Vilani Genetics

[captainjack23]

While it hasn't been mentioned explicitly in print, I would expect some active tinkering with the Vilani by the Ancients. The considerable lifespan extension is enough of an indicator. With tinkering, the assumption is that population bottlenecking occured in order to concentrate the modifications. Bottlenecks of this sort also tend to reduce later randomness, or at least reset the genepool.

Exactly. In fact, until very very recently, population bottlenecks was the only way to do genetic tinkering, and it can produce fairly stable variants by eliminating variance around a desired expressed trait...as with dog breeding, for instance. But, it hasn't yet produced any new species (as defined by fertility)

The Zhodani are less likely to have been tinkered with, as their world is not particularly unfriendly and psionics are a much later, and largely social, addition to their makeup.

Keep in mind my other canonical fascination - along with EHJ's : that psionics are explicitly not effected by heredity, and by implication, genetics.

[

 

[GypsyComet]

Ringworld is based on a similar time span (and a lot of early Traveller seems inspired by Niven), and there you have deviation into many subspecies, adapted for particular environments and niches.

The difference with Ringworld is three-fold. Firstly, the Ringworld is so huge that populations can become extremely divergent simply by distance. Secondly, the Ringworld had very few large life-forms to compete with, so the hominids had many niches they could adapt to in planet-sized swaths. One of the factors that led to us keeping a broadly omnivorous diet is that Earth provides a different food opportunity around every rock and tree. If we had developed in the midst of a planet-sized patch of elbow fruit, odds are the need and ability to eat meat would have long since departed our genetic heritage.

Thirdly is the origin of humanity in Niven's Known Space. The homeworld of our species is near the galactic core in an area with much higher background radiation. While the Protectors functioned to minimize mutation in their families, once that oversight was removed on the Ringworld, the tendency went unchecked.

 

[captainjack23]

In my opinion the similarity of the various groups of Humaniti in Travel-
ler is just an (implausible) plot device.....Since it would ruin my suspense of disbelief, I do not use Vilani, Zhoda-
ni and thelike in my settings.

Absolutely the right way to deal with it. All the genetic speculation in the world cant be taken as conclusive -especially as we don't have a conclusive handle on the genetics of modern humans. Me, it works for, but big deal.

So yes. As the GM Believes, so lives the setting........

 

[EDG]

One selection aspect that I think everyone is missing is the act of moving the protohumans off Terra in the first place. I think everyone's just been assuming that the Ancients would take a random population of humans and plonk them on another world, but would they really? Wouldn't they select individuals who they think are more capable of surviving in such environments? Or who already had a certain set of traits? Would they really just scoop up entire communities full of old and young and weak and strong and just let them struggle and probably die out? Or would they pick the smartest, or the strongest, or the most fit to survive in the new environments and save themselves a lot of reboots?

And (to start another argument ) how many protohumans do you need to have a viable breeding population that doesn't end up being all inbred and dead after about 10,000 generations? I would have thought (off the top of my head) that you'd need a minimum of 1000 individuals.

 

[GypsyComet]

The Zhodani are less likely to have been tinkered with, as their world is not particularly unfriendly and psionics are a much later, and largely social, addition to their makeup.

Keep in mind my other canonical fascination - along with EHJ's : that psionics are explicitly not effected by heredity, and by implication, genetics.

Aside from the race introduced in the 1248 materials, we have no evidence that the Ancients sought to produce psionic tendencies in their human servants. The Zhodani certainly weren't tinkered with for that purpose, as the tendency arose much, much later, and we have at least one statement (somewhere...) that the Zhodani are no more psionically active than baseline Humaniti; they just recognize, train, and employ every psionic that emerges.

 

[captainjack23]

One selection aspect that I think everyone is missing is the act of moving the protohumans off Terra in the first place. I think everyone's just been assuming that the Ancients would take a random population of humans and plonk them on another world, but would they really? Wouldn't they select individuals who they think are more capable of surviving in such environments? Or who already had a certain set of traits? Would they really just scoop up entire communities full of old and young and weak and strong and just let them struggle and probably die out? Or would they pick the smartest, or the strongest, or the most fit to survive in the new environments and save themselves a lot of reboots?

I don' t think the distinction is missing: this is exactly what is discussed above as a bottleneck. A random selection (and ploink) would be the opposite of a bottleneck. The Ancients seemed to have chosen humans as servitors or pets (ref somewhere) which argues against a "ploink" approach.

