#salarians

It is a combination of physical prerequisites and cultural phenomenon. Traditionally salarian males need exposure to female pheromones to trigger arousal, and the male-to-female ratios on ancient Sur’kesh came in generational swings. An over abundance of males one season, an over abundance of females the next, chaotically fluctuating and possibly creating hindrances to social progress/cohesion during heavily-male years.

Mating season was a battleground. Females were highly-territorial over their spawn areas and while sons typically spent their time protecting their mothers and younger siblings from threats—mating seasons would be a cause for them to drift away temporarily in search of unrelated females, leaving their matriarchs unprotected. Juvenile females stick close to their mothers until they are old enough to lay eggs, and often mothers would hide them during mating season to keep them out of the crossfire.

The threat was not only from native wildlife but also from rival females (again, territorial, trying to eliminate competition for resources) and overly enthusiastic males.

Because of this background history, advancing salarian civilization became necessarily about the control of their own reproduction and population. Females found ways to mask their pheromones and kept their distance from males during the season, the defense of spawning areas became more complex, and then with technology they became more portable.

Mating became pre-arranged and culturally males had to be invited into the matriarch’s territory before the season started. A male’s right to mate became decided by meetings between matriarchs. This cultural shift also meant that sons were less likely to drift and became not only guards but also a matriarch’s workforce.

Therefore, modern salarians have in themselves fostered a strong sense of duty toward their circles and a mentality that the needs of society should come before the needs of the individual.

Sexual desire as a foreign concept to most of the salarian population is very much intentional and by design, as it allows matriarchs to have more control and makes their collective workforces more efficient. Like an allied network of queen bees surrounded by young queens and worker-drones.

Also, where in ancient times daughters would leave their mother’s territories and strike out on their own once they started laying eggs—modern day salarian daughters now serve the same function that sons once did, as personal attendants and guards.

Unfertilized eggs are now a commodity, to be used as bargaining chips in political and economic negotiations. Males are essentially a servant caste.

In addition, salarian society doesn’t seem the type to be shy about encouraging genetic alteration and has likely further domesticated itself as a result, or posed male sexual desire as something “selfish” or “below their station” or “a personal moral failure”—to the point where I would not be at all surprised if Sur’kesh offers (or once did offer) services to eliminate those pesky urges. (Medical intervention, psychological therapy, or gene therapy—maybe even a notation on their chart that matriarchs should avoid reproduction with this one)

Sur’keshian propaganda likely even posits lack of sexual desire as something that makes salarians “superior” to other species. Males chosen to create daughters may not even actually mate with the matriarch, but rather make a genetic donation in a container (The container given to the male provided with a packet of pheromone to aid the process) that then gets shipped long-distance to the recipient and dumped in the female’s personal spawning tank.

This line of thinking is actually what inspired my salarian OC, who is an intersex male who regularly produces female pheromone and has human-levels of libido. (Also due to genetic tampering, but in his and his many siblings case—for the purpose of the batarian slave trade)

I’ll probably prioritize rqs for fallout, salarians, and ninah, as that’s what I’m most interested in at the moment; but might accept other stuff. Willing to draw ocs (yours and mine) but will probably just focus on canon characters.

Nsfw requests should be redirected to the separate strawpage for my ao3,

MINORS DNI