It’s that time of year again, and we here at ScienceFiction.com are all about celebrating our mothers, and the mothers in science fiction if you happen to be unfortunate enough to be one of those. Even so, I say “Happy Mother’s Day!” that to all mothers, including the ones they may not have come by it the conventional way, including:
Amy Pond (Doctor Who)
There is very little in the science fiction world like Jerry Springer than season five of Doctor Who (“I kissed my son-in-law the night before my wedding!”), not the least of which is Amy’s pregnancy arc, which I usually envision like this:
This should tell you exactly why she’s first on the list of strange sci-fi mothers. There are fewer introductions to motherhood weirder than waking up to having a baby on a spaceship where you’ve been unknowingly imprisoned the last nine months. Of course, that has nothing on finding out you’re same age as your daughter, and you accidentally raised her from the age of seven on.
Dana Scully (The X-Files)
In addition to be a complete and utter surprise to Scully, who was told she was infertile, she becomes a mother to a child who’s paternal parentage remains an, and forgive the pun, x-file for the audience. There are a lot of theories going around about how Scully has this child, but the most accepted one was that her eggs were taken during her first alien abduction was fertilized.
Dana Scully’s pregnancy, then, rivals even the best National Enquirer headlines.
“My Son Is an Alien Hybrid!”Deanna Troi (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Winning the award for most uncomfortable pregnancy story in the history of scifi is Deanna Troi, who wakes up in the middle of the night to a glowing light that… um… enters her.
She wakes up the next day fully pregnant, but somehow not dead from the sudden growth a baby inside her, has a child, and then watches it grow up and die in the space of a day, leaving her to weep over a ball of energy.
“You were the best son a mom could ever have because I only had to change your diapers for all of five minutes.”So… uh… Happy Mother’s Day, Deanna!
Kira Nerys (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Imagine, you’re on space shuttle, minding your business and enjoying a life of not being pregnant out in the Gamma Quadrant when a freak accident hurts a pregnant passenger, and the doctor on board is forced to transport the baby into your undamaged womb.
Imagining it? Well, welcome to Kira’s world! She is a mother by way of a transporter. That’s something they never warn you about in health class.
“I can’t wait to have your baby so unexpectantly!”Fauxlivia Dunham (Fringe)
Olivia, unlike the most of the other women on this list, actually comes by her pregnancy the natural way, which is to say that though she is surprised to find out she’s pregnant, and who the father is, she’s not really surprised, if you catch my drift.
“How should I phrase this… You weren’t so much an accident as you were a surprise.”However, how she actually becomes a mother is the weird part. Finding out she has a special disease that kills both mother and child, she decides to have an abortion which is thwarted by evil scientists who accelerate the growth of the child. Before you can say “wham, bam, thank you, ma’am!”, Olivia is a mother to child she never thought she was going to have all because of weird Fringe science. That’s going to be an interesting thing to explain to the kid in the future.
Gwen Cooper (Torchwood)
I’d like to file Gwen under most impossible pregnancy, but really she’s tied with Deanna Troi. Somehow, both of these women were impregnated and come to term in one night, yet their unprepared wombs didn’t explode.
Gwen’s introduction to motherhood is unconventional to say the least, and deserves it’s on National Enquirer headline. She essentially gets bitten by a shapeshifter, and that somehow made it so she had to carry its egg…
The birth process, you ask? It’s simple. The mate shapeshifter comes and rips it out of your screaming body. Happy Mother of a Shapeshifter that will Cause your Death Day, Gwen!
Let’s not forget that when Gwen actually does become pregnant with a human baby, it during season three of Torchwood, where children are being taken away to use as drugs by an alien race. That’s gotta be an awkward Mother’s Day.
Kara Thrace/Starbuck (Battlestar Galactica)
We’ll ignore the pregnancy farms on Caprica in the first season and jump straight to Leoben in the third season on New Caprica.
There is nothing quite like being told you’re mother because someone stole your ovary and made a baby. Welcome to motherhood, Kara Thrace. I hope you like your little girl, Kacey.
Oh wait, she’s not really yours? She just some kid he stole? Well, this is awkward.
“Okay, uh… just don’t tell your real mom, okay?”Vicki Dubcheck (3rd Rock from the Sun)
To be impregnated by Captain Kirk is one thing. To be impregnated by the Big Giant Head is quite another, and that’s a birth I don’t think anyone quite prepare to handle.
Add into that that she follows the classic scifi standard of get pregnant and then has the baby within hours, and you have yet another weird introduction to motherhood… that does eventually end her becoming the queen of the universe. Happy Mother’s to her, indeed!
“Look at my Big Giant Baby.”Kate (Lost)
Nothing quite like getting off an island while a ship explodes and suddenly realizing that you are a de facto mother to a crazy girl’s kid… well, nothing like doing all that, and then pretending you were pregnant the whole time with him and then somehow getting off a murder charge so you can raise the little bugger.
But that’s Lost for you. There’s nothing like it because… well… there never has, is, or will be. That show is impossible on so many levels, so Happy Mother’s Day to Kate for just one of her many implausible plot lines.
“I’m so glad no one noticed that I don’t look like you. Now let me go find your crazy mom, because only she can raise you.”Mork (Mork and Mindy)
Nothing should surprise me when it comes to anything involving Robin Williams, but what would life be if not for surprises?
In season four of Mork and Mindy, the two eponymous stars are finally married and making love without abandon, when Mork realizes he’s pregnant and then promptly gives birth to an egg… Though it takes some convincing for Mindy to accept she’s about to have a child without actually being the one to have the child, they take care of the egg until it hatches… wait for it…
Wait for it.
Jonathan Winters! Well, technically Mearth, but definitely Jonathan Winters.
It was likely a stunt to grab ratings, and sadly it was a failed stunt because Mork and Mindy never made it into their fifth season. Now that’s a sad Mother’s Day.
So Happy Mother‘s Day!
Moms, if you sometimes think you’re kids a pain in the butt, just remember that least they didn’t happen to you the way it seems to in scifi. And kids, every time your mom is mad at you, remind them of how much worse it could have been to give birth to you. Really, they lucked out. Now that’s a Happy Mother’s Day.
