All right, a potentially touchy subject, but one I think I can handle in a nonexplosive fashion. Also, I am sorry once again for accidentally deleting the post on this before I could reply to it.
Although it really makes the unknown child storyline a _lot_ more difficult to plot, I'll admit that contraception in the B7 future is likely about as close to 100% effective as we're going to see.
I would guess most of the women have either a medical implant that time releases a contraceptive or some kind of more direct device blocking the fallopian tubes. A chemical/hormone based implant might be a better argument since it might allow be fixed to allow the women to avoid certain, monthly inconveniences.
Cally, who comes from a world that relies completely on artificial reproduction, could actually have some biologic (whether artificial in origin or not) protection. I mean, there hasn't been a child on Auron born outside a natural womb (wait, being taken outside the artificial womg would _be_ being born . . . ) in about a generation. Although, they seem a reasonable enough people to have some kind of back up for emergencies. So, I'd guess Cally is normally (for lack of a better word) sterile without articial intervention, but that intervention is probably not too complex (injection of a single [but unlikely to be encountered by accident] chemical or some such).
Jenna, being shipped to a penal colony with limited medical resources and with a major male/female direprency _and_ low population, may have been deprived of standard protections as a matter of course (or, if they relied on medical implants, supplied with only enough to last the voyage).
Given the strange environments the crew travels to - complete with an odd assortment of mad scientists and somewhat irrational doctors - it seems likely breakdowns in the system seem more likely to occur and (given its assumed nature) to occur without the women necessarily knowing.
Whew. Think I did that OK.
Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
From: Ellynne G. rilliara@juno.com
Cally, who comes from a world that relies completely on artificial reproduction, could actually have some biologic (whether artificial in origin or not) protection. I mean, there hasn't been a child on Auron born outside a natural womb (wait, being taken outside the artificial womg would _be_ being born . . . ) in about a generation. Although, they seem a reasonable enough people to have some kind of back up for emergencies. So, I'd guess Cally is normally (for lack of a better word) sterile without articial intervention, but that intervention is probably not too complex (injection of a single [but unlikely to be encountered by accident] chemical or some such).
In my own altercanon, cloned Auronar are indeed sterile, but this is all part of a sinister government ploy to separate the fully psionic 'Frants' from the proto-psionic 'Naturals'. Social engineering at its most blatant. I've even hinted that clone might be haploid, with only half the full set of chromosomes, but I'm not sure if that's biologically feasible. Though apparently it works for frogs.
Neil
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Ellynne G. -
Neil Faulkner