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Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5

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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5
Post by pappilon   » Sat Sep 30, 2017 1:39 pm

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quite possibly a cat wrote:
George J. Smith wrote:It is your universe rfc but IMOP having the mods is not 100% elective, the Meyerdhal mods are dominant so all new babies from Meyerdahl recipients will have the mods whether they were wanted or not.

This seems really nitpicky. I assume RFC meant that a procedure to ensure the child has or doesn't have a mod is 100% elective. Obviously if you skip medical care you'll get what genetics hands out. :roll:



Yeah, seriously, if you didn't want Meyerdahl genes, you shoulda picked different parents. If you didn't want genie kids, you shoulda fell in love with a different person. Which skirts the issue of racism from a slightly different perspective.

But what about Mateo Gutierrez and the other San Martins? Thandi Palani of Ndebele?
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The imagination has to be trained into foresight and empathy.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5
Post by runsforcelery   » Sat Sep 30, 2017 1:50 pm

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quite possibly a cat wrote:
George J. Smith wrote:It is your universe rfc but IMOP having the mods is not 100% elective, the Meyerdhal mods are dominant so all new babies from Meyerdahl recipients will have the mods whether they were wanted or not.

This seems really nitpicky. I assume RFC meant that a procedure to ensure the child has or doesn't have a mod is 100% elective. Obviously if you skip medical care you'll get what genetics hands out. :roll:



That would be a fairly succinct summation of my view, yes. :roll:


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5
Post by runsforcelery   » Sat Sep 30, 2017 1:57 pm

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pappilon wrote:
quite possibly a cat wrote:This seems really nitpicky. I assume RFC meant that a procedure to ensure the child has or doesn't have a mod is 100% elective. Obviously if you skip medical care you'll get what genetics hands out. :roll:



Yeah, seriously, if you didn't want Meyerdahl genes, you shoulda picked different parents. If you didn't want genie kids, you shoulda fell in love with a different person. Which skirts the issue of racism from a slightly different perspective.

But what about Mateo Gutierrez and the other San Martins? Thandi Palani of Ndebele?



They represent more of a case of natural selection for their environments than deliberate genetic mods, especially in Thandi's case. Both planets have been settled a long time; both were settled after the hyper-sail made transport-sized colony ships feasible; and San Martin's gravity preselected for colonists from pretty darned heavy-grav planets to start with. There are some genetic mods buried in the population because of that, but the majority of heavy-grav worlds were actually settled without specialized mods. Of course, none of them were quite as heavy heavy-grav as San Martin!!! Frankly, I haven't worried too much about which San Martinos have been deliberately modded (or descend from ancestors who were) and who hasn't. It's not really germane to the story line or the individual characters' histories and relationships. If it becomes so, I'll decide on a case-by-case basis who has a modified gen0type and who doesn't.


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5
Post by George J. Smith   » Sat Sep 30, 2017 2:02 pm

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quite possibly a cat wrote:
George J. Smith wrote:It is your universe rfc but IMHO having the mods is not 100% elective, the Meyerdhal mods are dominant so all new babies from Meyerdahl recipients will have the mods whether they were wanted or not.

This seems really nitpicky. I assume RFC meant that a procedure to ensure the child has or doesn't have a mod is 100% elective. Obviously if you skip medical care you'll get what genetics hands out. :roll:



Maybe I should have said no longer 100% elective

Anyone with the Meyerdahl mods will automatically pass the mods on as they were engineered to be dominant.

Of course people with the Meyerdahl mods can elect to not have any children at all, but as long as they do have children those children will get the Meyerdahl mods.

I assume the Quellhollow and Winton mods will be similarly engineered to be dominant.
Last edited by George J. Smith on Sat Sep 30, 2017 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5
Post by JohnRoth   » Sat Sep 30, 2017 2:05 pm

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quite possibly a cat wrote:
JohnRoth wrote:The interesting thing to me is the "all or nothing" feature of several different kinds of mod, the Meyerdhal and Winton mods being the most obvious.
That's called Genetic Linkage! Actually depending on the modification it might be a really good idea to make sure the modification sticks together.

But they also seem to have a gene drive for 100% inheritance. At the very least the Winton line seems to.


Yep. And since a mod like that touches quite a bit of the genome, there are going to be bits and pieces in many places on several chromosomes. There is no way of insuring something like that sticks together without some Really Interesting Mechanism (aka hand-waving.)

Gene Drive, by the way, only really applies to single- or very-small-number-of gene changes.

Genetics is interesting - I've been interested in it since a SciAm article back in 63 or 64 (when I was in college) where someone was talking about deciphering a 100-amino-acid protein, and had the proteins arranged as bubbles in the margins of the pages across three or four pages. The changes in how we understand it since the population genetics days back in the 20s and 30s and today are fascinating.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5
Post by ldwechsler   » Sat Sep 30, 2017 2:36 pm

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JohnRoth wrote:
JohnRoth wrote:The interesting thing to me is the "all or nothing" feature of several different kinds of mod, the Meyerdhal and Winton mods being the most obvious.
That's called Genetic Linkage! Actually depending on the modification it might be a really good idea to make sure the modification sticks together.

But they also seem to have a gene drive for 100% inheritance. At the very least the Winton line seems to.


Yep. And since a mod like that touches quite a bit of the genome, there are going to be bits and pieces in many places on several chromosomes. There is no way of insuring something like that sticks together without some Really Interesting Mechanism (aka hand-waving.)

Gene Drive, by the way, only really applies to single- or very-small-number-of gene changes.

