Julia Minor wrote:It would be interesting to know if public awareness of the alpha and beta lines results in an upsurge of bias against "genies". (Unless I've missed something, the gamma lines were intended to serve, so probably wouldn't have gotten as much genetic adjustment.)
We have plenty of textev to show that geneticists in this universe can identify a person's planet of origin from a gene scan, assuming a reasonable sample in the databases. I recall a mention in one of the Cachat/Zilwicki novels that a good geneticist could have scanned a sample from Cachat and narrowed it down to Nouveau Paris, not just Haven. Presumably the Mesan genome is just as distinctive in a scanner, given the LRPB's approval of alpha or beta births. Unfortunately, it wouldn't take much for people to go from "Oh, you're one of those Mesans who think you're superior to all of us" to "Oh, you're a genie, you must think you're superior to all of us".
The reliability of a scan depends on the planet, it's isolation from the greater universe, and the length of time it was isolated - amongst other factors.
Sol, for example is a mélange of genetics coming and going and mixing - Scaning it's average citizen will give you "Human, Indeterminant"
Where as Grayson (and Mesada) started with a limited genepool from one area of the world, and was isolated for long stretch, and had a specific genetic manipulation, in addition to the heavy metal issues. Masada, was populated by a further filtering of the previous population (50,000 individuals), again with nearly zero outside contact.
Manticore was originally colonized by a polulation from Western Europe and N America, but then erquired rebuilding the population following the plague, which was open to all, then later virtually direct connection to the core worlds and Sol for ~250 years, making a normal Manticorian difficult to pick out from the crowd.
