Help Brainstorming - Culture Building

[Littlefinger]

(accidentally posted this in story feedback so posting it here instead)

So, I have this idea and I want to write a novel about it. Whether it ends up being published or snatched away and done by someone else, I do not care. It's more of a "this thing is inside me and it's time for me to deliver" personal project thing.

It involves a race of men, genetic mutations of humans(or a kind of ancient aliens spin on it where they're our predecessors). Physically, they look like us with minor modifications - such as canine teeth, black and yellow eyes, and dark markings on arms and legs like a red fox has those black "socks". They're faster, stronger and more vicious than us, with the ability to breed amongst each other - as the race is entirely male, with male genitalia and male facial features and body structure, this would make them... sometimes hermaphrodites. They are not your normal androgynous hermies though, or futa; they are all male, beautiful and handsome in that pure rugged maleness and dark aggressiveness that men have. Dark eyes, smirking grins, chiseled jawlines and heavy browridges.

I've called them the Gamatoms and they can spread this Gamatomness to humans - human men - through sexual contact or ingestion of their semen/blood. When a human man becomes one of them, he is a half-breed, with all the perks of strength and whatnot but without the ability to pass on his own disease. The qualities that define this race aside from their animalistic tribal mindset, is their insatiable desire to pass on the virus - they need to have sex constantly. Trying to solve sexual urges by solo masturbation causes a bit of pain and eventually becomes ineffective - the virus knows when the body is being stimulated by another - until eventually the host is consumed with a sort of madness until the urge is sated.

Also, the Gamatoms have a genetic hatred of women. There are no Gamatom women and if a woman did ingest some Gamatom semen, it would result in a horrible death as her infected flesh tries to eat the non-infected parts. Because that's what they do: they eat women. That's all they eat. Not only that but the less dominant Gamatoms cannot be within sight of human women without going into a bloodthirsty rage.

So, that's the Gamatoms. Basically indestructible, never aging, never dying, cannibalistic, sexual demons/mutants. The story is a modern one and - you guess it - apocalyptic in nature. Most of my internal stories focus on 3 different angles.

1. The very formulaic "inception" plot. This focuses on a human man - between the ages of 18-30 - who is trying to live his life and all of a sudden gets captured by a gang of these monstrous men. This is the story of his rape, his changing, and his rebirth as a human-Gamatom hybrid and how he copes with the disease and memories of his old life. Sometimes, he is very special and rises in the ranks to become a leader among the Gamatoms.

2. The taboo lovers plot. This is the story of a Gamatom who falls in love with a woman. He finds himself attracted to her and hides her away, spending time with her to try to figure out what is wrong with him - since it is only her who he feels this way about. During their courtship, he has to keep their love a secret while also struggling with his desire to eat her and eventually ends up being unable to eat or kill women altogether. Drama ensues when the tribe finds out and brings the girl forth to slaughter her and regain the heart of their brother but... they end up falling for her too.

3. The from birth plot. Focuses on a Gamatom born to two fully Gamatom parents. This details their culture and how he grows up with other younglings in a post-apocalyptic world. Eventually, he befriends a human boy and has to struggle with the implications of an enslaved humanity, the world his fathers made and the myth of the "Woe-Man" who will come to eat his soul in the night unless he is a good boy. By this point, women would have been rounded up and kept in farms much like cattle. (please note: this version of the story would not involve sexual contact until the young Gamatom has reached full maturity; it'd mostly be about his coming of age and falling in love with this human man when they both grow older)

The problem I'm having is... world building and culture building. I mean, writing porn is sexy and all and gives me great joy but... then what? I have to write something to connect all of these sex scenes. I have no idea what their culture would be like but I imagine once subjugating humanity, they'd just basically borrow everything and go all Big Brother to keep mankind in line. They need men as a race to remain to keep supplying them with food and a virile genetic bloodline. I know that sex is basically open and free in their culture, something they do on the street, on the bus, and right in the middle of two of their other friends talking and it's not rude. But... what else do they do? Would they produce anything? Are there artists? Is there religion? I feel like I made a half-race where I spent so much time ensuring their dominance that they have very little else to live for.

