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Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#26: Nov 18th 2010 at 12:52:37 PM

Uterine Replicator would be any method of taking a zygote from fertilization to birth that does not involve an actual womb in an actual walking and talking female.

So, the Humanx Commonwealth example would not apply, since they used host mothers. Axolotl tanks in Dune would count, since the "females" are genetically modified and used solely for the purpose of growing fetuses.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#27: Nov 18th 2010 at 12:55:34 PM

That and the Dune example is meant to at the very least allude to this trope. It's playing fast and loose with it, but it's there. Thanks. What do we do with all the examples that are just cloning?

edited 18th Nov '10 12:55:52 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#28: Nov 18th 2010 at 1:02:00 PM

Just cloning? Well, the original idea of the trope is that you have a society that's based around "artificial" methods of reproduction. Cloning falls under that, if it's used in place of natural means of producing babies.

My personal vision is that the breakdown works as follows:

Addition: The only thing that makes this division a bit suspect is that, while you can have Gattaca Babies without using Uterine Replicators, you very rarely have Uterine Replicators without Gattaca Babies. After all, it makes little sense to have natural fertilization and then grow the resulting babies in a tank, although I'm sure someone's written about a Dystopia that tries it.

edited 18th Nov '10 1:13:22 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#29: Nov 18th 2010 at 1:55:48 PM

Actually, I've seen a fair bit of Uterine Replicators without Gattaca Babies. The Vorkosigian Saga and the Honorverse both have it. Babies are created via invitro fertilization and then just implanted in a replicator. There's no genetic engineering required. Just a sperm + an egg. You just stick it somewhere else to cook.

There's also the fact that a lot of times how they made the baby to stick in the tube will be completely glossed over. It's just there. Growing. It's more a Soft Sci Fi convention though.

edited 18th Nov '10 1:57:36 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
ExpiryBot Since: Dec, 1969
#30: Jan 12th 2011 at 11:04:11 AM

This thread expired after 60 days of inactivity.

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