Miqo’te Mating Strategies Explored: a biologist’s point of view





Purpose of this Guide



I’ve seen a lot of people confused and looking for information about the Miqo’te social structure and particularly how their reproductive strategies work. In an absence of official lore, I have used my biology background to extrapolate based on real life ecology and natural systems how the Miqo’te mating systems are likely to work. Little of this information is official lore, but it is informed by modern biological research into species with similar reproductive strategies. You are free to use or disregard this information as you see fit when developing your own Miqo’te backstory.



Most of what I describe is based on studies in animal species such as jungle cats, flies, mice, and birds. I’ll be specifically describing the biological basis for these mating systems. Politics and sociology are not my fields of expertise, so there is plenty of room for these systems to be complicated by morality and ethics. It is important to realize, however, that because these mating structures are historically normal to the Miqo’te, their perception of morality and ethics in regards to family and sexuality will differ from the typically monogamous viewpoint of modern human society on Earth. For example, the notion of a “deadbeat dad” in Miqo’te society is likely non-existent, and may even be replaced with the idea of a “deadbeat aunt” or “deadbeat grandmother.”



Also, bear in mind that what I’m describing would be the average or the norm. Adventurers are, by definition, exceptional individuals. There’s no reason your character can’t grow up in these systems but develop different behaviors and values. It’s very rare that an interesting story is written about a character that conforms to society’s mold.





My Credentials



My undergraduate degree is in biology, and my honors thesis was on reproductive strategies and sexual evolution. I later acquired my master’s degree in biological science from the University of California, Irvine studying genetics and physiology in Drosophila melanogaster.





Seekers of the Sun – Harem structure



Seekers of the Sun follow a harem mating structure. According to lore, males are divided into two groups: nunh and tia. Nunh are breeding males who command a harem of ten to fifty breeding females. Tia are non-breeding males or bachelors. I can see arguments either way for whether these harems are fixed groups of females tied to a particular nunh versus a certain number of privileged positions within the tribe whereby the nunh is allowed to be promiscuous with any female. Considering there are 26 tribes, it’s likely that both of these structures exist.



From official forums, it has been noted that a tribe averages one nunh for every 10-50 females. In order to become a nunh and earn breeding rights, a tia has two options. The most common is for them to challenge and defeat a current nunh in some sort of contest (likely combat), thus inheriting the position of nunh. This ensures the fitness of the tribe as only the strongest males reproduce. The other option for a tia is to break away from his current tribe with a group of females and found a new tribe, which seems less likely. If the male can’t win a position from a current nunh, there is little incentive for females to follow him and perform the groundwork necessary to establish a new tribe.



Some have drawn the comparison between the Seekers and African lions, the most obvious real world counterpart in both appearance and reproductive biology. This leads to the question “Would a new nunh kill off any cubs of the previous nunh whom he had defeated when taking over his harem?” The answer is that he probably would. Depending on the average reign of a nunh over a harem, he may not have the luxury of waiting a year or two for the females to come back into heat. There’s even a little bit of lore to back up this assertion. Upon joining a grand company, one of the options a player can take when asked if he’s sure about his choice is "I'll kill all of our enemies and eat their babies!" For the other races, this could be interpreted as the character being a bloodthirsty barbarian, but for Seekers of the Sun, it may just be a fact of life.





Keepers of the Moon – Promiscuity



The mating structure of the Keepers of the Moon is much less covered in the lore. About the only thing officially known is that it is a matriarchal structure, where the females hold positions of influence. It is noted in their naming guide that “rarely do even the largest Keeper of the Moon families have more than two or three sons. This is not by choice. Nature merely sees to it that more females are born to this race.” I have also seen it mentioned that male Keepers are highly nomadic.



Because of the gender gap in terms of numbers and no mention of a harem structure similar to that of the Seekers, it is highly likely that Keepers exhibit a promiscuous mating system. This is similar to many bird species, and one of the major hallmarks of this type of system is the notion of female choice or sexual selection. Females choose mates based on subjective criteria that serve no obvious survival benefit aside from attracting mates: songs, plumage/coloration, mating dances, etc. This is reinforced by the fact that the starting attributes of a Keeper character favor the mental attributes over the physical.





