(Xenobiology dossier excerpt; not a sex manual)
Time Reference
- 1 V’ren day (Vd) = 29.15 Earth hours = 1.2146 Earth days (Ed)
- 1 Earth day (Ed) = 0.8233 V’ren days (Vd)
- 1 V’ren orbital year (Vy) = 14.7 Earth years (Ey) ≈ 5,360 Ed ≈ 4,413 Vd
Species & Homeworld Context
The V’ren are a green-skinned humanoid species originating from the planet V’ren, a cool, misty terrestrial world orbiting the Alphecca system (Alpha Coronae Borealis / Gemma). V’ren follows a long 14.7-Earth-year orbit and is visually defined by layered cloud decks, fog, and steady drizzle across four large continents and two smaller ones. Surface gravity is 0.85 g, giving movement and load-bearing a subtle lightness. The night sky is active and brightened by four moons, producing frequent conjunctions and complex tidal/light cycles.
The Basics of V’ren Biology
The V’ren—like humans and countless other known species across the galaxy humans call the Milky Way—are an engineered people, shaped through subtle genetic interventions meant to guide emerging sentient life toward a long-term genetic goal. Across many worlds the beings responsible are known by different names, but “The Progenitors” is the most widely used. The Progenitors were last widely seen 80,000 Earth years ago, and have been only rarely encountered since 40,000 Earth years ago.
Like other Progenitor-engineered peoples, the V’ren cannot interbreed with most known species—there is one exception: humans. Until very recently, humanity was treated as a protected species on a no-go world, a status enforced by the Nayali. Although the Nayali have been largely quiet for the last 200 Earth years, the travel bans remain in place, and fear of enforcement still lingers.
Human Compatibility and the Progenitor Design Constraint
Human compatibility is not incidental. By design, the V’ren are more closely related to humans on a genetic level than Neanderthals were, with conserved reproductive architecture intended to preserve cross-lineage viability. V’ren–human pairings are therefore capable of producing healthy, fertile offspring at population scale.
V’ren Female × Human Male
This pairing presents no special conception barrier. V’ren women and human men typically conceive without clinical intervention, and hybrids are expected to be viable and fertile.
Human Female × V’ren Male
This pairing is also viable, but introduces one practical bottleneck: V’ren male reproductive function is gated by a pheromonal trigger. Identification and provision of the trigger can be assisted in two accepted ways:
- Synthesized trigger compounds, produced under laboratory conditions and administered in controlled form.
- Assisted reproduction (IVF), used when pheromonal triggering is unreliable, undesirable, or socially complicated.
The V’ren Infant
Protective pheromone trigger
V’ren infants produce pheromones that activate a biological protection-trigger response in adult males.
Primary target
The biological father is the most strongly triggered, often to the point of compulsive caregiving: overwork, underfeeding, and sleep deprivation driven by an overriding desire to protect and tend the newborn.
Peak intensity window
The immediacy of the trigger softens as the infant reaches 50–80 V’ren days (Vd) old (≈ 61–97 Earth days (Ed)), but remains strong through toddlerhood.
Separation effects
A father separated from his child for extended periods often suffers physically and emotionally. This is treated clinically as a withdrawal-like stress response, characterized by dysregulation of mood and stress chemistry in individuals heavily conditioned by infant exposure.
School-age taper
The most disruptive compulsive component is mostly dissipated by school age at about 1,500 V’ren days (Vd) (≈ 1,822 Earth days (Ed) ≈ 5.0 Earth years (Ey)).
Residual bond
A lesser protective effect persists beyond school age and continues fading until puberty.
Puberty and the Pheromonal Switch
Male puberty
- Typical onset: 15–17 Earth years (Ey) (≈ 4,510–5,110 Vd)
- Transition duration: 150–250 Earth days (Ed) (≈ 124–206 Vd)
- Pheromone change: the body’s ability to produce the childhood protection-profile pheromones is negated during puberty. The established bond remains socially and emotionally durable due to years of reinforced caregiving.
