Asura may not waste time with pregnancy

I would like to propose the fun idea that Asura would not go through the stages of pregnancy. The drain pregnancy has on the body would take away precious energy needed for complex thinking. The birth itself and recovery would also take up valuable time that could be used on more proficient projects. Instead, I like to think that Asura would lean towards what is essentially test tube babies. I would imagine that more intimate Asura would conceive the natural way but then have their embryo transferred to a lab to be care for properly and less intimate Asura would have their offspring purely created and developed in a lab.

I'm not suggesting this is lore or anything like that. Just a fun idea and it seems like something Asura would do.

Ahh is seee r34 stroke again xD rofl well it is possible but this is already solved, they are being pregnant for sure ;)

Yeah sure. Why even bothering with the idea that asura may be being who can express love and care toward their progeny just like any sentient race? Let's imagine them as monster mad scientist who put their child in tubes and treat them like living stock cause they don't want to be bother by biology instead!Also, having them create their own babies in lab?... that's atrocious.

I find the very idea highly disgusting. Asuras are not monsters. They are not all about science and technology, they are living and feeling beings too. No matter how skilled they are.

This is not fun at all. It's inhuman. I understand why such an idea would appear. It's something that can be seen in sci-fi works. But asuras are not human, and I don't believe for one second the majority of them would treat life and procreation so lightly and contemptuously.

I only see this happening to a very tiny amount of Asuras. Probably some Inquest.

There are a few things to consider regarding asuran procreation. One is the progeny's head size. If you've seen the progenies ingame you know that their heads are almost as large as any adult's, which makes sense since asuran progenies are said to learn to speak (I think) in a day or two after birth, so their brains are already quite developed. The other thing is that in body-structure male and female asura are quite similar. Females have no wider hips to make birth easier, and no breasts to feed their young at any time in their natural reproductive cycle. It is fair to assume that before their advance in medical sciences the natural law was that females died while giving birth.

So if there is no natural wiring in the females' brain (evolutionally speaking) to actually care for their progeny, their mindset around the morality of it all could be quite alien compared to ours. I don't see them manufacturing other asuras on a conveyor belt, sure, but it is safe to assume that they would be able to do such a thing, and they wouldn't find it as morally troubling as we do (especially the already morally grey Inquest). I wonder how the males would feel about it though, if evolutionally they would be the ones raising the progeny.

Yeah, lakdav. That is a good point about their biological make-up. I did not even consider the head size of children.

As for the morality of it, I try to never assume in game races have the same morals as we do as people. For all we know it could be seen as more responsible for Asura to raise the embryo in a safe lab with controlled conditions verses being irresponsible and carrying it around in your womb where it is bounced around and can be bumped into things. Not to mention it would be exposed to any extremes you are exposed to like temperatures, harsh chemicals, or ley line magic. It could even been seen as irresponsible not to have your embryo raised this way.

I think it would help males be more involved in the process since it would transfer a lot of responsibilities and pressures that are on the mother to both of them. They both would be responsible for ensuring the embryo obtains proper nutrition and is developing correctly.

I still like this idea better than live birth for Asura. It’s a fun though but it is just that. Just a thought.

you are asuming that asura give birth through the pelvis, while it might be just as possible that they naturally developed another... outlet.

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:you are asuming that asura give birth through the pelvis, while it might be just as possible that they naturally developed another... outlet.

Now I'm imagining asura progenies popping out of the chest like a xenomorph from Alien, screeching the square root of pi. :D

@lakdav.3694 said:

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:you are asuming that asura give birth through the pelvis, while it might be just as possible that they naturally developed another... outlet.

Or popping out of eggs that Asura lay lol.

@Lametoile.7394 said:Yeah sure. Why even bothering with the idea that asura may be being who can express love and care toward their progeny just like any sentient race? Let's imagine them as monster mad scientist who put their child in tubes and treat them like living stock cause they don't want to be bother by biology instead!Also, having them create their own babies in lab?... that's atrocious.

I find the very idea highly disgusting. Asuras are not monsters. They are not all about science and technology, they are living and feeling beings too. No matter how skilled they are.

This is not fun at all. It's inhuman. I understand why such an idea would appear. It's something that can be seen in sci-fi works. But asuras are not human, and I don't believe for one second the majority of them would treat life and procreation so lightly and contemptuously.

How does growing a baby outside your body make you not love it or into some sort of monster? I am human and I have no problem with that idea. Lots of infertile Earth woman grow their babies in surrogates.

I feel like I'm gently stepping on a landmine replying to you, but it seems like you're really projecting some personal stuff and/or personal religious beliefs on this topic. Also if my wife and mother of 2 kids is any indication, I think just about every human mother would take this option if available. Both pregnancy and childbirth can be BRUTAL. :p

@"Fluffball.8307" said:How does growing a baby outside your body make you not love it or into some sort of monster?

I think they meant more of the direction the OP went, which was "they grow a test tube baby because it hinders their mental process and they don't care that much about kids."

