Two kinds of male, two kinds of female. I don't know any more than that, but there's a member here called Therin of Andor who can probably explain it.
We did a thread on this last August. Four genders, one has the swimmers - he has a pee pee, two has the catalyst - he has a pee pee too, three has the egg he/she has both a pee pee and a hoo hoo, four has the womb - she has just a hoo hoo. What they do to each other and in what order makes a baby.
I figured it was a DP situation on a tranny-like shen, who is fertilized in a microscopic fallopian three-way, divides the resulting crypto-zygote/sperm thing to a critical mass, then bones the childbearing zhen, blows a load and fertilizes the true egg. That way everyone got to have a piece of genetic material represented in the final product.
I'm not sure I'm willing to countenance eusociality when the gender who has the most to lose isn't contributing genetic material. The first archaic zhen creature hundreds of millions of years ago who found a way to put her DNA into the resulting offspring would, all things being equal, outcompete by default.
It's difficult enough justifying a four-gender system. I mean, it is really overcomplicated, but you could increase genetic diversity and strengthen the histocompatibility complex, I guess. Plus, I suppose sexual reproduction at all is overcomplicated compared to asexuality. Mapping a four-gender system onto alternative sexual strategies is probably an interesting thought experiment here: how do Andorian fish fuck? What about Andorian angiosperms?
Of course, according to
Paradigm, the only other four-gendered thing on Andor is a flower, which avoids the problem nicely.
And Jarman still hasn't made a flow chart or dirty stick-figure diagram, afaik. The only thing I think she got really right on this account is that with modernity and gender liberation, birth rates would plummet like hell. If it takes four to fertilize, and three or fewer for fun, it's pretty easy to avoid getting knocked up.
Nevyn said:
1) Interesting characters that aren't limited to one function. What I mean to say is, even the most dedicated captain in the fleet doesn't sit on the bridge all day, giving orders. The same goes for the other characters.
I bet Data would. But failing that, yeah. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if there were captains who only did a few shifts a week. Watching the bridge while you're monitoring a "stellar nursery" or somesuch other boredom is what you have lieutenant commanders for.
2) I prefer to read about original characters. There's nothing wrong with the canon ones, but there are already plenty of novels out there dealing with their adventures. So try to make something new.
Check.
3) While the characters can be good in what they're doing, try to make it somewhat realistic. I'm well aware that canon Trek isn't always realistic, but 25 year old starship captains, or even worse admirals, is stretching it to say the very least.
Ha, mine is eighty-two.
4) A sort of philosophical - ethical question in the plot. But don't just add one when it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. Oh, due try to stay away from religion; there are already too many stories about it, and most of them say "religion is bad". After having read a few dozen of those, it became somewhat boring.
Check.
5) Technology. It's an important part of the Trek-verse. Just don't go into technical specifics for no apparent reason. Especially not if it's "existing" technology. If it's something new, tell us something about it, but make sure it doesn't distract us from the actual story.
6) Technology serves the plot, not the other way around.
Jawohl.
7) Try to stick to the Trek-rules about stardates, NCC numbers, and warp speeds. I don't want you to start making calculations about warp speed, but make speed-time-distance somewhat plausible.
Difficult to do with stardates and registry numbers, since there are no real rules. I mean, I try. Travel times by contrast should be totally consistent. If Warp 9 = xc, then a trip of y light years should take y/x years.
8) Don't be afraid to explore new places. It's a big place so ships don't always have to visit the same places over and over again.
There's that, but I kind of liked it when they spent a lot of time in one place, dealing with the same people. I mean, we know more about the Cardassians than we do the Romulans, Klingons, and Borg combined.
I think any story should have something new to it, though, even if it's mining older concepts. Otherwise not much point in it existing.
9) Stay away from the Borg as much as possible; they've suffered enough at the hands of Voyager to be considered a real threat.
Couldn't agree more.
10) Don't go too much into the future and past. This being, 10-15 years before TOS begins (I don't like Enterprise), and about the first half of the 25th century (it can be interesting to see how current situations have evolved in lets say 50 years).
Post-Nemesis is often going to be better--or at least easier
--because it isn't constrained by what has to happen in the story's future.
11) No Dominion War, there are already enough stories about it; Especially when you consider it's only a 3 year period in almost 100 years of Trek-history (TOS-VOY).
12) While there is nothing wrong with things becoming "darker" on occasion, the Trek-verse has become notably darker with lots and lots of angst in between these last few years without a reason (We can't keep blaming the Borg and Dominion for everything).
Dominion is good. Dark is good. Anti-life justifies my hate.
That said, BSG-dark is probably pushing it a little bit too far (although as far as I'm concerned they should've approached that mark in Voyager). DS9 is probably the gold standard for a story balanced between pessimism and optimism, cynicism and idealism, genocide and fun.
13) If the story is in the "future", say 30 years after Nemesis, make sure it's the future. i.e. new ships, technology, political changes, ... In other words, don't du what ST Online does; giving us the 25th century with no new ship to play with. (Even worse, we get the old Constitution refit back.)
Check. Sort of. Do Sovereigns count as new? If it's 30 years, I'd reckon there would be still be a mixture of ships that were nearly brand new in the Nemesis era, and ships that would be new to the audience. Heck, I'd reckon there'd still be a Galaxy or two tooling around in 2405, albeit probably in the same second-string capacity as the occasional Ambassadors we saw in TNG.
14) Don't be afraid to go into the controversial topics.
The justifiability of targeting a civilian population in wartime is still controversial, right?
15) Try to keep spelling and grammar mistakes as low as possible. I might be more forging than others (English is my third language, so I can't expect it to be error-free if I can't do it myself), but it doesn't mean there can be 50 mistakes a paragraph.
Chcek. (Just kidding.)
