Clans of the Aslan - has just arrived!

Since polygamy is a thing, why settle for a slug when you can aspire to mediocrity or greater?
A female who settles for an unworthy partner dooms her offspring to a similarly low status.

Unless she's the Aslan equivalent of completely disgusting. 300lbs of furry blubber, always flicks her dewclaws out over the littlest things, and she's a crap household manager to boot. But, there's always some landless loser who'll take up with her. And this, my son, is where low status Aslan come from.
 
The core problem with the ihatei conception that developed in the New Era Regency publications is that it ignores that Aslan clans need males at home. The clan military is not going to consist entirely of family heads and their firstborn. Even with female Aslan making up the vast majority of the civilian workforce, there's still need for males to do a variety of tasks, such as driving and piloting.

Some Aslan will always choose the option of going ihatei instead of serving the clan. But the idea that it is a huge swarm makes little sense. They probably loom larger in pop culture (Aslan & Human) than they do in reality.
It never says that second sons are always Ihetai. They could be serving in their clan militaries gaining training and resources before they become Ihetai and going off to find their own lands. Or they could earn lands from their service.
 
It never says that second sons are always Ihetai. They could be serving in their clan militaries gaining training and resources before they become Ihetai and going off to find their own lands. Or they could earn lands from their service.
That just makes the Ihatei problem worse. If non-first sons are already too rare to support the 'waves of Ihatei' narrative, then giving them productive ways to exit the Ihatei path (like earning lands through service) does not explain how Ihatei are a thing.

In-universe, 'The Ihatei Problem' is that there are inevitable, inexorable hordes; driven by essential biological imperatives. But that faces 'The Real Ihatei Problem', which is that such things seem to be completely implausible or absent -- and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to reconcile the two.
 
I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, but the "inevitable, inexorable hordes" theme did not exist until the Regency Sourcebook and New Era timeline. Before that, ihatei were essentially a nuisance. For whatever reason, they decided that they needed the Aslan to surge deep into the Marches until Super Norris convinced them all to be a Foreign Legion against the Virus & Vargr. Which is, frankly, one of the least obnoxious things about that book.

Anyway, that seems to have been retroactively applied to the Mongoose version of the Trojan Reaches, so there are ever growing hordes of Aslan that no one seems to need for their struggle against the Glorious Empire and are just building up to swarm across the Reach and into the Marches in a couple decades.
 
I think the GDW authors probably understood the ihatei numbers didn't make a lot of sense. There was more than a suggestion in Rebellion and Regency sources that the ihatei wave was actively sponsored by the Eakhtiyho and not a spontaneous movement. Mike's idea about Norris inviting Aslan into the Marches could probably be woven into the story as well.
 
The maths comes together when you remember that there are 4 ways to have either one son or one daughter, and 6 ways to have two of each. So the maths should be

Families with 4 daughters: 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 x 100‎ = 31.6%

Families with 3 daughters: 0.75 *0.75 x 0.75 x 0.25 x 4 = 42.2%

Families with 2 daughters: 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.25 x 0.25 x 6 = 21.1%

Families with 1 daughter: 0.75 x 0.25 x 0.25 x 0.25 x 4 ‎ = 4.7%

Families with 0 daughters: 0.25 x 0.25 x 0.25 x 0.25 = 0.4%
Does this take into account if Aslan pregnancies more closely resemble feline pregnancies as opposed to human pregnancies?
 
Aslan "twins are virtually unheard of and are almost always female" per MgT Aslan.
Yeah, but this could be referring to identical twins and not fraternal twins. Also, what did they do then, except basically take the human reproductive cycle and then make them look felines without actually thinking what it means that they share so many feline traits. If you use the human numbers and only change the ratio of male to female births, then most families cease to exist because most families have no male children to inherit. If multiple births, such as in felines are the norm, then it works out to 3-5 children per birth or per wife if they only breed once with each wife. Given the fact that as cats get bigger, the average number of births per pregnancy decreases, Aslan are probably somewhere in the 1-3 births per pregnancy range.
 
Yeah, but this could be referring to identical twins and not fraternal twins. Also, what did they do then, except basically take the human reproductive cycle and then make them look felines without actually thinking what it means that they share so many feline traits. If you use the human numbers and only change the ratio of male to female births, then most families cease to exist because most families have no male children to inherit. If multiple births, such as in felines are the norm, then it works out to 3-5 children per birth or per wife if they only breed once with each wife. Given the fact that as cats get bigger, the average number of births per pregnancy decreases, Aslan are probably somewhere in the 1-3 births per pregnancy range.
I think splitting hairs about identical vs fraternal is spin. It says twins and so it is both.

Personally, I would favor the idea of having litters with longer between birthing cycles myself. It can’t get too crazy or they would have overrun everything by now. A balance is needed to have the pressure but not make it explosive.
 
