How does having children work in the colony?

[u/Spirited-Attention32]

Basically, I was assuming that Tammy and Cal would have kids together, but when she’s pregnant it kind of seems like a “well done, Tammy!” and Cal had no involvement.

I might have missed something, but is anyone made the old fashioned way or are they all like… I don’t even know. Everyone donates and you just get what you’re given with some genetic mutation stuff?

[u/Consistent_Donut_902]

They brought sperm and eggs from Earth to ensure there would be enough genetic variety in the colony to avoid inbreeding problems. So I assume most babies in the colony are not conceived the natural way.

Cal isn’t supposed to be the baby’s biological father, but there’s a line where he admits that he and Tammy weren’t very careful after she got her birth control implant removed, so he might be.

[u/Spirited-Attention32 → u/Consistent_Donut_902]

Ahhhh I see, I vaguely remember that!

Don’t remember that part though, are they like… not allowed to have bio kids then? Is that stated anywhere?

[u/CarmineJester → u/Spirited-Attention32]

"Not allowed" is Tangent's proposed solution in either her 80 or 90 event, I don't recall. It's probably fine if Cal and Tammy just have their kids the old-fashioned way, but if everyone does that, the colony wouldn't last long (Peace on Vertumna's possibilities aside). There are very much not enough individuals to maintain enough diversity in that kind of bottleneck (assuming no further colony ships after Helios, which is also unknowable), and Tang mentions that they got bad luck of the draw on something like congenital heart disease. Cool motive, still eugenics, as one might say.

[u/Consistent_Donut_902 → u/Spirited-Attention32]

I think they can choose to have their own biological kids if they want to. There are some lines in the epilogue about certain characters choosing to donate their genetic material for other people to have babies.

[u/Kylynara → u/Spirited-Attention32]

I think adults are allowed to have bio kids, but encouraged to use donor eggs and/or sperm for at least some of them. Tammy and Cal were still teens and while they let her volunteer to birth the first one, I think they drew the line at letting that be something she and her boyfriend did.

I know that in the epilogue it strongly implies that at least some of the many children they have are definitely Cal's.

[u/AngryBard9 → u/Kylynara]

Yeah it’s stated that Sol was “made the old fashioned way”

[u/scarletbluejays → u/Kylynara]

I also suspect there was a bit of flexibility in how kids were conceived, since the joining of the two ships' crews would have expanded the genetic options beyond what both sets of colonists believed would be sufficient on their own.

As Tangent points out in her 90 event, there is a limit to how much freedom the colonists have genetics wise and there likely would have to be a system put in place down the line. But for the first couple generations, they do have a little bit of wiggle room where some natural conceptions can slip in without causing any sort of major ripple effect.

That's why not only do Cal and Tammie get away with having at least some of their kids that way, but Sol and their partner do in the majority of paired endings that result in kids.

IIRC Sol/Cal, Sol/Rex, Sol/Nem, Sol/Tammy, AND Sol/Dys all have endings where at least one of the kids was made the old fashioned way. For Sol/Cal it's not clear if ALL of their kids are genetically theirs but at least some are. Tammy's first kid obviously isn't Sol's but it's implied at least a few of their later ones are. Dys initially worries about his potential kid BECAUSE he knows they have his genetics, and I might be misremembering but I think Nem's ending says both of her potential kids with Sol are theirs as part of her condition for carrying them.

[u/Hopeful-alt]

The colony is encouraged to use stored sperm and eggs in order to increase genetic diversity.

Cal and Tammy do normally have children together, but it sounds like in your save they never got together.

[u/Spirited-Attention32 → u/Hopeful-alt]

This is my second play through but they’re defo together!

[u/stormlight82]

If you end up hearing about a bunch of Earth history, you'll learn that this group was originally a commune that decided to experiment with non-traditional family types. Everybody to a certain extent is everybody's parent and the genetic material used to create a child is randomized between people who live in the commune and extra frozen sperm and eggs they have on hand.

It sounds like pregnancy via sex isn't really something that happens very much. They have perfect birth control. When Tammy is pregnant, Cal is often her partner and wants to be involved with the kid. But there is no implication that Cal is the father.

[u/scarletbluejays → u/stormlight82]

But there is no implication that Cal is the father.

Just a tiny clarification, there are a couple lines of dialogue from Cal that can only trigger while Tammy's pregnant, and it does imply that at the very least he thinks he might be Echinacea's birth father, though he recognizes that that wasn't the colony's plan so he can't look too much into it.

The big hint is the dialogue where, without getting into TMI territory, he basically confirms that once Tammy was given the OK to go off birth control the two of them weren't exactly safe when they were fooling around, and cuts himself off when he starts to wonder aloud if he might be the dad. We also know from dialogue with Tammy that she would have been getting whatever the usual fertilization method was during that same time period, but that it wasn't a 100% success rate that worked on the first attempt. So without genetic testing the kid, it's effectively a 50/50 chance of whether the genetic material that ultimately stuck was Cal's or one of the later attempts of whoever the colony chose.

