sumghai
commented
3 years ago As per private correspondence with both GloomyLynx and @solaris0115 / NukaFrog, it is clear that both mod authors intended for male Ratkins to be the same as females.
I will make my original proposal into an optional expansion mod instead.
Premise
At present, the NewRatkinPlus mod heavily focuses on female Ratkins:
maleGenderProbabilityfor the species is set to 0.1 (A ratio of 1 male to 9 females)This results in the (few) male Ratkins being virtually identical to females, which can be very confusing for players.
Analysis
My assumption is that the original intent of the Ratkin mod was to simply just add "cute mouse girls" to RimWorld, without further regard to the actual viability of an all-female race. From this initial premise, we can consider the following:
The first possibility is that Ratkins reproduce asexually like Tribbles from Star Trek - they are essentially born pregnant, or are able to impregnate themselves without outside help once they reach adulthood. In theory, this means that every single Ratkin child should be a 100% identical clone of their mother. However, the Ratkins in the mod have different hair colors and vision acuity (some are severely nearsighted, while a few with superior eyesight become hunters and snipers). This establishes that Ratkins are not 100% identical clones.
If we still assume asexual reproduction takes place while allowing different phenotype expressions between individual Ratkin, this might suggest that spontaneous genetic mutations are responsible for Ratkin variety. However, these mutations can build up over successive generations, and eventually Ratkins will become extinct because the last generation of Ratkin babies have too many mutations to survive to adulthood. Yet, the Ratkins in this mod have NOT bred themselves to extinction.
This brings us to the second possibility - sexual reproduction. A male Ratkin and a female Ratkin go to bed together, and nine (?) months later one or more baby Ratkins are born. By having two different genders, this allows the safe mixing of different hair color and eyesight genes/traits, while also reducing the number of bad mutations passed on to future generations. Thus, male Ratkins do exist.
In order for male and female Ratkins to breed successfully, they must be able to identify and find each other by gender. With the current 9-to-1* female-to-male ratio, if all male Ratkins also looked like female Ratkins, they will have trouble finding a mate, which means no baby Ratkins. Sex pheromones (odors/smells) usually only work at relatively short ranges, so for long-range gender identification, both genders need to look different - for example, female Ratkins might use their long hair to signal short-haired male Ratkins that they are fertile and healthy for childbearing. Therefore, male and female Ratkins SHOULD look different from each other.
*Speculative reasons for this lopsided ratio include: male Ratkins do more dangerous jobs and therefore die more often than females; or, most female Ratkins are actually infertile, so the few male Ratkins will have lots of wives and concubines to ensure that they have enough children/heirs.
Is this an attack on homosexuals / transsexuals / hermaphrodites?
No, not at all! I think it is okay to have gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual Ratkins too; in fact, given the current 9-to-1 ratio, it is very likely one will see a lot more of lesbian/yuri (百合)/레즈비언 Ratkin couples than normal male/female Ratkin pairings
That being said, because @solaris0115 explicitly made Ratkin society a medieval monarchy, this suggests that most Ratkins have more traditional values, and therefore traditional gender identities.
So what needs to be done? (Proposed)
Summary
Responsibilities
@solaris0115, what do you think of this idea?