 

[sunandshadow]

This is a disturbing mix of ideas I like with ideas I'm completely horrified by. Not sure what to think, other than it reminds me of that Wraeththu stuff, which was disturbing for pretty much the same reasons. Also reminds me or that one bizarro manga about the ogres (who are cannibals) living hidden among humans, and the heir of the ogre-slayer dojo family turns out to be a halfbreed ogre, and that's why whenever he's supposed to kill an ogre his guts rebel and he has to run to the bathroom...

 

[Carnevil9]

The best world-builder I know is Jack Vance. He doesn't write erotica (as far as I know), mostly science fiction and fantasy. Read any one of his "Demon Princes" novels (or all five) and you'll see great examples of world-building. Not that I'm recommending you "borrow" one of his worlds, of course. Just that you'll see the kind of things that make a world fully fleshed out, believable, and fascinating.

 

[Littlefinger]

This is a disturbing mix of ideas I like with ideas I'm completely horrified by. Not sure what to think, other than it reminds me of that Wraeththu stuff, which was disturbing for pretty much the same reasons. Also reminds me or that one bizarro manga about the ogres (who are cannibals) living hidden among humans, and the heir of the ogre-slayer dojo family turns out to be a halfbreed ogre, and that's why whenever he's supposed to kill an ogre his guts rebel and he has to run to the bathroom...

Except the Gamatoms aren't emotional, angsty women with flowers for penises. They are brutal, wild, violent and totally man - all of them look like men. You won't find any among them who make you question it.

I more made this thread for ideas and someone to help brainstorm possible solutions.

 

[Littlefinger]

Any ideas or anybody who would like to help brain-storm with me, I'd appreciate it.

A couple things I did think of:

I know that if they did make art it would be very sexualized and genitalia themed. Like, I see the statue of David except with a very large and proud erect penis. Paintings made with paints mixed with semen or using semen itself as a medium. Haunting, surreal paintings of large, monstrous, hairy vaginas/vagina-like monsters with teeth lining the slit. Paintings with horrific and enticing narratives where women play the role of the Id - all that is feared and yet tempting and enticing all the same. Paintings that glorify the joys of the hunt, still-lifes exemplifying a spread that includes a meal of women flesh. Art that glorifies male love, male sex organs and their role as hero but also villifies women and their sex organs, turning them into repulsive monsters and beasts that wish to be consumed lest they try to consume the viewer first with their ravenous "maws".

If they had any extracurricular activities, they'd probably play a lot of sports and war games with each other. Like, hard core and dirty sports that require a lot of endurance and have freedom of aggressive movements - like soccer, hockey, boxing, ect. But maybe something of their own with their own point system and whatnot. And war games either in small miniatures like chess/battleship or something akin to live-role-playing.

I do not know about religion... I do know that the children of Gamatoms are told stories of a boogieman known as the Woe-Man. A headless man figure with eyes on it's chest and a mouth between it's legs that comes to terrorize little Gamatom boys who wander too far from the tribe or don't go to bed when they are told to. I do not know what morals Gamatoms would have in their society, though. They take joy in the suffering of others and respect dominance which is decided by displays of strength, virility and by pheromone emissions.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Honestly I think that the problem you're hitting on here primarily is that Gamatoms are monsters and it doesn't seem like they should be functional because you built the mechanical parts of them first not the society.

Why do these people fear and hate women. I mean genetic hatred. . .well that barely makes sense at all. Animals smart enough to genuinely hate something need to be taught, they don't just hate because it's bred into them and these beings sound they don't even see women on a regular enough basis.

You art and mythology are kinda backwards to what makes sense. Women in this world are so week they literally die from exposure to semen. They aren't creatures that would be depicted in art as strong and terrifying. I don't think they would be depicted at all and you should stick with big dumb jocks do big dumb jock stuff.

I would probably steer away from team sports, every vibe I'm getting off these guys is that they are very feral and animalistic. They probably box, wrestle and play "tag". Now their version of tag would be more a genuine hunt something like "The Most Dangerous Game" except the hunter uses dulled swords or if they have guns either paint balls or rock salt or BBs. Something where you could something that today we'd consider combat practice. You could die, but your odds are pretty low because it's a dominance display not a killing game.

