Sexual dimorphism in fantasy/sci-fi settings

Sexual dimorphism in fantasy/sci-fi settings.

>one and the same race
>one gender is a sentient and sapient creature (humanoid or non-humanoid - no difference)
>the other is a barely sentient non-sapient creature that is often mistaken for the "pets" of the other gender by other races
>if translating the analogy to humans, one gender would be basically "humans" and the other would be basically "dogs"

Or age dimorphism -
>after passing a certain age threshold of being a sapient and sentient child of its race, it "evolves" into a non-sentient individual
>said individual occupies its place in the society - kind of like an "ant" in an anthill - unaware of higher mental faculties, but conditioned enough to perform basic societal duties

Yes or no? Somewhat justified "magical realm" accusations aside, I think it makes for an interesting bit of worldbuilding.

You just want to have an excuse for fucking a bestial child.

For shame.

Actually, I'm just quoting two of the races of a sci-fi novel I recently read. There were also other races, like the sentient giant amoebas that get dumb when they overhwat, or the one that is incapable of irrational emotions.

>overhwat
*overheat

>inb4 the thread turns to fetish shit
One time in a short M&M campaign, my friend brought to the table a Starfire expy, but there were 2 odd twists: the first was that she was chaste, and the second was that she was a hideous monster by human standards. Now, I had a gender-flipped Starfire expy sitting in a text file, so I proposed to my friend the idea that we would be the royal twins of an extremely sexually dimorphic alien species and that I'd be considered a freak among my own kind for being attracted to human women. He was all for it, and we had fun times.

West of Eden

The first one is the Kzin

The second sounds like the piggys from Speaker for the Dead

No

The second part is pretty much the tl;dr of a race in my DMs setting. They go through a second puberty in which they lose sapience and become man-eating genderless killers. These "elders" wont attack their own species but will indiscriminately kill everything else, and thus tend to be in the caves around the homestead of the sapient ones.

Prior to that they're hermaphrodites, but lean heavily towards male or female, and there is little dimorphism in them without close examination of their genitalia, much like birds or reptiles.

>ITT: Y'all need to git evolved.

Obligatory post,

Yes. I had an idea for a setting where by Orcs, Ogres, and Goblins were all different genders of the same species

Some random Star Trek race has four genders. I think it's the one's with the blue skin and stupid looking antenne on their head?

I feel there's a joke about Tumblr to be made here.

Imagine if a human expedition - diplomatic - has to interact with these guys and their biologically compatable. (So the sub-sentient females - for extra discomfort of the readers - are compataby physically with the diplomatic team.)

Fun times to be had by all! For bonus points, one of the lead diplomats - due to knowing quite much about a critical issue - is a woman! Fun times for all!

>one gender is a sentient and sapient creature
>the other is a barely sentient non-sapient creature

aka "The Angler Fish Method"

You know, come to think of it, I can't recall any species with the OP's level of dimorphism where it isn't the male that gets the short end of the stick. Angler fish are like that, spiders are sort of like that, mantises are like that...I guess it makes sense if you consider that the female is always going to be the one that has to have room to carry babies around in and then care for them after. Can't have a fire-and-forget female, but a fire-and-forget male is totally workable.

This could work. Females are the sapient species, and the males are just roving pairs of testicles that try to latch onto a female at the first chance they get and start pumping her with sperm to reproduce as needed.

Ants... Sort of.
The queen is just a sack of eggs with no mobility or agency of any kind.
But the males are pretty much just fire and forget sperm donators, so I guess that's not much better.
Non-breeding females are the only ones that actually *do* anything, and the "hive mind" is almost exclusively directed by their hormones and reactions.

You aren't going to find any species where the dimorphism makes females expendable. That is in total contrast to how Male/Females work.

The finest example is the egg and sperm themselves. You have 1-1000 eggs, depending on species, and MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of sperm, against depending on species. From the microbiological level, males are expendable.

> You aren't going to find any species where the dimorphism makes females expendable.

Mole Rats, Ants, Bees...

Seems weird that it would go through a bunch of life gaining knowledge and suddenly abandon it. Why not have the idiot stage be while it's young?

But that's how it is IRL.

I must admit, shit was hot.

Maybe it works better that way.

>males are just roving pairs of testicles that try to latch onto a female at the first chance they get and start pumping her with sperm to reproduce as needed
Facehuggers?

Those all have only one actual female in any given colony.

Isn't this how the Darkspawn from DA:O work?

>"actual" female

The drones are female, they just don't do the whole reproduction thing.
Except in rare cases -- bees are known to occasionally have criminals. A drone and a male will set up in some corner of the hive and build some new walls to create a hidden passage so other bees won't find her, then she sets up having babies of her own, while he brings her food stolen from the hive's stores. This violates the biological compromise that the hive represents, though, and if the other bees find out they'll kill the two of them.

>bees have illicit trashy romance drama
So lewd.

>sentient child of its race, it "evolves" into a non-sentient individual
You just described pic related

Do you have a source for that?

Not offhand, no. Some nature documentary I watched.