Musings: Andorians, Triexians, Bajorans. Random thoughts.

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by Deranged Nasat, Mar 28, 2010.

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  1. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    Not to mention that "fanon" had speculated three Andorian sexes since the 70s. Prominent ST fanwriter and filker, Leslie Fish, suggested A Summary of the Physiological Roots of Andorian Culture in 1976, and elements of her work cross pollinated into other fan writers' works of the day.

    http://andorfiles.blogspot.com/2009/09/summary-of-physiological-roots-of.html
     
    Therin of Andor, Apr 1, 2010
    #41
  2. Myasishchev

    Myasishchev Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    True; I'm not denying Jarman's creative leap from simple foursomes to the four gender thing.

    Therin, I like the "birds, bees, seahorses and kangaroos" picture in that. :D
     
    Myasishchev, Apr 3, 2010
    #42
  3. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    It wasn't Heather Jarman, it was SD Perry working with Marco Palmieri, in "Avatar" and then spelled out in "Unity", with additional extrapolations from Heather in "Paradigm".
     
    Therin of Andor, Apr 3, 2010
    #43
  4. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    Yep, I find it fascinating that Leslie Fish was dabbling in this way back in 1976, Marco deliberately avoided looking at my archived site of Leslie's work (because he had to) when they were planning the post-series novels - and yet the "the birds, the bees, the seahorses and the kangaroos" still fits with Perry's and Jarman's novels' take on Andorians.

    What is at the opposite ends of the spectrum is that Ms Perry extrapolated underpopulation, and eventual extinction, from four sexes. Ms Fish claimed the three-sexes paradigm to be so "efficient, in fact, that over-population has been a primary social problem throughout all recorded Andorian history".
     
    Therin of Andor, Apr 3, 2010
    #44
  5. Myasishchev

    Myasishchev Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, I am proven wrong. I always thought Jarman invented/resurrected/appropriated/refined/whatevered it.:alienblush:

    Anyway, underpopulation would probably be a more likely outcome, though--arranging a two-body collision is hard enough. :p
     
    Myasishchev, Apr 3, 2010
    #45
  6. Vestboy

    Vestboy Captain Captain

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    Seriously. As hard as the whole thing is on Shar in the DS9-Relaunch, with four genders there would almost have to be a cultural mandate that boiled down to, "You four! Mate, damn it!"
     
    Vestboy, Apr 3, 2010
    #46
  7. DevilEyes

    DevilEyes Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Wow, the shen sure get a lot of action! :eek:

    Nah, that would be like two men getting it on... can't have that in Trek, can we? Two chicks, that's OK, but two guys... :shifty:



    Are those completely random combinations, with X and Y standing for nothing in particular? If not, I am even more confused. Why would a thaan have a combination more similar to a zhen than to a chan?
     
    DevilEyes, Apr 5, 2010
    #47
  8. Vestboy

    Vestboy Captain Captain

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    The "X" and "Y" in this case refer to two hypothetical sex-determining chromosomes, which form a base-quad in the Andorian-equivalent of our 23rd chromosome. "Ш" and "Ѳ" could work just as well. My point was to demonstrate that with base-quads, only two types are necessary to create four genders. The exact quad-combination to gender is just a suggestion on my part, and if someone has one that works better, by all means.
     
    Vestboy, Apr 6, 2010
    #48
  9. DevilEyes

    DevilEyes Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, if thaan and chan are supposed to correspond to "male", and zhen and shen to "female", with chan and shen the more androgynous ones, unless Memory Alpha is lying to me, it seems to me that it would make a lot more sense if it went something like this:

    zhen: XXXX
    shen: XXXY
    chan: XXYY
    thaan: XYYY

    Kind of like in human genetics where the people who happen to be XXY are androgynous compared to most XY males. It seems to me that a shen should have a combination more similar to a zhen than to a thaan, and that a thaan should have a combination more similar to that of a chan than to a shen. Regardless of the whole androgyny thing, "female" zhen should have a combination more similar to "female" shen than to the other two, "male" sexes.

    Your main point, however, stands - I did the maths, and unless I made a mistake in calculations, the statistical probability is that there would be just 3 thaans and 3 zhens to 13 chans and 13 shens. The four person marriage doesn't really make sense in that context, what do all those other chans and shens do? Or are they just free to have recreational sex and not participate in the reproduction?

    But then, as you said, this might be the reason why they're dying out. Still, I don't see how they think it could be fixed with a four person marriage.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2010
    DevilEyes, Apr 7, 2010
    #49
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