I don't think Gamatons RP. . .like at all. They don't seem like they'd have the mentality for it or even much in the way of social structure. If you eat women and the weak can't even go near women without going into a rage. . .honestly you've got all the problems of a vampire/zombie apocalypse here. The only reason Gamatons don't solve themselves as a problem is the immortality and functional indestructability.

As for your story ideas.

1. I guess kinda works. You'd think these Gamatoms would figure out condoms hella quick. I mean everything you've described suggests they would have absolutely no need to increase their numbers and they should know what passes the disease so why would they spread it to an already limited "fuck pool" and further stretch their food supply?

2. No. Just no. There is so much wrong here that I wouldn't know where to start.

3. I guess there are worst ideas, it's basically the Fox and the Hound.

 

[Littlefinger]

Why do these people fear and hate women. I mean genetic hatred. . .well that barely makes sense at all. Animals smart enough to genuinely hate something need to be taught, they don't just hate because it's bred into them and these beings sound they don't even see women on a regular enough basis.

You art and mythology are kinda backwards to what makes sense. Women in this world are so week they literally die from exposure to semen. They aren't creatures that would be depicted in art as strong and terrifying. I don't think they would be depicted at all and you should stick with big dumb jocks do big dumb jock stuff.

I knew there were flaws in these ideas and if I need to change something to make it better or make it fit, then I will.

I didn't want to make it a story about just some big dumb jocks or your run of the mill strive against apocalyptic monsters thing. I wanted to give them more depth than that. The fear of women stems from their origins. An all powerful, all-consuming Mother that none of them remembers and none of them talk about. They hate women because they fear them. I thought... I thought I was being clever, honestly. You know, like Freud's theory of penis-envy and men's fear of the power of women and Mother-Earth - "she's strong enough to give you life and she is strong enough to take it away" - except on hyper-drive. They've gotten away from the "need" for women to survive but there has to be a price, doesn't there? They desire to destroy them before they face their own destruction, hence the indiscriminate fucking despite the repercussions and the gaining of sustenance from women's bodies. They still need them and want them but in a different way than humans and it was supposed to be ironic.

I didn't want this to be just another example of the "Mars Needs Our Women" trope or just another run of the mill gay smut story. I read Storm Constantine's Wraeththu series and was very unsatisfied with it. It felt like it didn't go far enough, it didn't say enough. She had these genetic mutations that were supposed to be better than mankind but they weren't; they did everything exactly that they condemned mankind for, just as petty, just as cruel, except they were a bunch of butch ladies angsting about relationship constructs that weren't technically supposed to exist anymore. It was political and boring and the sex was abstract and vague - is somebody having a really good bowel movement or are they reaching cosmic enlightenment? Probably both! In coming up with my own story, I went the other extreme end of the scale. This is sexual and gender commentary and symbolic but I'm not writing Jung here. That's why I asked for help, to build something more stable. If I need to tweak or change things to make pieces come together then so be it.

I really do like the tag idea and it makes sense the way you explain it. But they have to have something concrete to pull them together as a culture, otherwise, this just turns into "epidemic/STD apocalypse" territory.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I haven't read whatever the Wrathefu is. I also apologize, I'm the guy who just tells you when I think your idea is less than it could be and save myself some goddamn effort.

I still don't think they should be afraid of women or if they are it should be something that manifests primarily in their art and a lot less in their culture as a whole. Like snakes, spiders and bats. Or ghosts and vampires if you prefer. Either things you know aren't real and you shouldn' tbe worried about or things that you consciously know aren't that dangerous as a whole but some hold over in you still remembers and respects. I still don't buy the women being both scary and food though or how they've managed to keep enough women alive for there to be a world. I think if you dial that back some, maybe channel some Tolkien Orc you might get somewhere.

