Stalker with a Test Tube

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Alice desires Bob. Well, more Bob's DNA than Bob, himself. She totally believes that her genes + his genes = Alice and Bob Squared - a child that contains the best of both of them. Genetics tend not to work that way, but don't tell that to Alice. In this scenario, it is almost always the female chasing the male's genes.[1] As often as Alice will openly state her intentions, she'll also work to secretly procure Bob's DNA (which usually leads to a Luke, You Are My Father scenario).

A frequent variant is that The Omniscient Council of Vagueness want to get Alice and Bob together for the purpose of conceiving The Chosen One and/or a Tyke Bomb. This scenario almost always involves a Gambit Roulette or a Gambit Pileup if there are other OCOVs looking to prevent said conception.

To qualify as an example of this trope, the pursuit with intent to breed is the thing—said wunderkind actually coming to be is a bonus.

The Chosen One, Half Human Hybrids and Tyke Bombs are often the result of such a pairing. Or you could just end up with a Stalker with a Crush. Lamarck Was Right and Superpowerful Genetics often come into play.

Do not confuse with Playing with Syringes.

Compare with the Super Breeding Program, Only You Can Repopulate My Race and Mars Needs Women. Contrast I Want to Bear His Children, which usually doesn't lead to this.

If The Bad Guy Wins with this sort of motivation, their victim may proclaim, "That Thing Is Not My Child!"

Examples of Stalker with a Test Tube include:

Anime and Manga

  • In the anime Wicked City, human special agent Taki and Black World operative Makie were intentionally paired off by the Black Guard in hopes of conceiving a child that was half-human, half-Black Worlder to be part of the peace treaty between the two worlds. They were assigned to protect a dirty old man, who turned out to be a powerful psychic assigned to protect them and steer them in the direction of mutual respect and physical attraction, while fighting off Black World extremists bent on disrupting the coupling. The fact that said conception boosted Makie's demonic abilities was just gravy.
  • This is the basis of the plot of Maburaho; Yuna, Rin and Kuriko were all ordered to get their hands on Kazuki's powerful genes for the good of their upper-class family bloodlines. On the other hand, Yuuna at least had already been in love with him since childhood. And as the series goes on, Rin and Kuriko start to love Kazuki unconditional as well.
  • A possible example in Kaze no Stigma. Ayano's dad might just be trying to set up the Bodyguard Crush between her and ultra-powerful Wind Contractor Kazuma for the short-term gain of entering someone that powerful into the family, but it seems rather more likely that he's planning for the long term - unfortunately, the series ended with an Author Existence Failure before we could find out what the offspring of a Wind Contractor and a top-notch Fire Mage would be like...
  • Washu Hakubi of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki has a combination of reasons for being interested in Tenchi. Part of it is For Science!, since she's trying to find the entity that made her and her sisters, and Tenchi doing some nice hax during his battle against Kagato is what sparks her interest, part is wanting to harvest his DNA (with or without his consent), and part is that she genuinely loves him (but is just a lonely introvert who has no idea how to treat people outside of the context of a lab) and wants to have Tenchi's baby, and only his. Plus, she gets to annoy her daughter Ryoko, who also loves Tenchi.
    • Tenchi spinoff Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar: In the world of Geminar, males who can pilot the Humongous Mecha are exceedingly rare, and are treated more like stud horses than warriors, expected to be paired with other pilots to create a stronger new generation of future pilots; political control of a strong male pilot is a major bargaining chip. Later, it's revealed that the Neglectful Precursors who created the mecha also created Artificial Human pilots, and could even send them to other worlds to breed with the natives to create still stronger children to be brought back -- which is apparently how series hero Kenshi Masaki, Tenchi's half-brother, was conceived.
  • In the Hentai anime DNA Hunter, Mai and her co-workers are basically contracted to carry out this trope: they sleep with specific men in order to obtain sperm for female clients. Mai herself is an more benign example, since her fiancee Yuji died in an accident and she's working to get enough money to have a procedure done that will allow her to use Yuji's DNA (extracted from a cigarette) to have his child.
  • Becomes a major plot point in The Five Star Stories, where budding Mad Scientist Meeth Silver Ballanche uses a sample of Sword Saint Douglas Kaien's DNA to impregnate herself. Their offspring, Maximum HOLTFORS Ballanche Kaien does indeed grow up to be the ultimate lifeform and even ascends to become a member of the series' small collection of Physical Gods.
  • Ringo Oginome's real goal and the corollary of her "Project M" (in which "M" = "maternity") in Mawaru Penguindrum. Ringo's dead sister Momoka had planned her whole life with the goal of being happy with her boyfriend Tabuki, culminating with her writing in her diary that she and Tabuki would have kids. Desperate to get her and Momoka's parents back together, Ringo took up Momoka's goals to "become Momoka" and mend her broken family life, therefore she wanted to be impregnated by Tabuki. And she didn't stop at ANYTHING to try getting her "happy ending"... at least until her friend Shouma LOUDLY called her out on it and then got hit by a car to protect her.