And (to start another argument ) how many protohumans do you need to have a viable breeding population that doesn't end up being all inbred and dead after about 10,000 generations? I would have thought (off the top of my head) that you'd need a minimum of 1000 individuals.

The last estimate for reproducing the human population after a catastrophy was on the order of 250-500 individuals depending on randomness of selection (more random = smaller group needed). Read again the notes about bottlenecks and the timberwolf population -inbreeding need not be fatal if the recessive issues are minimal. If no one in the family has hemophelia, forexample, it won't be an issue in interfamily crosses. If the ancients were selective, this is exactly the approach that would produce a homogenous stable population from a few individuals.

In interbreeding, bad recessives come out, and are diminished very rapidly. IIRC the actual limit of risk for humans is two degrees -ie cousins are not much more likely to express a recessive than the general population - in the absence of a known expressed problem... a dominant disorder, like choreaform disorder (Hutchinsons ?) is a different issue, but again, is easy to weed out.

 

[captainjack23]

The Zhodani are less likely to have been tinkered with, as their world is not particularly unfriendly and psionics are a much later, and largely social, addition to their makeup.

Keep in mind my other canonical fascination - along with EHJ's : that psionics are explicitly not effected by heredity, and by implication, genetics.

Aside from the race introduced in the 1248 materials, we have no evidence that the Ancients sought to produce psionic tendencies in their human servants. The Zhodani certainly weren't tinkered with for that purpose, as the tendency arose much, much later, and we have at least one statement (somewhere...) that the Zhodani are no more psionically active than baseline Humaniti; they just recognize, train, and employ every psionic that emerges.

Yeah. I believe one source for both training and heredity issues is the MT refs companion.

 

[EDG]

The Ancients seemed to have chosen humans as servitors or pets (ref somewhere) which argues against a "ploink" approach.

Wouldn't that mean they selected them to have little independent thought or sense of adventure? You don't really want your pets trying to escape or sabotage things after all. But those are exactly the sort of traits that promote survival.

 

[GypsyComet]

The Ancients apparently learned that lesson slowly, going from their own kids, to Humans, to uplifted canids, to robots.

 

[EDG]

The Ancients apparently learned that lesson slowly, going from their own kids, to Humans, to uplifted canids, to robots.

Apparently they weren't as smart as everyone makes them out to be.

 

[kristof65]

Wouldn't that mean they selected them to have little independent thought or sense of adventure? You don't really want your pets trying to escape or sabotage things after all. But those are exactly the sort of traits that promote survival.

Doesn't that kind of explain the Vilani though? Steeped in ritual and tradition?

One selection aspect that I think everyone is missing is the act of moving the protohumans off Terra in the first place. I think everyone's just been assuming that the Ancients would take a random population of humans and plonk them on another world, but would they really? Wouldn't they select individuals who they think are more capable of surviving in such environments? Or who already had a certain set of traits? Would they really just scoop up entire communities full of old and young and weak and strong and just let them struggle and probably die out? Or would they pick the smartest, or the strongest, or the most fit to survive in the new environments and save themselves a lot of reboots?

Not only might they pick the ones they want, who is to say they didn't clone the really promising ones and/or have a selective breeding program either before or after selection?

 

[GypsyComet]

"Intelligent" <> "Smart" :shock:

Considering which race Grandfather arose from, shockingly, inventively, and persistently independent sophonts were probably a new experience.

Pointless posit: the Vilani were the project and servant race of one of the "Fathers" who, having decided that his own kids were better off being cut loose with lengthy assignments on their own planets *SOMEWHERE ELSE*, still wanted assistants he didn't have to replace every 50 years. Given a hot tip about these funny apes others were using, he squeezed their genome for what longevity and environmental resistance he could get. The results are the Vilani, who probably still have notably more heavy metal and alkaloid (or whatever Vland was poisoning them with) resistance than humaniti can normally muster. Enough to manifest in game terms? Probably not, but certainly enough to make interesting dinner table conversation.

"No, leave *that* salt shaker to Eneri. The 20ppb arsenic content is a spice only he can handle."

 

[aspqrz]

...natural spread by random chance...

Except that on Vland, random chance suddenly becomes more likely because of the environmental issues.