Female puberty (Earth time)
- Transition duration: 20–30 Earth days (Ed) (≈ 16–25 Vd)
- Onset range:8–22 Earth years (Ey) (≈ 2,406–6,616 Vd)
- Average cluster 12–16 Ey (≈ 3,608–4,812 Vd)
- ~80% before 17 Ey (≈ 5,112 Vd)
- ~90% before 18 Ey (≈ 5,413 Vd)
- <1% after 20 Ey (≈ 6,014 Vd)
Pheromone inversion and kin-safety
Girls undergo a radical pheromonal shift from a “love me / protect me” signature to a “lust after me” signature. Close male relatives experience the mature scent as physically repulsive and may become ill in its presence, functioning as a strong kin-safety mechanism.
High-risk transition window and training retreat
During the rapid transition period, girls become extremely fertile and may lack control over hyper-intense pheromone output, creating risk to themselves and compatible males. Cultural response is standardized:
- Close women relatives withdraw with the new young woman to teach emission control, boundaries, and adult norms.
- Typical duration is described as “a few months,” commonly 2–4 Earth months (≈ 61–122 Ed, ≈ 50–100 Vd), longer in some families.
Subsidized isolation package
A basic isolation package—typically a family-sized suite suitable for the girl plus 6–10 female relatives—is government subsidized. Wealthier families often redirect the subsidy toward destination retreats; an industry has formed around this transition rite.
Peer bonding across caste
Despite the caste system, girls who transition together in the same location often become lifelong friends.
Female Sexual Biology
Cycle and hormonal rhythm
Post-menarche fertility can be intense but irregular. The younger the age at menarche, the longer the gap before subsequent cycles commonly appear.
Examples (Earth years → Vd):
- Menarche at 8 Ey (≈ 2,406 Vd) → may not cycle again until 14 Ey (≈ 4,210 Vd)
- Menarche at 10 Ey (≈ 3,007 Vd) → may not cycle again until 13 Ey (≈ 3,909 Vd)
- Menarche at 12 Ey (≈ 3,608 Vd) → may not cycle again until 14 Ey (≈ 4,210 Vd)
- Menarche at 14 Ey (≈ 4,210 Vd) → may begin with roughly yearly periods (or slightly more often)
Stabilization trend:
- Until 18 Ey (≈ 5,413 Vd), the interval between ovulation events decreases.
- At 18 Ey, baseline often settles to about every 6 Earth months (≈ 183 Ed, ≈ 150 Vd).
- By the mid-20s (≈ 24–26 Ey ≈ 7,216–7,817 Vd), cycles may occur every other month (≈ 61 Ed, ≈ 50 Vd) if childless.
- In the 30s–40s (≈ 9,020–12,028 Vd), cycles can be as frequent as every two Earth weeks (≈ 14 Ed, ≈ 11.5 Vd) when there is extended time between conceptions.
- After 50 Ey (≈ 15,035 Vd), cycles may slow to less than twice per Earth year if she has had children.
Fertility and conception
- Women are usually fertile well into their 70s and 80s (Ey) (≈ 21,050–24,060 Vd).
- V’ren women must use arousal pheromones to trigger a male’s mating response. Consciously triggering is a learned biofeedback skill; it can also occur as an involuntary “leak” under strong arousal or stress.
- A woman cannot trigger close male relatives.
- A woman may induce earlier ovulation through biofeedback (hormonal release paired to sexual response).
Mate scarcity and bonded-pair system
- Legal bonding requires confirmed conception; registration occurs automatically upon pregnancy.
- A woman’s pheromones can trigger about 1 in 195 males species-wide.
- Caste restrictions compound this. Among the top ~15% (“high born”), functional availability can be <1 in 10,000, improving only to ~1 in 8,000 when adjacent castes are included.
- Post-puberty women are registered with planetary health services; a filtered match list can be requested by personal device. Bonded men are excluded, and lists are expected to remain private and not shared with males.
