Parthenogenesis

From: Jane Williams <janewill_at_mail.nildram.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 22:41:17 +0000

Apart from the Trojang and Unicorn examples already given, I'm fairly sure the Earth Goddesses were originally capable of giving birth without and necesssity for a father. Therefore, any really fanatical Earth Priestess will tell you that a truly devout Earth worshipper should be able to do the same trick. Just how common this is is up to you, but IMG that "healthy child" that Ernalda priestesses have to produce to qualify MUST be done by this method. (Yes, this does involve a HQ. Obviously.)

Of course, they don't necessarily tell the blokes about it, and since the cult write-ups were by male authors (Minaryth Purple, mainly) a few fairly vital bits were left out, weren't they?

(Please don't let any male Gloranthans read this, BTW. Cult secrets and all that...)

But speaking of blokes, how about a bit of role-reversal here? We started off with a comparison with modern cloning techniques. Given that, we don't need women to produce babies, either. In fact, if you simply want genetic diversity, men are a better source (sperm count v. egg count). So, how about a society of *men* only? And some myths about how they get sons? Now there's a challenge!

Jane Williams                        jane_at_williams.nildram.co.uk

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/index.shtml

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End of Glorantha Digest V4 #233

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