I can't resist posting some thoughts (because I had a new one today).
First, some of the theories used in fan fiction...
I have notes about theories by two other authors, though I've never read their fics, and don't recall even the authors' names.
One was extreme fantasy: Every so often, a female Immortal feels a "compulsion" to mate with a male Immortal. From his point of view, they've just had great sex. But wthin a few hours, the female Immortal bears a pre-Immortal infant...acts on a new "compulsion" to abandon it...and then forgets the whole thing.
The second was less fantastic...quite interesting, IMHO! A fetus becomes pre-Immortal if the already pregnant woman has sex with a male Immortal during her first trimester. (But unless there was more to it than I heard, it doesn't explain the infants' becoming foundlings.)
I've used another possibility. I'm not going to give too many "spoilers" for my fiction! But here's the basic idea. Male Immortals (only males) are fertile...but on such rare occasions that most of them never realize it. (They don't feel any unnatural "compulsion" to mate at those times.) Often, they're so sure they're sterile that they'll walk out on a woman who tries to convince them she's carrying their child. The infants are always pre-Immortal; and the mothers always die after giving birth. So many of those infants are, understandably, given away. In cases where the fathers are still in the picture, they usually won't risk keeping the infants with them. In our era, the few Immortals who understand this believe they're all descended from a long-ago ancestor who was the product of a mutation. (Not possibly Methos: in this fan-fiction universe, he's recovered some fragmentary memories, and knows there once were Immortals older than he.)
Here's the idea I just thought of.
I recently learned from a scholar I admire that thousands of years ago, unwanted infants were routinely abandoned - just left exposed to the elements, with the expectation they'd die. The scholar believes even early Christians did that. So perhaps we can say every pre-Immortal was the result of a mutation - the same type of mutation taking place again and again, with both parents being "normal." Giving birth to the "mutant" would always cause the mothers to die, with the infants - somewhat understandably - being abandoned. But they'd be more hardy than other "exposed" infants, and would survive until someone found them alive and took pity on them.
That certainly couldn't happen in our day, but it could account for there being a widely-accepted myth that all Immortals were foundlings. (While present-day pre-Immortal infants probably would be given up for adoption, because their mothers had died.)
Others' thoughts?
First, some of the theories used in fan fiction...
I have notes about theories by two other authors, though I've never read their fics, and don't recall even the authors' names.
One was extreme fantasy: Every so often, a female Immortal feels a "compulsion" to mate with a male Immortal. From his point of view, they've just had great sex. But wthin a few hours, the female Immortal bears a pre-Immortal infant...acts on a new "compulsion" to abandon it...and then forgets the whole thing.
The second was less fantastic...quite interesting, IMHO! A fetus becomes pre-Immortal if the already pregnant woman has sex with a male Immortal during her first trimester. (But unless there was more to it than I heard, it doesn't explain the infants' becoming foundlings.)
I've used another possibility. I'm not going to give too many "spoilers" for my fiction! But here's the basic idea. Male Immortals (only males) are fertile...but on such rare occasions that most of them never realize it. (They don't feel any unnatural "compulsion" to mate at those times.) Often, they're so sure they're sterile that they'll walk out on a woman who tries to convince them she's carrying their child. The infants are always pre-Immortal; and the mothers always die after giving birth. So many of those infants are, understandably, given away. In cases where the fathers are still in the picture, they usually won't risk keeping the infants with them. In our era, the few Immortals who understand this believe they're all descended from a long-ago ancestor who was the product of a mutation. (Not possibly Methos: in this fan-fiction universe, he's recovered some fragmentary memories, and knows there once were Immortals older than he.)
Here's the idea I just thought of.
I recently learned from a scholar I admire that thousands of years ago, unwanted infants were routinely abandoned - just left exposed to the elements, with the expectation they'd die. The scholar believes even early Christians did that. So perhaps we can say every pre-Immortal was the result of a mutation - the same type of mutation taking place again and again, with both parents being "normal." Giving birth to the "mutant" would always cause the mothers to die, with the infants - somewhat understandably - being abandoned. But they'd be more hardy than other "exposed" infants, and would survive until someone found them alive and took pity on them.
That certainly couldn't happen in our day, but it could account for there being a widely-accepted myth that all Immortals were foundlings. (While present-day pre-Immortal infants probably would be given up for adoption, because their mothers had died.)
Others' thoughts?
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