The OP's entire argument, is basically, "asura care more about their projects than about their kids", but we have actual developer statements saying otherwise.

You insert a tiny portal into the pregnant Asura and port the progeny out of there into a tube, the earlier the better. No harm done and all is well.

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@Lametoile.7394 said:Yeah sure. Why even bothering with the idea that asura may be being who can express love and care toward their progeny just like any sentient race? Let's imagine them as monster mad scientist who put their child in tubes and treat them like living stock cause they don't want to be bother by biology instead!Also, having them create their own babies in lab?... that's atrocious.

I find the very idea highly disgusting. Asuras are not monsters. They are not all about science and technology, they are living and feeling beings too. No matter how skilled they are.

This is not fun at all. It's inhuman. I understand why such an idea would appear. It's something that can be seen in sci-fi works. But asuras are not human, and I don't believe for one second the majority of them would treat life and procreation so lightly and contemptuously.

All right, I clearly went a bit far with this. I meant absolutely no offense toward women using assisted procreation. I know they don't have choice and that it is important. I apologize if I offended anyone here.Don't worry about the landmine, I'm always ready to discuss (and btw I'm not a religious person) . My point was not to attack any medical process or those who practice it.I just commented of the idea of ALL asuras making their child growing in tube, which, from a (truly) personal point of view I find quite shocking, as it sounds like reification to me. All the more as I personally like asuras and don't want to consider them like that. It was the idea of the first puplication.

It was a personal opinion. I am no woman, I have no chidren, so I'm probably not the right person to speak on that matter but I published my reaction, nothing more.

So, no offense intended. My apologies to anyone feeling offended. Feel free to comment back.

I don't know why but Asura always struck me a vaguely reptilian, maybe it's all those pointy teeth they show when they grin, so I would have thought the laying eggs line would be a possibility. They would still get to look after the eggs and nurture them until they hatch. It would also solve the head size problem, look at baby birds they tend to have large heads compared to their body size.

@Oenanthe.6549 said:I don't know why but Asura always struck me a vaguely reptilian, maybe it's all those pointy teeth they show when they grin, so I would have thought the laying eggs line would be a possibility. They would still get to look after the eggs and nurture them until they hatch. It would also solve the head size problem, look at baby birds they tend to have large heads compared to their body size.

asura are confirmed to be mammals.

In matters of childbirth and early development, little is known outside of the knowledge that asura give birth to live young in the same manner as humans (that is, they are placental mammals).-the wiki

I'm pretty sure roleplayers in rata sum have a leg up on this matter (in more ways than one) - why not ask them?

lakdav, one thing about the asuran body, they dont have breasts because asura are not atracted to breasts, breasts are to attract a mate, nipples are for feeding young, and they do have those.asura are attracted to intelligence and big ears.

They can be mammals and still lay eggs, like monotremes.Or they can give birth to really underdeveloped babies, like marsupials.This would allow them to have such big heads and tiny bodies.

I like to imagine Asuras easily giving birth to really minimal newborns they then put on incubators to regulate and control their development with as much caring as scientific zeal. IMO it is very probable progenies are experimented on from day one, trying to make them better or special through different means, even if (or maybe because) their parents love them. Lets remember Asura see investigation as the core of their life, therefore something positive, valuable, integral with their society, personal development and gigantic egos.

@Ardid.7203 said:They can be mammals and still lay eggs, like monotremes.We actually know they don't lay eggs. This came from Ree Soesbee who was once reading fan-fiction on guildwars2guru.com at one point, where the writer had asura eggs, and this apparently freaked her out enough to post saying that they are mammals and don't lay eggs.

That said, asura seem to be a type of rodent, so if we pull any similarities out of newborn animals to newborn asura, it'd likely be in the form of newborn rodents.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:That said, asura seem to be a type of rodent, so if we pull any similarities out of newborn animals to newborn asura, it'd likely be in the form of newborn rodents.

They are part-reptilian, not rodent, dear König.

@Zedek.8932 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:That said, asura seem to be a type of rodent, so if we pull any similarities out of newborn animals to newborn asura, it'd likely be in the form of newborn rodents.

Nope. Per one of my above statements, Anet confirmed they're mammals. They completely lack any scales to be heard of, and have hair anyways. Furthermore, their noses are closest to typical anthropomorphic rodent noses.

Bipedal, grey-skinned naked mole rats.

The teeth are all wrong for them to be rodents, the teeth are a rodent's primary characteristic.

@Oglaf.1074 said:Bipedal, grey-skinned naked mole rats.

No that's Dredge

To me their teeth still give them a reptilian look even if it has been stated they are mammalian. From what I can see all the teeth seem to be the same, one of the defining features of mammals is that they have different types of teeth, incisors, canines, premolars and molars.

Breasts partly evolved to counter the loss of a muzzle, the flatter the mammals face the larger the breasts tend to be, animals with longer muzzles don't need the nipples to be placed away from the body.

I do find it a bit of a shame that so many fantasy races are mammalian (sylvari excepted) and that someone could get a little freaked out if it was suggested that they weren't.