I looked to see if anyone made a topic about this but couldn't find it, so I apologise if I am making a duplicate topic to one that has been made before. The reviews aren't recent, but here is the link to them on the site:
Workforce, Part 1:
https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v962.php
Workforce, Part 2:
https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v963.php
I recently rewatched this review and remembered something I wanted to say the first time I watched them but I didn't have an account here at the time. It is with regards to Jaffen, Janeway's boyfriend, and his species. Chuck notes that, if he doesn't have a father, then he as a male has no reproductive purpose. While this could be the case, and it may not be what the Voyager staff were thinking of, there actually are creatures on Earth which have:
- Males used for reproductive purposes
- Who have no fathers, and
- Who have no sons
but they CAN have
- Daughters, and through those daughters they can have
- Grandsons, and through their mothers they have
- Grandfathers
An example of this is the ant - male ants are haploid, containing only one half of each set of chromosomes female ants possess, the females being diploid - in a sense each male ant is a partial clone of its mother, and contains only a subset of her genes. When a male ant mates with a queen the resulting offspring are female ants - in essence queen ants can, by themselves, produce males, but with a male can create more female ants. There are theories as to why this mechanism is in place, such as the males, if they have defective genes, will likely die quickly as they don't have a functioning copy of the gene to stand in for the faulty one, so those with damaged genes are less likely to successfully mate.
