although
I would love to read the guest list for that party
And if there's another like it let me know
Mythology and Legend
- Several ancient 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. Unsurprisingly, this occurs a few times in their mythology; the typical example is a demigod with one mother and two fathers, any two of which can gods.
- The Epic of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh claimed to be "two thirds god, one third human", implying he had three parents. The implication is that Gilgamesh's mortal mother slept with two gods.
- Heimdall, in Norse Mythology, has nine mothers. We do not get any further explanation as to how this works.
- Happens in Greek Mythology:
- Theseus was the son of both Aegeus and the sea god Poseidon, due to his mother taking an early morning wade in the ocean.
Tabletop Games
- In Scarred Lands, the god Vangal is the child of three titans. His mother is Lethene and his fathers are Chern and Thulkas.
Webcomics
- The twist ending of one non-canon sidestory of Drowtales has Asira'malika Val'Jaal'darya cheerfully announce after teasing the (all female) clan leaders at a gathering about the identity of the baby she's carrying that they are all the child's mothers. The other leaders all either think this is a bad joke or get angry at her, but a montage showing the child growing up shows that she displays traits from their various bloodlines.
Western Animation
- In the Justice League Unlimited finale Epilogue, it is reveal that Terry Mcginnis is more than just the son of Warren and Mary Mcginnis, but 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, when genetically their children should have been red haired too.
Other
- In Conway's 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".
Real Life
- 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.
- It is 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 almost always 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.
- Bacteria will exchange genetic material with one another through a variety of methods. While it isn’t technically sexual reproduction, later generations will have genes from many different parent strains.
- Viruses do the same thing, but using a host cell as an intermediary.
Bizarre Alien Reproduction involving an arbitrary number of parents
Literature
- In Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi, the alien race who visits Earth can conceive children from arbitrary numbers of parents. The most prominent alien character, Joshua, is the child of the entire ship's crew and the first human to visit the ship.
Live Action TV
- In Andromeda, the Than-Thre-Kull (an insectoid One-Gender Race) reproduce by laying eggs in communal burrows. The eggs mix genetic material, meaning that all the resulting grubs are biological siblings and all the adults that participated are their biological parents. Unsurprisingly, their society involves a complex web of family relationships.
Video Games
- In the X-Universe, the Boron have three sexes: male, female, and Lar. The presence of a Lar during reproduction is highly valued, though not strictly necessary.
Webcomics
- Uryuoms in El Goonish Shive reproduce this way. The egg can merge DNA from multiple sources, not necessarily
including Uryuom at all. As they say (in the strip titled "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 unlikely to ever be explained canonically.
Bizarre Alien Reproduction involving a fixed number of multiple parents
Comic Books
- Sillage: One species requires one male and two females, though no details are given as to how it works.
Literature
- In Isaac Asimov's novel The Gods Themselves, the alien Soft Ones have three sexes, all of which are required for reproduction. The one that actually gets pregnant is referred to throughout using male pronouns.
- A gag to this effect appears in the Rod Albright Alien Adventures 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.
- The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks: The Empire of Azad is ruled by a humanoids with three genders. Male, female and apex. The apices have ovaries and an evertible vagina that is used as an ovipositor after a male has fertilized them. All three genders contribute genes (the females by some kind of endogenous retrovirus), but the knowledge that females are more than passive child bearers is suppressed: the apices are very much on top and exercise crushing sexual discrimination against both other genders.
- The Yeerks of Animorphs are sluglike aliens whose reproduction apparently involves three of them fusing into a single mass, from which larvae spawn.
- In Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, the Tralfamadoreans reproduce with three genders, and further claim that humanity actually requires more than that to reproduce (although only two need to be physically performing the deed in three dimensions; the others are involved in an unspecified extradimensional way).
- The Lo'ona Aeo in Mikhail Akhmanov's Arrivals from the Dark series have 4 sexes. Roughly translated into English, they are "full male", "half-male", "half-female", and "full female". Only the full female sex is capable of conceiving and bearing a child. A full male and half-male are required for the "mental contamination" process that kick-starts the pregnancy (no physical action required). The half-female sex is sterile and does not participate. The Lo'ona Aeo are capable of chemically altering the future sex of a child, as necessary to maintain the genetic diversity. A Lo'ona Aeo named Zantu defied her parents by allowing herself to become a full female, as originally intended by her genes, instead of the half-female her parents wanted her to be. She was exiled until such time as she reaches the Lo'ona Aeo equivalent of menopause and is no longer a threat to the genetic makeup of the species. Zantu's child is unique among the Lo'ona Aeo for having only two parents, her father being Sergey Valdez, whose Psychic Powers unintentionally triggered the process. The child is still a full Lo'ona Aeo, but he has inherited some of Sergey's adventurous traits.
- Venus and the Seven Sexes, a 1949 short-story by William Tenn, features a seven sexed species that passes gametes in a chain: sex "D" receives from sex "C" and transmits to sex "E." The sex of the offspring is determined by the sex of the parent which receives/completes the fully fertilized gamete. One sex is tasked with coordinating the family.
- Bob Shaw's "Warren Peace" has the Squelchers, an alien race with no less then six different sexes, each one with its own unique appearance, and with a reproductive cycle where each sex fertilizes the others in turn. The forms look so different that, to the vast majority of the universe, the species only consists of the fourth sex, which resembles an orange haired saggy sasquatch (kind of like a blown up balloon that's developed a slow leak) with multiple eyes in a ring around its head (usually covered by its fur), oversized feet that let it wade on water, and two giant red nipple-like gamete sacs positioned one above the other on its torso. The fifth sex, the only other one mentioned, is described as being indistinguishible from a tree, except for the presence of a pair of two dual-pronged ovipositors (they look almost identical to staples) sprouting from its trunk.
