Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

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Mouse said:
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).
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This is all very true for Mendelian inheritance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance

i.e. traits for which the genes are known and simply classified (e.g. for cystic fibrosis -- either you have it or you don't). But most traits aren't Mendelian, such as height -- there aren't three different heights you can have (tall, middle and small) but an infinite number of heights. Genes which govern traits such as height are called (I think, because I haven't been able to verify this) genes of minor effect.

What does this mean for springs? If you don't delve too deep trying to explain the genetics of it, your trait could be the same, more, or less in the child. As TJ said, the "normal" parent may have some unexpressed genes for the trait, which combine with the other's many expressed genes to make the child stronger.
 
Springs, I believe it depends entirely on what you need. You could make a case in genetics for anything you like -- there's always the "throwback" or "mutation" explanations for things that should not otherwise be.
 
allmywires said:
Signed 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.' :p

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...
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You could have a force commander. Start it out as a position, whilst they're sorting out ranks, then they could turn it into a formal rank, such as High Commander, Commander-in-Chief, similar to the US president's role in their military.

:D Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells does get upset pretty easily.:p


springs1971 said:
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.
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Genes aren't my special subject, but I had to do the basic courses. To put simply, it's a lottery based on averages for Mendelian genes, as Mouse and Alchemist point out. In other genes, it's often just a lottery. I used to know twins born of black and white parents. One had much lighter skin, with black, curly hair; the other had significantly darker skin with blond, curly hair.

So long as you don't try and define the science too much, you can, as you say, do pretty much what you want.
 
Abernovo said:
You could have a force commander. Start it out as a position, whilst they're sorting out ranks, then they could turn it into a formal rank, such as High Commander, Commander-in-Chief, similar to the US president's role in their military.

:D Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells does get upset pretty easily.:p
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My fellow townspeople are a prickly bunch :p

I have a Councillor General who's in charge of all the administration, so I think I'll just keep him as Commander. Flows better I think.
 
springs1971 said:
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.
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I think people have already gone through Mendelian inheritance, but there's plenty of other possibilities!

If it's an unstable copy-number expansion like Huntington disease then the strength of a gene actually increases the more generations it is propagated, until it becomes quite lethal indeed.

A gene may also be imprinting-dependent, meaning it behaves differently if you inherit it from your father versus your mother. Patrilineal / matrilineal secret societies are always fun to play with.

Even if a power is inherited in dominant fashion, meaning you either "have it" or you don't, the strength of the power may be stronger or weaker based on contributions from other genes or the environment.

A power that exists due to a specific combination of multiple genes is very unlikely to be inherited by any of the original person's children. However, a society that tracks its genetics could very well institute a breeding program to produce an ultimately powerful individual. It is also a good idea to walk without rythym when around sandworms.

In general, human genetics have enough wrinkles and exceptions to rules, that you could probably write whatever the heck you wanted and explain it after the fact.
 
I prefer the scene in Dark War by Tim Waggoner. The POV character (a zombie) is in a bar when in walks a brooding teenage vampire. Two leather-clad biker vampires grab the young vampire and drag him away. He cries out "It's not my fault I sparkle!". They drag him outside. A few minutes later, the two bikers walk back in, covered in blood that is clearly not their own.

That's what comes to my mind -- real vampires killing the shameful sparkly ones.
 
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Is that for real, David? I'll have to look up that book. Sounds hilarious. :D


EDIT: Brilliant, Google Books has a sample of the book, with that scene in it. Love it.
 
Warren_Paul said:
Is that for real, David? I'll have to look up that book. Sounds hilarious. :D


EDIT: Brilliant, Google Books has a sample of the book, with that scene in it. Love it.
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It's the third book in the series (Dead Streets, Nekropolis, and Dark War). There should be at least one more coming, since a huge plotline hasn't really been resolved, and the third book ends on a very sudden change in the POV character's circumstances that also needs something more than the couple of paragraphs spent on it (IMHO).

Basic premise -- as humans became too numerous and scientifically (militarily) advanced to fight, the vampires, demons, werebeasts and sorcerers all fled to an extradimensional city called Nekropolis. POV character backstory -- he was a cop investigating gruesome murders that led him to Nekropolis. He died in the investigation, and became a zombie. Now he works as a P.I. in a city of monsters.
 
If you were some strong demon and say you had the power to rip someone's spine out from the neck (that would be the handle) would it stay together as you beat people to death with it?
 
I'm guessing here, since this definitely comes under the heading of "Don't try this at home", but I'd say -- not for long. Assuming the spine held together as you pulled it out of the reluctant donor's body, beating others to death with it would probably quickly separate all the bones from the squishy bits* holding them together.

Unless, of course, you cheat and use demonic magic to hold it all together because it gives such a scary visual.

*Squishy bits is the correct scientific term.
 
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