If Primes have more than one child, would that dilute their power?
Lisa
I am not quite sure what you’re asking here. Let me try to explain genetics and talent. This will be super simplified and not entirely accurate, but for the demonstration purposes, it should work.
Let’s say I am a Prime. I have a dice with four sides. 3 sides are red and 1 side is blue. My spouse is also a Prime and they have the same dice.
We toss our dice on the table. If one of the sides facing us is red, our child will be a Prime. If both sides facing us are blue, the child with be a Significant.
The probability of me rolling the dice resulting in blue is 1/4 or .25. The probability of both of us rolling a blue is 1/4 multiplied by 1/4 = 1/16.
Now let’s look at the odds. Probability tells us what is possible, while the odds tell us how likely the event is to occur. To determine odds, we take the probability of the event occurring and divide it by the probability of the event not occurring.
Correction here, thank you to Michael in the comments, who put it much better than I did:
Probability tells us how likely something is to occur. As you said in your example, there is a 1 in 16 chance of a significant, or a 6.25% chance.
Odds tell you how the two outcomes compare. So a prime is 15 times more likely to occur than a significant (odds of 15:1). We wouldn’t really describe odds as 7%, because because odds represent a comparison, not a percentage.
So let’s do a bit of math.
Two parents: 1/16 divided by 15/16 = 1 in 15 or roughly 7% odds of producing a Significant.
Every time we have a child, we have to roll the dice again. Having more children doesn’t change how the dice are rolled. If we roll the dice 16 times, it doesn’t mean that we get 15 Primes and 1 Significant. It means that every time we roll the dice, there is a possibility our child will be a Significant, but that possibility is relatively small. We could end up with 16 Significants, but the probability of that is very low.
Someone check my math since it’s early in the morning.
The bottom line for those of us whose eyes glaze over at the sight of fractions: if you have a 2 dice with 3 red sides and 1 blue side each, the chances of getting at least one red when throwing them is pretty high.
Now, in real life, genetics are more complicated than that. In the old days they would use XX and XY example, but I hate this, because in reality you get all sorts of wild combos of X and Y and that’s why statistically gender is less like a defined sphere but more like a swarm of bees. But anyway, a quick course in biology here.
The traits we have are encoded in our genes. These genes are strung together into chromosomes, kind of like beads that are placed on the lengths of wire. These beads are arranged in pairs.
When we produce our reproductive cells, called gametes, or sperm and eggs depending on your biology, only one half of each pair of chromosomes gets copied. So if you had a a pair of blue beads and a pair of green beads, the gamete will only contain 1 string of blue and 1 string of green. Which one depends on chance, so we are rolling the dice here. And in case of humans, we are rolling it 23 times, because we have 23 chromosomal pairs. And we are rolling the dice additional times to make sure each chromosome gets copied correctly, because sometimes there is printer error.
When fertilization occurs, the two gametes, sperm and egg, merge and the resulting cell gets paired chromosomes again, 1 string each from father and 1 string each from mother.
To go back to the stupid XY example. If I am female with XX chromosomal pair, then my egg will only contain an X chromosome. I have nothing else to contribute. If I am a male with an XY, then my sperm with contain either X or Y. So our child can either be XX or XY.
In theory. If nothing goes wrong. Because at any point mutation can show up with a giant club and pummel our poor chromosomes into a mess. Our chromosomes might not get copied properly or we might end up with an extra.
Sometimes a tiny portion of Y chromosome translocates and you have XX male, who will typically have male genital organs, small testes and will often require hormonal therapy through adolescence to assist in development. Sometimes other abnormalities present in this case, like sexual organs that are not clearly identifiable as male or female.
Sometimes you have an XY female, which is called Swyer Syndrome, where a child looks female but is born with nonfunctioning gonads. Gonads are kind of like your prototypical sexual organs; they need a push to develop into ovaries or testes (super simplifying here.)
So you see, every step of this process we are rolling some sort of dice and then trying to hold off barbarians with clubs that are hoping to break into our reproductive fortress and wreck things. This is by design. This mess happens because a certain number of random mutations is good for the populations overall. It makes us more adaptable.
It is a known fact that a lot of people rethink having children after taking a genetics class with emphasis on human reproduction. I was terrified because all of the things that can go wrong. I did feel a little safer, after I was told I couldn’t have children… We all know how that turned out. 😀
Here comes the fun part. Magic talents are likely the result of a combination of chromosomes. Meaning that there is not one chromosomal pair that determines things but probably several. So the combinations here can get really wild. Primes try to mitigate this by marrying people of similar talents, but you can only restrain nature so much.
And this is why genetics are complicated, magic talents are sometimes a surprise, and you probably shouldn’t worry about the transference of inherited genetic traits in a fictional universe.
I remember doing the matrix in high school to determine chances of eye color in the children and recessive genes and such.
I think you did the best synopsis ever. If I may ask your permission to use ur theory to explain other people in the future. This is the absolute best!!
You absolutely can, but I would run it by a geneticist first. 🙂
That is a good explanation. One additional twist is that when the chromosomes separate to make gametes they also swap sections so that you end up with a mix of genes from both parents in each. So in your example of blue and green beads you’d pass along a string of beads the was made up of both blue and green beads making every gamete slightly different.
Your Mom: GGGGGG
Your Dad: BBBBBB
Your Gamete: GGBGBG
Your Gamete: BBGBGB
I remember we learned pretty much the same thing in high school, but it was from quite an old textbook and I feel like it is worth mentioning, as a teacher made us read on this recently. I didn’t understand much (I am studying environmentalism, not medicine) from that article and even if I did, my English vocabulary is not good enough to have a conversation about it, but it was basically about how much this part of science has changed in last 50 years and how it is not Genetics, but Genomics that is the main theme now. Things like “gene conversion” and ” contrary to Mendel’s law” were mentioned. And this whole conversation was about Mendel’s law, wasn’t it?
