How do they determine fertility? Is it possible to change it through acquired means? Would an individual pretend to possess stronger fertility in order to gain higher social status?
To what extent has their technology developed, roughly equivalent to which period of human history?
Answering out of order, because my brain finds the second question easier…
2. My AU takes place roughly the equivalent of the beginning of Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) and the Wild West (1865-1895).
Many people still live in frontier country, settlements are only a few generations old, and most people still rely on hunting and wild farming for survival.
The peoples the moved towards settlement lifestyles did so not because of farming but because of territorial disputes. Having settlements from your tribe instead of someone else’s shows this land belongs to you.
Factory farming is just barely getting started, and this will lead the push for an Industrial Revolution. But it won’t be kind, there will be bloodshed once this gets larger…
1. To answer the first question fertility/gender is determined by urine chemical reactions. Similar to how giraffes test ovulation, by causing the females to urinate and tasting urine, once they reach puberty young Areians are told to urinate into a bowl. This urine is mixed with a chemical solution which causes a chemical reaction (color change, smell change, and or consistency change). Different types of reactions are associated with different levels of fertility (Fertile, Extremely Fertile, and Infertile).
Have people attempted to alter or fake their gender? Absolutely. Because of the fluid nature of fertility, people can use artificial means to alter their hormone levels to give them either a higher or lower level of fertility depending on their wants and needs. But this is heavily punished, sometimes even by death, depending on their wants and culture. Many see a gender an infallible even when it isn’t, similar to humans. So if anyone wanted to change their fertility/gender they would have to go about it in secret.