Comic Books

  • In the Superman comics (and at least one episode of Superman: The Animated Series), alien queen Maxima wanted Supes, both as a perfect mate and a genetic goldmine. His consent was purely optional, as far as she was concerned.
    • Also, this can be seen as the motivation behind the creation of Connor Kent/Kon-El Superboy, who is a clone made from the genes of Superman and Lex Luthor. Luthor obviously denies this interpretation vehemently.
  • In the X-Men comics, Mr. Sinister desired a child that combined Scott Summers and Jean Grey's genes, so when Jean Grey "died", he created a clone of her (Madelyn Pryor) and sent her after Scott. (Their son got hit by the Timey-Wimey Ball and ended up as Time Traveling badass Cable.) Of course, it turned out Sinister was right and every one of Jean and Scott's genetic offspring (Cable, Rachel "Phoenix II" Summers, Nate "X-Man" Gray, Cable's evil clone Stryfe) turned out to be a Person of Mass Destruction. And yes, Scott and Jean really have had four children without Jean ever actually giving birth.
  • This Dilbert comic.
  • In the Incredible Hulk comics, Thundra's interest in the Hulk was retconned from her wanting to test her strength against the ultimate opponent to her wanting to procure the Hulk's DNA to conceive a warrior who could break the stalemate between her all-female nation and the all-male opposing one. "Lyra, Daughter of The Hulk" is the result of this.
  • When Batman: Son Of The Bat was brought back into continuity, a consensual encounter between Batman and Talia Al-Ghul (that happened to result in a child) was retconned into Talia drugging and raping Bruce in order to produce an heir.
  • In the old Champions line of comics, the fact that eventual Champions member Sparkplug, a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander raised and brainwashed by South American Nazi refugees, would try to hit on just about every male superhero whose genes she thought would complement hers nicely for purposes of producing 'superior' offspring became something of a (arguably mildly creepy) Running Gag.
  • One XXXenophile story involved the Devil finally getting his chance to produce the Anti-Christ, and picking his "perfect couple" at a singles' bar. And then God keeps talking about how cute and innocent they are, the Devil keeps pushing them to get kinkier as a result, and the astrologically correct time passes without the couple ever engaging in vaginal intercourse -- meaning no Anti-Christ was conceived.
  • After Thor gave up his soul to save Valkyrie in Ultimatum, Hela the Norse goddess of the underworld wanted him to give her a son. In return, she promised him a favor. The day after the deed, Thor demanded a means to return to the living world, she said that it would require someone else to die in his place. When Thor threatened to kill her to fulfill the requirement, Hela then revealed that she was already heavily pregnant with his son thanks to the fluid nature of time in the underworld. She remarks that their child is already a strong warrior given the way he kicks.
  • In Red Robin #12, it was revealed in The Stinger that everything Ra's Al Ghul did in the series up till that point was to test Tim Drake. Ra's now knows that Tim will sire a worthy heir—and a mysterious female companion assures him that she'll "get right on that"...

Fan Works

  • Eye of the Fox has a Gender Flipped version in a scene which Kyubbi all but states that the only reason he'd want a son and heir was because of the Superpowerful Genetics the mother possesseed as he laments the boy's suicide attempt as 'reflecting badly on him.'

Film

  • The Japanese movie Hush! features a variant. The woman with the test tube (or rather a pipette), and later two turkey basters is a bit persistent, but the actual Stalker with a Crush is completely oblivious of her stalkee's homosexuality.

