A galaxy full of generations

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All about the Subjugation, Insurrection, and Unification books.

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JNMC
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A galaxy full of generations

Post by JNMC »

I was thinking about the fact that being a generation seems to be dominant genetically. At least we haven't seen a coupling that doesn't produce one yet whether or not one parent isn't a generation or even a non-telepathic human. In addition, given the fact that one of Danae's twins converted the other one, then under the influence of a virus, converted her entire family, I'm going to assume that if a fetus has one set of generation genes, it ends up with both, leading to all generation children, grandchildren, great-... Eventually all fae and humans on Karis, then the Imperium, and even on Earth would end up being generations because all it takes is time that a generation marries in or produces a child at least to convert the bloodline for all time.

I have to assume that it didn't happen on Earth, at least in Great Britain and perhaps the U.S and other parts of the British Empire because of how unstable it caused the genes to be, resulting in cancer and keeping the bloodline from multiplying this way. The theory falters when considering the number of Generations in the Imperium however. After a thousand years, even one or two surviving Generations should have produced more than a few hundred of them, especially with Faey fucking like rabbits all the time.
lapland
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Re: A galaxy full of generations

Post by lapland »

When the new generations where transformed, it was only because of the Kimdori advanced medical that they survived. As for the other generations they tend to die very young due to cancer. Most don't even have children. How many have gone to the demon bank home world to set up accounts and died mysterious deaths a few weeks later. All of them seem to be perusing higher education so may delay children more. With so few generations to start and the advanced death rate it's almost a miracle any serviced at all. Given Earth only had two after a thousand years, other planets didn't fair much better.
SYED
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Re: A galaxy full of generations

Post by SYED »

If I remember correctly, the kimdori were tracking a couple hundred generations in the imperium. They were going to back Myleena for the karrine house ruler, before Jason was discovered. In the beginning, not all the descendants were brought home as they did not fit the karrine ideals, but due to current threats, I bet they are now all on Karis.
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JNMC
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Re: A galaxy full of generations

Post by JNMC »

lapland wrote:When the new generations where transformed, it was only because of the Kimdori advanced medical that they survived. As for the other generations they tend to die very young due to cancer. Most don't even have children. How many have gone to the demon bank home world to set up accounts and died mysterious deaths a few weeks later. All of them seem to be perusing higher education so may delay children more. With so few generations to start and the advanced death rate it's almost a miracle any serviced at all. Given Earth only had two after a thousand years, other planets didn't fair much better.

I did mention that cancer probably killed most of them on earth, though I did forget to factor in the 'witch hunt' factor. But the Imperium had better medical for a long time, so they wouldn't lose many to illness, and non to people thinking telepathy and telekinesis were the power of the devil. As to how many generations a Generation would produce...

Faey do live longer than humans, and if they follow the pattern of 'first world' economies on earth, they would delay having children for some time as well, so instead of the six or seven generations per century the descendants of the Karinnes on earth might be producing, lets say they had the bulk of their children at fifty on average and produced only two. Given Imperial medical technology, most of them would survive to adulthood and have children of their own. Granted, some would die per other means like visiting Moridon or getting involved in house wars, but two is also a low amount resulting in zero population growth over all, which simply doesn't happen, so two generations of two Generations each per century is more than fair, I feel.

So at fifty years, one Generation would produce two more, four after the first century, sixteen after two, etc. until after a thousand year, one Generation should have produced over a million descendants. (4; 16; 64; 256; 1024; 4096; 16,384; 65,536; 262,144; 1,048,576) Granted, a lot of variables could send the numbers either way, but a lot of them could make the number higher, like producing children with an amu, and these are numbers from one surviving Generation. So what happened to them all? Is there something which keeps certain pairings from producing a Generation like the way the original virus didn't work on all Karinnes? Or do the genes causing a fetus to become a Generation not migrate to both sets of chromosomes the way I postulated? Because to only end up with a few hundred would take something pretty severe.
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kyli
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Re: A galaxy full of generations

Post by kyli »

Cancer is the reason why the human generations were down to two. Its a valid reason I think, though I dont think the Feay generations even had a problem with getting cancer. I suspect lapland is right when he said most generations were persueing careers in science and education over raising a family. All the generations seems to have above average intelligence and the will to persue there goals. So i believe most branches of the family tree died out before producing. Its the best explanation i can think of. And there being so few generations is kindof necessary for the plot, since if there were millions, i doubt they could all have been back into the house. Jason probably couldn't have offered them all a title and that was probably the incentive that was given to draw them all back into the house. Some might've refused to switch houses. So whatever the "in-book" reason, there being so few generations is because it was necessary for the plot. Sometimes, i think we are overthinking a few points, but that isnt necessarily a bad thing.
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SYED
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Re: A galaxy full of generations

Post by SYED »

What will be amazing is when the generations start to interbreed with the dreamers? Imagine precogs boosted by biogenic systems, and their dreams shared via communion. That is just with what we know of the species, we don't know if they carry any of the other mental gifts seen, like empathy or other forms of clairvoyance. Look at how much of an advantage being a race of telepaths gave the imperium, a mingling of the bloodlines would allow their descendants so much greater standing.
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