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Alien reproduction

caters

Sage
My generation ship aliens have several weird characteristics. Here they are in a list from top to bottom:

  • 3 antennae for hearing
  • Cat eyes but not a cat
  • No noticeable nose, just nostrils
  • 2 thumbed hand, thumbs being on opposite sides
  • Abdominal egg pouch
  • Milk supply in the abdomen
  • 6 toed feet, same shape as ours
  • Shedding skin all in 1 go, despite not completely reptilian(reptilian skin, reptilian metabolism(at least as adults), but mammalian instinct)

These are just external characteristics that you would see. Internally it is even weirder but let's ignore that since it isn't important.

They have a cycle similar to ours except they don't menstruate. Ovulation is different though. Instead of our 1-3 eggs ovulating, when they ovulate, it is 5-15 eggs. Twins and even triplets can develop inside a single egg and successfully hatch.

Now here is what happens past ovulation if the eggs are fertilized:

The fertilized eggs have a placenta-like structure within the amniotic sac. Infertile eggs pass through at their normal post ovulation date. But let's focus on the fertile eggs.

Like I said there is a placenta-like structure within the amniotic sac.

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So if you imagine the placenta in this picture being at the inner edge of the amniotic sac instead of being right outside it, that is where it is indeed.

Just like in a pregnancy, the egg implants but this is much more temporary. Once the egg implants, shell formation begins. As this happens, the egg grows as the baby grows until it reaches its maximum size. The nutrient supply of the yolk also increases. Once the shell has almost reached the top of the egg, the placental blood supply from the mother stops. I mean the placenta is still there but the blood in the placenta is decreasing to 0. As placental blood supply decreases the ischemic tissue breaks off and this ischemic tissue supplies protein to the embryo for a while. Now that the placenta is becoming ischemic this triggers the mother to push the egg out.

surprising-labor-and-delivery-facts-woman-in-labor-full.jpg


A mother alien pushing an egg out is like a woman pushing a baby out, excrutiatingly painful. And this happens 5-15 times with only a few minutes of relief in between eggs before it starts again. Each egg can take anywhere from 2 hours to 5 hours to come out, partly determined by whether there is a single baby, twins, or triplets inside the egg.

That is anywhere from 10 hours to 75 hours of egg laying. So that means that a mother alien could be laying eggs for 3 days and 3 hours + a*x minutes(x, minutes between eggs, a, number of eggs - 1)

So yeah, labor type pain is to be expected for up to 75 hours. These moms must have an incredibly high pain threshold. That and the ability to do fine without sleep for several days.

Now the abdominal egg pouch is used to keep all the eggs warm and safe. But the added weight does make it more likely that a mother alien will fall and break her eggs. It is like being pregnant in every sense except that the eggs are outside the body, not inside. This incubation period lasts for 2 months and then the baby aliens hatch. Once they hatch they are inside the pouch for up to 6 months and then for a few more years,outside the pouch but still needing milk.

But I am wondering if the way I made them reproduce is reasonable.

I mean the internal placenta(placenta in amniotic sac) would mean that there would have to be microscopic villi going between cells of the amniotic sac in order to get blood and nutrients from the mom during the temporary implantation and that calcification around the amniotic sac would have to somehow break those villi without causing the amniotic sac to leak.

I don't know how there could be enough villi squeezing between cells to supply the placental tissue with enough oxygen.

And 3 days of labor type pains when laying eggs seems like a long time to be in pain with no sleep.

Other than those things it seems perfectly reasonable the way my aliens reproduce.
 

Alyssa

Troubadour
Sorry for the text wall here.

Typically chorionic villi invade the endometrium. Would I be correct in saying that in this case the endometrium forms villi that penetrate through the chorion and develops a placenta through the perforations in the chorion it creates (I assume such villi would penetrate into the blastocoel and form a juncture with the inner cell mass from the inside - which might create immune problems at a later stage unless the endometrium is non-immunogenic or you get cell migration from the perforated edges of the chorion to help form the junction between them (apologies if my knowledge here is a little off or hazy)) this would mean that the chorion would exist as a perforated mesh rather than what would later become part of the placenta meaning that you would need to close hundreds or maybe even thousands of very small holes rather than one big hole (closing many small holes 1 micrometer at a time on each is far more rapid that closing one big hole 1 micrometer at a time and would mean that the surrounding area could already be calcified, leaving the occluded areas, still moderately flimsy and filmy but at least minorly supported by their surroundings until they can be fully calcified -or remain as large film covered pores).

