KKM Mazoku Reproduction: Possibilities
I have this great -- not plotbunny, world-building-bunny -- for any fics I may write set in Kyou Kara Maoh!
My idea is that the Mazoku, by accident or design, are made such that if you lock two people of fertile age whose genetic patterns are farther apart than that of close relatives up together in a room for a certain time, or if the two people keep closer company than either of them does with anyone else for a long time, and they have enough stored fat and/or maryoku for the energy to begin and go through much of this process, their bodies will increase the rate of cell reproduction and start producing RNA that, when copying DNA for cell reproduction, alters it so that the two people begin physically changing in order to be a) cross-fertile and b) more physically attractive to the other person.
This would be carried through to such an extent that, if you shut up a very monosexual gay male and lesbian female, he'd turn almost entirely into a woman except for the testes (which need the cooling function) and a delivery mechanism (which might, however, shrink), and she'd turn almost entirely into a man except for pelvis, innards, and an ingress (which, however, might at the time be squeezed between male pseudogenitalia).
However, if he preferred very masculine men, she'd go through so many hormone fluctuations in the process of switching-to-female-enough-not-to-miscarry that she'd have a really, really miserable time of it the first couple of months, and be at a higher risk of miscarrying anyway.
On the other hand, if two people of the same gender were in each other's presence for the amount of time necessary for this to work, one of them would start developing the gonads and link-to-the-outside at least of the other gender; if male, that one would also develop a womb and have his pelvis go cartilaginous in spots and recalcify in a female-enough-to-support-a-fetus-and-bear-it shape; while a healer could speed the process along, it would not be fast by any means. Since a lot of this would be cued by pheromones, even if the couple both start changing at the same time, the one not as far along would abort and reverse the process well before it became physically apparent; if one began changing before the other, the other wouldn't. Born-males' ova would naturally pinch off the half with the Y chromosome for the polar body, disallowing possible YY zygotes, although because of the same sort of thing that causes random mutations there would always be the possibility of error. Also, in the case of a mixed-sex couple where he had lots of extra fat and she both had little and was otherwise designed such that childbirth might well be perilous, it would not be unheard of for them both to switch genders; after all, the cell reproduction in her case can be converting its energy directly from her maryoku stores, which will then leave her magically weak through the beginning of her partner's pregnancy. Because of all that changing, the child born of such a rut would almost always be female.
This would all be governed by an extra pair of chromosomes present in Mazoku. However, this would not make half-and-halfs sterile, because one of the other things the chromosome would do would be, should the other half of its pair not be present in a cell, to duplicate itself well before separation for cell division. (I'm not entirely sure how this would work; need to do more research into cell biology.) Maryoku is a catchall term for magical energy, the ability to work it, and external powers that a Mazoku channels and controls with their personal magical energy; the ability to work magical energy is a recessive allele, the amount of magical energy one can work on a completely unrelated one (strong magical powers are dominant over weak ones). Jennifer has a very high level of magical energy which she can't touch, probably doesn't know exists, and has had no effect on her life except to make her pregnancies easier -- her sons drew on her magical energy as they developed, and thus had less need of her physical energy.
Once all this occurred, the Mazoku would be both cross-fertile and more fertile than a human couple of similar background; if fertilization did not occur within a reasonable period after coitus, the ovary will release another egg. If fertilization does not occur within five weeks, menstruation will occur (and be remarkably distressing to the temporary/permanent female, as it's NOT a regular thing), although the womb will reabsorb more of the tissue than a human woman's will; if the other half of the pair left somewhere in that time and menstruation occurs twice, the carrier-elect's body will begin closing up shop and sterilizing itself. In the case of a born-male carrier, this will result in the third (or possibly fourth) menstruation dissolving the entire womb and letting most of it bleed out; a similar thing would happen after a successful pregnancy, usually enough after that the body has a chance to recover before going through more trauma, although postpartum uteri are slowly absorbed during all this time such that the menstruation before the vagina grows shut might be no heavier than a human woman's. It varies with the man. Many Mazoku women's wombs will also shrink to the size of an apricot and lose their Fallopian tubes until their next period of fertility; again, this falls within the realm of individual genetic variation.
