Oooh! Good questions! Given Sam's distaste for never having sons, I'm not sure he'd automatically hop on board with raising Lois as a daughter. But, as a scientist, I can see him maybe wanting to keep her around as a lab experiment.
Now, what if Ellen Lane was utterly unable to conceive a child at all, and they knew it? (Like the Kents.) Perhaps that might have changed Sam's mind. And, if he *did* accept her as a daughter, would that have made him more protective or her? Would she have been raised like Clark - to hide her abilities? Would Sam have passed on the opportunity to experiment on an alien? Would he have looked at raising Lois to control her powers AS the experiment? Would Lois have been raised in such a way that she would have wanted to don a costume and help the world, like Clark did?
Would raising a daughter like Lois, with certain special needs (ie. - learning not to break the couch when sitting down heavily) have brought Sam and Ellen closer? Would they still have divorced - with it being too difficult? Would Ellen have started drinking earlier? Or would she have abstained, for Lois' sake?
I see a wealth of different ways this story could go...