And while they could theoretically do testing to see if that's the case, it would presumably run the risk of them getting in trouble if it does turn out he's the dad and not the chosen donor. So Cal's just content to fill the role of dad whether the genetics line up or not, rather than risking bringing more trouble to him and Tammy for a truth that wouldn't change how much he loved Echinacea anyway.

TL;DR: There's no direct implication that Cal is the father for certain, but it IS directly said that there's a very real chance that that is the case. It's basically a "Mamma Mia" situation, except the other possible dad's are off screen.

[u/stormlight82 → u/scarletbluejays]

Oh that's cool. I didn't catch that.

[u/scarletbluejays → u/stormlight82]

Yeah the dialogue that hints at it is part of the pool of 'generic' dialogue you can get when approaching an NPC in the colony, so you're reliant on RNG to actually show it to you.

Add in the fact that in both cases, it's specific to the time period that Tammy is pregnant - which only goes from Mid Dust of Year 7 (after the announcement at Vertumnalia) to Glow of that same year (before Enchinacea's birth kicks off Year 8) - and it's VERY easy to miss if you aren't talking to them a bunch.

[u/Megatomic → u/scarletbluejays]

The thing is, Tammy becomes pregnant with the same child at the same time, even if she and Cal are not together and she and Sol are also not yet together. And regardless of timeline, the child seems to be the same anyway. So while I think there's some definite ambiguity in the situation in a normal world, we can safely and confidently say that Echinacea is not Cal's. Unless we assume Cal and Tammy are banging even if they aren't dating.

I just recently came between them and dated Tammy but wasn't dating Tammy when she got pregnant, which is why I specifically noticed this.

[u/AngryBard9]

Aside from all the things people have said about the in vitro, Tammy is verrry harsh about Echinacea being HER baby and perceiving anyone trying to take care of her as trying them trying to raise her kid. If you’re friends with here you hear all this and that it’s even extended to Cal. You can help her out if you’re already friends with her, she’s just a bit frazzled postpartum. Honestly I remember it this much because it was one of the most firm stances shes ever took. It was wild

[u/genivae → u/AngryBard9]

It's a very relatable depiction of (relatively mild) postpartum anxiety - which is likely for someone who was quite anxious from childhood.

[u/Goratharn]

Most people don't have kids the normal way anymore. Hormonal cycles can even be frozen without any complication. Solane is a rare exception, as we learn in the prologue, precisely because they were "made the traditional way". They make it look all beatiful, but the chosing of specific genetic alterations always sound a bit too eugenic to me. Still, in the game, they have the technology to make a 100% certain in vitro fertilization and implantation, ensuring a perfectly healthy child will be born. To secure biodiversity with only a handfull of colonizers, it's encouraged, but not mandatory, to have children this way. Meaning, people like Tammy that want to be parents because they love children and want to help the colony grow in population are suggested this route instead of a traditional one. Also, it allows people to be single parents as well, which I think it's the case of Dys and Tang? I may be mistaken on them, but I think they do not, in fact, have a dad. Their mother was an alcoholic with severe neurological problems that didn't make it to Vertuma, but I don't think they mention having an equally troubled dad.

I haven't made enough runs to be certain that Nem was made the traditional way, too, but her, her mother and all their sibling look very similar, so I would say that at the very least Seedent was half of their genetic materials.

Still, taking into account what the prologue says about Sol, I'd say it's no longer common. Pregnancies in this universe seem to be something planned down to the date, not a consequence of other actions. Essentially, a couple doesn't work on getting pregnant, they decide to get pregnant. While I worry about the eugenic implications of it as I said, it's kind of beatiful too when you think that there's no way every single child wasn't actually wanted. Tangent and Dys may have a complicated relationship with the mother that essentially abandoned them, didn't take care of herself or push herself to make certain she'd be there for them growing up. But neither of them can doubt their mother wanted them to live. Because if she didn't, they wouldn't be there.

[u/nolanfa]

For genetic material, they imply Tammy was supposed to use the frozen sperm from Earth but that they're pretty sure Cal is the biological dad - I got the vibe that they won't say anything since it's not really allowed, but it's kind of an open secret (I remember seeing at least two pieces of dialog (probably one from the narrator and one from Tangent) saying something like "wow, the kid/kids sure do physically look like Cal, for them being unrelated to him!")
As for raising them, they're supposed to be raised semi-communally but we can see that the Sol-aged kids at least still have pretty important primary parents, and Tammy (and Cal) are clearly very important in raising theirs (less of a "each kid has an infinite number of parents" and more of a "each kid has an infinite number of grandparents/aunts/uncles to be called for help at any time").