The virus mutates you, nix the eating women. But make a small Gamatom eight feet tall and five hundred pounds of primal muscle maybe with them topping out around eleven feet tall and. . .shit that's probably a thousand pounds of flesh right there. It's not that they mean to kill the women, it just takes a very controlled Gamatom to keep from breaking his toys.

What you described IS post apocalyptic plague territory. You've got to dial them back some. I'm sure you've seen Lord of the Rings (the movies not the books, in the books the trolls and orcs are a little more intelligent) Can you imagine either of those races creating a settlement that made to the end of the week without a single brutal leader keeping them in check? That's the problem with the Gamatoms except anybody with the strength to keep them in check would be better off on his own. If they collect women as tribute to the leader though. . .and that could also be why they play tag. It's not just war training it's hunting as it was for our ancestors.

I would probably keep a functioning human society not to far off hand. You know something where if you ever decided to expand maybe the Gamatoms live in Australia and think it's the whole damn world because. . .maybe their virus go into sharks. Silly I grant but a reason why build a boat and leave is suicide not an adventure. Or they got the Americas. Or vice versa. Something where there is a place these people are coming from and a reason they would come out.

I think your core problem is you made a race that's too extreme however to survive the way you want it to. If I were to make a suggestion, perhaps you'd be better suited to build the culture first and kind of reverse engineer a race that fits it. There's a reason why short stocky dwarves live in caves and light willowy elves in trees and I think you may have gotten a little ahead of yourself.

 

[Littlefinger]

I haven't read whatever the Wrathefu is. I also apologize, I'm the guy who just tells you when I think your idea is less than it could be and save myself some goddamn effort.

No, I appreciate the advice even if you were just pointing out problems. Sometimes, you like an idea too much to want to let go of any of it and thus can't see where the problems are yourself. You've been very helpful in getting me to analyze where these weak points might be.

I agree that I have made them too extreme to live as anything other than monsters and I really like the idea of them being centralized in a certain geographical area. You've given me some good starting points to focus on and some good ideas on what changes I can make. Thank you.

 

[Sean Renaud]

If you limit them to a particular geographic area that can be a building poing as well. If they live surrounded by water maybe they have some adaptations that let them dive deeper or swim farther or something. If by contrast they have lots of desert maybe they don't need as much water. Which could be interesting maybe despite being bad asses they are real lightweights when it comes to drinking because they unlike people who are like 70% water they are only 50% or something. Enough where shit just hits them a lot harder than it hits humans.

If they live in trees for some reason (maybe as bad ass as they are the things that live beneath the trees are more bad ass.) maybe they are extremely light weight?

Since it's kinda your idea you have to at some point set some direction but I'm more than happy to bounce ideas off you

 

[sunandshadow]

I more made this thread for ideas and someone to help brainstorm possible solutions.

I understood that - I was trying to express that I don't get what your artistic goals are in wanting to write about these literal monsters, and I would need an explanation of your goals before being able to suggest anything helpful. Though, I probably have noting helpful to say about this specific concept; Erotic horror isn't one of my specialty areas.

 

[Littlefinger]

If you limit them to a particular geographic area that can be a building poing as well. If they live surrounded by water maybe they have some adaptations that let them dive deeper or swim farther or something. If by contrast they have lots of desert maybe they don't need as much water. Which could be interesting maybe despite being bad asses they are real lightweights when it comes to drinking because they unlike people who are like 70% water they are only 50% or something. Enough where shit just hits them a lot harder than it hits humans.

If they live in trees for some reason (maybe as bad ass as they are the things that live beneath the trees are more bad ass.) maybe they are extremely light weight?

Since it's kinda your idea you have to at some point set some direction but I'm more than happy to bounce ideas off you

Lay it on me! Even if I don't end up making the story the way you see it, your ideas so far have helped me nudge things in a direction where I can visualize them a bit more clearly.

Digging out an old idea for a different story I was planning to make, I think I'll make them island dwellers. But not your normal type of island. The Isles of Black Sand. Covered in black sand, with twisted black trees, strange fauna and overcast skies, it looks more like a hole into a parallel universe or alien planet; I think I can account for it's strange creatures and such by implying that it is a hole of some kind or that the isolation is what has made their creatures and plants develop differently. My plotline will start with them on this island living peacefully for centuries with their own farms of humans. It's gotten to the point though where the gene pool is degrading and the quality of their food is waning. So, they decide to make an excursion to the outer world.