Umm. You do understand what drove evolution on Terra was "environmental issues", too?

Remember that on Earth, we've evolved along with our environment.

And we haven't on Terra?

On Vland, the need to cope with the alien environment is much more likely to induce mutations faster. IF a particular physical trait becomes linked with a successful survival mutation for that environment, that trait is quickly going to become dominant there, regardless of how humans on earth evolved.

Umm.

No.

Why would a pro-survival trait become more common on Vland quicker than it would on Terra?

You seem to be confusing the fact that there will be more mutations because of the higher levels of solar radiation with the speed at which mutations spread.

Remember, for a start, the vast, overwhelming, majority of radiation damage "mutations" = cancer. Of the tiny fraction of a tenth of a percent of those that aren't, most are in junk DNA and have no effect ... the rest, well, overwhelmingly, they are lethal ... the cells don't get fertilised, don't attach to the wall of the womb, or spontaneously miscarry. Of the tiny tiny megatiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent that aren't immediately lethal in these ways, they more than likely are deleterious and prevent reproduction one way or another, less likely they are neutral, and, most rarely of all, provide a bonus that makes reproduction more likely.

However, given the size of the human genone, the chance of the exact same mutation occurring because of radiation damage more than once is ... very low ... which is why, I would suggest, all modern baseline human blondes are descended from the one precursor mutant.

The rate at which this mutation spread, by pure random chance, as noted, would have required in excess of 650,000 years to reach the current percentages of blondes in society ... but was managed in 11,000 years.

Why? Two possible reasons - blondes tend to have light skin and produce more Vitamin D in sunlight in high latitudes, a definite pro-survival trait on Terra or, equally, they were seen (ghu knows why, exactly) as socially more desirable as mates because, one presumes, of their exotic looks.

The problem with this mutation on Vland is that the hotter sun means that light skin/blonde hair is a *bad* trait as they will be more prone to skin cancer ...

For other mutations, well, the spread of the mutation for lactose tolerance also seems to be very late (4500-4000 BC, either in Arabia and spreading from there or in Scandinavia) and also seems to be from a single point mutation. Spread of this mutation, however, was obviously much more pro-survival, but, still, if you look at the geographic distribution of lactose tolerance, very uneven.

And guess who those high lactose tolerance percent societies are ... the ones who drink a lot of fresh milk ... no fresh milk on Vland, so no lactose tolerance. Vilani adults will be able to consume cheese, but not drink milk ... or, well, the vast majority will.

Assuming that most life-forms will begin to experience random mutations in an attempt to survive an alien environment, it seems more likely to me that some wierd things wuold pop up more frequently.

Indeed. Many, many "some weird things" will pop up ... most will, however, be deleterious. And just because "some weird things" pop up does not mean that the same "weird things" will pop up on Vland that popped up on Terra.

There is also the assertation that human hair and skin colors will stay within the current human norms for the Vilani and Zhodani.

Not by me.

I merely asserted that you aren't likely to have blonde Zhos and Vilani because the blonde mutation postdates their isolation from baseline human stock and is sufficiently rare to have occurred only once on Terra in 500,000 years to date.

Are you likely to find blue haired Vilani, well, yes, I forgot about Baboons silly me ... maybe you would find blue haired Vilani ... but it would be as likely as finding blonde haired ones ... not very.

Remember, the evidence is that the Vilani suffered an even more nasty "thinning out" than the Daughters of Eve hypothesis (IIRC, the assumption is that our ancestors were thinned down to c. 10,000 individuals worldwide) ... they will actually have even less genetic diversity than humans do ... they may, indeed, have similar problems to Cheetahs in this respect as a result.

Obviously, though, these things were never really considered in any depth when the concepts of the Vilani and Zhodani were created. And definitely not with the more in-depth knowledge we have 30+ years later. All that really needs to be done to make them beleivable as they are currently portrayed is a good write up for them explaining why they are the way they are.

Based on our current understanding of genetics and evolutionary development even if it means ... shock :shock: horror :evil: ... rewriting Canon to reflect reality :wink:

Phil

 

[kristof65]

...natural spread by random chance...

Except that on Vland, random chance suddenly becomes more likely because of the environmental issues.

Umm. You do understand what drove evolution on Terra was "environmental issues", too?

