More on gender in SF, and the Moclans

[vilakins]

Another trope in SF series is that females are always smaller and more rounded than the males and of course with mammary glands, no matter the alien race, even reptilian ones. (Discovery, you could have made Saru's sister as thin and angular as him, but no.)

However I'm now wondering what Moclan females are. The males mate and lay eggs, so what, anatomically, are "females"? Essentially neuter? With no children to take care of (and be expected to have), they could instead be the defenders, protectors, the standing army, even the governing body.

Come on, The Orville, you could find some old records showing something like that, and the current persecution perhaps based to be on a long-ago failed military uprising.

I bet you won't, but prove me wrong.

Comments

[astrogirl]

Moclan reproduction makes very little sense to me. The only thing I can figure, honestly, is that they're actually hermaphroditic, and the differences between "male" and "female" body types are mostly cosmetic.

[jaxomsride2]

How two phenotypical males can reproduce might indicate a form of parthenogenesis.
However it requires two which suggests some form of gamete exchange must occur. Evidently females can be born from this, which suggests that the surgical process to make a Moclan female male actually does not affect the reproductive organs responsible for producing eggs. The fact that Klyden was originally female might not be a coincidence. It could be the male pairs require one to have been originally female to reproduce. (Wouldn't that be heretical to point it out though!)

Though how this came to be the norm and females reviled is a mystery which the latest episode of the Orville disappointingly failed to shed any light on. They made a big deal about the divide but the cultural reason is so long established that neither side actually thinks about the why any more.