Clans of the Aslan - has just arrived!

[G'Naakbusters]

Like, small bands of ihatei are definitely going to be a problem for neighbors. But hordes of ihatei seem a real stretch. There just doesn't seem like there's gonna be enough non-inheriting male Aslan who aren't going to join the clan military or a clan mercenary or exploration company to get land that way.

Perhaps we might include smaller clans in their entirety who think their prospects will be improved by attaching themselves to a member of a larger clan when he declares an interest to fly off and find land? If they support the expedition, they might earn a share of some newly settled world with more opportunity to expand, and gain the appreciation/protection of a major clan in the process? In which case I could see the majority or even entirety of a small clan's males joining Second-Son-of-TlaukhuBigCheese on his journey.

I think that while the focus of ihatei is on the motive of the instigating Aslan -- so, it's an expedition -- it also makes sense, when considering the entourage of the son of a prosperous clan, to think of it in terms of a migration. Whole low-status or landless families and clans hitching their wagons to a non-inheriting noble son. So in those cases it's probably not "second sons" in practice, but "a whole lot of Aslan (male and female) seeing opportunity and taking a gamble."

 

[Garnfellow]

I do like that they try to address some of the impacts of the 3:1 gender split and how Ihatei work. I still personally think that the idea of the ihatei being a major factor doesn't work unless the gender ratio is the other way around.

Every Aslan who has Territory will pass that on to his heir. With only 1/4 of children being male, it is at least as likely that any given Aslan with Territory will have no sons as it is that they will have extra sons. So a lot of "extra" sons in the clan probably have a good shot at being adopted as heirs by clan uncles with no sons. So a lot of ihatei are probably the sons of low ranking males who don't have any Territory to pass down and aren't satisfied with working for the clan as a soldier or other male job. So they aren't going to have a lot of resources.

Like, small bands of ihatei are definitely going to be a problem for neighbors. But hordes of ihatei seem a real stretch. There just doesn't seem like there's gonna be enough non-inheriting male Aslan who aren't going to join the clan military or a clan mercenary or exploration company to get land that way.

I think this is right on. A full-on clan-sponsored migration fleet as shown in the old "Syareahtaorl" adventure is going to be a once-in-a-generation event at best, and maybe not even once-in-a-lifetime.

 

[Vormaerin]

The average Aslan male needs to have 4 kids just for replacement rate. Even if typical Aslan families are 6-8 kids per generation, you aren't producing *that* many extra sons. To produce the levels of ihatei that are often implied, I think you'd need even larger families than that. And at that point, you have the kind of population pressure that doesn't produce ihatei. It produces full scale clan migrations as overpopulation squeezes in on the less successful clans.

Aslan society is like if we replaced half the male population of Earth with additional women. Female Aslan produce most of the economic activity and workforce, but there are still a lot of essential jobs in the economy that require male Aslan.

It is an interesting question to explore.

 

[Vormaerin]

A thing to keep in mind is that Aslan males can't run the ships by themselves. So the ihatei aren't just random failsons off on a quest for success. They need their sisters and other female relatives along to do the engineering, navigation, logistics, and so on. Ihatei groups might seem like an Aslan male thing, because within ihatei groups the ratio of males to females is atypically favoring males with the focus on soldiers. But those images of those camps of males milling about gathering for targets don't make sense unless a lot of ihatei practice female skills the way outcasts do.

 

[Garnfellow]

A thing to keep in mind is that Aslan males can't run the ships by themselves. So the ihatei aren't just random failsons off on a quest for success. They need their sisters and other female relatives along to do the engineering, navigation, logistics, and so on. Ihatei groups might seem like an Aslan male thing, because within ihatei groups the ratio of males to females is atypically favoring males with the focus on soldiers. But those images of those camps of males milling about gathering for targets don't make sense unless a lot of ihatei practice female skills the way outcasts do.