- Not all listed candidates will respond; genetic profiling produces likely matches but does not override male preference or other variables.
Social timing
A girl who begins formal mate-search before completing the V’ren equivalent of high school risks social penalty. Searching during professional training is discouraged but typically not punished.
Pregnancy and gestation
- Pregnancy is roughly 330 Earth days (Ed) (≈ 272 Vd).
- V’ren infants are more physically developed than human infants, often comparable to a 6-week-old human baby (≈ 42 Ed, ≈ 34.6 Vd) in alertness and baseline motor readiness.
Birth and postpartum
A new mother is less triggered by the child’s pheromones and is socially conditioned to care for the caregiver, monitoring the father’s health and preventing self-neglect during peak bonding.
Lifespan changes and menopause analog
- Average lifespan is around 92 Earth years (Ey) (≈ 27,660 Vd) for men and women under post-scarcity norms.
- Women often remain fertile into the mid-70s and early 80s.
- Long cycle spacing is not experienced as “easy.” Even with as much as 2 Earth years (≈ 730 Ed, ≈ 601 Vd) between cycles, unpleasantness is described as intensified rather than reduced.
Male Sexual Biology
- Sex is primarily for reproduction.
- Male V’ren do not experience physical pleasure from sex in the human sense.
- Neither erection nor ejaculation are possible without pheromonal triggering by a compatible female.
- Sperm viability: V’ren sperm are hardier than human sperm and may remain viable in a woman’s body for up to 30 V’ren days (Vd) (≈ 36 Earth days (Ed) ≈ 5.1 Earth weeks), enabling delayed conception.
- Delayed conception can result in bonded status even after a male’s death, complicating future mate-search unless older lists or illicit access are available.
- Biological fathers show the strongest infant bond, but it extends to related males (grandfathers, uncles, post-pubescent brothers, and more weakly close cousins). These males are also subject to puberty-phase kin repulsion and are generally relieved when the women begin the transition retreat.
Assisted Reproduction and Emerging Genetic Technologies
IVF as a standard workaround
Where V’ren male reproductive function is bottlenecked by pheromonal triggering, the most common non-pheromonal workaround is assisted reproduction, particularly in vitro fertilization (IVF). This route is widely accepted because it bypasses chemosensory gating without requiring behavioral or chemical triggers and fits cleanly inside established medical systems. For many mixed-species couples—and for V’ren couples where triggering is unreliable—IVF is treated as routine rather than exceptional.
Codon writer (restricted)
A second option exists but remains socially sensitive and is typically discussed only in restricted clinical or policy contexts: the use of a codon writer, a high-end genomic platform capable of producing a genetically viable gamete from a same-sex pair’s combined genetic material. In practical terms, this permits same-sex couples to have offspring biologically related to both partners, provided a host mother carries the pregnancy to term. While codon writers have legitimate medical uses, elective reproductive use is controversial because it is seen as adjacent to designer selection.
Policy Note: Why Codon-Written Conception Is Restricted
Codon-writer reproduction is discouraged not because nontraditional parentage is taboo, but because it is categorized as genetic authorship. In V’ren-influenced legal systems, the ethical red line is not “who parents a child,” but who decides what a child is allowed to become by design. The long memory of Progenitor intervention—combined with caste anxieties about consolidating advantage—has produced a strong bias against any tool that enables deliberate trait selection, even when used with benign intent. Public policy therefore treats elective codon writing as adjacent to designer practices: a pathway to engineered superiority, caste entrenchment, and private eugenics.
This stance also preserves a distinction the V’ren consider stabilizing. Match lists and caste norms are defended as social governance (negotiable, political, reversible), while codon writing is viewed as biological governance (heritable, irreversible). As a result, codon-writer family-building is commonly restricted to narrow medical exceptions, subject to intensive oversight, or pushed into discreet channels depending on jurisdiction and resources.