Paternal Care of Offspring



Considering the polygynous/promiscuous mating systems of the Miqo’te, male input during child rearing would likely be low out of necessity as well as behavioral preference. The sheer number of offspring a breeding male of either clan is likely to produce means that he would be splitting his time ineffectively between large numbers of offspring. It is likely in both clans that they exhibit some degree of communal rearing, where extended family groups of females share the task of rearing related children. It is probable that each female has a strong, direct relationship with not only her own children, but also her nieces, nephews, and grandchildren.



The Seekers of the Sun may experience some level of the “benevolent tia,” a male that lives within the tribe and aids in the rearing of offspring. How this is tolerated will depend on the tia’s relationship to the nunh. If the tia shares a trusting relationship with the nunh, for example being brothers, the nunh may tolerate or even encourage the tia to serve as a father figure. These trusted tia would likely serve as lieutenants for the nunh. If the tia is unrelated, it is likely the nunh will consider the tia a potential threat and not tolerate his presence.



Monogamy under the Keepers of the Moon may be possible, but will not be prevalent. Only a strong romantic tie would bind a Keeper male to a Keeper female. If monogamous relationships became mainstream, there would be a large amount of unattached females with limited reproductive opportunities, leading to widespread adultery or cross-breeding and significant drama. There is also a significant incentive for males to remain promiscuous, discouraging them from taking strong, fatherly roles. The most likely scenario in my mind is a Keeper male who wanders from community to community, sticking around for a month or two at a time to engage receptive females before moving on. Likely he would return to the same familiar communities year after year, serving less as a father figure and more like a visiting uncle.





Concerns About In-Breeding



The modern view of in-breeding is that it is indefensibly bad and leads to the genetic degradation of the in-breeding population. Most of this perception is based on social and religious stigma, which is to say that it is uninformed by modern biology (in particular, population genetics). It has been well documented in several species, particularly birds like the Japanese quail, that there is a distinct preference for first cousins as mates.



Consanguinity (a breeding relationship that shares a common ancestor) is the term biologists use to describe this sort of relationship, and historically, consanguineous relationships have gotten a bad rap. From the mathematical point of view of population genetics, however, they become a lot more transparent. Inbreeding within a population leads to a very peculiar effect. Genetic diseases tend to appear as rare recessive traits that only surface when an individual acquires two copies of the recessive gene. In an inbreeding population, this tends to occur more often due to the shared ancestry, but the opposite occurs more often as well. You also get more individuals carrying both of the dominant genes. I've done the math before in my college bio-statistics class, and it was a sound conclusion. You end up breeding out the carriers (individuals that don’t express the gene but have one copy of the disease gene that they can pass on to their offspring, which is how it survives in the gene-pool).



These population genetics models are based on gene frequencies in large populations over vast amounts of time. What most people would consider "long-term effects" in this model are actually short-term effects. I'm not talking about one or two generations, but tens to hundreds of generations over thousands of years. If you take a historically out-breeding population and institute inbreeding, the immediate effect over the next 10, 20, or more generations is negative, on the population average. This is the popular representation of an in-breeding population devolving into white trash rednecks, for example. Over time, however, the incidence of heterozygosity (individuals carrying only one copy of the negative allele) decreases. From a statistical standpoint, you're accelerating the selection against that allele and removing it from the population faster than it would in an out-breeding population. For a species that's been experience some level of consanguinity for a number of generations (around 50-100 generations), those genes have already started to be weeded out, thus it's not an issue for inbreeding to continue. If the breeding strategies of Miqo’te have existed for more than 50 generations with some level of in-breeding occurring, in-breeding will be a non-issue for that population.