Literature

  • In the Temeraire series, Iskierka (the draconic equivalent to a Bratty Teenage Daughter) became obsessed with mating with Temeraire, convinced that any offspring of theirs would inherit both her fire-breathing and his Divine Wind abilities. Never mind that everyone - including her own captain - tells her that Breeding Does Not Work That Way. And even if it did, Chinese Celestials (like Temeraire) don't breed true.
  • This is basically the Modus Operandi of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood of Dune - breeding together people with the right genes in order to produce the Kwisatz Haderach... whether that means matchmaking, blackmail, or outright rape is of little concern to them as long as the right children result. The ultimate goal was supposed to be the daughter of Duke Leto Atreides and Jessica, paired with Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen... but Jessica went against orders and bore a son, Paul, who threw a wrench in their plans in more ways than one. Ironically, in the end they did wind up getting their God-Emperor, Paul's son Leto II, who also engaged in his own, 3500 year long breeding program.
  • A Maghuin Dhonn witch attempts this on Imriel from Kushiel's Legacy as a way to thwart a prophecy. He doesn't go for it.
  • In The Song of the Tears, the 3rd series in Ian Irvine's Three Worlds Cycle, it turns out that Maigraith has spent the last few generations obsessed with creating a new, perfect combination of the world's 4 human species as a monument to Rulke, her dead lover.
  • This is why King Pelles wants Lancelot to father a child on his daughter Elaine in Arthurian myth, because combining his line of Grail-keepers with a "perfect" Knight in Shining Armor (who may have been descended from Joseph and Mary) would result in the Ultimate Christian Knight - Galahad.
  • In Phyllis Ann Karr's The Idylls of the Queen, Morgan Le Fay explains her long pursuit of Lancelot as wanting to grow her own hero with his assistance. She gave up on it when she passed menopause.
  • In Hannibal, Barney (the intern at the facility Lecter was imprisoned at in Silence of the Lambs) was hired by Mason Verger's sister for this purpose in a rather odd twist: she's infertile, and wants Barney to help obtain Mason's semen to impregnate her lesbian lover. It's the only way for the child to be a blood relative and inherit a trust fund.
  • A Red Wizardess of Thay once disguised herself as Azoun IV's wife and seduced him, intending to bear his child and then seize the throne of Cormyr in a Succession Crisis. Her scheme is subverted, because Azoun fathered so many bastard offspring as a young man that Thay's candidate for the throne would have to get in line behind hundreds of older half-sibs.
  • The Nartec of Animorphs attempt this with any humans who they stumble across... but their methods of DNA extraction are fatal to the victim. Ax is actually offended that they were not interested in his DNA before discovering that truth.
  • In the Lensman series, the Arisians have apparently been manipulating human history to produce beings that would one day be able to show mental powers beyond their own.
  • The Esper's Guild from The Demolished Man mandates that its members have to marry other espers.

Live-Action TV

  • One Law and Order SVU episode shared 2-parter with another spin-off has the cast investigate a possible rape; it turns out the woman rendered the man (who they thought did it and had already made his life Hell) unconscious and then stole his sperm for her father's crazy genetics program. At the end of the episode's first part, she had given birth to the guy's kid.
  • An NCIS episode has a Navy woman invest in an expensive computer program to see what the babies would look like for each man she dated. The fun part is that the team can't help but use the program themselves to find out what Gibbs and Shepard's kid might look like.
  • An episode of Doogie Howser, M.D. had a new female department head try to get artificial insemination using Doogie to produced a genius child, but Doogie thought she meant the old fashioned way. Their coworkers called out her on how creepy this was.
  • On Picket Fences, the sheriff and his ex-wife went to court over custody of his stored semen, with which she intends to impregnate herself.
  • On Green Wing, when Mac is in hospital in a coma, Stalker with a Crush Sue White takes the opportunity to sneak into his room and manually collect his DNA, and then impregnates herself on the desk in her office with a turkey baster. Later she gives birth to a lion cub. Yeah, it's that kind of show.
  • Though Farscape has far less stalking than most examples, John being blackmailed into marrying Katralla because he is the only male they have found who can give her healthy children definitely has hints of this trope. It comes even closer when it is revealed that Katralla is pregnant via test tube (and completely without John's knowledge) at the end of the trilogy.
  • Arrested Development: Kitty wants George Senior's baby, and ends up with a cooler full of his sperm.
  • Supernatural: Sam and Dean's parents were apparently matched up by "cupids" trying to breed human vessels for Michael and Lucifer.
  • The 2000s version of Battlestar Galactica: During the New Caprica arc, Leoben Conoy introduces Kara Thrace to their daughter to enforce more bonding between them, which he conceived from his own sperm and Kara's stolen ovary[please verify] from Caprica. It's later revealed to be an unrelated child when the girl is reunited with her real (human) mother.
  • One episode of Spin City involved Mike's recent ex notifying him that she had saved one of his used condoms (theoretically one that didn't include a spermicide treatment) in her freezer and planned to artificially incept herself. Turns out, having thrown the condom away, he had no legal claim to it (DNA should be another matter, but just go with it). Fortunately for him, after all his plans to get it back fail, a city-wide blackout assured that she would be unable to properly maintain the sample.
  • In Star Trek: Voyager, Seska took Chakotay's DNA in order to conceive his child. Unfortunately, she didn't plan it very well. As she had also been sleeping with Maj Kulla, assuming that they just weren't genetically compatible, she ended up conceiving his child instead. She was clearly pissed.
  • An unusual variation occurred during an episode of CSI, in which Lady Heather tracks down and sleeps with the man she suspects of murdering her daughter simply so she can retrieve the condom and turn it over to Grissom as evidence.

