Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

[The Judge]

Tiffin is early 19th century acording to my dictionary, and it can mean a light meal but although it might be of English origin, it's so bound up with the British Raj and India (and teatime) I think it might give a colour to the meal which you don't want.

I agree with Abernovo, the main meal of the day is dinner, and I think they'd call it that in c1810, not supper, which is a lesser meal. The courier is presumably of a lower class, so how about using a semi-dialect word like snap or bite for a meal on the run? The upper class lot would call their mid-day light meal luncheon, but the nouveau riche chap might call it lunch to try and use a new racy term that's just been coined to try and integrate himself (unsuccessfully).

 

[Arthur_Connelly]

Thanks.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Sorry, Aber, edited post.

No, there are 8 PoV characters. At other places I use her mother's actual name.

It's just confusing for scenes where there are multiple mothers involved

I just can't have Kateryn referring to her mother as "Helena" or "The Duchess" or "my lady" "milady" (as the common folk would) because none of those would be something she'd use. Which leaves me with "Her mother" or "Mother"

You think you've got problems? I have one old story (in desperate need of a rewrite) with a man married to three Alternate Universe versions of the same woman. So each version has exactly the same name, same face, etc.

All three of the women are telepaths, and so are their offspring. So within the family there is no confusion over who is who. But the father (and various other people who have married into the family) are not telepaths. Neither are most readers.

So how do you tell these women apart when you need to?

The POV character, Jasmine, is the eldest daughter of wife number two. The women are referred to as "Samarra's Mother", "Jasmine's Mother" or "Simone's Mother" (there are more children, but each of these is the eldest child of each woman).

Or, as the children impolitely refer to them, "Mother Tech", "Mother Art" and "Mother Cop", after their chosen professions.

After I've rambled my way through all that, does it help? I think what I'm trying to say is you will find a way to differentiate between people with similar names/faces/job descriptions (yes, "Mother" is a job description).

 

[Jo Zebedee]

If you had a special power that was carried in the genes and you have a baby born from one with powers and one without, is it likely that the baby's powers will be lesser than the parent, the same, or more?

I thought lesser, but now I'm not sure.

 

[subtletylost]

Lunch as far as I know is just the meal that you eat midday, for me on a school day it starts at 12:25pm and ends when I finish eating usually about ten or fifteen minutes later (though the school says it ends at 12:55), on any other day I don't normally eat lunch cause I tend to sleep past lunch time. Dinner/Supper is the end of the day and Breakfast is usually a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from the school cafeteria at about 7:30am. Dinner, my mom calls it supper but she's like 52, is the only meal I always eat, because for me it's whenever I decide to make something to eat, such as a Ramen noodles or store brand Mac' and Cheese, it's hardly ever anything fancy because we just don't have the money for nice things if we want to pay the bills.

did this help at all with the lunch dilemma? or was that already solved?



What would be a good title for a book that contains the retelling of a couple Roman myths? (The myths are: Prometheus and Pandora, The Rape of Proserpina, Romulus and Remus, The great bear, Hercules and maybe some others if I have time.)

 

[The Judge]

I think it all depends, springs, said she hedging her bets. If you look at skin colour, for instance, one parent with only black genes and one with only white genes gives a kind of diluted black, so in a sense that's a lesser thing. But I think some other genetic traits are either/or matters -- I was going to say ear lobes, but I don't think that is as clear cut as used to be thought -- ie you either do have the trait or you don't, there's no half-way house.

As for whether something can be greater... is musicianship genetic? If so, then WA Mozart was greater than his father, but whether there was some trait in his mother's maternal line, I don't know. Or perhaps some genetic quirk in the non-powered parent could act to turn off a suppressing agent which is present in the powered parent but which inhibits him/her, so the child doesn't have that and can use the powers to the full.

So, that's a resounding maybe.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Springs - with genes, the baby should carry both the genes for the power* and the genes for no power. Which gene is expressed will determine if the child has the power or not.

However, some genetic diseases require both parents to have the faulty gene for the offspring to suffer from the disease (as opposed to the offspring "merely" being carriers of the disease). Google Retinitis Pigmentosa for a nasty example of this.

So it depends on which genes are dominant and which are recessive (dominant usually wins over recessive, but not always), and what the child gets from non-powered parent.

There is also a thing called "hybrid vigour", which means some offspring get the best possible genes from both parents.

*I'm using the information I got about the genes for blue eyes, which my son inherited from me despite my wife's brown eyes. Blue eyes are recessive, brown eyes are dominant. So it should be the brown eyed gene expressed, not the blue eyed gene.

 

[Warren_Paul]

If you had a special power that was carried in the genes and you have a baby born from one with powers and one without, is it likely that the baby's powers will be lesser than the parent, the same, or more?

I thought lesser, but now I'm not sure.

hmm, well naturally in genetics it would likely be lesser, but for the sake of story:

In Star Wars, after growing in the force Luke eventually became stronger than Anakin, yet is born from a mother who had no power in the force.

Han as no power in the force, but from the books that come way later, his and Leia's children a very powerful in the force.

Just a couple of examples where it went the other way - but that might just be Star Wars.

 

[Warren_Paul]

wierd, double-posted.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Okay, that backs up my thinking, ty, everyone.

