I’m in the middle of Iain M. Banks’ Player of Games. I might post more about the book in general after I’ve finished it but there’s something in it that started me thinking and I wanted to go ahead and throw it out there for (hopefully) discussion.
There is a race of humanoids in this book that has three sexes. In every story I’ve read in which there is a three-sexed race one of the sexes is merely an incubator and makes no genetic contribution of their own. My question for science fiction fans: Have you noticed this and have you ever read (or seen) a science fiction story about a three-sexed race in which each of the three makes a genetic contribution? Also, either way, how scientifically plausible is this arrangement?
March 29th, 2012 - 9:57 am
You’re thinking of a Pierson’s Puppeteer type arrangement, where two males deposit genetic material in a female (One male carries an Egg, another, A sperm) and the female incubates the offspring? It’s terrible really for Puppeteers. The offspring eat their way out of the female.
There are two books I can think of that mentioned more than two sexes where each contributed genetic material. One of them was Charon’s Ark, the aliens who were running the place before the humans were similar to starfish in shape, and had three sexes, and Boat of a Million Years, where there was a race of aliens (Don’t remember much about shape) that had three sexes.
March 30th, 2012 - 12:01 am
As for scientific plausibility – (Thank you Firefox spell checker!) I don’t see why any number of genders wouldn’t be possible. In terrestrial life, when there is more than one gender, the male has half the chromosomes, the female, the other half. No reason they couldn’t be divided by three, or four, or twelve.
March 30th, 2012 - 6:54 am
Wow. Twelve sexes. That would certainly make dating complicated.
I need to read Boat of a Million Years again. I remember more about the history parts of it than the space alien part.
March 30th, 2012 - 11:49 pm
Part of the advantage of having only two sexes is that the courting is a simpler process. Speaking as a bit of an engineering geek, I think it would be simpler to find two parts to make a third, than to find three parts to make a fourth.
April 1st, 2012 - 12:20 am
From an evolutionary perspective, 2 contributors creates almost infinintely more genetic diversity than asexual reproduction, vastly increasing the possiblity of “fitter” offspring.
Adding a third contributor would only add 50% more variation, which would probably be negated by the added complexity of mate selection, which would also increase by 50%.