- Chanur Novels: The stsho have three sexes, called "gtst", "gtste", and "gtsto", 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/emotional stress can cause a stsho to undergo "phasing" and spontaneously change sex as well as personality.
- In Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood books, there are male and female Oankali, but the third gender Ooloi does the genetic mixing.
- In Piers Anthony's Cluster series, the Spicans have three sexes - impact, undulant, and sibilant - of which all three are required for reproduction. 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.
- One science fiction story (name forgotten) features an alien species with five sexes, all of which are involved in the conception and raising of a child in their own way. The meat of the story involved an individual of the "siring" sex taking a "nurturing" partner to court to get custody of their offspring.
- In the novel Silent Runners, aliens nicknamed "pupfish" evolved with three sexes: males, females, and pouchers. All three are necessary to reproduce: males fertilize females, who produce underdeveloped larvae that are deposited in a poucher (like marsupials), where the larvae receive the poucher's chromosomes and continue their development. The species is also superfecund, with a female able to birth the larvae of multiple males at once, and multiple females can deposit in the same poucher. The author worked out a pretty detailed analysis of the biology behind this.
- In William Barton and Michael Capobianco's Alpha Centauri, the "leospiders" apparently had several different sexes: males suck some sort of seed from quondam females, take more from quasimales, inseminate macrofemmes with the collection... It's confusing since the expedition learns about the process from multi-billion year old pornography.
Live Action TV
- The Newcomers in Alien Nation. 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.
- One episode dealt with changing social roles as the Newcomers adapted to life on Earth. A binnaum has married a female and seeks the help of "his" male friend in reproducing (IIRC the binnaum was the one to help the male and his wife produce their own children years ago). The male is at first uncomfortable with this non-traditional situation (the male being an absent parent while the binnaum will raise the child), but eventually agrees.
- In the Star Trek Expanded Universe, Andorians have four genders, two that approximate male, two that approximate female. Since they have a low birth rate, it's a Hand Wave for why that race isn't seen much in space, despite being one of the Federation's founding species.
Tabletop Games
- The Droyne in Traveller have three sexes: Male, female, and enabler, the enablers being required to give off scent during a mating session. Droyne also are casted in the manner of social insects and each caste has only one sex. Droyne language focuses more on caste then on sex as that is more important in their psychological framework.
- In Star Fleet Battles, the methane-breathing Hydrans (an Expy of the Masters from John Christopher's The Tripods trilogy) have three arms, three legs, and three sexes: male, female, and "enabler." Males take command and technical positions while females take worker, pilot and soldier professions, though rarely females will take command positions. Enablers are barely sentient and exist only for breeding and caring for young, though some sterilized enablers are used as servants on their starships. It requires all three sexesto 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.
Webcomics
- In Sluggy Freelance, the tri'ballians have 82 sexes, elaborate mating rituals and major interpersonal issues as a result. Their continued existence is a cross of A Wizard Did It and Rule of Funny.
Comments?
edited 16th Jun '14 4:50:19 PM by Zenoseiya
#11: Jun 16th 2014 at 4:54:35 PM
They all the same trope according to the definition and the distinctions are rather arbitrary and unnecessary. I'll lock this up. For story telling purposes, they're the same thing.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Total posts: 11
I've been reading the Extra Parent Conception trope, and something popped out at me. This is the description:
Most often used in a Free-Love Future or as a result of Bizarre Alien Biology, a child turns out to be the genetic offspring of multiple people — except, it was natural conception.
Perhaps we're dealing with aliens or 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, Mass-Coitus Ensued and a baby happened.
Do not confuse with Homosexual Reproduction or Has Two Mommies, 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. Truly Single Parent is the opposite, where a child still doesn't have the normal number of parents but instead of more than two it's actually one.
May be related to Polyamory or occur during A Party, Also Known as an Orgy. The situation may spawn (or should that be "conceive") an Aesop about such activities.
Then I see examples like these:
It seems to me that some contributors have mistakenly assumed that the extra parent conception trope applies to any instance where a child has more than two parents, even though the trope clearly specifies the child has more parents that were strictly required to conceive it in the first place. We already have a trope for reproduction that requires more than two parents: Bizarre Alien Reproduction. Bizarre Alien Sexes covers instances where conception requires more than two sexes. The way Extra Parent Conception is being treated by contributors is both not consistent with the description, and means it will duplicate most of the examples on the Bizarre Alien Sexes page since the majority of them cover more than two sexes.
Therefore, I propose this revision to the Extra Parent Conception description:
This trope applies anytime another parent beyond those required to conceive is involved. A heterosexual couple plus other partners is the most common instance because Most Writers Are Human, but a normally parthenogenic alien who receives genes from a single partner or trisexual aliens who receive genes from a fourth partner would also count. Conversely, this trope doesn't apply when a fixed number of parents over two is required for a given species to conceive. That falls under Bizarre Alien Reproduction instead (though the tropes overlap if the species conceive with an arbitrary number of parents).
Compare Bizarre Alien Sexes, Has Two Mommies, Homosexual Reproduction, Mix-and-Match Man. Contrast Truly Single Parent.
What do you think?
edited 15th Jun '14 5:23:49 PM by Zenoseiya