I don't see any reason why the Aslan would give birth in "litters". They aren't actually cats. And the evolutionary history of primates suggests that the larger a biped gets the fewer children it has at once. Nearly all primates have singleton births, but some of the very small ones have twins or triplets as normative.

Aslan aren't primates either. But they are large bipeds with a long lifespan and significant (if less than human) childhood.
 
I don't see any reason why the Aslan would give birth in "litters". They aren't actually cats. And the evolutionary history of primates suggests that the larger a biped gets the fewer children it has at once. Nearly all primates have singleton births, but some of the very small ones have twins or triplets as normative.

Aslan aren't primates either. But they are large bipeds with a long lifespan and significant (if less than human) childhood.
They are not actually cats, but they are not actually apes or humans either. They have been very described as cat-like even though they are not related to Terrna felines, true. What is the second stage of group organization among Aslan. Does anyone remember? It goes family, then this thing, then clan. Correct? What was that called?
 
They are not actually cats, but they are not actually apes or humans either. They have been very described as cat-like even though they are not related to Terrna felines, true. What is the second stage of group organization among Aslan. Does anyone remember? It goes family, then this thing, then clan. Correct? What was that called?
pride (ahriy)
 
They are not actually cats, but they are not actually apes or humans either. They have been very described as cat-like even though they are not related to Terrna felines, true. What is the second stage of group organization among Aslan. Does anyone remember? It goes family, then this thing, then clan. Correct? What was that called?
Prides?
 
It is possible that the reality of biology is different on other worlds. But on Earth, long lived animals with lengthy childhoods have primarily singleton births. Because litters are a survival mechanism for allowing a mother to spit out more kids than will get eaten/starve/sicken and the children don't require a large amount of individual attention or knowledge transfer or have long childhoods.

Big cats are functioning members of the pack at a year or so and fully independent after another year. But like 80% of lion cubs don't live that long. Lionesses don't breed again until all their cubs are independent or dead, so every 2-3 years.

Aslan are not described as behaving that way. They have 16 or so year long childhoods with fairly intense parenting. The family invests a lot in each child and the survival rate is fairly high. This family pattern is much more like primates than felines.

One can, of course, change things up. But the description of Aslan biology and reproduction parallels primates and explicitly states that it does not have litters and even multiple births are rarer then with humans.
 
When thinking about ihatei fleets it’s important to remember that while the word ‘ihatei’ literally means second son, migration fleets doubtless include many females as well as many landless htatei who might be first born but are not in line to inherit lands.

As an example of ihatei numbers we can look at a clan I’ve been working up: let’s call them the Wardens for now. I’m going to initially rely on CT sources to develop the following estimates, primarily because I almost always start with CT before looking at other systems but also because CT establishes a direct relationship between SOC and territory. These maths are going to involve several simplifying assumptions, so take them with the appropriate handful of salt.

The Wardens own a single world deep inside the Hierate. The total clan population is 186 million, which at a 3:1 sex ratio breaks into 139.5 million females and 46.5 million males. This is a respectably sized but unranked independent clan, large enough to field its own Ground and Space Forces.

The average Aslan family contains one patriarch plus 1D-1 (2.5) wives. Assume each wife produces 1D-2 (1.67) children, for a total of 4.67 children per family. Further assume each family has 1D-3 (1) additional members. The average Aslan family therefore consists of 8.675 members, which is consistent with CT Aslan.

The Wardens population of 186 million equates to roughly 21.441 million individual households. That breaks into 21.441 million patriarchs, 53.603 million wives, 89.516 million children, and 21.441 million other members.

Based on my calculations, the 89.516 million children include 11.483 million htatei, 10.852 million ihatei, and 67.182 million atao (daughters).

If we use Classic Traveller assumptions that patriarchs with SOC 9+ (27.77%) are landowners , that implies the Wardens have 5.954 million landed households and 15.887 landless households.

Because male births are distributed unevenly, even though there is slightly more than one male child per household, 9.985 million households will not have a male heir, either because the family has no children or the children are all daughters. Of these households without heirs, 2.765 million will be landed. Let’s assume each of these landed families can be matched with one ihatei, reducing our pool of clan ihatei to 8.086 million.

Assume 90% of these ihatei find gainful employment, either in the clan military, or as vassals, spiritual advisors, or as mercenaries outside the clan. That still leaves us with over 808,000 ihatei.

Let’s turn back to the 15.887 million landless families. While many of these have no male heirs and are likely doomed to pass into history, 8.294 million households will have a htatei who does not stand to inherit significant lands – and will thus be potentially interested in joining an ihatei expedition. Again, if we assume 90% of these landless htatei will be gainfully occupied within the clan, that still leaves more than 829,000 males with serious motivation to find and secure lands of their own.

Combining the true ihatei with landless htatei gives our little Wardens clan approximately 1.682 million males potentially open for conquest. Even if you use much more conservative assumptions, apply similar calcs across the entire Hierate and you could potentially have a great many land-hungry males.
 
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