Another "weird gender" writeup
This species comes in two genders, Factory and Worker, although for most of their history they identified as Nest and Dweller.
A young Factory is like Baba Yaga's Hut; a hard outer shell, an orifice that expands into a hollow ventricle, all stood on two stalky legs. Over time it settles into place, shedding its outer shell and merging into its environment.
Workers shelter within a Factory, first their parent and later their manager. Workers spend their time expanding and protecting the Factory, developing and assembling offspring, and gathering resources. Usually individual Workers specialize; Factories emplyoing many Workers who usually remain loyal to their one Factory.
In the days of Nest and Dweller there were more and smaller Nests with fewer Dwellers within, yet the Dwellers spent less time working and reproducing and more time decorating and romancing their Nest, and sometimes also each other.
The species consider anyone assembled within the same Factory to be their family, and this has been exploited by some of their predators, who will leak their materials and genetic instructions into a Factory so that their offspring will be raised within, appearing as Dwellers but lazy or violent or otherwise disruptive.
The predatory exploitation of the setup is a nice detail!
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of lenses through which this can be analysed!
ReplyDeleteCurious though: hat about the reproductive life cycle of the factory itself? Does it begin as a worker and mature into a young factory or is it specially assembled or....?
My interpretation of it, when I was saying they're like Baba Yaga's Hut when they're younger, implies that they're different from birth. That said, it could be something where they start out undifferentiated and that doesn't happen until puberty.
DeleteThe "specially assembled" idea is interesting, like perhaps they start out undifferentiated but through some combination of inner locus and social or practical factors, one is selected for factory and assembled into it.
*what about
ReplyDelete