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While I'm seemingly suddenly spending a lot more time on my various Jeroban characters, I decided to do a portrait of the one-off Jeroban ranger I drew back in 2020 as well.
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Fur Affinity ◈ Weasyl Bearing some scars from her time in the desert wilderness of Danajarba, Meissa is part of her village's militia. While she hasn't seen a great deal of combat, she has been involved in a couple skirmishes with bandit gangs in the past, and is a very good shot with her seemingly ancient range rifle--an old weapon from the era when Jeroban weapons still fired kinetic projectiles cloaked in an aerodynamics field, the technology that went on to be the basis of Jeroban pulse weapons. When she's not actively defending the village (it's a very rare occurrence for any trouble beyond minor disputes between neighbors to pop up), she's out hunting or foraging for food and useful resources. As kinetic projectiles don't tend to burn flesh the way the energy shots fired from pulse blasters do, her rifle (and her proficiency with it) makes her an invaluable source of meat for the village, the range of the rifle enabling her to pick off skittish prey before it notices her.
I have also been debating on making her Arneb's mother, but I haven't decided yet.
While drawing her and thinking about the potential for her to be Arneb's mother, it initially seemed a bit unusual that his father, Errai, would be the one at home tending to the crops while she is out hunting, foraging, and potentially defending the village from raiders. This in turn led me to think a bit more about the role of "sexism" and typical gender roles in societies centered more around survival than traditions. While it's something I will probably go more into detail on at another time, and it varies from species to species and even within various cultures within the same species, I can at least share my thoughts on the Jeroban in this regard...
While the males do tend to be slightly larger and physically stronger than the females, the Jeroban tend to consider an individual's suitability to a role or career more than their sex, meaning that it makes just as much sense for Errai to stay behind in the village and perform physical labor tasks associated with farming as it does for him to go out on patrol for food and potential trouble. Meanwhile, Meissa, being smaller and more agile, is probably better suited to the tasks associated with hunting and foraging, while being able to rely on her rifle to defend herself should trouble arise.
This also led me to the conclusion that the Jeroban military forces would be nearly a 50/50 split between male and female, as while the males are well-suited to infantry roles and work as mechanics and engineers, females would likely make up the majority of support and logistical roles--often serving as vehicle pilots and gunners, operating mounted weapons, and even serving as fighter pilots, roles where physical strength are less important.
Posted using PostyBirb
Category Artwork (Digital) / Portraits
Species Rodent (Other)
Size 600 x 600px
File Size 427.2 kB
Listed in Folders
That's just how I do things--dump world-building and lore in the description of things randomly! At some point I should actually organize the world-building in a more coherent way, but I'm still at the stage where I'm figuring things out so I can assemble all the pieces later on.
One unexpected benefit of having many pilots and vehicle crew members being slightly smaller females is fuel savings--a few kilograms might not make a noticeable difference for one vehicle, but across an entire fleet that would definitely add up!
The subjects of "sexism" and "gender roles" probably gets even more complicated with some of my other species, like the Starfarers as their species is canonically about 75% females (this makes rapid population expansion easier and speeds up evolutionary adaptation to new environments), or species that don't even have two distinct sexes, like the Ventrannans, which I imagine to be hermaphrodites and spouses alternate between taking the paternal and maternal roles--I'm sure the concept of "male" and "female" seem very foreign to them (although I'm certain to most outsiders, they would seem to present as male), and gender roles defined by physical sex seem outright absurd.
One unexpected benefit of having many pilots and vehicle crew members being slightly smaller females is fuel savings--a few kilograms might not make a noticeable difference for one vehicle, but across an entire fleet that would definitely add up!
The subjects of "sexism" and "gender roles" probably gets even more complicated with some of my other species, like the Starfarers as their species is canonically about 75% females (this makes rapid population expansion easier and speeds up evolutionary adaptation to new environments), or species that don't even have two distinct sexes, like the Ventrannans, which I imagine to be hermaphrodites and spouses alternate between taking the paternal and maternal roles--I'm sure the concept of "male" and "female" seem very foreign to them (although I'm certain to most outsiders, they would seem to present as male), and gender roles defined by physical sex seem outright absurd.
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