(Slightly off topic)
I recently learned that blue/green/hazel eyes are a structural colour, not a pigment colour. The stroma on top of our eyes can have different structures that change the way light passes through them, and changes the colour we see. But underneath, their irises are brown/black.
Isn’t this amazing! I love learning stuff like this.
See this article:
https://www.sciencealert.com/science-how-blue-eyes-get-their-colour
(So its sort of like blue/green -eyed people are wearing contacts that they are born with (though I suppose we all are).)
Thank you. I read the suggested article and more that were given in it. They were fascinating.
An observation (BEWARE THIS HAS SOME SAD STUFF IN IT and it is difficult for me to write).
My wife died in my arms. She had bright hazel eyes. I could tell her blood was draining down because her heart beat began to weaken. As the blood departed her eyes, they became very bright blue beginning at the top. The red veins in her eyes disappeared.
Oh. Henry. I am so sorry for your loss.
Henry,
My deepest sympathy.
Liz
I would add that blue is the structural color. Green is a small amount of yellow pigment over the blue, but not enough to be opaque. The darker the color, the more pigment/melanin in the iris.
There are some medications with a side effect of darkening eye color (add pigment) and others that remove the pigment. Sometimes this temporary, but other times it is permanent.
It is also why albino humans have blue eyes rather than pink or red.
Yayyy!!! Thank you… As a Doctor I can tell that it is correct. Only thing to add is that with increasing age chances of mutation increases. I can’t believe that my favourite author has replied…????
That explanation should probably be in a textbook somewhere.
It may not be all that scientific, but it is more understandable than 99% of what’s out there.
The range of inheritable traits is enormous. My son and I have the same little cowlick on the back of our necks – but he has his dad”s hands and his paternal grandfather’s early male pattern baldness. He seems to have gotten intelligence from one of us, but not my dyslexia (yay!)
I am hoping for grandchildren some day. Analyzing their traits will be fascinating!
I am almost a direct duplicate of my mother except for a couple of things (eye color, hair color and my nose has the tell tale “dent” from my father’s line but less noticeable – thank the heavens). Likewise, my brother is an near exact duplicate of our father – but he got Mom’s eyes and hair.
I sometimes wish there was another sibling to see if there was a better mix. But other than height (as our parents are close there – all SHORT) – you’d never think my brother and I are related……
Genetics in my family are a lot more…recessive (a lot of 2 dice traits) with some interesting results.
My grandmother had blue eyes and my grandfather had brown eyes but dad has green/hazel eyes. His sisters (my aunts) have brown eyes (that is a 1 die trait). My first cousin’s daughter has the exact same eye color as my dad.
My cousin and his wife have had brown hair since the day they were born. Their son has the exact shade of bleach bottle blonde that I had when I was his age.
I have the exact same shade of Paul Newman blue eyes as my great grandfather.
Recessives are weird.
I got Dad’s Hazel eyes (complete with gold flecks). My brother’s are blue like Mom’s (and her fathers). I’m MOST jealous of the last bit of Cherokee through Dad’s line in that they both get a nice, golden tan when outside for 10 minutes. I on the other am either pasty white (like hope the lightest shade of concealer\foundation is white enough) or 3rd degree sunburn. I start writing congressman when I see legislation afoot to pull over SPF 30 off the market because the only reason I can go outside for more than 5 minutes is Neutrogena Helioplex 100+ Sport.
In exchange, my brother’s hair is Mom’s color – but he went salt & pepper in his late 20’s. I, like Mom, have almost 0 gray hair at 49. But on him it looks distinguished. I never liked my dirty blonde hair so I dye it red so you’d never know anyway LOL.
I feel your pain. With Cherokee ancestors on both sides all I got was the teeth. Mom bronzed beautifully
every summer and I inherited the freckles and fair skin of my Scots Irish ancestors. I avoid the sun because burn so badly and have to take vitamin D. Mom was 5 ft 11. Dad 6 ft 4. I’m 5 ft 5. Still trying to figure out where that came from.
I know what you mean. My brother and his ex-wife both have dark brown hair. Our mother had blonde hair and our dad has black hair, while neither of his ex’s parents has blonde hair but her sister does. All three of their kids are blonde.
Very nice. After the multi-gene influences, you can add in the copy number variant traits, methylation effects, pathway redundancies that lead to different phenotypes than expected, etc. to spice it up even more. 🙂
Working knowledge of genetics lower than ideal. See concerns about new covid vaccine technology (including folks not realizing that viruses are mostly RNA or DNA packaged in a protein delivery system). Of note, one of first survivors of a bone marrow transplant for an X-linked (fatal) genetic disease did not realize that his daughters were obligate carriers for his condition.
My interpretation of dilution of power would be too many heirs fracture the fortune. And that’s if they just divey it up. There are lots of examples of battles over inheritance smashing the thing being fought over.
Yep, I thought part of the question might be related to Rogan’s explanation of why Primes have two but no more than three heirs: the inheritance issue. “Backup plan” +1.
It’s like British royalty: an heir and a spare. Anything beyond that is redundant. Then, when the heir has an heir, the spare becomes redundant. LOL!
Although, powerful prime families also want children who can inter marry with other, powerful prime families.
Right, Ellynne! Proof of the transmittability of their strength.
+1
I loved the response though. Very interesting and informative!!
great explanation
“and you probably shouldn’t worry about the transference of inherited genetic traits in a fictional universe” This got a chuckle from me this morning. 😉 Thanks.
Me too!
Yup, the reminder that this is fiction and House Andrews wields the “pen,” made me snort….Thanks for that…It’s been a rough day.
Yes exactly, me too! But I still enjoyed the explanation.
+1
Loved this line too.
Good reviews of probabilities nd genetics????
Haha this might have been clearer than my high school explanation.
The dice analogy was great. Each roll of the die is an independent probabilistic event, and not dependent on the dice rolls that came before it.
