Amazonians - Dying species

[on:]

Well...it's not really a specific scene that did strike me as odd, more the whole episode.

Without any men of their species left, the Amazonian species will become extinct. Yet they all did act as if nothing happend. I waited the whole Episode long for this matter to be adressed in some way...they bother more about strangers landing on their planet than the extinction of their own race? Hm...dunno...

[Reply #1 on:]

The Amazonians are seen off of Amazonia and around the Universe many times throughout the show, meaning they could have met many men along the way. Who says they can't leave Amazonia?

[Reply #2 on:]

meaning they could have met many men along the way

But none of their own species...

[Reply #3 on:]

So...? They would of made more of their species by having sex with men. It would be half-human half-amazonian, but I think the Amazonian gene would overpower a puny human male's genes.

[Reply #4 on:]

It could be like the Gerudo from Ocarina of Time = an Amazonian mother will always have Amazonian daughters.  (Or at least, thats the theory that makes the most sense).  Fry and Zapp's forced studding probably sired the next generation of Amazonian women.

The Amazonian lifespan is probably much longer then humans, and its probably why the Femputor sentences men to death by Snu Snu.  Lets her subjects blow off a little steam and keeps them a bit more docile towards her, and gets the next generation of subjects be created.  Its not in the femputor's best interests for her ruled species to go extinct.  It could be that Amazonian males are like bee and ant drones, and die very quickly, while the females are very long lived. 

[Reply #5 on:]

an Amazonian mother will always have Amazonian daughters.  (Or at least, thats the theory that makes the most sense).

Well, a species based on the two genders having kids of only one gender could not have evolved on a planet. After all...evolution hardly takes potential visitors from space into account: A species must survive/multiply by it's own members.

The Amazonian lifespan is probably much longer than humans,

Hm...Sorry, but I haven't seen any remarks in that show to support that theory.
Also, Futurama does not seem to bring evidence for a "Taller Size = Longer Life" rule (Nibblonians, e.g.)

[Reply #6 on:]

 They have forgotten about sex except for ancient legends and a subscription to Cosmo.  Anway the Amazonians probably reproduce like the amazons of greek mytholgy; by matking with men of other tribes.  Its like how female only pokemon species like Chansey breed.  I'm just guessing they live longer then humans.  Everything about them is bigger, so their lifespan might be too.  It xould be possible that male amazonians were actually a seperate species, that has recently become extinct.  Even if breeding with other species doesn't produce offspring or only hybrids, there's always cloning.  They are members of the doop after all.

[Reply #7 on:]

Well...it's not really a specific scene that did strike me as odd, more the whole episode.

Without any men of their species left, the Amazonian species will become extinct. Yet they all did act as if nothing happend. I waited the whole Episode long for this matter to be adressed in some way...they bother more about strangers landing on their planet than the extinction of their own race? Hm...dunno...

Men are unnecessary.
[*SpaceCase runs*]

[Reply #8 on:]

Well...it's not really a specific scene that did strike me as odd, more the whole episode.

Without any men of their species left, the Amazonian species will become extinct. Yet they all did act as if nothing happend. I waited the whole Episode long for this matter to be adressed in some way...they bother more about strangers landing on their planet than the extinction of their own race? Hm...dunno...

Men are unnecessary.
[*SpaceCase runs*]

No they're not.  Vibrators can't buy you jewelry.  

[Reply #9 on:]

The image that conjures up... Dear God.

They have forgotten about sex except for ancient legends and a subscription to Cosmo.  Anway the Amazonians probably reproduce like the amazons of greek mytholgy; by matking with men of other tribes.  Its like how female only pokemon species like Chansey breed.  I'm just guessing they live longer then humans.  Everything about them is bigger, so their lifespan might be too.  It xould be possible that male amazonians were actually a seperate species, that has recently become extinct.  Even if breeding with other species doesn't produce offspring or only hybrids, there's always cloning.  They are members of the doop after all.

Anyhow, I think this is probably right. Plus, there *were* indigenous men before the Femputer arrived. Gotta keep in mind that the Femputer is what fucked things up.

[Reply #10 on:]

The Femputer doesn't seem too bad, but she does seem responsible for the Amazonian's dislike of men.  Its possible she has reversed her opinion now... (she turns up in TMARas a guest at Bender's party, implying they are on good terms, which is good.  Hell hath no fury like the 12 foot misandrist alien armies of a gynoid scorned, after all.)  The men have died off years ago, and the Femputer took over after that happened.  If the Amazonians are facing extinction, I think the Femputer would have taken steps to tackle the problem, as the species is no good to her extinct.  She can be fairly reasonable if you don't piss her off by insulting her basketball team's fundementals.  

ps.  I am sorry for the atrocious spelling and grammar in my previous post.  I was typing on a mobile.

pps.  All this talk of Gerudo Women in the Mood has made me want to go play Ocarina of Time again.  Mighty Ganondorf!  Nabooru try to steal green kissy man!  We kill her now?