I agree that ihatei bands probably have to include females. And for many Aslan women, life in the Hierate is extremely constraining: throwing in with a migration fleet might be their best chance to break out.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Do Mongoose Aslan still see gender based on role rather than biological sex as was mentioned in CT?

If so an Aslan clan could raise a few females as "sons" to provide personnel for the ihatei...

 

[MasterGwydion]

Do Mongoose Aslan still see gender based on role rather than biological sex as was mentioned in CT?

If so an Aslan clan could raise a few females as "sons" to provide personnel for the ihatei...

Except that to a racial Aslan, it is considered taboo to even know how to perform jobs of the opposite sex. (extremely low standing Aslan or extremely poor Aslan on very small Aslan ships or all ships of other races may know these skills, but they still will not use them or even acknowledge knowing them in front of other Aslan.) If you are not a racial Aslan, then gender is more determined by role in society. Aslan viewing other species gender by their roles in society is just the Aslan way of making sense of other cultures. The same way Americans talk about other nations in terms of communism and socialism, even though most people living in said societies do not consider themselves that way. The Aslan viewpoint is based on a very limited idea on what is a male and what is a female.

Also, if an average family in the Heirate is 8.5 Aslan, (Father, Mother, Mother, Son, Daughter, Daughter, Daughter, Daughter, 1/2 Son) so every two families has an average of 1 Ihatei. With over 7 TRILLION Aslan living in the Heirate, that gives Us an average of almost 412 BILLION Ihatei at any given time. 412 billion is a huge amount of Ihatei.

 

[Vormaerin]

I don't think that was ever applied to Aslan. They definitely still do that with non-Aslan, in that they assume a human is whatever gender their job is if they don't have high levels of understanding and tolerating humans.

Even with female sons, those females are needed for their female role (making the ships work) rather than a male role.

Anyway, I think I'll start a different thread on Aslan since this is beyond the scope of the book that is the topic.

 

[Garnfellow]

Do Mongoose Aslan still see gender based on role rather than biological sex as was mentioned in CT?

I don't think there's any significant difference on this point between CT and MgT. The Aslan don't see biology as limiting who can be an Aslan: if a human embraces the tradition and practices of Aslan culture, they are generally accepted as Aslan. Along similar lines, sex shouldn't limit gender as long as an individual fully embraces the chosen role. In fact, in a species with such highly skewed sex ratios and a culture with highly rigid gender roles, some flexibility is probably essential for the society to remain functional.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Assuming the Aslan fertility is near replacement rate, then the average male Aslan has three wives; between them they have four children. Chances that any single child will be female is 75% so:
Families with 4 daughters = 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 = 31.6%
Families with 3 daughters = 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.25 = 10.5%
Families with 2 daughters = 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.25 x 0.25 = 3.5%
Families with 1 daughters = 0.75 x 0.25 x 0.25 x 0.25 = 1.2%
Families with 0 daughters = 0.25 x 0.25 x 0.25 x 0.25 = 0.4%

Alrighty, I have obviously screwed up the math somewhere, but it looks like non-ihatei-producing families outnumber ihatei-producing families by about a factor of ten.

 

[Garnfellow]

Alrighty, I have obviously screwed up the math somewhere, but it looks like non-ihatei-producing families outnumber ihatei-producing families by about a factor of ten.

Here are my calcs: https://greatdungeonnorth.blogspot.com/2022/02/aslan-family-structure.html

 

[G'Naakbusters]

I agree that ihatei bands probably have to include females. And for many Aslan women, life in the Hierate is extremely constraining: throwing in with a migration fleet might be their best chance to break out.

Indeed; supply and demand. There are a lot more "second daughters" than "second sons", given Aslan sex ratios. It only makes sense that "go yonder young cat" applies to the females as well, especially those with ambition but not quite cream of the crop.

It wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of "poaching" amongst the exoHierate clans and even the alien nations -- given how competitive Aslan are, enticing female Aslan to be number one in your neck of the woods rather than number three at home must be reasonably easy.