Just so long as we don’t get into linkage disequilibrium 😉
I love how intelligent y’all are and that if you don’t know something, you do a ton of research. Sometimes the answer to a book question is “the author created this world and they say so” but with you I rarely have to go there because everything has been researched and thought through.
Thanks for the explanation!
+1 ????
+1
Lol may not be perfect but well stated and explained. Though I have to admit saw the dice and had a craving to play D&D, and haven’t done that in years (more like decade), but do have several of those sets of colors when I collected dice for the game lol.
In my late teens I developed very mild asthma after a penicillin reaction. My husband had had sever asthma all his life, but it was well controlled. I remember thinking that our kids would have asthma and allergies most likely but it really didn’t hit home until my son was in hospital 17 times the year he was 2. Our daughter, born that year had few issues at all. Rolled the dice indeed. It all worked out in the end.
That makes sense. That also helps to explain why the Osiris serum is so important in the world you created. The serum will increase your chances of having a child who is Significant or Prime and decrease the chances of a child who is without talent.
Thank you!
And this is why I am always awed by authors. The amount of information about various topics you need to create a world is mind-blowing.
I’ve always been curious about – what if the heir to a Prime House is gay? Is there a Prime sperm/egg Bank somewhere? Do they arrange an alliance with another House for genetic material? Do they just not have kids and hope a younger sibling can manage? Do they marry someone not of their preference and just be miserable for the rest of their life?
I think that we, as a society, have probably moved on past the question of how gay people have children. 🙂 There are many options. They could use a surrogate mother or a surrogate father. Arrangements can be made with other Primes, for example, in respect to donating eggs and sperm. They could also choose to pass the leadership of the House to a close relative, such as niece or nephew. They could formally adopt one of their relatives or a child with a talent, and so on. Now, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t cause issues, as you will see in Ruby Fever, but overall, if two people in love want to have a child, they will figure out it.
Or you can pull a Victoria and make a comatose woman your surrogate.
And, as we can see with Arabella, you can inherit magic from your surrogate grandmother! So magic inheritance is not only dependent on genetics…
Hello Norbert,
James inherited genetic traits from Misha Marcotte through maternal microchimerism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchimerism . He passed these genetic traits onto Arabella. I hope this helps.
Thank you for this link, Moderator R! I did wonder if that could be the case but didn’t have the words to ask with any degree of precision.
Interesting. Originally I thought it could be mitochondrial DNA inheritance, as the egg mitochondria do hold DNA and only pass through the maternal line (sperm leaves theirs behind during fertilization).
Oh wait I’m dumb. I forgot that she was only the surrogate, so she wouldn’t even pass down mitoDNA.
Why did Victoria use Misha Marcotte? She could have kidnaped, lobotomised and kept hidden a prime with a talent closer to her.
The big question I had re-genetics is, if the Osiris serum was first used to bolster the HL-world equivalent of the British empire (if I’ve understood that right), wouldn’t that skew the prevalence of magic talents unfairly to whoever was in power in that empire at that time? The HL-world is stratified by magical powers, but it seems very egalitarian in terms of race and ethnic origin.
Hello Mog,
“Then, a century and a half ago, half a dozen countries were looking for the cure for the influenza pandemic ravaging the globe. They shared their research and discovered the Osiris serum, almost simultaneously”- Andrews, Ilona. Emerald Blaze, page 31, Avon Books, Harper Collins Publishers 2019. Kindle Edition
“A century and a half ago, when the Osiris serum was first developed, it was given out like candy.” Andrews, Ilona. Wildfire, page 139. Avon Books, Harper Collins Publishers, 2017. Kindle Edition
The Serum was developed and administered widely around the world, rather than specifically in one Empire. I hope this helps.
That first quote sounds so much like 2020 that it give me the chills. I will forever be thankful for a vaccine but how close do we think we were to the Orsiris serum?? hehehe
Thanks! It certainly makes for a much nicer world that this happened.
And then let’s not forget epi-genetics! A whole other fun area of study.
And…this is fiction. Authors can make it work how they want. They just have to world build. And since it’s magic and that’s not real either, it’s a great way to write some really fun material.
This is awesome! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain it! And you are right about the genetics class… my best friend freaked out and declared no kids!! ????
I always love your blog posts. Some I love even more. This is one that I love the most of anything I have seen online in a long time, so thank you so much!
My daughter was diagnosed with a blood disorder at age 12. We spent some time freaking out… there are 2 major versions, one requires blood transfusions, says only 1 in 4 pregnancies will live, and is generally a pain. The other says you don’t process oxygen (or iron) well, so no mountain climbing, no skydiving and no SCUBA without a special air mix and don’t take an iron suppliment. But which one did my daughter have? Test…test…test… and we don’t know.
Finally her doctor says “Well, let’s test you.” Huh… I have it too. I’ve had 2 pregnancies (at that time), both were full term, no problems. Sigh of relief, she probably has the less serious type of the disease too. She has 2 beautiful girls. My youngest son has it too. Our biggest question… how the hell did we northern european Irish/French/German/Native American/English end up with a disease mutated to survive in the Med?
We still don’t know. I keep thinking about doing one of those DNA tests. When there are some federal laws about their privacy, maybe.
Mary,
Ancestry dot com or maybe it was 23andme can take a sample from you and SO and go back pretty far based on mitochondrial DNA which is one type of lineage. In my family, as family historian, it’s quite fascinating as one branch of family is quite linear and other has made many adoptions over last 200+ years and has resultant diversity. But there is a family DNA lineage.
Some of those Spanish guys from the Armada washed up on the coast of Ireland, you know. 🙂 The enemy of my enemy is my boyfriend…
I always think of my 2 brown eyed and brown haired friends who married , got pregnant and had 2 blued eyed , blonde girls.
Then you have the Jurassic park,”Nature finds a way.”
But I think it is remarkable that the 3 Baylor girls are all Primes.
Looking forward to Ruby fever . Hope we get to meet some of Alessandro’s family.At least his sister.