[Reply #11 on:]

The men have died off years ago, and the Femputer took over after that happened.

The episode actually establishes that the men died shortly after the Femputer arrived, and implies that she somehow orchestrated their demise. They've been dead for at most two generations. Don't make me watch the episode and compile a longpost that goes into excruciating detail... I'm tired. But there's plenty of evidence to suggest that the women forgot about the men quite quickly, and it's not been an all-female society for terribly long (they appear in other episodes besides AWITM, and therefore that's something drawn from multiple sources).

She doesn't seem to care whether the species becomes extinct as long as whilst they're around, she gets to rule them - plus, there seems to be a steady enough supply of males crashlanding on the planet and thereby ensuring the survival of the Amazonian race.

[Reply #12 on:]

You're right, she does appear around the time the men die out, so you could be right.   Plus the Amazonians aren't the brightest knives in the drawer, so it could be possible for the Femputer to wipe them out without them noticing or tricking them into doing it.    

While you mention it, it could be possible that Amazonia is a post-apocolyptic society, and is only just recovering from a war/disaster of some sort that caused the males of the species to become extinct, for the females to become gramatically incorrect hunter gatherers.  Their society is pretty primitive, despite them having interstellar travel (and it is possible only certain members of the race are allowed to go into space)  I wouldn't be surprised that the Femputor took adtvantage of this collapse to take control or orchestrated it so she could control the survivors easier.  

This sounds like an interesting idea for a fanfic/future episode.  Too bad Bea Arthur isn't around anymore to retake up her gloriously hammy performance as the Femputer.  

On the other hand, the femputer is pretty reasonable, so long as you don't press her berserk buttons (pun not intended.  She was considering letting the men go free, until it was revealed Fry and Zapp made fun of the women's basketball team.)   Plus when she's coming clean to Bender, she didn't reveal her man genocide, if she was involved in it (but then again revealing you murdered all the males of a species isn't exactly an aphrodisiac.  Bender seems to believe in equality when it comes to murdering all organic lifeforms.)

Also by the year fifty million, humanity has evolved into a mostly female race.  I am guessing that while the topic maker has an interesting idea, I don't think the Amazonians are in danger of becoming extinct, as even if Amazonians can't breed with other species, there are always alternatives like cloning.  A male frog creature can become pregnant with the dna of a mutant female human, after all.

[Reply #13 on:]

I'm not certain that we should assume that the Amazonians are a separate species.  It's possible that they're an offshoot of humanity that came about as a result of genetic engineering, selective breeding, or mutation.  They do look just like large human women after all.

Even if they are a separate species, it's possible that they can reproduce by mating with another species.  Kif's species can do this, so it's not unprecedented in the Futurama universe.

[Reply #14 on:]

I was thinking that they could be a mutant offshot of humanity, but there are a lot of humanoid aliens in the Futurama universe, some of them who look the same as humans, or just mildly different (the Vincians who live for thousands of years, the Neutrals, the Grunka Lunkas, the Osirans and for a long while Leela thought she was an alien cyclops)

Unless all of those species turn out to be offshots of humanity, or maybe even humans turn out to be an offshot of some of them.  But extremely human aliens, or aliens that are identical to humans except for a few superficial features like elf ears or tails are extremely common in sci fi.  Hell, we are dealing with a universe where all alien races speak english and breathe oxygen, and are almost all bipedial. 

[Reply #15 on:]

Fry and Zapp's forced studding probably sired the next generation of Amazonian women.

I believe the term you are looking for is "rape."

[Reply #16 on:]

Fry and Zapp's forced studding probably sired the next generation of Amazonian women.

I believe the term you are looking for is "rape."

Ah, yes. Rape, murder, arson and rape. That.

[Reply #17 on:]

TNUK, you said rape twice. Do you really like rape?
(Please get the reference...)

[Reply #18 on:]

I like rape.

Yeah, I get it. I intentionally pulled the line from Blazing Saddles. I'm not one to set up a reference like that and not know where it comes from.

I was hoping that somebody would just say "you said rape twice" and just trust me enough to provide the next line myself... it would've been a little funnier that way. But you'll know for next time.

And now you also know I like rape.

[Reply #19 on:]

Fry and Zapp's forced studding probably sired the next generation of Amazonian women.

I know, but I thought studding was a good word, since it shows the purpose of the sex is to create a new generation of Amazonians (as well as providing sexual relief to the apparently somewhat sexually frustrated Amazonians).   Its like horses being put out to stud... but with humans, and with the human men being raped to death.

I believe the term you are looking for is "rape."