It’s important to note that these sorts of changes would occur without any conscious effort on the parts of the Miqo’te. These models were developed in flies, mice, and birds, and they assume that only natural selection is occurring. While artificial selection or eugenics could help accelerate the process, it will occur naturally. Under this process, a recessive disease trait that would normally take 1,000 generations to disappear from an out-breeding population could be bred out in a much shorter time frame. In fact, humans have used these principals for thousands of years in order to domesticate livestock and crops. In the development of desired traits in domesticated species, inbreeding achieves results much faster.



To give a real-life human example (and display the amount to which social stigma and politics can influence such a system), consider the royal families of Europe. They practiced a mild form of inbreeding, seeing as how they all inter-married over centuries, while at the same time outlawing inbreeding among the populace. Why did that happen? The prevailing theory is one of wealth distribution and power. If the highest royals are forced to outbreed, it spreads their wealth and influence around, as they are continually forced to choose a spouse less privileged than themselves. Inbreeding at the highest tier of society guarantees that their spouse will bring in a comparable amount of wealth and aid in consolidating power. Conversely, if the lesser nobility are allowed to do the same, they could potentially maintain and amass enough wealth to become a threat to the throne. Forcing them to outbreed spreads the wealth around and maintains a lower average level of wealth and influence compared to the royals. In addition to a long-term biological benefit, there's also a short-term socioeconomic benefit to offset the short-term genetic cost (i.e., the sudden emergence of a disease like hemophilia).



Based on the reasonable assumption that the nunh among the Seekers are likely to derive from the same family lines (the strongest male will sire the strongest sons but also a lot of daughters), this would have the same effect among the Seekers of consolidating power. It is likely that among the Miqo’te inbreeding is common and yet not detrimental because it has been observed for countless generations, breeding out the recessive disease traits.





Cross Breeding Between the Clans



Many have asked whether or not the two clans would be interbreeding. The lore indicates that it doesn’t happen, but this is a simplified response. In a true, living system, this would be seen as a pressure against breeding across clans rather than an impenetrable barrier. The idea that one is nocturnal and the other diurnal is frankly laughable as a hard barrier. I knew plenty of guys in college who went to all-night keggers in college looking to get lucky despite having a calculus test at 8:30 the next morning. There’s very few barriers that exist capable of deterring a determined male in his sexual prime, the least of which being a little bit of lost sleep.



Male Seeker, Female Keeper – This seems like it would be the most common, as there are likely a lot of sexually frustrated tia out there who wouldn’t think twice when presented an opportunity to mate with a Keeper. Nunh would probably not engage in this particular arrangement, just because their plate is already quite full.



Female Seeker, Male Keeper – This seems far less likely. First, the nunh is going to be keeping an eye on his harem. Second, the male Keepers are already a rare commodity within their own community, so there are safer, more available options for them to seek a sexual partner.



Cross-racial – This seems even less likely, but there has been a little developer discussion that it could happen, so I’ll consider it for the sake of completeness. I would expect this to occur most often between Miqo’te and Hyur followed by Miqo’te and Elezen. The other two combinations seem physically and logistically unlikely. In all likelihood, an offspring from these unions would be sterile, along the lines of mules and zebroids.



The one major barrier I see comes down to mate choice. This plays into my speciation argument later, but it boils down to a difference in preference between the females of the two clans. Based on the difference between the starting attributes of the two clans, it is likely that Seeker females prefer to choose mates based on their physical attributes while Keeper females choose mates based on mental and social traits.





Gender Imbalance



Some people have raised questions about gender imbalance in the Miqo’te. Specifically, why are there so many females born versus so few males? In this case it is actually self-sustaining. In a monogamous species, the number of females and males born is generally similar (humans birth roughly 51-53% males and 47-49% females). In a harem society, it comes down to a matter of risk versus reward. Female offspring are a sure bet. If you have a girl, she's going to reproduce if she reaches sexual maturity, but she'll likely only produce 4-5 offspring in her lifetime. Male offspring are a gamble. Let's say 5% of males end up reproducing but can father as many as 200 offspring. Compared to a female, males have a lot higher reproductive potential, but only if they are the very creme de la creme. Only top class females are encouraged to have male offspring, because their sons will have an environmental and social advantage. The average and below average females are better off having daughters, because any sons they have will be disadvantaged in a highly competitive race. A 100% chance at 5 grandchildren is better than a 1% chance at 200.