Then Arabella.Blonde, feisty, act first, think later , who thinks to buy her sister dog supplies.
We had family friends, never did ask them their ancestry, but the parents were both dark haired, dark eyed, dark skinned-easy-to-tan. They had 5 kids – 4 daughters that were dark/dark/dark, and one blonde-haired blue-eyed boy who tanned easily. So even though the boy didn’t “match”, when he grew up, his face really looked like his dad’s. Kid was just a walking, talking example of recessive genes in action.
Good synopsis…and conclusion. 😉 I’m thinking, though, more tea (or coffee) might be in order. My brain is still not in gear yet.
Your math is right, but your explanation of the math is a tiny bit off.
Probability tells us how likely something is to occur. As you said in your example, there is a 1 in 16 chance of a significant, or a 6.25% chance.
Odds tell you how the two outcomes compare. So a prime is 15 times more likely to occur than a significant (odds of 15:1). We wouldn’t really describe odds as 7%, because because odds represent a comparison, not a percentage.
But like you said, when you start factoring chromosomes and genetics into it…definitely not worth over thinking it.
Wow, you updated your post with my comment! Very cool, I’m honored.
Nice description. As someone with a PhD in Biochemistry, I can confirm that your fictional genetics looks right, although I’m curious why in the example you’re assuming a total of 2 genes per parent instead of one gene. Usually for simplicity it’s one gene with two variants (one from mom and one from dad) for a 2×2 genetics grid. You’re starting with assuming that there are two genes each with two variants for a 4×4 grid?
Overall, the math works, so all good, and as you say actual genetics is insanely more complicated. The original question is very much like people who think red hair is disappearing because it’s a low frequency recessive trait. It just persists as a low frequency trait, but there’s no selective pressure to remove it.
Yes. Because I wanted a simple analogy for the dice and it’s hard to picture a 2-sided dice. 🙂
Nice, but (standard) dice usually have 6 sides, not 4…
Loved the conclusion, though.
” I have a dice with four sides. 3 sides are red and 1 side is blue” not a standard dice. Table top gamers know 4-sided dice
Indeed. I stand corrected of my misreading.
Fair enough. 🙂 I must say, it has been a delight reading your books, because the science always makes sense.
I also have problems picturing a 4-sided die????
I hope this helps then :).
In school we mostly used the analogy of a bag with different colored stones in it. You never know what you pull out.
On the other hand, if you want two sides, flip a coin.
That last line, though.
It’s fun to chase down rabbit holes every now and again- I had a brief one about shifter cowboys supplying the Pack with endless amounts of meat – but mostly, I’m not going to poke the logistics of the universe too hard. I’m there to enjoy the story.
holy schnykees, cross-eyed here!
IMO doctors should never say a woman *can’t* have kids unless they are missing essential organs required to conceive. It may be difficult but it is seldom *impossible*. As a wise man once said, “Nature finds a way. “
I was going to say “name that movie” but I think someone already did reference it in another comment.
Yep.
Genetics/inheritance is amazing. I had a friend who was short with dark hair and dark eyes, both parents were short/dark-haired/dark-eyed, but her brother was a six and a half foot beanpole with ginger hair and blue eyes ????♀️ . She did some research and apparently a great-grandfather was tall/red-haired/blue-eyed. So that trait had jumped 3(?) generations and then re-emerged. Wow!
If it’s due to the comment on Facebook, then I think the person misinterpreted the explanation given in Hidden Legacy as to why Primes usually try to have 3 children but not more.
She interpretate the explanation that they reason they don’t have more was because for 2 Primes is extremely difficult to have more than 2/3 Prime children.
When in reality the reason ( or at least WHAT I understood to be the actual reason) was that Primes limit the number of children because
1) the more primes in a family the higher risk of infighting between family members
2)one of the reason why primes are so “special” and valued isn’t just because they are powerful, but also because they are rare. So by limiting the number of Primes around, you make sure they remain special. If every couple of Primes had more children then the number of Primes would increase and they become less rare.
Also, the inheritance gets divided even more…
Yeah, that whole, heir and a spare mentality. One boy, one girl, and either a boy or girl just in case one of the two dies.
Also the dangers of prime births (Cool Aunt) – would you really want to do that a second time!!!
I have two lovely, intelligent, gifted daughters (give me a break-I’m a mother!). My oldest has beautiful dark brown hair, brown eyes and is about 5 foot one inches tall. The other has light auburn hair, hazel eyes and is almost 6 feet tall. No one would ever guess they were sisters until they see them smile. My older daughter looks like me, the younger is a female copy of her Dad. Genetics is a crap shoot!
My grand nieces are the same, the older one is 5’2” with an olive complexion, hazel eyes and curly dirty blond hair and the younger one is 5’11”, with pale skin and freckles, straight red hair and blue eyes. The oldest looks like her mom except for the curly hair and the youngest looks like her dad except for the straight hair. Plus each girl has the personality of the parent that they don’t look like.
A House like House Baylor with a variety of talents and what looks like the start of a tradition of diverse marriages could end up with an interesting combination of strengths instead of a monoculture.
❤️ science and math! TYVM!
Yes, you did want to be a scientist, didn’t you. Genetics by any chance?
Love your work, pre order everything the day it’s available, Thank you!
Close, though I think it was chemistry at some point too 😉 https://ilona-andrews.com/2018/what-does-it-take-to-make-it/.
So the term you’re looking for, Lynne, is “mad scientist”. Which explains sooo much. 😉
Thank you for linking this! I’ve always been curious about the day to day of writing. I like writing as a hobby right now, but I wonder if I would like it if I had to do it for a job.
This is me playing animal crossing and trying to get all the flowers hybrids.
Wow! I am in awe and my eyes glazed a few times before my mind sorted the info into a fairly comprehensive thought process in my mind to help me understand what I was reading. That being said, I am certainly glad that I have already had my children because look at the types of chaos that can happen. How in the world did the human race ever survive……. I guess with mutations in various parts of the world to help is to adapt to that area of the world…. Anyway, thank you so much for all the information.