Rather than have egg development induce ischemia which induces contraction (if there are different developmental rates other eggs could be lagging behind) have it so that the mothers body automatically detects when the eggs are suitably developed and cause blood to be shut off to the eggs (with abdominal muscles being mostly inhibited - painful contractions, muscle spasms and fragile eggs do not go well together) simultaneously only after the alien equivalent of a cervix has dilated sufficiently (human babies - even the skulls - are soft and malleable at birth, egg shells are not as far as I am aware, so you could say that the reason labour is so long and painful is that the cervix has to be sufficiently dilated to let the eggs almost slide out) that way the actual birthing is a rapid process and the eggs don't suffocate in the womb while they are deprived of oxygen, similarly it means the mother might be less likely to hemorrhage to death as blood supply is already cut off. With relatively little force required to eject the eggs due to far greater dilation the still partially uncalcified egg should remain safe in the outside world where it can access oxygen through pores. I assume the remaining placenta gets dissolved as need by digestive enzymes inside the egg through the umbilical cord.

3 days of labour would be tough (here in the UK we got 12 years of them with tony blair and gordon brown), however you can use this to show how tough your alien race is. Also, humans can go for extended periods without sleep. From an evolutionary perspective however 3 days of labor would make your aliens vulnerable when they had first started evolving - either they had a different way of birthing back then and have been advanced for so long that they evolved, literaly on the fly, or the males and females not in labor are badass killing machines / live in protective burrows (which could work too).

Antenna are generally for smell and taste in insectoid life (although less frequently they sense other things as well, including sound). Ears in mammals are usually well protected as the tympanic membrane and stereocilia are very delicate (of course it all depends on how delicate or sturdy these antenna are - are they prehensile?). Also from an evolutionary perspective, why is 3 better than 2? Where is this 3rd one located and why is it needed?

Hands. How many fingers. In humans the fifth finger only adds a small amount of strength to the powergrip. Would a second thumb actually impair the powergrip in these aliens? Is there anything noteable about these fingers? are they like a humans? or are they more like a prehensile appendage like a shortened octopus tentacle or shortened monkey tail?

Abdominal egg pouch? The long labor time means that the mother must be in a safe environment. If they evolved as roaming animals as part of a strong defensive pack then an egg pouch is necessary. If they evolved as burrowing animals like in ant colony then it is less so as they can simply be placed in a nest and sat on by someone else as the mother goes to get food. Their evolutionary origins along this vein will also affect things like their fingers and antenna.

Six toed feet, like ours? Are these creatures upright, bipedal/quadrupedal (with n + 2 limbs, where n is feet). Human feet are morphologically rather freakish, except among other bipedal animals, as they are partially designed to stop you toppling forwards under your own momentum when walking on two feet.

Twins and trips can develop from a single ovum? Or from a single final calcified egg? I assume you're talking about monozygotic twins here. If dilation is only just about enough for a single egg then how are they going to fit out monoamniotic monochorionic, diamniotic monochorionic, diamniotic dichorionic (fused) twins let alone triplets without the eggs being abnormally large, or the children abnormally small. If small you have a couple of runts of the litter. If the eggs are large but birth-able then why does labor take so long when the mothers cervix could dilate less and faster and only birth single di/poly-zygotic and diamniotic dichorionic (separated) children rather than trying to provide for the occasional freakishly large egg which could simply be terminated early on by the mothers body as inviable for birth.


Of course I could be completely wrong on multiple levels here. but just my 2 cents.
 
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Is it at all possible that maybe the alien was born to a culture where they all stayed up for 70 whatever amount of hours at a time? Maybe hailing from a planet where the days lasted that long or something??


