Multicultural Sci-fi

For this week, I read the short story Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler. This story is set on a planet of insectoid aliens where a colony of humans were allowed to settled in after escaping Earth. The story has an interestingly unique take on a mutual symbiotic relationship between the insect-like alien natives, called the Tlic, and humans. The symbiotic process between the two is that the Tlics will allow the humans to live peacefully with them under their protection, only if one of the humans become a host for incubating the Tlic’s eggs. Usually males are the ones to be selected. The Tlic aliens seem to be based on parasitic insects; they lay their eggs inside another bug or insect, and then the larva, after hatching, will start eating the insides of their host which lead to the host's death. This reminded me of another fictional alien creatures from the sci-fi horror movie, Aliens.

A noticeable difference between the examples that I just mentioned and the Tlics, is that the latter seems to have more value at keeping their host alive. When the eggs of a host human are about to hatch, the Tlics appear to handle the birthing of the offspring before they get a chance to start devouring their host. The Tlics also value their relationship with the humans by assigning a female Tlic to watch over each human family and connect with them. They decide which human get to host their eggs.

Usually women are the ones that are bearing children, however in this reading the author breaks the majoritarian culture by selecting men to get impregnated with parasitic eggs. I think the reason why male humans are chosen is because the Tlics that picks the human to be the host are female. This reminds me of how sea horses reproduce; the females lay their eggs inside of the males’ pouch which they then incubate and give birth. Another reason might be to demonstrate how a man would experience the same difficult and painful process of pregnancy and labor that a woman experiences when creating a new life.