Genetics equals a bag of Mardi gras beads. Love it! I’m a Texan that is originally form Louisiana so any picture of beads is going to go straight to Mardi Gras in my mind.
???? thank you for a genetic explanation that made sense to me.
Also, now I’m wondering who others are obsessing over…..
????????♀️ Not going to worry that much about it though.
I wouldn’t think Prime would be Dominant.
Wouldn’t it be more likely to be
2R == Prime,
1R,1B==Significant,
2B==Some Lesser
Probably like red hair. After so many cycles it became a dominant genetic trait.
…and you probably shouldn’t worry about the transference of inherited genetic traits in a fictional universe.
lol … this!
LOL! Thats the nicest “you guys should get a life” I’ve ever heard!
Loved the genetics info! Thats why we love you IA!
Don’t forget age plays a factor in the genetic lottery. The younger both partners, the more successful the genetic lottery will be and the better the chance of fighting off those club weilders.
Indeed. As a parent of a child with Down syndrome, a genetic abnormality, you get clobbered with the magic number of 35 a lot. 35 years old is the point at which, statistically, your likelihood of having a child with Down syndrome increases. Of course, if you’re like me then that number means squat, because I was 23 when I had my daughter, and, statistically, my odds of having a child with Down syndrome at that time were something like 1 in 100,000+. 0_o I suppose it’s one more nod that what we think we know about genetics is not the whole picture because there are a LOT of factors that go into it.
Sorry for your struggle. I wasn’t talking about Downs syndrome as much as telomere length and genetic breakdown during the aging process of humans. 35 is the age when genetic decay accelerates, making the likelihood of Downs Syndrome higher. That is both for female and male parents. That isn’t the ONLY cause of Downs Syndrome. Also, it isn’t the most dangerous genetic abnormality brought about by aging DNA making babies.
I still wont eat at a buffet after taking a biology of food class in college! Good thing I never had the reproductive class! Especially since I have a child that is born from a donated egg but I carried. Making him genetically not mine but biologically mine. How does that have to affect things? Of course we know Victoria did it opposite with her egg and a surrogate so that makes Nevada’s Dad the opposite of my son… oh and my name is Vickie. Hopefully I dont end up evil! ????
Yep, genetics are sneaky. Our daughter has always been athletic, small but strong and agile. At age 28 she had a nasty skiing accident resulting in concussion, bruised spine and a few other frightening, but non life threatening injuries. In the emergency dept she was seen by an excellent orthopedic surgeon and a visiting neurologist.They discovered and were intrigued by the fact that she had fused vertebrae in her neck.They were quite sure she had been born that way,and asked if we knew of any others in the family. Until then no one knew it existed. We worried if this might be a future problem. The doctors’ considered opinion was that it should not be considered a defect as it had almost certainly prevented a broken neck, and didn’t seem to have any drawback. You never know what’s in that grab bag of genetics nor how it will show up.
Basically in your example prime is dominant and significant is recessive. So anything but sig/sig is prime.
The way probability works is that over a long enough run, it will normalize to the ratio in question. So if you had 16 kids, you could have none that are significant or you could have several. If you had 1600 kids the overall ratio would likely be 15 to 1. T
Flip a coin 10 times you prob wont get 5 and 5 (if it is the coin Gordon flips to see who takes out the garbage, it mysteriously will either be 10 heads or 10 tails depending on which coin he uses and what you call).
To make it even better ( or worse) with genetics the dice may be loaded ( as someone responded to Einstein when he said God doesn’t play dice when talking quantum theory,the response was God does and they are loaded). With genetics there can be tendencies towards certain traits that defy basic probability, for example having boys mostly or girls ( and it does happen). Often turns out to be traits around the reproductive equipment , that the environment in the uterus is alkaline or acidic,allowing make sperm or female sperm to easier fertilize an egg, or a guy producing sperm that often is x more than Y.
Too,it is possible someone otherwise significant might turn out prime bc something in the womb interfered ( in human development timed hormone washes happening slightly differently might explain sexual and gender identity variations for example).
Anyway great post.Ilona glad they were wrong,you and Gordon seemed to have created some magic:)
I think of the combination of prime/sig as more of expressive penetrance. Like in polydactyl cats, having one parent with the gene will give it to the kittens, but with both parents the kittens will have the possibility of more toes and more effected paws. It is so neat to be able to think about this world through these scientific lenses.
Perhaps you should also take into account Terry Pratchett’s discworld probabilities “magicians have calculated million to one chances crop up nine times out of ten!”
I am so elated that you can tell us all of this about a world you made. Kudos to your education & research ability. I love you work so much because it is so immersive.
It’s fictional???
Great explanation. It gave me a laugh.
I love your printer error line. I have a paper due in my bio anthropology class covering genetics a bit. May I quote you for this assignment? I think it would be a great way to liven up the topic a bit.
I *love* that you went through the effort to explain the math & the biology aspects here, and that you made it so approachable. Kudos!
When I had my daughter pur doctor said congrats you have a 1 percenter. I freaked out thinking something was wrong with her. But the doctor assumed because my husband was Asian and I am Black that our daughter would have more Asian features. She had none lol. Seven years later neither does our youngest son. But they have features from him just not ones pointing to their Asian ancestry. The both has a “chip” on their ears, leaky ear wax and his fingers and toes.
I think it because husband mother is white so our kids took that and look like only black/white mix. Mother in law was hopefull that the grands would get her blue eyes but that didnt happen either.
We are done with babies so they will have to see how the die roll for the next generation.
Genetics are odd, all right.. I am 100% Chinese (my dad is an amateur genealogist, confirmed our ancestors are Chinese going back many, many generations) so the typical black hair, brown eyes, tannish skin, and my husband is standard white European mix. Our kids were both born with my husband’s coloring: dark brown hair, pale skin..and bright blue eyes.
