UH SPOILERS Harrington family history

What's interesting is that Alison links the treecat adoption and intelligence to the Meyerdahl B mods but her study only includes the Harringtons - it doesn't include other people who may have received the Meyerdahl B mods.

Peregrinator wrote:What's interesting is that Alison links the treecat adoption and intelligence to the Meyerdahl B mods but her study only includes the Harringtons - it doesn't include other people who may have received the Meyerdahl B mods.

The study might involve other Meyerdahl immigrants to Sphinx. A high G world like Sphinx would attract more high-G acclimated people then a normal G world would, so it stands that there should be several more root families from Meyerdahl on Sphinx, not that they necessarily have the -B modification.

Though taking some Treecat mind-scientists to Meyerdahl in the future certainly sounds like interesting science.

Peregrinator wrote:What's interesting is that Alison links the treecat adoption and intelligence to the Meyerdahl B mods but her study only includes the Harringtons - it doesn't include other people who may have received the Meyerdahl B mods.

With Manticore's privacy laws, she'd need permission to access their family medical records.

The text doesn't give her reasons for not broadening the scope beyond her own kid(s), but she may just have wanted to keep all of them from becoming research subjects. Or having her own family mods aired in public.

Rob

Peregrinator wrote:What's interesting is that Alison links the treecat adoption and intelligence to the Meyerdahl B mods but her study only includes the Harringtons - it doesn't include other people who may have received the Meyerdahl B mods.

So, did Alfred "adopt" Allison in lieu of a tree cat? Didn't Stinker make a comment to another 'cat that he had felt some attraction to Alfred, but not enough for an adoption bond?

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

Peregrinator wrote:What's interesting is that Alison links the treecat adoption and intelligence to the Meyerdahl B mods but her study only includes the Harringtons - it doesn't include other people who may have received the Meyerdahl B mods.

With Manticore's privacy laws, she'd need permission to access their family medical records.

The text doesn't give her reasons for not broadening the scope beyond her own kid(s), but she may just have wanted to keep all of them from becoming research subjects. Or having her own family mods aired in public.

I'm not faulting her. But my point is this: she may think that the Meyerdahl B mods are the extent of the genetic modifications received by the Harringtons, when it's very possible there are others. She may not know about them; maybe they don't show on a genetic study as anything other than "good genes" (which may be very difficult to track). And maybe it's not the Meyerdahl mods that make human beings more "tasty" to treecats, but rather the other mods the Harringtons received as Mesan alpha-liners.

Peregrinator wrote:

Peregrinator wrote:What's interesting is that Alison links the treecat adoption and intelligence to the Meyerdahl B mods but her study only includes the Harringtons - it doesn't include other people who may have received the Meyerdahl B mods.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:With Manticore's privacy laws, she'd need permission to access their family medical records.

The text doesn't give her reasons for not broadening the scope beyond her own kid(s), but she may just have wanted to keep all of them from becoming research subjects. Or having her own family mods aired in public.

I'm not faulting her. But my point is this: she may think that the Meyerdahl B mods are the extent of the genetic modifications received by the Harringtons, when it's very possible there are others. She may not know about them; maybe they don't show on a genetic study as anything other than "good genes" (which may be very difficult to track). And maybe it's not the Meyerdahl mods that make human beings more "tasty" to treecats, but rather the other mods the Harringtons received as Mesan alpha-liners.

Go back and look. She says that the Harringtons as a group test significantly higher than even other recipients of the Meyerdahl mods. In other words, the "intelligence package" was apparently even more effective in the Harringtons' case than in the bast bulk of other recipients. So she's saying that she thinks what makes the Harrington (and Winton) line especially "tasty" may be connected to the Meyerdahl B mods but clearly isn't limited to them. It is also true that while portions of the Meyerdahl mods are "locked" to always be dominant, this is true of only a portion of the genome . . . and Allison knows what they are. It is therefore indeed possible (not saying it's actually what happened, understand ) that there could be other aspects of the specifically Harrington genome that are also locked . . . and she doesn't yet realize it.

runsforcelery wrote: It is therefore indeed possible (not saying it's actually what happened, understand ) that there could be other aspects of the specifically Harrington genome that are also locked . . . and she doesn't yet realize it.

Secrets, always these darn secrets...

kzt wrote:

runsforcelery wrote: It is therefore indeed possible (not saying it's actually what happened, understand ) that there could be other aspects of the specifically Harrington genome that are also locked . . . and she doesn't yet realize it.

Secrets, always these darn secrets...

And her pool of research subjects was severely diminished with the destruction of Yawata Crossing.

runsforcelery wrote:Go back and look. She says that the Harringtons as a group test significantly higher than even other recipients of the Meyerdahl mods. In other words, the "intelligence package" was apparently even more effective in the Harringtons' case than in the bast bulk of other recipients. So she's saying that she thinks what makes the Harrington (and Winton) line especially "tasty" may be connected to the Meyerdahl B mods but clearly isn't limited to them. It is also true that while portions of the Meyerdahl mods are "locked" to always be dominant, this is true of only a portion of the genome . . . and Allison knows what they are. It is therefore indeed possible (not saying it's actually what happened, understand ) that there could be other aspects of the specifically Harrington genome that are also locked . . . and she doesn't yet realize it.

So the Alignment had SOME success with their telepathy attempts?

Did they really think it would be a good idea to have a MAlign agent try to bond with a treecat?

GregD wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:Go back and look. She says that the Harringtons as a group test significantly higher than even other recipients of the Meyerdahl mods. In other words, the "intelligence package" was apparently even more effective in the Harringtons' case than in the bast bulk of other recipients. So she's saying that she thinks what makes the Harrington (and Winton) line especially "tasty" may be connected to the Meyerdahl B mods but clearly isn't limited to them. It is also true that while portions of the Meyerdahl mods are "locked" to always be dominant, this is true of only a portion of the genome . . . and Allison knows what they are. It is therefore indeed possible (not saying it's actually what happened, understand ) that there could be other aspects of the specifically Harrington genome that are also locked . . . and she doesn't yet realize it.

So the Alignment had SOME success with their telepathy attempts?

Did they really think it would be a good idea to have a MAlign agent try to bond with a treecat?

Stephanie Harrington was the first 'cat adoptee and discovered them. The MAlign didn't know enough about 'cats to have experiments by then. Darkness Foe had some telepathic ability and he wasn't a Myerdahl hybrid. Both data points suggests that there was a higher than average number of individuals on Sphynx with the genes for telepathy/telempathy. Then the centuries of adoptions selected for those traits in the Harringtons.