For simplicity, I'll set the timeframe in the mid-90's and they hijack a ship of some kind - maybe a cruise ship? and bring home the humans that survive the attack. Among the women is a detective who was forced to take a vacation by her boss and she has a daughter at home and a stupid ex husband who doesn't care. This fuels her motivation and determination not to be made into a meal or a baby factory; she'll be the type of career woman and single mother that was emerging at the time who favors her independence. She tries to rally the other humans to help her escape but the ones who were already there not only speak a different dialect but no longer have the will or desire to fight their overlords. Fuck that. So she takes the women and men who were on the cruise ship with her and they escape the facility and have to try to survive the terrors of the island while trying to find a way to escape off of it.

Meanwhile, at the same time this story is happening, the son of the leader of the Gamatoms has grown fond of one of the human men they captured on the ship and has taken him in as a personal pet. So, while I have the story of these women's escape I'll also have a story of a human man's transformation and becoming the mate of this Gamatom prince and forgetting the world he left behind. Maybe a little later down the line, I'll add in stuff that's going on in the outside world, like how people learn about the sunken cruise ship and start searching for where these people went. Might even prompt a war if the Gamatoms feel threatened.

That's all I have so far and it's still very bare bones but I'm getting a clearer picture of a storyline I can get excited about and I feel people might actually want to read about. They're still kinda empty as far as culture...

I was looking up tropes to help me expand my ideas and the picture I have of them in my head and I think they could be like the Proud Warrior Race Guy or like the Orcs, which you mentioned before. I'm looking up books and novels that are told from the viewpoints of this so-called "barbaric race" to get more ideas on how a basically chaotic evil and nihilistic pleasure-driven society could work. Like, I'm reading Game of Thrones right now as I already watched the series and I'm thinking the Dothraki and the Wildlings could give me some pointers. But I also looked up some Predator novels that would also have a viewpoint for a "hunter race".

Tell me any ideas you have.

 

[Sean Renaud]

First I can't deal with the Proud Warrior Race. I'm a goddamn Anime Fan through and throw and all you said to me is you want Dragonball Fan fic. Which I'm tots down for but that's all my brain can focus on at that point. Besides Gamatoms are clearly Orcs. To make them the Proud Warrior Race would be to unmake all the monstrosity you built into them and replace them with a race of blood knights. (look it up since you're a fellow troper.) They are fun, their big weakness is they tend to be kinda. . .impractical.

I think if you're willing ot take humans who came via some kind of portal, space ship, whatever then we can get away with a lot more worrying about fixing things because I can worry about less about details.

 

[emap]

I think you are looking in the wrong place. Look up violent crime, take what those guys do, and then make all of them like that and that is your big bad evil people.

Don't have to look up tropes, which are not a good thing to have because everyone else does, simply look at what people do on a regular basis to other people. Make that all of a certain type of people or whatever and there you go.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Tropes are not bad. In fact if you don't have 'x' amount of tropes you're either the smartest most creative person ever or a complete idiot and the odds are heavily towards the latter.

 

[Littlefinger]

First I can't deal with the Proud Warrior Race. I'm a goddamn Anime Fan through and throw and all you said to me is you want Dragonball Fan fic. Which I'm tots down for but that's all my brain can focus on at that point. Besides Gamatoms are clearly Orcs. To make them the Proud Warrior Race would be to unmake all the monstrosity you built into them and replace them with a race of blood knights. (look it up since you're a fellow troper.) They are fun, their big weakness is they tend to be kinda. . .impractical.

I think if you're willing ot take humans who came via some kind of portal, space ship, whatever then we can get away with a lot more worrying about fixing things because I can worry about less about details.