Without this sort of cross-fertility incubation period, Mazoku would not be fertile at all. Therefore, even though the ability to grow ova ensures that Mazoku women are not limited to a set number any more than the men are, Mazoku as a whole produce many fewer children than a comparable population of humans. Other than twins (and fraternal twins, including the sort of fraternal twins born days or weeks apart, would be somewhat more common among Mazoku than among humans), younger siblings would either be conceived in the first month or so after the elder's birth (and conception while lactating would be as rare in Mazoku as among humans) or several years apart. Once a given pair has produced a zygote, even if the remaining embryo miscarries, their cross-fertility incubation period will be longer the second time, although as mentioned before a trained healer can help with that. A parent primarily responsible for the care of a young child, whether born to them or adopted in infancy, will also have a harder time becoming fertile again until the child is older.
In the case of a Mazoku-human couple, the Mazoku's body will shape itself to the human's after a longer lead-up time than necessary with a fellow Mazoku. The pregnancy would be, because of the above-mentioned effect of maryoku on embryonic/fetal development harder (or occasionally much easier) on a human woman than some human pregnancies, but within the bounds of statistical variation; a Mazoku carrier wouldn't notice the difference. Almost all humans have at least some magical energy they can't tap, as do many other living and nonliving things; a Mazoku can, with time and patience, touch this, but not easily. When a Mazoku or half-Mazoku embryo or fetus has drawn off all the magical energy its carrier has, it sends signals to the carrier's body to start turning any spiritual or physical energy not already going to the developing lifeform into magical energy that will be sent along; this is fairly miserable for all parties concerned, although another Mazoku can push some of his or her maryoku into the carrier and carried. A half-Mazoku fetus might also require some Mazoku-specific trace elements it couldn't get from a human mother; this would manifest as weirder and earlier cravings on the expecting mother's part.
Also, many but not all Mazoku will be unable to start the process when they really hate their partner. Natural selection, given the two options, would have worked against "bear the enemy's child" because:
1) The possibility of people who loathe and despise each other engaging in sex and moreover in coitus is less (though, obviously, not minimal)
2) No matter how hot the hatesex may be, the carrier may have perfectly natural reservations about bearing a child got of it, and all this internal wiring would make Mazoku more liable to psychosomatically induced miscarriages even if the carrier did not deliberately terminate the pregnancy
3) All that time spent becoming cross-fertile and/or going through pregnancy, plus the down-time needed to recover from this rearranging, is time not spent becoming cross-fertile with someone else. If it doesn't result in a viable, potentially fertile baby (and, depressingly, some parents will take out hate for the co-parent on the kid, consciously or subconsciously) that is time wasted from the point of view of "reproduce oneself!"
I'm also playing with a few other ideas. Given the pheromonal influence and capacity for reabsorption postulated above, full-blooded Mazoku might be unable to reach orgasm or even more than moderate sexual stimulation unless exposed (contemporaneously or right after the other person deposited them) to somebody else's pheromones. If I did this, I would make it not apply to hybrids, and thus have made Josak and Conrad the ENVY of their fellow-trainees for one thing at least. Also, given all the selective rewriting, the recessive half of a dominant-recessive pair coding for magical energy might be rewritten to match its dominant partner during fertility incubation: in other words, barring the occasional sport, two Mazoku would never have a child who had less maryoku than either of them, but always one with as much maryoku as the stronger parent.
After all, this would feed into the general postulate that, whether by some plan of those long-dead or by random chance feeding into natural selection, the Mazoku of Shinma-koku are peculiarly well-suited to remaining a viable and strong strain even with a small base population, a small habitat, and many competitors for resources. Reproductive systems geared towards cross-breeding would explain much of it, as would biological encouragement to produce fewer children but better-adapted children.
