Tri-partner reproduction is often referred to as either SIG or SIM reproduction. Exactly which depends on the species and who you talk to but the general consept between the two is the same. Tri-partner species having three genders, represented by the letters S, I and G or M which mean Shell, Instinct, Genetic and Mind respectively.
  • Shell: The individual who is most likely to be responsible for the safekeeping of the baby as it develops. Some tri-partner species lay eggs but most are mammalian in nature and as such the Shell gendered individual will be responsible for carrying the baby to term much alike females of humanity are. Such terms are typically very short, of the order of days. The baby of most tri-partner species having already formed before the actual act of conception takes place. From this parent the child will gain most of their physical features.
  • Instinct: Often through some kind of mind melding the shell is taught how to do the things it needs to survive. Such as regulate a hearbeat or draw breath (if they were human). This parent also tends to have an effect on how actuve the child will be in later life and their quality of life (resitance to illness and the like). In some species this parent also has an effect as to the childs resultant personality.
  • Genetic/Mind: The actual genetic code implanted into the shell. This will determing the childs gender as will as the finer features of how they look (such as hair and eye colour in humans).
A tri-partner species having a child without one of the three will concequently be missing something:
  • IG/IM: The child would never technically exist in the first place as it would have no body. IG/IM parents may look for surrogate Shells for this reason.
  • SG/SM: The child would exist but have a poor quality of life, assuming they don’t end up being still birth. Being unable to breath, regulate their own heartbeat, have no immune defense of their own, no way of regulating body temprature so on and so forth. Children would have to live on in a machine if the species possessed such technology and as such is not deemed as a problem in certian, technologically advanced societies.
  • SI: SI children are that species equliviant of albinos. There being almost nothing in appearence that seperates one SI child from any other SI child and absolutely nothing that seperates SI children from the same Shell parent. While in some species this is no major defect, in certian species the child would also be medically brain dead from birth. This being what differentiates a SIM species from a SIG species.
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