Okay, so not exactly like the Proud Warrior Race but I thought looking up so-called barbarians in fictions and seeing how they act and whatnot could help. I was thinking that the Gamatoms basically just eating and fucking was a bad thing but maybe it's not. What if there were different factions of them and they regularly engaged in war "games" with each other. Like the winners in certain battles would capture the human "cattle" from the other side or use the losing Gamatom warriors as slaves?

I just, I have this pleasure-driven society and nothing to really give them. If I can't write and understand the motivations of these monsters then how can I make them do anything? It's like writing a Halloween-esque slasher story. Even Mike Myers had motivations behind what he did, which then helped propel where the victims could be and how they could survive. If I give the Gamatoms too much area, they go crazy and try to indiscriminately take over. I give them an island and they twiddle their thumbs and laze about.

If they're not artists, if they're not politicians, if their food source is basically just women turned into cows and sheep and they enjoy being violent and killing things for fun then how do I make it work where they are motivated to... you know... live and thrive?

I'll definitely look into Orcs and the different cultural aspects others have given them but go ahead and chime in if you've got anything else to offer. I really do appreciate what you've given me so far.

 

[Sean Renaud]

The weakness of a Proud Warrior Race is your guys are wild and free, not that I have anything against Saiyans. It's that those are the kinds of guys who (and again DBZ as the prime example but there are others) end up losing fights they could and should win because their opponent said "it's not fair, there are two of you, it's not fair you have a weapon, it's not fair." And they actually listen because their pride is part of their warrior culture and victory in a lopsided battle isn't a victory to be proud of and they'd rather be dead than lose their pride.

Gamatoms strike me more as the shock and awe kind of guys who would swoop down from the mountains in a full scale assault on Easter Morning precisely because all the women and children are gonna be out hunting Easter Eggs that morning and easy to capture. Different mentality.

They strike me as an Authority equals Ass Kicking society. The King is the baddest motherfucker amonst them.

If you adjust how they procreate you can set them loose at large. Maybe the transformation takes months or years something like mutant HIV and they are tough but by no means invincible. The kind of thing where the reason they can't attack the humans at Fort Bad Ass is because even if they kill five humans for every one Gametom who dies the trade just isn't in their favor. Like a zombie plague in reverse.

We can work on art, but Art is a reflection of society.

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

I think you've got to solve issues of biology before you can move on to issues of society, but, then again, I'm a longtime student of E.O. Wilson. If you want a non-fiction take on world-building, particularly your idea about the genetic fear of women, Dr. Wilson's (short, entertaining) essay on the universal primate aversion to snakes in "On Nature" would be helpful.

Ok, so Gamatoms have an insatiable desire to spread their viral "seed" to human men (Reproduce...asexually? Sexually through host-enabled parthenogenesis?) and also have some separate drive to reproduce sexually with members of their own species. Once a human man has been exposed in any way to Gamatom fluids, he begins to become a Gamatom who only reproduces the one way, sexually? So you have two ways new Gamatoms are produced, but they all require the same food source, human women.

Humans, by nature, are a terrible food source. True, we're soft, squishy, and presumably delicious with no tough hide, claws, or hair to fight back. We're not fast or strong, we have comparatively terrible eyesight and hearing and virtually no sense of smell. But you know the worst part about humans as prey compared to buffalo or zebra or gazelles? We have a *very* long gestation and maturation period. Nine months of pregnancy, almost always single births, and a year of nursing means that women who aren't actively trying to get pregnant do so about once every 2-3 years. Even if you had some sort of advanced breeding technique and the Gamatoms didn't allow nursing so their female cattle could get pregnant again as soon as possible, that's still probably a pregnancy a year. So, let's say a Gamatom wanted to eat just one woman a year. He'd need to have 20 women to make that possible.