Yare yare. Time for Star Trek.
My idea is that the Mazoku, by accident or design, are made such that if you lock two people of fertile age whose genetic patterns are farther apart than that of close relatives up together in a room for a certain time, or if the two people keep closer company than either of them does with anyone else for a long time, and they have enough stored fat and/or maryoku for the energy to begin and go through much of this process, their bodies will increase the rate of cell reproduction and start producing RNA that, when copying DNA for cell reproduction, alters it so that the two people begin physically changing in order to be a) cross-fertile and b) more physically attractive to the other person.
This would be carried through to such an extent that, if you shut up a very monosexual gay male and lesbian female, he'd turn almost entirely into a woman except for the testes (which need the cooling function) and a delivery mechanism (which might, however, shrink), and she'd turn almost entirely into a man except for pelvis, innards, and an ingress (which, however, might at the time be squeezed between male pseudogenitalia).
However, if he preferred very masculine men, she'd go through so many hormone fluctuations in the process of switching-to-female-enough-not-to-miscarry that she'd have a really, really miserable time of it the first couple of months, and be at a higher risk of miscarrying anyway.
On the other hand, if two people of the same gender were in each other's presence for the amount of time necessary for this to work, one of them would start developing the gonads and link-to-the-outside at least of the other gender; if male, that one would also develop a womb and have his pelvis go cartilaginous in spots and recalcify in a female-enough-to-support-a-fetus-and-bear-it shape; while a healer could speed the process along, it would not be fast by any means. Since a lot of this would be cued by pheromones, even if the couple both start changing at the same time, the one not as far along would abort and reverse the process well before it became physically apparent; if one began changing before the other, the other wouldn't. Born-males' ova would naturally pinch off the half with the Y chromosome for the polar body, disallowing possible YY zygotes, although because of the same sort of thing that causes random mutations there would always be the possibility of error. Also, in the case of a mixed-sex couple where he had lots of extra fat and she both had little and was otherwise designed such that childbirth might well be perilous, it would not be unheard of for them both to switch genders; after all, the cell reproduction in her case can be converting its energy directly from her maryoku stores, which will then leave her magically weak through the beginning of her partner's pregnancy. Because of all that changing, the child born of such a rut would almost always be female.
This would all be governed by an extra pair of chromosomes present in Mazoku. However, this would not make half-and-halfs sterile, because one of the other things the chromosome would do would be, should the other half of its pair not be present in a cell, to duplicate itself well before separation for cell division. (I'm not entirely sure how this would work; need to do more research into cell biology.) Maryoku is a catchall term for magical energy, the ability to work it, and external powers that a Mazoku channels and controls with their personal magical energy; the ability to work magical energy is a recessive allele, the amount of magical energy one can work on a completely unrelated one (strong magical powers are dominant over weak ones). Jennifer has a very high level of magical energy which she can't touch, probably doesn't know exists, and has had no effect on her life except to make her pregnancies easier -- her sons drew on her magical energy as they developed, and thus had less need of her physical energy.
Once all this occurred, the Mazoku would be both cross-fertile and more fertile than a human couple of similar background; if fertilization did not occur within a reasonable period after coitus, the ovary will release another egg. If fertilization does not occur within five weeks, menstruation will occur (and be remarkably distressing to the temporary/permanent female, as it's NOT a regular thing), although the womb will reabsorb more of the tissue than a human woman's will; if the other half of the pair left somewhere in that time and menstruation occurs twice, the carrier-elect's body will begin closing up shop and sterilizing itself. In the case of a born-male carrier, this will result in the third (or possibly fourth) menstruation dissolving the entire womb and letting most of it bleed out; a similar thing would happen after a successful pregnancy, usually enough after that the body has a chance to recover before going through more trauma, although postpartum uteri are slowly absorbed during all this time such that the menstruation before the vagina grows shut might be no heavier than a human woman's. It varies with the man. Many Mazoku women's wombs will also shrink to the size of an apricot and lose their Fallopian tubes until their next period of fertility; again, this falls within the realm of individual genetic variation.