 

[Vormaerin]

Don't forget that the vast majority of the workforce is female. All the scientists, technicians, merchants, finance "bros", and the like are women. It is the Aslan woman who has the hard driving careerist options in Aslan society. Male Aslan have a lot fewer options.

 

[G'Naakbusters]

Don't forget that the vast majority of the workforce is female. All the scientists, technicians, merchants, finance "bros", and the like are women. It is the Aslan woman who has the hard driving careerist options in Aslan society. Male Aslan have a lot fewer options.

It really makes me wonder if the Hierate-approved Human clans artificially alter birthrates to achieve an Aslan sex ratio, or if they find some other means around it; do a lot of Human Aslan males just refer to themselves as females? Indeed, it might be harder for a lot of Human males to convince Aslan that they are male than otherwise.

I also wonder if some Human clans don't take advantage of Human biology to achieve more status than they, as little monkey-people, would otherwise earn. Most of the time, you have the "usual" sex ratio (with half the males being cultural females), but when your liege clan calls for direct military aid suddenly you have twice the number of males than usual...

 

[Vormaerin]

Yeah, the culturally Aslan humans probably have pretty liberal ideas about sex vs gender. It is all social construct. Aslan males aren't actually technologically incompetent by nature, as shown by Imperial and Darrian acclimated Aslan.

Human Aslan would, presumably, need some way to align aptitude with gender. Mostly for the men who are STEM oriented, as the women are pretty unrestricted really. Unless their goal is to be a fighter pilot or something.

 

[G'Naakbusters]

I like the idea that Humans lean in to flexibility using their biology as a justification.

My son is an engineer, so she's female, obviously, but if he wants to enlist for the clan war suddenly he's male, because look at his biology.

My daughter is a pilot, so he's male, obviously, but if she wants to retire to academia she's female now, because look at her biology.

Oh, those sneaky monkeys, gaming the system!

EDIT: To return to the book, it was great to get more on the Zodia Clan, the long-established but little-explored exemplifiers of Hierate Humans. The art was particularly good there, too -- I really did feel, "yep, these are Human Aslan".

 

[Terry Mixon]

Yeah, the culturally Aslan humans probably have pretty liberal ideas about sex vs gender. It is all social construct. Aslan males aren't actually technologically incompetent by nature, as shown by Imperial and Darrian acclimated Aslan.

Human Aslan would, presumably, need some way to align aptitude with gender. Mostly for the men who are STEM oriented, as the women are pretty unrestricted really. Unless their goal is to be a fighter pilot or something.

I can see a group of Sword Worlders settling there and they’d get on like a house on fire.

 

[Terry Mixon]

We should all migrate this over to the new thread @Vormaerin created. Be good members and copy what you’re talking about over there.

https://forum.mongoosepublishin/

 

[G'Naakbusters]

I can see a group of Sword Worlders settling there and they’d get on like a house on fire.

It does note in some sources that there's a Darrian Aslan-Sword Worlder veteran society that serves as one of the points of contact between the two.

In the New Era timeline where the Darrians and the Swordies eventually become close allies, I wonder if the Aslan had a fair amount to do with it...

 

[Garnfellow]

It really makes me wonder if the Hierate-approved Human clans artificially alter birthrates to achieve an Aslan sex ratio, or if they find some other means around it; do a lot of Human Aslan males just refer to themselves as females? Indeed, it might be harder for a lot of Human males to convince Aslan that they are male than otherwise.

I also wonder if some Human clans don't take advantage of Human biology to achieve more status than they, as little monkey-people, would otherwise earn. Most of the time, you have the "usual" sex ratio (with half the males being cultural females), but when your liege clan calls for direct military aid suddenly you have twice the number of males than usual...

One of my favorite sources on the Aslan is GURPS Traveller: Alien Races 2. It probably does the best job of thinking through day-to-day life in the Hierate. In the designer notes Andy Slack describes a similar discussion that came up during the playtest of AR2.