Yes. But we're also relatively compatible with just about everything on earth. Taking humans from Earth to Vland could be effectively the same thing as taking some of the bizarre species that live around under-sea volcanic vents and transplanting them to the Antarctic.

Remember that on Earth, we've evolved along with our environment.

And we haven't on Terra?

Umm.... Earth = Terra.

On Vland, the need to cope with the alien environment is much more likely to induce mutations faster. IF a particular physical trait becomes linked with a successful survival mutation for that environment, that trait is quickly going to become dominant there, regardless of how humans on earth evolved.

Umm.

No.

Why would a pro-survival trait become more common on Vland quicker than it would on Terra?

I didn't say "quicker than on Terra". I said, that any pro-survival trait that appears on Vland is quickly going to become dominant there - much in the same way that blond's defied the odds of random chance here. That is going to happen regardless of how we evolve here - it's a different environment. It doesn't matter what that pro-survival trait is - if it works for that environment, it's going to become dominant.

Future evolution of the Grizzly bear in no way is affected by the evolution of the Polar bear, right? Same between Earth and Vland.

You seem to be confusing the fact that there will be more mutations because of the higher levels of solar radiation with the speed at which mutations spread.

No, I'm not. The mutations themselves will spread faster or slower than here on Earth depending only upon other factors like the number of years between generations; life expectancy; regional terrain, topography and population distribution.

But more mutations occuring overall also means that more beneficial ones will appear in a shorter time span, too - even if the beneficial ones are only 0.01% of the mutations.

However, given the size of the human genone, the chance of the exact same mutation occurring because of radiation damage more than once is ... very low ... which is why, I would suggest, all modern baseline human blondes are descended from the one precursor mutant.

The rate at which this mutation spread, by pure random chance, as noted, would have required in excess of 650,000 years to reach the current percentages of blondes in society ... but was managed in 11,000 years.

Why? Two possible reasons - blondes tend to have light skin and produce more Vitamin D in sunlight in high latitudes, a definite pro-survival trait on Terra or, equally, they were seen (ghu knows why, exactly) as socially more desirable as mates because, one presumes, of their exotic looks.

The problem with this mutation on Vland is that the hotter sun means that light skin/blonde hair is a *bad* trait as they will be more prone to skin cancer ...

I see you as contradicting yourself here. You're tying blond hair/light skin together in the same mutation, and then saying it won't happen on Vland. You're right there - I doubt they'll show up together like they did here on Earth - but that doesn't preclude blond hair OR light skin showing up tied to a different beneficial mutation on Vland.

For other mutations, well, the spread of the mutation for lactose tolerance also seems to be very late (4500-4000 BC, either in Arabia and spreading from there or in Scandinavia) and also seems to be from a single point mutation. Spread of this mutation, however, was obviously much more pro-survival, but, still, if you look at the geographic distribution of lactose tolerance, very uneven.

And guess who those high lactose tolerance percent societies are ... the ones who drink a lot of fresh milk ... no fresh milk on Vland, so no lactose tolerance. Vilani adults will be able to consume cheese, but not drink milk ... or, well, the vast majority will.

I'm not arguing any type of diet tolerance with you - frankly, I see those as far more likely than even you're suggesting, often being broken down by planet, or even regions of a planet having far different tolerances.

Things like lactose intolerance, peanut allergies, alien plant life alergies/reactions, etc should be very common among humans of the 3I - even among Solomani who no longer live on Earth.

Assuming that most life-forms will begin to experience random mutations in an attempt to survive an alien environment, it seems more likely to me that some wierd things wuold pop up more frequently.

Indeed. Many, many "some weird things" will pop up ... most will, however, be deleterious. And just because "some weird things" pop up does not mean that the same "weird things" will pop up on Vland that popped up on Terra.

There is also the assertation that human hair and skin colors will stay within the current human norms for the Vilani and Zhodani.

Not by me.

I merely asserted that you aren't likely to have blonde Zhos and Vilani because the blonde mutation postdates their isolation from baseline human stock and is sufficiently rare to have occurred only once on Terra in 500,000 years to date.

Are you likely to find blue haired Vilani, well, yes, I forgot about Baboons silly me ... maybe you would find blue haired Vilani ... but it would be as likely as finding blonde haired ones ... not very.

The odds may not be good, true. The odds of winning the lottery aren't very good either. But it happens. All it takes is a single event.