 

[Mouse]

I did Genetics & Breeding as one of my courses at college (and I got a distinction, but come on, it's basically a course all about sex!) so...

It depends whether the gene for power or no-power is dominant.

I may now waffle: I did a thing about rex rats at college, rex rats are the ones with curly hair, but if you breed two rexes together, you end up with a bald rat.

So, a rex rat has the genes Rr. A normal haired rat has the genes rr. And a bald rat has the genes RR. (Capital letters are dominant).

A rex breeds with a rex and the dominant R takes over so you get a baldy RR. Two normal haired rats breed and you get a normal rat rr. One normal rat and one rex rat breed and you get another rex: Rr.

Um. So, maybe you could apply that to your powers - give them genetic letters, work out which is dominant and which not. PP or something (so instead of a bald rat, you end up with a person more powerful than their parent if you wanted).

 

[Pyan]

hmm, well naturally in genetics it would likely be lesser, but for the sake of story:

In Star Wars, after growing in the force Luke eventually became stronger than Anakin, yet is born from a mother who had no power in the force.

Han as no power in the force, but from the books that come way later, his and Leia's children a very powerful in the force.

Just a couple of examples where it went the other way - but that might just be Star Wars.

Just wondering - if the Force flows from all living things, and is tapped into by the Jedi, does that mean that when there's hardly any Jedi left, there's much more force for the remaining ones - which is why Luke and Leia (and later, Leia and Hans' kids) ,are so powerful?

 

[subtletylost]

Just wondering - if the Force flows from all living things, and is tapped into by the Jedi, does that mean that when there's hardly any Jedi left, there's much more force for the remaining ones - which is why Luke and Leia (and later, Leia and Hans' kids) ,are so powerful?

That is probably exactly the way it worked.

 

[Warren_Paul]

Just wondering - if the Force flows from all living things, and is tapped into by the Jedi, does that mean that when there's hardly any Jedi left, there's much more force for the remaining ones - which is why Luke and Leia (and later, Leia and Hans' kids) ,are so powerful?

Probably not, since I believe there are more later on in the story, not less. Luke starts rebuilding the jedi academy and such.

It's supposed to be based on midichlorian count, which is genetic, yet there appear to be other factors, on top of that, which influence a character's true strength in the force. Anakin had the highest midichlorian count, so should have been the strongest, yet it never ended up that way. The excuse made is that he lost a lot of his power in the force when he became half machine.

EDIT: Apparently Luke is supposed to have the same count as anakin did at birth, or so George Lucas says.

 

[allmywires]

Is a Commander a higher military rank than a Captain?

 

[Abernovo]

In the navy, no. A naval Captain in the British/Commonwealth/US system is the equivalent of an army Colonel. A Commander, which tends only to be a naval rank (unit commander is a position, not a rank) is equivalent to an army Lieutenant Colonel. An army Captain is equivalent to a naval Lieutenant.

For UK/US rank comparisons, you might want to try this. It also has a link to other countries rank systems.

 

[allmywires]

Hmm, that's what I feared. I wonder if anyone will notice if I mix and match army and navy ranks

 

[Pyan]

When we had a Navy, a Commander would typically be in charge of a smaller warship, such as a mine-sweeper, frigate or small destroyer - Captains usually commanded cruisers, battle-cruisers, battleships and carriers.

Incidentally, James Bond's "official" rank was Commander: presumably because it sounds more dashing than Captain (cf Dad's Army's Captain Mainwaring...)

Hmm, that's what I feared. I wonder if anyone will notice if I mix and match army and navy ranks

Of course someone will: there are people who watch programmes on TV just so as they can write to the broadcasters...

"Dear Sir: In episope 5 of (blah-di-blah), the main character was seen getting into a train carriage that was clearlya Type 76A built in 1948, judging from the pattern on the back of the seats, and as your drama was set in 1946, this is obviously a huge error on your part..."

 

[allmywires]

When we had a Navy, a Commander would typically be in charge of a smaller warship, such as a mine-sweeper, frigate or small destroyer - Captains usually commanded cruisers, battle-cruisers, battleships and carriers.

Incidentally, James Bond's "official" rank was Commander.

Yup, oddly since there have been tons of Bond films on ITV4 recently, it's what got me thinking. Silly me, should have done my research first rather than picking the cool-sounding ranks...

Of course someone will: there are people who watch programmes on TV just so as they can write to the broadcasters...

"Dear Sir: In episope 5 of (blah-di-blah), the main character was seen getting into a train carriage that was clearlya Type 76A built in 1948, judging from the pattern on the back of the seats, and as your drama was set in 1946, this is obviously a huge error on your part..."

Signed 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.'

I think I'm going to go with the excuse that since they're refugees, exiles of a sort, only a few of their ranked men survived. Thus, they patched together their army (the 'Guard') from the ranks of the men that survived. Hence the crazy mis-matched, Commander-led organisation...

 

[Warren_Paul]

"Dear Sir: In episope 5 of (blah-di-blah), the main character was seen getting into a train carriage that was clearlya Type 76A built in 1948, judging from the pattern on the back of the seats, and as your drama was set in 1946, this is obviously a huge error on your part..."

Very true, some people will complain, just for the sake of complaining, doesn't mean it really is a mistake, just that you cannot please everyone.

I think it will be fine, Allmywires.