==Appendix 1 - 4==
==Biology of Saurians 101==Appendix 1
Now the Saurians are an egg laying species, their courtship starts when a fertile female meets with a male who is "in season". Male Saurians produce seamen and build it up in an insemination sack. It takes a male one of their years to fill it and become fertile and it is only then he is said to be in season.
Males in season then take to a desirable stretch of beach. If there are no empty stretches or one male is desirous of another's they will battle each other in usually non-lethal unarmed combat until one of them concedes or has been rendered unconscious usually the latter.
The victor then squeezes empty the loser's insemination sack on to the dry sands. When the loser senses again return to him he having had "his season taken from him", departs from the beach and the cycle continues.
The victor remains to mate for as long as his season lasts (the insemination sack has not been emptied), which in the largest of males is often well over a month, servicing dozens or even hundreds of females.
Females approach a desirable male and if the pairing is acceptable to all (meaning the females can pay his stud fee), they begin a courtship dance. As the dance progresses the female being considerably smaller climbs upon the males hips impaling her self on the male's inducement horn. By continuing the female's stimulation with the dance and horn it induces her to drop a single egg. The female takes the egg to a shallow hole dug in the wet sands by her prior to mating and then the male in season releases a small amount from his insemination sack into the hole and thus fertilizes the newly induced egg.
It should be noted that it is common for there to be a group of females present during the entire mating. Some are Joined (essentially the wives) to the mating female, others might be awaiting the male's attentions next. Part of the purpose of the mating dance is to cause sexual arousal in the waiting females. As per the Saurian saying "He danced so well I thought I would drop a clutch of eggs before I even touched his horn!"
The main other thing to note is the commerce side of it; Saurian males charge exorbitant fees for their stud services. This is well tolerated amongst the Saurian's for it keeps the population in check. The only time it is a cause of friction among the sexes is when resources are tight and beach access is limited, driving up stud fees to unaffordable amounts.
In the Epsilon-Iridani system the planet's one lake and its small breeding island made for just such an unreasonable pricing to currently be in effect. Which was also ironic because many of the Saurians working the terraforming project had taken this hard ship posting precisely for the access to the breeding beaches.
In order to mate on the beaches of Epsilon-Iridani a female needed to book passage with the breeding island ferry, the icy lake waters alone see to it that any attempt to swim to the island is quite impossible. Non-Saurians are barred from using the ferry, though they are not barred from the island itself.
Upon arriving on the Island females are free to inspect the beaches for a male, once selected a stud fee is negotiated. The actual funds are transferred much later once the females return to the mainland, no Saurian female would dare fail to make payment and leave her unguarded egg with the male she had swindled.
Once every ten day is hatchling day, the lake waters are lowered and a sunken causeway is revealed. The males await the arrival of the females before retiring to the islands central arena. The females then proceed to "call" for their hatchlings, if it was a viable egg (most sadly are not) the hatchling will break free of the sand and be scooped up by the mothers tongue and cradled in her jaws.