[Reply #20 on:]

I was thinking that they could be a mutant offshot of humanity, but there are a lot of humanoid aliens in the Futurama universe, some of them who look the same as humans, or just mildly different (the Vincians who live for thousands of years, the Neutrals, the Grunka Lunkas, the Osirans and for a long while Leela thought she was an alien cyclops)

Unless all of those species turn out to be offshots of humanity, or maybe even humans turn out to be an offshot of some of them.  But extremely human aliens, or aliens that are identical to humans except for a few superficial features like elf ears or tails are extremely common in sci fi.  Hell, we are dealing with a universe where all alien races speak english and breathe oxygen, and are almost all bipedial.

Yes, with all the human-like aliens in Futurama, the fact that the Amazonians resemble humans isn't really an argument for them being human, but I thought I'd mention it as a possibility.

As implausible as humanoid aliens are, they are a staple of science fiction in general, and of the sort of science fiction that Futurama parodies in particular, so I wouldn't complain about that.

[Reply #21 on:]

Indeed they are.  Mostly its hard to take non human characters seriously in a serious setting (I know I should find a better choice of words), and most sci fi budgets don't cover sophisticated costumes.  Plus when you take away things like human facial features, it becomes hard to convey emotion convincingly.  

The Star Ocean series actually has "humans" evolving on various different planets, and pretty much every alien species either looks like a human, or just has a very superficial quirk (like elf ears, wings, cat ears and tails, being short, being blonde and dark skinned).  Though there later turns out to be a reason for that, but its not introduced until a three games into the series.  

Though I do agree with you, I was thinking there could be a chance that the Amazonians are a racial offshot from regular humans, (I was actually thinking of that earlier), and we have seen that by the year fifty million, humans have evolved into an almost entirely female race.

On the other hand, this could justify the poster's original theory.   The ladies of fifty million are the last human civilization we see, and its possible they became extinct after the y chromosome in their species died out (its possible that excessive cloning lead to a lack of diverse genes).  *shrugs*

[Reply #22 on:]

If they are all products off half Amazon, half human, that Amazon lineage dwindles, and I would think with that their size would dwindle too.

[Reply #23 on:]

If they are all products off half Amazon, half human, that Amazon lineage dwindles, and I would think with that their size would dwindle too.

Depends. If the amazonian genotype is expressed in preference to non-amazonians, the phenotype will most likely remain unaltered. Their chromasomes might be "wired up" to provide the offspring organism's phenotype no matter what the genotype received from the male parent organism.

[Reply #24 on:]

That theory works, and also buys in with the whole Amazonian males actually being a seprate species.  Perhaps every so often, the male species would overrule the female's genes, and would result in the son being handed back to his father to raise.  Its a similar concept to the Amazons of Greek mythology. 

[Reply #25 on:]

The Greek Amazons weren't a separate species.  They were just a tribe of warrior women that would kidnap men to use as breeding stock, and would kill or abandon any male children they bore.

[Reply #26 on:]

Wow my people are messed up.

[Reply #27 on:]

Well, it is just a myth, Randi.  I doubt that there really was such a tribe of warrior women.

Unless you meant that your people are messed up for coming up with the myth, in which case I can't really argue.  Of course, my people liked your people's myths so much that we stole them and changed the names, so yeah. 

[Reply #28 on:]

It's not quite a myth, matriarchal tribes did exist, but they were probably considered so disturbing by the archaic greeks that the propaganda about their abandoning male children was probably created to make them look even more icky. Also, they had cooties.

[Reply #29 on:]

Take Crete for instance.  Decent amount of matriarchal tribes there.

[Reply #30 on:]

Maybe their health care plan covers cloning. Pondering an Intergalactic Amazonian House of Pancakes since seeing the Farmer's Market scene.

[Reply #31 on:]

And we don't know how long Amazonians can live for.

[Reply #32 on:]

The New Mexico Whiptail Lizard is an all-female species which is able to reproduce through the process of parthenogenesis.

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/expeditions/treasure_fossil/Treasures/Unisexual_Whiptail_Lizards/lizards.html?50

[Reply #33 on:]

Ooh, thanks for that, Squid! (I am too lazy to type out the numbers.) That is really fascinating.

Of course, if that were to apply here, the Amazonians would have to lay eggs. Which seems weird. But hey, it could be possible.

[Reply #34 on:]

I knew a woman once who laid eggs.
As part of a stage show.
For money.
Which looked like ping-pong balls.

[Reply #35 on:]

Winona Ryder...?

[Reply #36 on:]

The Greek Amazons weren't a separate species.  They were just a tribe of warrior women that would kidnap men to use as breeding stock, and would kill or abandon any male children they bore.

No but the Amazonians, like most fictional all female races )like the Gerudo in Zelda) were based on them.

[Reply #37 on:]

I wonder if any Amazonians got pregnant after the "snu-snu" session if you know what I mean.

[Reply #38 on:]

I doubt so, it would probably have been mentioned.

[Reply #39 on:]

Oh, God. A mix of Zapp and the Amazonians  would be the weirdest kid ever. Just feeling her boobs her entire life.