My assertion here is that we can't say for certain what they will/won't have for skin tone, hair or eye color based on what happened here on Earth. What we can say is that we have a good idea of what they started with - from there, all it takes is a good write up with plausible explainations to explain anything else - be it blue hair or blond eyes. <-

Remember, the evidence is that the Vilani suffered an even more nasty "thinning out" than the Daughters of Eve hypothesis (IIRC, the assumption is that our ancestors were thinned down to c. 10,000 individuals worldwide) ... they will actually have even less genetic diversity than humans do ... they may, indeed, have similar problems to Cheetahs in this respect as a result.

Their "base" will have less genetic diversity than our base. With more mutations overall, they may have more diversity than the Solomani do - they'll just be different ones.

Based on our current understanding of genetics and evolutionary development even if it means ... shock :shock: horror :evil: ... rewriting Canon to reflect reality :wink:

Well, I'm so tied to canon that I wouldn't be bothered at all if that were to happen

 

[GypsyComet]

Based on our current understanding of genetics and evolutionary development even if it means ... shock :shock: horror :evil: ... rewriting Canon to reflect reality :wink:

Phil

It's just a game.

As issues that affect gameplay go, this one is not even on the list.

Gratuitously different ex-Humans are just as much a cliche as "spookily human" aliens.

Traveller stopped being true "Hard" SF decades ago, making a silent transition to "Period SF".

Just. A. Game.

 

[kristof65]

Just. A. Game.

But it's our game, darnit, and if we want to argue about it, we will!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Actually, that's part of my point here. It is just a game, and not only is it okay in those terms, the underlying reality that it only takes a single event to change things makes even the most unlikely scenario plausible within the game.

I did just go grab my DGP Vilani and Vargr book, which I know isn't canon, but it does say this:

Because our race originally developed under a hot star that stimulates melanin production with it's UV output, Vilani skin averages light brown, with skin tones sometimes reaching dark brown or black. Hair color ranges from dark brown to black. Pure Vilani have eye colrs ranging from grey to gold.

I am not aware of any canon sources that go in any more depth than the DGP book - if so, hopefully they don't contradict DGPs take on it*. So the DGP take on it supports aspqrz's take on it, but that was never my viewpoint here - I'm merely pointing out that the odd's don't mean crap if something can happen.




* I do realize that canon can contradict it if it wants, and therefore rendering the DGP book completely irrelevant, since it's not official. But it's good resource material, and I'd rather not see that happen with any of the DGP stuff, regardless of it's current status.

 

[EDG]

It's just a game.

Again, "it's just a game" is no reason to not discuss this or to dismiss anyone's concerns about it. RPGs are more than just a set of mechanics by which people can play a game - while playability is important, things like the feel of the setting, verisimilitude, realism, consistency etc can all be valid concerns too.

If you don't feel it's an issue in your games, then nobody's forcing you to read or discuss this topic. But saying "it's just a game" doesn't add anything useful to the conversation, other than telling us that you're not interested in it. Which is fair enough, but ultimately unhelpful.

 

[GypsyComet]

Discussion is one thing.

Misquotes, heightening emotions, and calls for "my way is the only right way" recognition of "the problem" are counter-productive, and have been counter-productive every time they have occured, in any topic of discussion.

It is happening here, again, and it drives away the less "motivated" (to use a polite term). It has had a scorched earth effect on other fora, and it will do so here if it is not kept under control.

 

[kristof65]

Misquotes, heightening emotions, and calls for "my way is the only right way" recognition of "the problem" are counter-productive, and have been counter-productive every time they have occured, in any topic of discussion.

Sorry. That's a quirk of mine, the tendancy to play devil's advocate when someone takes what appears to be an unflexible stand on something, particularly in regards to an RPG. Considering RPGs are all about "what if", I feel this overwhelming urge to point the other, however unlikely, "what ifs" out for consideration.

In this particular case, aspqrz's insights are probably the most logical way for the Vilani to be, it just doesn't make it "wrong" if someone else chooses to have Blue eyed, blond haired Vilani in their campaigns.

 

[Infojunky]

I did just go grab my DGP Vilani and Vargr book, which I know isn't canon.

Now who told you that?

Marc said it was in. Can't quote from it directly due to the muddled copyright issues, but the information is in. (though most of that can be gleaned from other sources)