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The plot sickens...

http://www.janahoffmann.com/angels/2010/01/15/part-7-comic-3/

Oh, ho ho ho! I see what you did there!

Killer comic!

Oooo, could I get a copy of that lovely presidential seal? :-D
Also, is that last panel our first view of Palingenesia?

Ho boy, the toothpaste's out of the tube now, kiddos. (Oh the arrogance of thinking that distance will protect you.)

I've always been very curious as to why exactly they made the plague gender-specific. Were a majority of the power-holders male? Did they (mistakenly) think planets full of women would make easier targets? Was it just easier to target the Y chromosome? Was the specificity a failsafe to ensure that there would still be 50% of the colonists left to subjugate?

Discuss!

JediBubbles said:

I've always been very curious as to why exactly they made the plague gender-specific. Were a majority of the power-holders male? Did they (mistakenly) think planets full of women would make easier targets? Was it just easier to target the Y chromosome? Was the specificity a failsafe to ensure that there would still be 50% of the colonists left to subjugate?

Click to expand...

I guess it could have been any or all of those factors. I'd like to offer one further possibility, as far-fetched as it may be.

Biologically speaking, with humans the maximum rate of population growth has more to do with the number of women than the number of men. A single man produces sufficient amounts of gametes to impregnate quite a number of women in a relatively short amount of time, while a woman is indisposed at least nine months per ~1 child. With a sperm bank and a large amount of women, potential population growth rates can be higher than they might be if the women were less. So, men are more expendable when it comes to repopulating the conquered planets.

Of course, the terrans might have faced some legal complications in trying to use the surviving populace as organic gestation vats. So the above is probably quite academic, or at most a very very minor factor.

On the gender specificity of the virus having an influence on the defensive prospects of the colonies, I suppose a society which just lost 50% of it's population is in pretty bad shape anyway, and might not have the material, organisational, or psychological means to resist an invasion, regardless of the gender of the survivors. However, militaries have been nearly exclusively male until very recently in human history. Divided Souls does feature quite a good proportion of female soldiers, but if military forces (and perhaps more importantly the officer corps, what with glass ceilings and all) on average were still mostly male during the time of the plague, then wiping the men out could make resistance even more difficult.

Ah ha! Found it:
http://nuriet.deviantart.com/art/Chara-Presidential-Seal-149038685

A phoenix rising from the ashes, eh? Quite a fitting image, at least considering the Plague.

I wonder what that dog in the lower part symbolizes. Can't be loyalty, because the lot are all a bunch of damned rebels...

There's a "spead"-typo left to fix.

TommiR said:

Biologically speaking, with humans the maximum rate of population growth has more to do with the number of women than the number of men. A single man produces sufficient amounts of gametes to impregnate quite a number of women in a relatively short amount of time, while a woman is indisposed at least nine months per ~1 child. With a sperm bank and a large amount of women, potential population growth rates can be higher than they might be if the women were less. So, men are more expendable when it comes to repopulating the conquered planets.

Click to expand...

That's to the point... this reasoning has inspired my own Sci-Fi concept. We'll see whether it turns into a webcomic or whatever else.

Ever read the comic "Y The Last Man"? Everything with a Y chromosome, including sex cells and fetuses, dies mysteriously save for one guy and his pet monkey. This of course takes out the chance of saving humanity with sperm banks. Brilliant story about post-apocalyptic life, and the last man on Earth trying to find his girlfriend who was last seen on the other side of the planet when the plague hit.