PeterZ wrote:We know that Emily scheduled a clinic visit to have another child. We don't know if Allyson Harrington helped Emily beyond ensuring the child could respond to regen therapies. One suspects that since Emily knew she was dying, she may ask Allyson to incorporate the DNA of both Emily's spouses into her child. Her interest in Honor's descriptions about Raoul and Katherine's potential mind voices suggests that possibility intrigues Emily. Even if Emily doesn't choose that option, Honor was considering another child.
Will either child incorporate Emily's,Honor's and Hamish's combined DNA, including the Meyerdahl Beta mods?
Also, Allyson and Alfred are having more kids that will be approximately Raoul and Kate's ages. That suggests NextGen Honorverse will have between 4-6 (if twins arise) related characters.
Finally, the Alpha Star Lines have incorporated the Meyerdahl beta mods into their own designs. That suggests to me that Isobel Bardasano and her line may well have the same "demon" that Alfred and Honor combat. The sort of insanity/instability described as inherent in the Bardasano line aligns well with either Alfred's demon or The Salamander unchecked by a fundemental compassionate and loving nature.
Furthermore, assuming that the Detweilers have a similar mod, their response to Albrecht's death also jives with a demon freed from the constraints of a compassionate nature. The extremes that Jack McBryde rebelled against suggests that the Harrington Demon permeates the MAlign and encourages the responses resulting in the Beowulf attack, the Yawata strike and Operation Buccaneer. Heck, it drove the MAlign into their current grand plan instead of a centuries long PR campaign to gently persuade the rest of the galaxy.
The relevant conversations are in AAC, chapters 16, 18 and 59. There is no suggestion there of using any of Honor's genetic material, so I doubt if the child is going to get the Meyerdhal Beta mods.
The tendency to unreasoning anger doesn't come from the Meyerdhal mods. It comes from the base Mesa Alpha genome, which Stephanie Harrington's mother had, and which is apparently being passed down as another "locked" mod. At least, I don't see any way an unlocked mod would have survived through that many generations of random assortment without either intervention or mating only with people who has the same mod.
If it had come down with the Meyerdhal mods, Sphinx would have been even more of a hotbed of clan warfare, etc, than it's portrayed in From the Highlands with on Gryphon.