Genetics is interesting - I've been interested in it since a SciAm article back in 63 or 64 (when I was in college) where someone was talking about deciphering a 100-amino-acid protein, and had the proteins arranged as bubbles in the margins of the pages across three or four pages. The changes in how we understand it since the population genetics days back in the 20s and 30s and today are fascinating.[/quote]


That was my point. If the Meyerdahl is dominant, then all descendants of the mod have it. That would also mean Honor's brother and sister do as well.

But why wouldn't the planet keep using the mod? It makes for an easier life on planet. And Sphynx, while not heavily settled, does provide a lot of navy people. I would think it would be a great plus for Marines to have this mod as well. Far stronger, etc., although the logistical people would go a bit bananas.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5
Post by MaxxQ   » Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:05 pm

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ldwechsler wrote:That was my point. If the Meyerdahl is dominant, then all descendants of the mod have it. That would also mean Honor's brother and sister do as well.


And they do. RFC hasn't felt it necessary to point that out, since he explained that the mod is dominant 20 or so books back.

ldwechsler wrote:But why wouldn't the planet keep using the mod? It makes for an easier life on planet. And Sphynx, while not heavily settled, does provide a lot of navy people. I would think it would be a great plus for Marines to have this mod as well. Far stronger, etc., although the logistical people would go a bit bananas.


<bold mine>

The mod IS available, for anyone who wants it. It's just that apparently, a lot of people either DON'T want it (at the moment), or possibly can't afford it (yes, the SKM/SEM has a fairly high standard of living, but that doesn't mean everyone can afford everything), or maybe their religion forbids it, or whatever reason you care to imagine.

Sure, it makes sense - to YOU - that everyone on Sphinx (or another high-grav world) ought to have the mods, but people are people, and some will want it/them, and some won't. Just like some people prefer Fords over Chevys (I'm into classic Mopar, myself), and others don't even WANT a car. Are you going to force it on those who don't?
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5
Post by JohnRoth   » Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:14 pm

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JohnRoth wrote:The interesting thing to me is the "all or nothing" feature of several different kinds of mod, the Meyerdhal and Winton mods being the most obvious.



quite possibly a cat wrote:That's called Genetic Linkage! Actually depending on the modification it might be a really good idea to make sure the modification sticks together.

But they also seem to have a gene drive for 100% inheritance. At the very least the Winton line seems to.


JohnRoth wrote:Yep. And since a mod like that touches quite a bit of the genome, there are going to be bits and pieces in many places on several chromosomes. There is no way of insuring something like that sticks together without some Really Interesting Mechanism (aka hand-waving.)

Gene Drive, by the way, only really applies to single- or very-small-number-of gene changes.

Genetics is interesting - I've been interested in it since a SciAm article back in 63 or 64 (when I was in college) where someone was talking about deciphering a 100-amino-acid protein, and had the proteins arranged as bubbles in the margins of the pages across three or four pages. The changes in how we understand it since the population genetics days back in the 20s and 30s and today are fascinating.


ldwechsler wrote:That was my point. If the Meyerdahl is dominant, then all descendants of the mod have it. That would also mean Honor's brother and sister do as well.

But why wouldn't the planet keep using the mod? It makes for an easier life on planet. And Sphynx, while not heavily settled, does provide a lot of navy people. I would think it would be a great plus for Marines to have this mod as well. Far stronger, etc., although the logistical people would go a bit bananas.


I don't think you understand what the term 'dominant' means in genetics. It applies to single genes only. If you have a function that's scattered over multiple locations on multiple chromosomes (the usual case) and the mod plugs the changes into both copies of each affected gene, the children will have it on only one chromosome of each pair, and many of the grandchildren will inherit only part of it. That is, essential pieces will be missing.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5
Post by George J. Smith   » Sat Sep 30, 2017 4:33 pm

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JohnRoth wrote:I don't think you understand what the term 'dominant' means in genetics. It applies to single genes only. If you have a function that's scattered over multiple locations on multiple chromosomes (the usual case) and the mod plugs the changes into both copies of each affected gene, the children will have it on only one chromosome of each pair, and many of the grandchildren will inherit only part of it. That is, essential pieces will be missing.


There is textev where it was explained that the mods were made dominant and all descendants would bear those dominant genes.

And ISTR that around 35% of the Sphinx population had those dominant genes at the time of the explanation.
Last edited by George J. Smith on Sat Sep 30, 2017 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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A man should live forever, or die in the attempt
Spider Robinson Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (1977) A voice is heard in Ramah
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #5
Post by quite possibly a cat   » Sat Sep 30, 2017 4:56 pm

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JohnRoth wrote:
I don't think you understand what the term 'dominant' means in genetics. It applies to single genes only. If you have a function that's scattered over multiple locations on multiple chromosomes (the usual case) and the mod plugs the changes into both copies of each affected gene, the children will have it on only one chromosome of each pair, and many of the grandchildren will inherit only part of it. That is, essential pieces will be missing.

Context clues in the books indicate that "dominant" meant "gene drive for 100% inheritance".

Similar to how "wormhole" means "spooky handwavium".

ldwechsler wrote:Yep. And since a mod like that touches quite a bit of the genome, there are going to be bits and pieces in many places on several chromosomes. There is no way of insuring something like that sticks together without some Really Interesting Mechanism (aka hand-waving.)

Or you put all the new proteins on one chromosome, and silence anything you want to remove. Which would involve some pretty impressive bioengineering, but is totally possible.
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