Miqo'te gender balance on the First

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jandor

The Mystel probably had a similar dynamic to the Moonkeepers on the Source. Females live in regular society, males kicked out to go adventuring.

---

Probably not the case, as our two favorite Mystel from Eulmore provide us a clue. Family business, male inheritence, and all. Female Mystel may well 'run' the family behind the scenes, but they're not presented as a Matriarchy the way Keeper society is written on the Source.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

The only actual tribes we see as hunter gatherers are the U and M tribes. If this was the case, and all miqo'te are hunter gatherers, then why don't we see more men in any of all of the other miqo'te "tribes"? I don't think the city miqo'te in Limsa are moonlighting as hunters or are just the rejects from actual hidden tribes in La Noscea that we don't know about.

---

The NPC Miqo'te we meet are, for the most part, female.

There are 348 female NPC's noted in this demographic: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/C...7te_Female_NPC

There are 95 male NPC's note in the corresponding demographic, of which 14 use 'Tia' and at least 1/3 of them are Mystel: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/C...%27te_Male_NPC

Can' really say anything beyond "the entirety of the Seeker tribes we've actually visited are hunter-gatherers" on the Source, and "the entirety of the Mystel we've actually seen on the First are not". I would point out that in Gridania, most of the Keepers we've encountered, including my favorite Archer, Leih Aliapoh, and the Coeurlclaw bands, are decidedly hunter-oriented.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jandor

The Mystel probably had a similar dynamic to the Moonkeepers on the Source. Females live in regular society, males kicked out to go adventuring.

When the flood came along and wiped most of civilization from the face of the world, a large amount of the city-dwelling females were wiped out along with it. The wandering males of the species were better equipped to escape and survive, and as a result the gender ratio of the species is temporarily much more even than it normally is.

-----

Either that or someone on the dev team just really likes catbois and wanted to put loads of them in the game. :p

---

This is a decent possibility (both these theories, I guess. XD ). It could also be simple happenstance; all the right dice were rolled so the current generation of Mystel is unusually far on the male density side of the bell curve. Or, alternatively, overall male population is normal, but an unusual number have found themselves in the areas we frequent.

For the original poster, though - if it wasn't clear, there's nothing in-game that discusses the topic at all, so most or all of the responses in this thread are going to be nothing more than speculation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ItMe

Seriously though... Your answer is that that quote is a meta joke. It's both a reference to the fact that players could only play female Miqo'te for quite awhile, and to the fact that there are many many more players rocking female Miqo'te than male ones.

---

It's not a reference to the player-built dynamics: It's basically a carry-over from FFXI and 1.0 where male miqo'te did not exist as playable race options. This all started in XI where male mithra were very rare and "not allowed" to really go adventuring because they were too "precious" or whatever, due to their rarity.

That mindsight more or less was straight carried over in XIV as all of our races are literally renamed XI races with some updates. Presumably in an attempt to woo the XI playerbase over to XIV. Yoshi-P decided it was silly to have gender-locked races and gave us male miqo'te, female roegadyn, and female highlanders.

Player dynamics absolutely in no way impact the lore. Literally every single FFXIV player could be a miqo'te, but since this is "your" story, only YOU exist as that miqo'te in the confines of the storyverse. Male miqo'te, for example, are still rare regardless of how popular they are with players.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

The only actual tribes we see as hunter gatherers are the U and M tribes. If this was the case, and all miqo'te are hunter gatherers, then why don't we see more men in any of all of the other miqo'te "tribes"? I don't think the city miqo'te in Limsa are moonlighting as hunters or are just the rejects from actual hidden tribes in La Noscea that we don't know about.

---

From what I understand city miqote have left their tribal ways behind.

I'd say it's a simple matter of 12,000 years of different genetics.
On the source, males who produced more female offspring were more successful. They had their harems, and produced male descendants who also produced more female offspring. Males who produced more male offspring ended up having their sons fight for breeding rights and didn't have as many descendants through many daughters.

On the first, this wasn't the case. Culturally, they had more standard relationships, so having mostly daughters didn't mean you passed down more of your genes than males who had mostly sons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DPZ2

Probably not the case, as our two favorite Mystel from Eulmore provide us a clue. Family business, male inheritence, and all. Female Mystel may well 'run' the family behind the scenes, but they're not presented as a Matriarchy the way Keeper society is written on the Source.

---

Chai-Nuzz business was building golems out in the middle of nowhere though. The Mystel aren't presented as a matriarchy as such, but his business being out at some decently remote mining settlement meshes fine with the theory they had a society similar to the Moonkeepers.
Either way though, I'm not sure two modern Mystel can really tell us a great deal about what the Mystel were like roughly a century ago when the majority of the world was destroyed. Events like the flood of the light have a way of shaking things up ;)

I'm assuming you're referring to Chai and Dulia as Eulmores favourite Mystel btw :p

For those curious about the Keeper social structure, it's not feline in nature. The tribal make up more closely resembles the herd dynamics of Elephants. Elephants are matriarchal their herds only consist of females who are related to each other, their children, and unmatured males. Once males reach maturity they are forced out of the herd where they either go alone or meet up with other males and form loosely connected alliances. When mating season comes around a male will approach a herd and will either be allowed to mate with one or more females or get driven off for some reason. There's actual videos of males pestering unreceptive females and the rest of the herd showing up to enforce her right to say 'no'.

Which is how Keepers function. Males are driven out at sexual maturity where they either become lone wanderers going from tribe to tribe, or they group up with other males and form a loose-knit temporary tribe for mutual survival. A female Keeper may take an interest in a male and invite him to stay with her and the tribe but such things tend to be temporary with the female eventually telling the male to leave, either another female may take him in or he has to leave.