On 12 May 2016 at 12:03, Jeffrey Schwartz wrote:

> On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 11:51 AM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list)
> <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > That's for sure, but then don't the hivers just dump their offspring
> > out into the wilds & just wait & see how many survive? (Talk about
> > 'free-ranging' children!)
> >
>
> Only on worlds where there's established Hiver communities where the
> children can , at the right age, rejoin the community. On worlds where
> there isn't an established community, the Hivers fumigate their ships
> to make sure none of the offspring accidentally escape the ship and
> are abandoned.
>
> Yes, _fumigate_.
>
> As in poison every one of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory

Humans, Vargr, Aslan and K'Kree are all K-selection species. They all
have small numbers of offspring and a lot of parental involvement is
trying get them to survive.

Hivers are an r-selection species. Lots of offspring, almost no
parental investment until they are out of the larval stage.

Expecting Hivers to care about larva is just as unreasonable as
expecting any of the K-selection species to *not* care about their
offspring.

Humans and Aslan have troubles with over-population. If Hivers didn't
treat their larva the way they do, they'd overpopulate any planet
they were on in an insanely short period of time.

This is a case where biology really *is* destiny.

And where aliens are really alien.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com