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?
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.
The grandparents effect did occur to me, but I’m not sure what exactly these few Gorn who reach adulthood are doing to make their descendants (who they implanted in a host long before they themselves grew to maturity) more likely to survive. Even assuming these adults are in position to assist their offspring, the kids are quite capable hunters and don’t seem to need protection against anything except eachother.
Look, I just gave you real world examples why and how your view on evolution is undercomplex and wrong, also I did explicitly tell you there’s more to society than the pure basics of evolution.
Maybe – just a really wild speculation here – the adult Gorns are responsible for the Gorns being a space-faring species, like, you know, the same way humans don’t need school and university for survival…
Please moderate your tone. You can disagree, but do so in a civil manner.