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legend

  • According to the Malleus Maleficarum, this was how demons reproduced in the human realm, not being capable of conceiving children themselves. A succubus would seduce a man and collect his sperm. She would then pass it on to an incubus, her male equivalent, who would then mate with a human female. The resulting child would be a cambion, a half-demon. This admittedly ignores the fact that it is still human sperm being used in the insemination (Jacob Sprenger was writing without modern knowledge of genetics and the biology of sexual reproduction).

Tabletop Games

  • In the backstory to Magic: The Gathering, Urza conducts various breeding programs in order to obtain the ideal warriors to combat the pending Phyrexian invasion. After several millennia, hero of the Weatherlight Saga Gerrard Capashen is born. Gerrard is not pleased when he learns this.

Video Games

Web Comics

  • In General Protection Fault, an splinter group of The Brotherhood Of The Twisted Pair (a group of Illiuminati-like hackers) believed that either Sharon or Fooker was their legendary "Geek Messiah." When a battery of tests failed to show any real difference in Sharon and Fooker's "l33t skillz", the group decided that neither Sharon nor Fooker was The Chosen One - their future child was. And much to Sharon's annoyance (and Fooker's amusement), the Brotherhood set about making sure said conception happened.
  • Elaine of Carbonek in Arthur, King of Time and Space, as above.
  • In Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic, the Orcs' chief deity, Gruumsh, was behind the conception of Jone (and other half-human/half-orcs, including Glon), looking to create a perfect warrior who could unite humanity and the orcs under one banner: his. Jone did indeed turn out to be a near-unstoppable fighter... even when Gruumsh wanted her to stop.

Web Original

  • In Tasakeru, there's a rather literal usage of this in Book III. Stalker creates a hybrid of all eight sentient species by stealing blood from each of them...

Western Animation

  • In Frisky Dingo Grace Ryan uses some of Xander Crews's sperm she froze to impregnate herself. An unrelated ant-mutation causes it to go horribly, horribly wrong.
  • In Moral Orel, Stephanie thwarts Reverend Putty's flirtations by revealing that he's her father by way of this trope. They salvage the emerging relationship and bond as father and daughter.
  • On Metalocalypse, Lavona Succuboso and her Amazon Brigade, Succuboso Explosion, want Nathan Explosion's sperm so they can give birth to an army of perfect heavy metal warriors. Interestingly enough, Lavona's perfectly fine with Nathan dying after she gets the DNA.
    • Also Toki's Internet girlfriend.
  • On The Cleveland Show, Cleveland runs into a woman who had a crush on him in high school and starts hanging out with her because of the boost to his ego. Eventually she drugs him, ties him to her bed naked, puts on a pair of latex gloves... let's just say the finale involves a fertility doctor, a turkey baster, and, for some reason, hot air balloons.
  • A slight variation in the DCAU: Amanda Waller wanted to create another Batman, but rather than do it the old-fashioned way, she hunted up a couple with similar psychological profiles to Bruce Wayne's parents, rewrote the father's spermies to match Bruce's DNA, then arranged to have the couple killed when the young proto-Bats reached the proper age. The assassin[2] chickened out at the last minute, but in a stunning Contrived Coincidence, the kid's father was killed a few years later anyway. The result? Terry McGuiness.

Real Life

When adding examples here, please keep in mind the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment. Also, as per this discussion, please add documented historical examples only.

  • Some myths say Alexander the Great was courted by the Queen of the Amazons for just such a purpose - considering him the only man worthy of fathering her child.
  • There is a story that famous dancer and free spirit Isadora Duncan once suggested George Bernard Shaw marry her, saying "Our children would have my looks and your brains." Shaw allegedly replied, "But what if they had my looks and your brains?" While the story first appeared in a biography of Shaw, it's almost certainly apocryphal. Thanks to the vagaries of oral transmission, the story is sometimes also attributed to actress Sarah Bernhardt (who was far closer in age to Shaw and whose reasons for meeting a playwright like Shaw should be obvious). Furthermore, Shaw is reported as saying something to the effect of "Oh no, I've just blown a definite shag!" upon realizing what he had done. (Shaw was, of course, notorious for his inability to resist a witticism.)
    • There's also a variant of that story that swaps Shaw for Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe for Duncan, but there's even less evidence for it than for the Shaw version. (However, Marilyn's former roommate, actress Shelley Winters, noted in her 1980 autobiography that Marilyn had counted Einstein among the famous men she would like to sleep with -- and then added that among her possessions at her death was an autographed photograph of Einstein inscribed "To Marilyn, I am forever grateful!")
  1. ↑ In the absence of a surrogate mother, this is the significantly less Squicky way to do it.
  2. ↑ Whom the show heavily implied was The Phantasm
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