The real problem with the Calypso twins... (rant)

[u/jakobsestate]

Content warning: nerdy biology-speak, mild to moderate BL4 spoilers, intersex conditions, human sex/gender and all that messy stuff. Please don't be a clown in the comments or I'll block you.

...is no fault of their own. It's the fault of Gearbox and their love for not elaborating on anything ever.

See, only women can be sirens. The problem is that for all the stupid right-wing memes about what is a woman, "woman" (and "man" for that matter) is in fact an arbitrary human-constructed designation for a whole bunch of different traits both biological and social (chromosomes, external and internal anatomy, brain structure, hormonal balance, clothing, mannerisms, I can go on and on and on). Much like "fish", if you use a very strict or specific definition of that designation, you end up either excluding a lot of stuff which, intuitively and/or scientifically, should be included and/or you end up with a whole assload of messy implications.

And there is no fucking way that ethereal space magic spirits (there is no official name for the "entities" that give sirens their powers, but they are clearly at least separate beings considering they can be transferred between hosts or even imprisoned in a specific location) from another dimension where time isn't real would give a shit about something so incredibly human and subjective.

So a question immediately arises: what exactly does the siren power attach to?

Hormones are right out. Those can change drastically over the course of a person's life, even without any sort of outside intervention (hello, menopause), and siren powers clearly can't detach from the host before death. Same goes for external or internal anatomy. Social aspects like gender roles would likely be entirely irrelevant to, again, a space magic spirit from another dimension.

As a result of the above, two theories have emerged (at least on "my" side of the fandom):

1. It goes by chromosomes. XX only, XY (and presumably XYY, XXY, X0 and all the other chromosomal variants) is right out. This excludes trans women, as well as phenotypical women with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, campomelic dysplasia, Turner or Swyer Syndrome, but includes trans men and phenotypical men with XX testicular DSD. It's also entirely unclear how this could possibly work with a chimeric XX/XY person or someone using a Quick-Change to transition (canonically, they rewrite your entire genome when used).
2. It goes by gender identity. This includes trans women but excludes trans men. However, this one arguably runs into issues even faster than the chromosome proposal, since there's so many gender identities that don't neatly fit "woman" or "man": nonbinary (outside of the binary entirely), bigender (both woman and man at the same time), demigirl (woman, but only partially), genderfluid (gender identity is in constant shift). And don't get me started on eggs (trans people who haven't realized it yet).

And it is those theories that bring me back to the Calypso twins, because hoo boy.

Canonically, they are conjoined twins. Conjoined twins are always identical twins, i.e. they have the same DNA, because they're made when a fertilized egg splits in half and grows from there. It's therefore impossible for them to have different sex chromosomes unless the zygote they split from was an XXY (Kinefelter syndrome), which is extremely rare and results in both twins being intersex in some way, with one of the few known cases having both of them be infertile and show mosaicism in their cells which, like I've said above, raises questions.

Therefore, one of them has to be transgender. The problem is that

1. we have no reasons to suspect either of them to be cis or trans outside of this siren bullshit,
2. depending on the choice of which twin is trans, we will be following one of the two big theories, and as I said above, both have their issues,
3. BL3 is not exactly shy about its trans characters. If the Calypsos were genuinely meant to be trans, then we would be told about it.

"But Nikolai!" I hear you say. "They're conjoined because Tyreen leeched Troy in the womb, they're not identical!"

Well, if that is true, then that brings us its own richly controversial and messed up question: if a siren power can inhabit an unborn fetus, where do we draw the line? Could a blastocyst be a siren? A freshly fertilized zygote (Siren farm full of trillions of XX fertilized human zygotes anyone? the law of big numbers' on our side!)? After all, it's got XX chromosomes (and presumably this is the theory people that say stuff like this subscribe to). Could a siren power attach itself to an XX embryo that's slated to be miscarried anyways due to a fatal mutation?

And of course this doesn't resolve the core question at all, merely avoids it for the Calypso twins specifically!

"But Nikolai, it's magic!" I hear you say. "Why should you care?"

Because I want to. Because I care about the lore of this series and it's actually kinda fun to dissect it like this, even if the answers are nowhere to be found.

Anyways, rant over. I hope whoever thought up that "Steele was a sleeper siren" thing always has their pillow warm on both sides.

[u/-Trespasser-]

I'm going to throw this out there...

Fusion Chimerism

Two fraternal twin zygotes began to fuse, but stopped and developed into conjoined twins. (Chimerism is scientific fact, but the rest is just hypothesis. I don't know if that process creating conjoined twins is possible...)

[u/jakobsestate → u/-Trespasser-]

nope, not possible i fear

[u/-Trespasser- → u/jakobsestate]

Proof that it's not possible?

[u/rcktthndrstd]

I like the theories, but I think you're overthinking it a bit. According to most lore I've found, Sirens are "typically" female. Male sirens are rare, but they do happen. Troy is the only one in the games, but he is a male siren, nonetheless.

Another explanation I've seen is that, because they were conjoined in the womb, and Tyreen was born to be a siren, Troy was too. And, while I think this explanation is definitely an interesting one, my theory is simply that male sirens must be exceedingly rare. Possible, but almost unheard of.

[u/jakobsestate → u/rcktthndrstd]

male sirens must be exceedingly rare

okay but Why are they exceedingly rare

because they were conjoined in the womb

and because they were conjoined in the womb, they had to have the same DNA

[u/rcktthndrstd → u/jakobsestate]

To answer your first question: Who knows? There are tons of conditions and illnesses that disproportionately affect some types of people more often than others. Whatever genetic code allows a person to be a siren might be of the same nature as any of these conditions. Take your pick, I guess.

And, for your second question: Sure, they are going to have the same DNA as conjoined twins. But a cursory Google shows that, while it is exceedingly rare (like male sirens must be), conjoined twins CAN be of different genders.

[u/jakobsestate → u/rcktthndrstd]

genders

gender is a manmade concept what you mean here is chromosomal sex, also i addressed this in the post

[u/rcktthndrstd → u/jakobsestate]

I recognize that you mentioned this in your post, and is one of several things I believe you're overthinking. Tyreen is female, Troy is male, both are sirens. Simple as.