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I'll admit I haven't read the entire thing. Been kind of busy, and I'll look into it in more detail in a few minutes. One thing that pops out, from a purely physiological perspective: If they lay eggs, they will absolutely have evolved in a way to make that more efficient than the humanoid female reproductive organs- which means it will absolutely not be like birthing a baby. Further, the laying of eggs means they would not nurse, which means mammary glands would not have developed. Thus, you are looking at creatures who look only vaguely humanoid, at most- maybe bipedal, but with a completely different reproductive system that does not look humanoid at all.
 

Alyssa

Troubadour
^It's like Pegasi or octopi.

Platypi is better lol

The plural is platypi, isn't it?

I think platypi and platypuses are equally acceptable. this is ironically correct :D
:cry: :cry: :cry:
Puts on Classics teacher glasses and fills house with cats.

Platypus is derived from the Greek third declension masculine noun πούς (think Oedipus - lit. swollen foot), meaning foot (platypus means flat foot). Unfortunately, having the dental ending stem of πόδ-, it has a fairly odd declension as δσ (ς is the same as σ but can only be written at the end of a word) is not a permitted combination in Greek. Resulting in a plural nominative form of πόδες and a single nominative form of πούς.

Platypus does not have a Latin etymology. πούς is not a Latin noun. The same applies to octopus (eight foot - the number, not the distance).

Platypus does not go to platypuses or platypi. In accordance with Golden Age Greek declension of 3rd declension nouns with a stem ending in a dental, it is Platypodes.
Like octopus is neither octopus or octopi. In accordance with Golden Age Greek declension of 3rd declension masculine nouns with a stem ending in a dental, it is Octopodes.

Now, I can hear you thinking already. "But what about Pegasus? Wasn't he invented by the Greeks?" You are, of course (being wonderful, amazing, witty and talented), correct. The thing is though that Pegasus is a second declension masculine Latinization of a third declension masculine Greek noun (Πήγασος). Because of the rare rule involving prohibition of the formation of dental character pairs (δσ, θσ, or τσ), both Pegasus and πούς end in a '-us' when converted into the modern alphabet. However, whereas Pegasus declines into Pegasi, platypus declines into platypodes.

Takes off Classics teacher glasses, evicts cats from house.
 
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Alyssa

Troubadour
I have no such inhibitions. XD
It did take a while though, haven't written any Greek or Latin for about 6 years now. Oh, well, such is the price of pedantry.
 
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^I have a Greek and a Latin dictionary, and I did notice several years ago that Platypus sounded rather like Oedipus.

So...what was the topic again? Oh, yeah, alien reproduction. In my books, even though everyone does reproduce by energy fusion, the babies are cocooned in energy eggs after birth, to protect them and give them vital nutrients and so forth.
 

Legendary Sidekick

The HAM'ster
Moderator
I think platypi and platypuses are equally acceptable.
They don't have nipples, so I cannot accept these creatures.

On topic for real, sea horses are weird but cool, doing the Arnold Schwarzenegger Junior thing. I also like having magical asexually-reproduced races crafted by intervening gods.

As for the Alien movies, I think I have a better grasp of those aliens' reproductive cycles than the makers of Alien[SUP]3[/SUP]. In time, I will accept the platypus' nipple-less torso. But I will never accept the deaths of Hicks, Newt, and Ripley. Never, I say!

STEP 1: a face-hugger hugs a face.

STEP 2: the face hugger dies.

STEP 3: the person whose face has been hugged would also like to die.

STEP 4: a chest-burster bursts out of a chest.

STEP 5: the chest-burster grows up to be an "alien" who mates with an "alien" of the opposite sex. There are two genders, and a male:female ratio that sucks if you're a straight guy and really sucks if you're a lesbian.

STEP 6: the queen "alien" gives birth and all the dudes hang out and are like, "that one's mine", "yeah, the biggest egg's mine because biggest", "uh... if I don't have to pay child support, I'm cool claiming the runt that died."

STEP 7: the egg hatches and, congratulations, it's a face-hugger!

REPEAT UNTIL ALIEN[SUP]3[/SUP].

STEP 8: An asshole filmmaker makes a face-hugger appear that has super-powers. It survives a five-year flight and impregnates Ripley, while Hicks dies for no reason and Newt also dies and has somehow aged during cryogenic sleep.

STEP 9: The Alien species evolves into whatever the next Alien filmmaker comes up with that's different from steps 1-7 because, yeah, whatever.
 
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