I can’t tell you how many strangers this freaked out when the kids were little, especially since their features are very Asian otherwise. I remember arguing with my dentist because he insisted that brown eyes are dominant and my kids “should have” brown eyes. Um, look at them, obviously not. Genetics is much more complicated than the Mendelian model most of us learn in high school. Now both my teenagers have hazel eyes and share two very precise traits with their dad: all three of them have a little chin dimple and a cowlick in the exact same place on their brow line.
My husbands eyes are hazel, its the only nod to his mom. I told my kids, just warn your spouses so they arent surprised with their future kids looks. At this point it can go any which way.
Great job in explaining basic statistics with genetics. Odds can be in the form of a percent if it is used as a ratio. If the odds does not have “ratio” behind it, there’s no percent.
I went crossed eyed when one of my advanced statistics classes went through that.
In order to get a more complicated probability with genetics is in the form of multivariate analysis. That is when you are analyzing 3 or more outcomes. The analysis uses matrices and can be very complicated. My class used flower genetics as an example to understand this. We used a very powerful statistical software tool to do the analysis. That is not something to do by hand. ????
Lol, I probably would have answered the question more like:
“that’s like asking if the children of blue-eyed parents will have eyes that are less and less blue the more children they have. The answer is no. “
Great answer
I think what might be throwing people is the “but not more than 3 children.” Which I’m assuming is for the usual rich people inheritance reasons and not magical power inheritance reasons. When you have too many kids you divide up the money too many ways and it’s harder to maintain “elite ruling class” levels of money for the next generation. *nods*
I love the last statement you made because it was everything I was thinking! 😀
Thanks for this simple explain, and it brings me to another question I’ve always wondered. How do you classify the different magic traits by genetics? You have said multiple times that Rogan and Navada’s genetics were not necessarily compatible to produce primes, but I’ve never understood why. It would seem to me that they are more similar than dissimilar.
Your (and Michael’s) probability explanation is very accessible. I am going to borrow part of it for a sampling explanation.
A significant Nevada, Catalina, or Arabella kid would probably end up much more badass than their prime sibling due to sheer competitiveness. What you do with power can be more important than the amount of power.
Think of Leon…
I admit that I haven’t read all the comments. I guess I read Lisa’s question as less about genetics and more about where does the seed of a child’s power come from?
To my mind, it goes more to the question of where does a child get its first infusion of power/magic from? We read in your books about people exhausting their magic in a battle and then replenishing it. That would lead me to believe that magic is tangible and could be thought of like money (vastly oversimplified example) where, if you were to give the child a gift of $10000, you now have $10000 less. You can go out and make more money but you have given away $10k and, for at least the time being, you are diminished by that amount.
Along those lines, would the parent seed the child with magic and then have less for themselves for at least the short term? Mothers supply everything for their child in the womb and can sometimes end up in a deficit as the child is given what they need to grow (for example, calcium in certain circumstances).
My understanding from the outside looking in to this world is that the answer may be yes, for the short term, if the mom isn’t able to do what’s necessary to keep her power level up; but for, the long term, there should be no lasting effects on the mother’s overall power level once she gives birth and her body isn’t trying to help a baby grow and thrive as a magic-using being.
would the Osiris serum be an epigenetic mutagen? epigenetic changes can be passed on from parents to progeny and subsequent generations , so the magical ability would be heritable. This opens the avenue to the opposite, because things that are activated methylation can also almost always be demethylated.
I remember my Genetics professor telling us there are trillions of different combinations of alleles that make a person. It is not remarkable when siblings look dissimilar, but when they look alike. The more I learn in Biology, the more I realize how much is unknown.
What I know about genetics could be written on a pin but it always bugs me in movies when two blue eyed parents have brown eyed children. I always wonder “who’s your daddy?”.
Anyway off topic would you guys ever consider writing a story about Luther the wizard and the Biohazard department? I really like the characters and think it would be a blast.????
This almost looks like an TTRPG pic. Has anyone created a home brew using the KD universe? I may try it if not!
So I was wondering if Catalina and Alesandro reproduce would his anti-stasi power cancel her magic? And if Nevada had a girl next, would Truthseeking talent be dominant?
Wow, I am rereading the edge series. I am on Bayou Moon. And I see the list of the four books in the Magic Bites series. Then there is the copywrite date 2010. I have read and reread all of your series, a few times, but that (2010-2020) is a horrendous output of fantastic entertainment on your part for that small amount of time. Thank you.
My brother looks like my mother and my sister looks like my father. Most people assumed that I was adopted. But as I aged and gained weight I look like my mother.
Is magical energy finite or renewable? Do people produce their own or do they manipulate existing force on the outside of their bodies? Is magical energy a thing in your universe? I mean as natural force like elektricity or kynetic energy or sunlight. Will there be natural deposits like magical crystals?
Well said.
And magic inheritance is more like the genetics of eye color than the genetics of sex. Got it ????
Except for Catalina. The explanation does not include how a surrogate could pass genetic characteristics, and why you would need a magic surrogate in the first place. You can do a third partner DNA through mitochondrial transmission (I read a long time ago about that, but I am no geneticist). Of course, in the end, it is magic and the society is as limited as ours in their scientific understanding.
Sorry, meant Arabella.
Not in answer to Lisa’s question, bout limiting the number of heirs would also limit the number of internal inheritance wars too. Can you imagine what would happen to the neighbourhood if a house of 15 cousins, all primes, believing each is the One to lead the house?
I laughed so hard over all this. We have two children, one of each sex. One had very blonde hair as a child, which has since dulled down to light brown, the other got a gorgeous red. At a gathering, a cousin asked me how my child got red hair, since no one in the family has it. I asked said cousin if she had ever met her brother, whose hair is exactly the same shade as my child’s. (In case you wonder, the answer is our mutual grandfather had it.) One of my children looks like my mother-in-law, the other looks like my father’s family. Neither child looks like us, their parents. But we are a family, and that works for us.