Year one, he breeds all his women but one, which he eats - 19 women, 19 children, 10 of which are male and no good for food

Year two, he breeds all his women but one, which he eats - 18 women, 18 children (9 girls, 9 boys), 9 one-year-old girls, 10 one-year old boys

Year three, he breeds all his women but one, which he eats - 17 women, 17 children (8 girls, 9 boys); 9 two-year-old girls, 10 two-year old boys; 9 one-year-old girls, 9 one-year old boys

Year four, he breeds all his women but one, which he eats - 16 women, 16 children (8 girls, 8 boys); 9 three-year-old girls, 10 three-year old boys; 9 two-year-old girls, 9 two-year old boys; 8 one-year-old girls, 9 one-year old boys

Year five, he breeds all his women but one, which he eats - 15 women, 15 children (7 girls, 8 boys); 9 four-year-old girls, 10 four-year old boys; 9 three-year-old girls, 9 three-year old boys; 8 two-year-old girls, 9 two-year old boys; 8 one-year-old girls, 8 one-year-old boys

Year six, he breeds all his women but one, which he eats - 14 women, 14 children (7 girls, 7 boys); 9 five-year-old girls, 10 five-year old boys; 9 four-year-old girls, 9 four-year old boys; 8 three-year-old girls, 9 three-year old boys; 8 two-year-old girls, 8 two-year-old boys; 7 one-year-old girls, 8 one-year-old boys

I could keep going here for every year, but by the time he eats that first, delicious 18 year old girl he bred in Year One, he has 90 girls, 81 of which are under 18 so they presumably can't be bred or eaten, and 100 boys who aren't good for food at all. If he's given into his insatiable lust and turned even one of those human boys into a Gamatom who also needs to eat just one woman a year...you can see where this is going. You've created a predator which, by the way it reproduces, quickly overpopulates its slow-growing prey and older Gamatoms *don't die*. They'll starve to death in two generations on even a big island. Their entire culture, including arts, sports, music, etc. would have to be based around the feeding and care of human children, since that's what they have to do with the vast majority of their time in order to eat in the future.

Possible fixes?

Gamatoms eat children. They fear/revere human women because they desperately want to eat them but must refrain to have a continued food supply. Like polygamous societies, the wealthy and powerful can afford to have multiple women and the poor may never have one.

Gamatom reproduction is complicated and slow. Gamatoms can have all the social sex they like with each other but can't reproduce with each other - they must reproduce with a half-breed human man, one they have personally infected so the whatsit is compatible. Part of the Gamatom conversion makes human males able to receive, carry, and bear offspring, but the full conversion is slow, say 5 years and only happens once. Maybe it kills the human or just leaves him "barren." So, at best, Gamatoms can reproduce with a converted human five years after infection. If your human is killed or taken from you in Year 4, too bad, hope you have a back-up. Again, the powerful have a harem, the weak struggle to ever have a "mate." Lots of non-primate species use the intervention of another, unrelated species as an integral part of their reproductive cycle. Want to questions everything you know about human biological supremacy? Read up on toxoplasmosis.

 

[Sean Renaud]

The short version of that is most writers (myself included) can't and don't do math. And her math was based on one human lasting you an entire year which unless you've got really slow metabolism isn't gonna fly. They really need a secondary or more than that food source.

 

[Littlefinger]

You've created a predator which, by the way it reproduces, quickly overpopulates its slow-growing prey and older Gamatoms *don't die*. They'll starve to death in two generations on even a big island. Their entire culture, including arts, sports, music, etc. would have to be based around the feeding and care of human children, since that's what they have to do with the vast majority of their time in order to eat in the future.

Possible fixes?

Gamatoms eat children. They fear/revere human women because they desperately want to eat them but must refrain to have a continued food supply. Like polygamous societies, the wealthy and powerful can afford to have multiple women and the poor may never have one.

Gamatom reproduction is complicated and slow. Gamatoms can have all the social sex they like with each other but can't reproduce with each other - they must reproduce with a half-breed human man, one they have personally infected so the whatsit is compatible. Part of the Gamatom conversion makes human males able to receive, carry, and bear offspring, but the full conversion is slow, say 5 years and only happens once. Maybe it kills the human or just leaves him "barren." So, at best, Gamatoms can reproduce with a converted human five years after infection. If your human is killed or taken from you in Year 4, too bad, hope you have a back-up. Again, the powerful have a harem, the weak struggle to ever have a "mate." Lots of non-primate species use the intervention of another, unrelated species as an integral part of their reproductive cycle. Want to questions everything you know about human biological supremacy? Read up on toxoplasmosis.