Without this sort of cross-fertility incubation period, Mazoku would not be fertile at all. Therefore, even though the ability to grow ova ensures that Mazoku women are not limited to a set number any more than the men are, Mazoku as a whole produce many fewer children than a comparable population of humans. Other than twins (and fraternal twins, including the sort of fraternal twins born days or weeks apart, would be somewhat more common among Mazoku than among humans), younger siblings would either be conceived in the first month or so after the elder's birth (and conception while lactating would be as rare in Mazoku as among humans) or several years apart. Once a given pair has produced a zygote, even if the remaining embryo miscarries, their cross-fertility incubation period will be longer the second time, although as mentioned before a trained healer can help with that. A parent primarily responsible for the care of a young child, whether born to them or adopted in infancy, will also have a harder time becoming fertile again until the child is older.
In the case of a Mazoku-human couple, the Mazoku's body will shape itself to the human's after a longer lead-up time than necessary with a fellow Mazoku. The pregnancy would be, because of the above-mentioned effect of maryoku on embryonic/fetal development harder (or occasionally much easier) on a human woman than some human pregnancies, but within the bounds of statistical variation; a Mazoku carrier wouldn't notice the difference. Almost all humans have at least some magical energy they can't tap, as do many other living and nonliving things; a Mazoku can, with time and patience, touch this, but not easily. When a Mazoku or half-Mazoku embryo or fetus has drawn off all the magical energy its carrier has, it sends signals to the carrier's body to start turning any spiritual or physical energy not already going to the developing lifeform into magical energy that will be sent along; this is fairly miserable for all parties concerned, although another Mazoku can push some of his or her maryoku into the carrier and carried. A half-Mazoku fetus might also require some Mazoku-specific trace elements it couldn't get from a human mother; this would manifest as weirder and earlier cravings on the expecting mother's part.
Also, many but not all Mazoku will be unable to start the process when they really hate their partner. Natural selection, given the two options, would have worked against "bear the enemy's child" because:
1) The possibility of people who loathe and despise each other engaging in sex and moreover in coitus is less (though, obviously, not minimal)
2) No matter how hot the hatesex may be, the carrier may have perfectly natural reservations about bearing a child got of it, and all this internal wiring would make Mazoku more liable to psychosomatically induced miscarriages even if the carrier did not deliberately terminate the pregnancy
3) All that time spent becoming cross-fertile and/or going through pregnancy, plus the down-time needed to recover from this rearranging, is time not spent becoming cross-fertile with someone else. If it doesn't result in a viable, potentially fertile baby (and, depressingly, some parents will take out hate for the co-parent on the kid, consciously or subconsciously) that is time wasted from the point of view of "reproduce oneself!"
I'm also playing with a few other ideas. Given the pheromonal influence and capacity for reabsorption postulated above, full-blooded Mazoku might be unable to reach orgasm or even more than moderate sexual stimulation unless exposed (contemporaneously or right after the other person deposited them) to somebody else's pheromones. If I did this, I would make it not apply to hybrids, and thus have made Josak and Conrad the ENVY of their fellow-trainees for one thing at least. Also, given all the selective rewriting, the recessive half of a dominant-recessive pair coding for magical energy might be rewritten to match its dominant partner during fertility incubation: in other words, barring the occasional sport, two Mazoku would never have a child who had less maryoku than either of them, but always one with as much maryoku as the stronger parent.
After all, this would feed into the general postulate that, whether by some plan of those long-dead or by random chance feeding into natural selection, the Mazoku of Shinma-koku are peculiarly well-suited to remaining a viable and strong strain even with a small base population, a small habitat, and many competitors for resources. Reproductive systems geared towards cross-breeding would explain much of it, as would biological encouragement to produce fewer children but better-adapted children.
Yare yare. Time for Star Trek.