In SNW 1x09 All Those Who Wander, the crew reenact Aliens with a handful of baby Gorn as their adversaries. We learn that Gorn breed by infecting a host animal with eggs, which hatch and burst out of the host when mature (which can take months or hours, apparently depending on the host). The babies are immediately hostile to other baby Gorn, and are left to their own devices until they are picked up by adults at some indeterminate point. We also learn that these baby Gorn are themselves capable of implanting eggs in a host by spitting on them.

These baby Gorn seem like a full fledged viable species already: small, vicious hunters who are (like tribbles) basically born pregnant. From an evolutionary perspective, that’s plenty to propagate their own existence. It’s also a lifestyle that selects for intelligence (small hunters tend to be pretty smart) but seems like an unlikely route to developing genuine sapience. We’d expect these baby Gorn to have a relatively stable population given the turnaround times of egg maturation and their predilection towards cannibalism, and the later feature would also make it far less likely that any given individual would survive long enough to become an adult, as each fresh generation brings a wave of fresh adversaries who vastly outnumber the handful of survivors from previous waves.

Of course, we know there are adult Gorn. So, how did they come to be? Why would there be a species where the adults are intelligent and social enough to be a spacefaring power, and yet apparently nothing they learn as an adult is needed for an individual to pass on it’s genes?

  • ryan@the.coolest.zone
    4·
    1 year ago

    So we know Gorn capture other species, pit them against the Gorn and each other ala the strongest M&M copypasta, and then send the strongest M&M back to M&M Mars space. La’an was the strongest M&M, for example.

    Maybe, originally on the Gorn home planet, the strongest just keep growing to fend off an ever increasing wave of hostile baby Gorn, becoming more cunning and intelligent on each subsequent generation. Maybe the spacefaring stuff was originally some Gorn thinking “wow this planet sucks, I need to get away from it so I’m not eaten by my own young.”

    And now, perhaps the Gorn do the same for their terrible cannibal babies - they get pitted against each other in the Baby Gorn Fighting Arena, Sponsored by M&M Mars, and the strongest are kept to become adult Gorn and to be used for breeding purposes and also for spacefaring stuff.

    Maybe the Gorn are just trying to help other species become stronger. They are helping to select for the strongest M&M to send back to the factory for breeding purposes, and we just don’t understand - cultural differences and all that.

  • pimento64@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    I’m assuming you want a diagetic explanation, not “bad writing”? Because we already know which one it is.

  • yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.eeEnglish
    01·
    1 year ago

    It’s also a lifestyle that selects for intelligence (small hunters tend to be pretty smart)

    Humans are already on the large side for mammals and are pretty intelligent (or let’s rather say successful)

    Why would there be a species where the adults are intelligent and social enough to be a spacefaring power, and yet apparently nothing they learn as an adult is needed for an individual to pass on it’s genes?

    You already do know another species who does that, and you call those useless adults Nana and Gramps.

    There’s more to a society (and to evolution) than just surviving and procreating, you need knowledge and history. This you can only build when you’re not constantly fighting for the very survival, so having people around who aren’t busy with procreating all the time is actually the most likely route to developing genuine sapience.