Thank you for commenting! You've hit the nail on the head... and I didn't even see the problem sitting there staring me in the face. I read a book called The Superiors about vampires who have completely taken over and one of the things they had were facilities where humans were bred and raised for food. I thought in the back of my mind that I could just do that but Gamatoms aren't vampires, they're cannibals; they kill and eat the whole human, thus eliminating the possibility of using it for tomorrow's meal.

I think I just need to take away their need to eat women. Let's say, since their biology is a mutation of humans, that they CAN eat other things, like plants and animals. But because of their origins and the way they are as a society, they just like to engage in cannibalism and kill human women. It kind of makes sense with their pleasure-driven/nihilistic mindset without making them "suicidal" on top of it, you know?

 

[Sean Renaud]

Make it a delicacy. Something that is far too expensive (We haven't discussed money, but for the moment just replace expensive with difficult to obtain/you don't rate) for the average Gamatom. Especially if your talking about "prime flesh" which while the Lit rules have numbers that must be used if the story ever comes about what I mean is that women who can be bred are "Prime Flesh" and generally not eaten except by royalty. Once they are too old they are pretty much trash and we can figure out how they are dealt with (I think some kind of organized hunt is best. Especially if you want to lean towards the Proud Warrior Race or even the brutal orc, it's a game. The women and I guess any men that are around for whatever reason are given basic weapons and a sporting head start and it's done once a year or once every x years (like the Olympics!). And ones who are too young are sometimes eaten just cus nobody really gives a shit.

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

A good analogy for this might be Western consumption of beef. Now, the average American probably eats some form of beef 4-5 times a week in addition to all the poultry, pork, etc. Before factory farming, beef 4-5 times a week was unthinkable for anyone but the richest and most powerful, not just because of supply but because of the incredible value of cattle while they were alive - they gave milk, pulled carts, provided dung for fertilizer and fuel, all kinds of things. The only time a farmer would eat a cow or bull was after it was too old to be more useful alive than dead. I've read that's why so many old English recipes for beef involve cooking it for a long time - it was pretty tough by the time it got to the chopping block. Veal is on ever Italian restaurant's menu now and most people would turn their noses up at calf liver, but those used to be foods that were incredibly costly.

Now we have an agriculture system that doesn't rely heavily on cattle while they're alive for anything but making milk and more cows. We have very little use for 90% of male cattle at all, except as food. I think Sean's idea about a big hunt is compelling, and I think it's got a good parallel in bullfighting or the Running of the Bulls in Spain. For there to be any real drama there, though, the humans have to have some possible advantage. The thrill of running the bulls is that they're not very smart but if they catch you, they can easily trample or gore you. To death. Humans are physically weaker than Gamatoms, so you may have to flip the trope: humans are dangerous prey because they can plan and work together against the constantly fighting and jockeying Gamatoms, who are solo hunters. They're more likely to sabotage each other than work together, especially if the annual "hunt" is the only way for a younger/lower status Gamatom to obtain human stock of his own. He not only has to capture without killing, he has to make it out of the arena with his catch before another Gamatom takes it or eats it - that alone might be a good starting-off point for a story about a relationship that develops between a Gamatom and either a male or female human.

I think you've got an interesting core idea with the Gamatom fear/hate of females, just not a direct fear of female humans. I swear, I'm not a biologist, but have you ever read anything about spotted hyenas? They have a brutal female-dominant social structure. The females even have a non-functional scrotum, testes, and penis. I cannot make this stuff up. What if your Gamatoms were long-ago refugees who found a way out from under the thumb of the females? So long ago that none left alive even remember that there was a female of the species, other than in their legends?

 

[Sean Renaud]

^^^ I like it, excellent way the game plays out. We even have our "romance", girl doesn't want to be in any way eaten, agrees to help a Gamatom "capture" her and get her out because it keeps her alive. Not sure how this plays out long term but that's something.

Technically it's a giant clit that Hyenas have. I don't know how non-functioning it is. Just glancing at the wiki page they can get erections and presumably its not numb.