There are ample studies in a variety of species that show they are able to influence the gender ratio of their offspring. Miqo’te likely share that particular capability. The male-female ratio in Seekers is actually spot on as far as you would expect for a real world harem mating structure. As far as the Keepers are concerned, it is possible that over time they will begin to diverge from the Seekers in this respect, eventually reaching a more monogamous reproductive structure with equitable paternal care. This will only happen if as a sub-species the males begin taking more of an interest in fatherhood and familial life.





Homosexuality



While controversial, I’m sure that some people will be curious about this, so I’ll conjecture a little along these lines. Given that the “fraternal birth order effect” serves as the highest available predictor of homosexuality in men, I would expect there to be less homosexual males among Miqo’te than humans on a percentile basis. This effect describes the evidence that the more brothers a male offspring has when he is born, the higher the likelihood that he will exhibit homosexual behavior. The low numbers of males born to Miqo’te families would indicate that this effect would be less prevalent in Miqo’te society.



Given the presumably close social ties between females for child-rearing as well as the lack of emotional and sexual contact normally provided by a husband, it is likely homosexual behaviors would be more prevalent among female Miqo’te than their human counterparts. It is also possible that Miqo’te are less needful of these sorts of interactions given their feline heritage and the fact that a husband-wife relationship never developed in their history.





Recent (Sub)Speciation of the Miqo’te Clans



This section can be considered wild speculation by the lore buffs. I will be proposing a theory for the recent genetic history and divergence of the two clans into separate species, which has no basis in the lore but is an interesting intellectual exercise for me as a biologist.



Based on the proposed mating systems (harem for Seekers, promiscuity for Keepers) I would theorize that this breaking into two clans was fairly recent and happened due to a conflict in mate choice. I’ve seen it proposed in several places that the elder females probably play a large role in influencing the perception of who the dominant males are among the Miqo’te, and that makes a lot of sense.



There are several reasons why the split was recent. First, their mating structures are similar. Both involve one male breeding with multiple females. Had they diverged long ago, it is likely that these systems would have drifted apart. Second, they have yet to display the physical characteristics that you would expect based on the proposed mating systems. Male Seekers should be larger than their female counterparts, but they aren’t (male lions are 50% larger than female lions, which is the closest real world comparison for the Seekers). If the Keepers are undergoing sexual selection, you would expect the males to become more flamboyant (elaborate coloration, songs, or mating dances) while the females would appear more functional and less flamboyant by comparison, which is also not the case (similar to what you see in many birds like ducks, peacocks, and songbirds where the males are elaborate and the females drab).



Now consider that historically at some point these two clans shared a common ancestor. I can see a tia going out of his way to establish himself as a world class singer or dancer to catch the eye of the older females in a tribe, who would in turn work to set him up as the next nunh to breed with their daughters. Other female elders in the same pride could find that to be completely objectionable and support the strongest warrior in an effort to keep their grandsons from being born dandies. If these concerns remain equal and opposite forces, you could expect this species to continue as it is. More likely, Miqo'te just experienced a speciation event, which could explain how the Seekers and the Keepers split into two clans. Keepers supported the dandies (males concerned with appearance and social acuity), leading to a matriarchal society with flamboyant males. The Keeper females broke away and formed a matriarchal society because they refused to have their mate choice dictated to them by strength at arms. Seekers supported the warriors, leading to large harems and larger, more robust males in an effort to produce the strongest, fittest warriors. Again, these notions are reinforced by the bias towards physical attributes for Seekers and mental attributes for Keepers.





In Conclusion



Hopefully, this has given you a glimpse into the real world biology that could underlie the peculiar mating systems of the Miqo’te. There’s little lore to support any of what I have asserted (there’s very little lore at all, so far), but it is based on real world biological research into a variety of species with similar mating structures. With any luck, this sort of discussion will help to inform not only the player base but the developers as well, leading to a very realistic, interesting, and vibrant community for the Miqo’te.