Good discussion of how inheritance works, but why you had to know all that to write fiction about a world you created in your minds just boggles my mind. I mean, if you are going to need a scientific explanation of how magic is inherited in a fictional world in a book of very entertaining fictional characters, I wonder why. Your writing is so seamless that I just accept it all and drink it in.
Wouldn’t the strength of the parent’s magic affect the outcome of the roll as well? It’s been established that not all primes have the same amount of magic. So, instead of a 1/4 chance, Rogan and Nevada might actually have a 1/2 or 3/4 chance? Magic can’t be purely genetic.
Option 1: Read everything (I’m unemployed and live in an apartment in a high risk area on a cold day so I had time to write and a few thoughts to share)
Option 2: Scroll to the bottom where I’ve posted a request
So don’t get mad. Even though I’m sure telling you not to get mad could make you mad and I’m actually ok with you getting mad, because in the Blood Heir zoom chat, when you were frustrated over people not getting that Sophia is adopted, I thought “Ilona is one of my people!” (I also didn’t get why it was such a hard concept to grasp and being someone who works in entertainment customer service, I recognize the job of having to walk the line between being having patience with fans of something and wanting to do a full body eye roll ).
What could make you mad: my request is HL related but not about genetics.
(Side note: I will wait however long it takes for ANYTHING Ilona Andrews writes! So ignore those who whine and put pressure on you and know that there a lot of us who know it’s a hard, yet rewarding job and take your time!)
Request: Whenever you write Arabella’s story(ies), can one of the people in the love triangle be Michael from the Office of House Records. Ever since he showed up in Wildfire I have been intrigued and suspect he is being kept in your back pocket for future use. Even if he isn’t, can you use him?????
Thank you for all your work!
“you probably shouldn’t worry about the transference of inherited genetic traits in a fictional universe.”
Struck me as hilarious. Thank you for the belly laugh probably helped along with lack of sleep.
-armor wearing KD fan member of the BDH.
hrm…need more acronyms in that tag
Love the science behind the fiction.
“Let’s say I am a Prime. I have a dice with four sides. 3 sides are red and 1 side is blue. My spouse is also a Prime and they have the same dice.”
If being a prime was that dominate, then a huge % of the population would be primes.
This is GREAT! IMHO one of the best blogs you’ve ever written. 🙂
Speaking of house Baylor’s diverse genetic possibilities, after the sneak peak of that chapter from Ruby Fever, and Bern moving towards marriage to Runa…
I’ve been thinking their kids could end up being the most James Bond-super-spy EVER… Even though Frida and Afram didn’t register high on the magic scales, they gave their daughters useful magic genes…
And even though Berns magic is patterning (so data hacking, information evaluation), he probably could carry the “good with guns, and maybe even other weapons (if Catalina’s swordfighting comes from grandpa Leon)” gene that Nevada and Leon both share with their mother/aunt (grandpa Leons daughter).
Mix in Runa. Poison detection (if we want to use our powers for good..????)
Presto: imagine a “one-man swat-team” (like Catalina calls Leon) who can hack things, analyse information and probably make good plans, and who can poison you (or make sure you don’t poison her/him/the person being protected)… Super spy! Or a really good body guard… ????
Speaking of, have anyone else thought about the fact that Baylor investigations (if you count in in-laws and soon to be in-laws) pretty much cover all important aspects of a protection detail? All they lack is an Aegis, to my mind..
Think about it: Allessandro can nullify magic threats. Runa all poisoning attempts. Nevada can detect all deceitful lying traitors, while Bern can find your nefarious plans if you even breathe around a computer… And if you try brute force Connor can throw a car at you and Arabella is pretty much one woman battering ram slash cavalry… And that is only if Connor or Arabella even got a chance to crush your army like toy soldiers under their feet/buildings (respectively), because if Catalina gets to them first it will no longer be YOUR army… And we’re all hoping you never get to see Leon in action, ’cause that will be the last thing you see…
My brother and I have been enjoying figuring out what magic powers would be really useful in potential partners for Arabella and Leon, and I vote for an Aegis… ????
Björn thinks they need a telepath (I argue they could forgo one since Nevada and Catalina can pretty much cover, and since I am the one writing, I will make my case, haha).
Oh, and I didn’t mention Cornelius awsome spying with his animals, since he isn’t technically a Baylor or spouse, but he definitely is an asset, and probably super useful in lots of cases!
They told my mom she couldn’t have kids too. I’m the oldest of six.
Oy! Genetics be crazy.
Trying to explain dna inheritance to my mother and other family members. . . . drives me crazy.
Eventually I tried moving handfuls of coloured balls from dish to dish as an analogy but I’m still not sure they got it, I think they just decided to leave it as a mysterious confusion!
It doesn’t help that my grandfather had very dominant genes so when I got all my siblings and mothers ancestry tests done the results that came back confused the heck out of them!
For example I have 32% DNA directly attributed to my maternal grandad which obviously confuses them as they feel by the rules of inheritance grandkids should only have 25% of any single grandparent! That’s why I know they ignored my lovely demonstration!
I love this information, both yours and Michael’s (I am bad at math). I particularly liked you reminding folks not to worry about the genetic transference of magic in a fictional universe.
You realize, of course, that it is your own fault we worry about these things. You make fictional universes so darn REAL.
Oh, how much I love you!!!!! ???? and I totally enjoyed this in the middle of a really crappy day. Thank you!
Jane,
The answer is no.
Primes are humans with magical talents that reproduce and create new humans with magical talents. (See genetics discussion)
Primes are not magical creatures such as Vampires that use their magic to change something that has already been created.
Lottery tix work the same way. If the odds of winning are 1 in 1,000,000 and you buy a million tickets, it doesn’t mean one of them will be the winner, it means the odds of winning on any one of each of those tix is still 1:1,000,000. People buy multiple tix or pool in offices and other groups but that doesn’t change the odds. Math, like science is what it is, not what you want it to be, not what you believe it should be.
