Intergalactic Summit

When a mother has a child, usually the family celebrates the arrival of another member.

This is not always the case, when the mother is a capsuleer.

While some capsuleers chose to be infertile, and avoid fleshy entanglements, others specify fertile clones, and seek to reproduce. Many question the ability of a semi-immortal death dealer to be a competent parent, and some go as far as saying that no capsuleer should be allowed to have children.

One such group are some extreme tribal traditionalists, who have expressed concern over the ability of a capsuleer to have children for a long, long time.

"a pod pilot could live what? a thousand years? having children all that time?", said one such traditionalist.
"I heard capsuleers can have like, ten bodies, all pregnant at the same time", said a starship engineering technician.
"If like, a capsuleeress has children, and she's firing them out like a 125mm Light Gallium Machine Gun, then that'd totes have an effect on Tribal society", said an exotic dancer.

"If a capsuleer has a thousand children, they'll all listen to what Mother has to say, which will destabilise the whole tribal society." said another traditionalist.
"The whole point of tribal chiefs and elders, is that parents aren't around forever, and tribespeople need guidance. If your mother is immortal, then you won't need the tribal chief or elder, will you?" said a concerned militiaman.
"The whole framework of the Tribes will collapse, and where will we be then?" asked a livestock herder. "Screwed, that's where".

Some of the traditionalists are planning on bringing this issue up with their clan and tribal chiefs, hoping it will come before the Tribal Council itself.

Gutter Press, the stories you didn't know were happening.

The normal lifespan for a Matari now is on the order of 125 to 150 years, and lives longer arent unheard of. The Amarr in particular can live for many hundreds of years, over 500 in some cases, so it is theoretically possible here, too.

Let's do some math, shall we?

If I trace my line back n generations, I will find 2^n ancestors. So, if i go back 5 (my great great great grandparents, some of whom I met when I was a little girl) I have 32 ancestors. Hmm.

If i go back 10 - perhaps only 250 to 300 years - I have 1024 of them.

Let's do that in reverse!

For every child I have, if i live to be 300 ( Unlikely anywhere but the Empire, of course) I may have up to 1024 direct heirs for every child I had. Even if i live to see my great great great grandbabies, I will have 32 for each child I had. People have been doing this for a while now, and I we havent seen any single family or Clan upset the apple cart.

The Elders themselves are reputed to be many centuries old. It is reasonable to assume some of them have/had heirs. If we assume they actually exist at all, then each of them would have heirs numbering into the tens of thousands.

Also, in short, getting one's own children to obey you can be an exercise in futility. To do so with kids generations removed? They likely won't even ask you the time or know your name. Kids these days!

Capsuleers form a tiny subset of the population who have managed to not die permanently, provided that death occurs in a very limited set of parameters, for TEN YEARS. When they've managed to prove they can continue to exist for longer than they might have had they not become capsuleers in the first place, maybe revisit this topic.

I do not believe we need to prepare for the imminent collapse of the sky over this just yet. A cornerstone of Tribal society is the passage of norms, history, and so on from ancestor to descendant. Where's the problem?

Yes it's called welfare.

-Eran

No. In a word.

This ignores the possibility of inducing population growth artificially, as has been done already, via the tube child program. Forget what an immortal parent can pop out in nine months... Imagine batches of hundreds, perhaps thousands, on demand in a similar timeframe (and that assumes no genetic tampering), raised en masse in a common program largely devoid of what most consider traditional parental influence. Comparatively, any statistical or ethical considerations of a capsuleers children (who are not guaranteed to be capsule compatible themselves) are minutiae in a far greater concern.

In short, there are better things to worry about.

Honestly, anyone would think we don't honour our ancestors in the State. We do, I promise!

Oh, capsuleers are mortal. Maybe even way more more mortal than 'baseliners': we live way less and die very fast. Unluckily for us. But our clones create illusion for others, that we continue living.

With this I, unfortunately, cannot agree. While this should be necessary for gallenteans, for civilized peoples this is just a waste of resources.
Mr. Mintor, we aren't animals, we are sentient beings, who have brains and who can control our bodies, it is in our power to decide, where we engage in intercourse or no, whether we make children or no.

When we control ourselves and avoid undesirable contacts, there is no chance of having children.

One does not make a baby. Intercourse merely starts the growing process. God is the one who literally makes the baby.



And as for whether or not capsuleers should have children, I agree with Miss Raske-Lancier. Her daughter is a lovely young lady who is happily growing up with two very loving parents.

Unless a capsuleer regularly participates in unrestrained promiscuity and chooses to have lots of children, I see the concerns of these tribal leaders to be unfounded.

I cannot imagine most capsuleers wanting to have children, as they are a lot of work and most capsuleers do not want to be tied down. For them I simply recommend sterile clones, because most capsuleers cannot control themselves sexually. And unintentional consequences can occur.

Unless you are able to devote yourself like Miss Raske-Lancier and her husband, you should not have a child. That goes for both capsuleers and baseliners.

Lots of "normal" people are horrid, abusive parents, neglectful, selfish, unfit.

Lots of capsuleers are not.