“you probably shouldn’t worry about the transference of inherited genetic traits in a fictional universe.”
Amen.
???? I work in a genetics lab! I definitely didn’t expect to come on this blog and read something related to my work.
Yes but how could we hold are heads up as obsessive readers if we DIDN’T worry about the tiniest of details in a fictional universe?
You have no idea how often you make my day! *snicker*
Of note- You also did not add in that genotype and phenotype are not the same thing so what genes you have and what you express are different. This explanation you gave was excellent, and also simplified. Note the DNA in your thumb is the same DNA in your hair fir example but one becomes thumb and the other hair. Short answer- there are things also surrounding DNA that tell them what to turn on and turn off and when and those also can run amok.
More realistic and common example- An XY male who is producing the right amount of hormones to tell his body to make testosterone but his testes did not fully develop. So there is no receptor to accept the hormone that says go puberty ( Among other things). As such the testosterone levels remain low so the secondary sex characteristics that come from elevated testosterone never show up and you have an XY genetic male that does not look like one historically would assume.
I feel like Simplified could read as insulting so I feel the need to add again that this is the best explanation of genetics I’ve ever seen. Especially to an audience not in a genetics class. I think I’ll borrow this. I’ve tried to explain to my family and they are mostly engineers and I still get blank faces for any of the parts that aren’t math.
This has been a VERY entertaining but really somewhat moot conversation since genetics is not in any way an exact science. There are so many variables and possibilities of mutation within even the simplest crosses that it is really impossible to foresee the outcome!
Completely unrelated to Prime genetics, but related to the series.
The Osiris Serum was developed in 1863. In the third Nevada book, when Nevada is initially signing up the Baylors as a House, the guy at the Hall of Records says that “they’ve been using that book to record Texas Houses since before statehood.” Texas became a state in 1849.
Point of clarification: You are not born biologically with a gender. Gender is a social construct. Sex is the biological determination. This is important for understanding human rights issues.
I’m confused… I understand that the Prime gene is supposed to be dominant. But… then why is it so, so important for Primes to marry other Primes? A Prime with a non Prime parent has a 50% chance of passing the genes through. A Prime with one non Prime parent and another Prime with a non Prime parent still has a 75% chance of getting a Prime child. That doesn’t feel right with the anxiousness we’re seeing with Prime Dynasties.
It feels like there’s an issue with what type of Prime DNA there is in addition to the fact of Prime DNA. Like… the DNA of a Prime Telekinetic is/isn’t compatible with the DNA of a Prime Truthseer. Or the DNA of different branches of Prime interact unpredictably with each other.
Does the strength of the Prime talent impact the kid? You have Prime, but are there more granular levels of power vs. DNA?
Are certain types of magic DNA more receptive to combining with other DNA? Both Catalina and Nevada are Magus Sagittarius. And I would bet real money on Arabella getting some of Bern’s talent for patterns. It makes too much sense with her wanting to be right all the time. And money. And shoes.
Does the Beast of Cologne DNA add to the recombinant ability of the Baylor sisters’ abilities?
I work in a lab that does rare disease research. If you want to read about some wild genetic stuff, look up chromothripsis aka “chromosome shattering.” Something even wilder – there is a patient we have studied who had an extremely rare genetic disorder who underwent chromothripsis and essentially cured her disease. I don’t know if I can include links but if you google “Shattered chromosome cures woman of immune disease” it’s the top hit.
Great explanation. And it didn’t even go into genetic linkage *evil cackle* Which is definitely a thing for magic talents, but I couldn’t begin to tell you what is probably linked.
I did a mail order dna kit. Based off of my ancestry I assumed I was 1/4 Irish 1/4 French 1/4 native American and the last quarter mash up of Danish, Scots, and other European. What I got back was very different. I have no identifiable french blood and little to no Irish and much more Northern European. I know from the DNA test for fact that my parents are biological, not that I had any doubts.
I like to dumb it down by thinking that together mom and dad make a stew. Each one brings their own ingredients. Every child they make gets one ladle of stew. Some bowls will have more potatoes and a couple cubes of meat, others will be broth and a few chunks, and some nothing but veggies. The point is the each bowl is different from the next even though they come from the same pot. This is why my sister and I look alike but she has blue eyes and I have brown. Her test might have the french and the Irish my test was missing. Maybe I am more Native than she is.
I was also told that I couldn’t have children. It would be very difficult to get pregnant and I would miscarry early on. I went on to have 4 children. Admittedly I did miscarry twice, but that was after having kid #2 and kid #3. In actual fact, I struggled to find birth control that actually stopped me from getting pregnant, I tried everything, so in the end my hubby had a vasectomy. That put a stop to it. lol! Very glad you managed to have your lovely kids in the end. x
That was great, lol. Needed you in cytogenetics class. Your books are so good. The idea that anything is possible that one can hope for something wonderful is great. Just the idea of a prime and the responsibility that entails. The idea of family dynasties based on magical talents is so much fun to wonder about.
Thank you! When I took Biology in High School, I loved the feeling of mastery I got from the Punnett squares… until I realized that they were oversimplified.
I enjoyed knowing about the inheritance of eye color:
Brown is dominant, blue is recessive. If you have two blue-eyed individuals, they cannot produce a brown-eyed child. Therefore, my blue eyes are because both of my parents have blue eyes.
::record scratch:: Hold on… my mother has blue eyes, but it took me a while to realize that my father had hazel eyes. (That sounds dumb, but my parents were divorced in the early 70’s when I was about 4. Mom had custody and Dad was still in the military, so I only saw him about once a year). WTF? Where on the Punnett square is HAZEL? I’m guessing that this is one of those traits influenced by more than one chromosome pair, and probably why my eyes are very dark blue. Argh!
It probably means your dad had one Blue eyed gene and one hazel/brown and passed the blue gene onto you. My dad has hazel eyes, I have blue with a ring.