Divergence of Sophonts over time

[robject]

ASSUMPTION. Two isolated groups of a sophont people may diverge up to one characteristic and one dice roll per 100,000 years. Both changes are independent of one another.

EXAMPLE. Two Human colonies are founded, and their Human empire evaporates, leaving them isolated forever.

Humans are SDEIES-222222. That's 2D each for Str, Dex, End, etc.

Both diverge in (a) a random characteristic and (b) a dice roll value, every 100,000 years.

+0:
colony A: SDEIES-222222
colony B: SDEIES-222222

+100,000:
colony A: END changes to VIG. No dice numbers change.
colony B: DEX changes to AGI. No dice numbers change.

colony A: SDVIES-222222
colony B: SAEIES-222222

+200,000:
colony A: SOC changes to CHA. No dice numbers change. We denote that CHA is non-genetic with an asterisk.
colony B: No changes.

colony A: SDVIEC*-222222
colony B: SAEIES-222222


DIVERGENCE OF SOPHONTS

You can use this to guesstimate how "far apart" two related sophont groups are. Of course, you first have to decide that the two groups are related!

DIFFERENT RATES

The rate of change will be different based on the environment, the primary star's energy level, and so on. Go nuts.

HIGHER RESOLUTION

You can use the process on a shorter time scale (centuries or millennia perhaps) for non-genetic characteristics; for example, EDU and TRA will flip-flop many times. Similarly, SOC will interchange with non-genetic CHA and KAS.

When moving to non-genetic CHA and KAS, mark the end of the UPP with an asterisk (*). This lets the reader know that the final characteristic is non-genetic and therefore not a species differentiator.

 

[tjoneslo]

There are a few things that might impact this. One would be the mutation rate of the environment. The T5 book has several rules in the Generic chapter (book 1 p. 102ff). Things that would enhance the mutation rate, hence speed up the process of changes, would be: non-natives on worlds with tainted atmospheres, and non-natives on worlds with high energy stars (type O B A and F).

Other interesting challenge with this approach: Some of the characteristics are not genetic: C5 of Instinct (Ins) is Genetic, but Education (Edu) and Training (Tra) are not. Same with C6, which may or may not be Genetic. This implies some social evolution to these characteristics. But social evolution can take place over much shorter periods of time than 100k years.

 

[robject]

Hey! You're right, Thomas -- I hadn't caught that nuance. p102:

For example, SDEIES and SDEITC are genetically identical. SAVIIC and SAVIIS are genetically identical. SGSITS and SGSIIS are not genetically identical.

So yeah, you're right, Edu/Tra can float around a lot faster. I would say that given these timeframes that pair could be totally random. Caste and Charisma *could* be genetic, but might not be. If they're not genetic, then they'll flip-flop more quickly; if they are, then they'll move slower. And if the sophont has SOC, then by definition it's non-genetic, and therefore can flip-flop between KAS and CHA.

The process above is "safe" with non-genetic characteristics; but there's the caveat that they will change more quickly when you move to a lower resolution. And, you need to keep track of whether or not that last characteristic is NOT GENETIC -- perhaps with an asterisk* for Caste or Charisma.


By the way, the "100,000 years" is just a place-holder for whatever the number *should* be -- and yeah, it can modify depending on environmental factors too.

 

[MichaelSTee]

I always thought that the other human races (vilani, zho, Genoee (sp?), cassildan, etc) should have become different species. They should not in my opinion be interfertile with Terrans, at least not without genetic science help. I think this would make for some interesting social customs in the Imperiums, for instance, a noble of Terran blood could marry a Vilani for political reasons, but have a Terran concubine for purposes of making offspring.

 

[robject]

And that seems reasonable to me, and even preferable.

 

[daryen]

Making the human races into separate species would be a massive retcon. It is built into the settings history that most strains of humaniti are inter-fertile. At the least, Solomani and Vilani have to be able to produce children, and Solomani and Darrians have to be able to produce children. Both of those are locked in pretty hard, to the point that the average Imperial citizen has both Vilani and Solomani ancestors. Not sure if it matters for Zhodani, but I am pretty sure their compatibility was assumed.

I am not trying to say you can't do it. I am just trying to say that would be a massive retcon to the setting.

 

[robject]

Hey Mike - this is the future. Chimeras are a thing. Ha!

Really though I think it's not a big deal either way. Genetics are not a major obstacle in the Far Future, but surely Humaniti has diverged a bit since Yaskoydray.

Remember, Yaskoydray took members of Homo rhodesiensis / H. heidelbergensis as his helpers, right? And those dudes are the most recent ancestor of both H. Sapiens and Neanderthals.

So yeah, those were inter-fertile, at least to some degree. But I think they are genetically distinct.


Now, Darrian and Solomani are separated by what, two thousand years? That's just a blip -- not close enough to 100,000 years to allow a change.

 

[whulorigan]

Remember, Yaskoydray took members of Homo rhodesiensis / H. heidelbergensis as his helpers, right? And those dudes are the most recent ancestor of both H. Sapiens and Neanderthals.

Homo sapiens goes back to about -195,000 by current paleoanthropology, and clearly interbred viably with both Neandertals and Denisovans at least within the last 50,000 years or so. There is some (currently debated) evidence that Homo sapiens may actually go back to -300,000 based on some North African finds.

Now, Darrian and Solomani are separated by what, two thousand years? That's just a blip -- not close enough to 100,000 years to allow a change.

The proto-Darrians were transplanted to Daryen by the Draysask named Onsorik around -300,000. Solomani (of Turkish/Levantine extraction, IIRC) on a long range colonization mission encountered the Darrians on Daryen during the Long Night and settled among them and interbred, per canon., subsequently inspiring the Darrians rise to technological preeminence.

 

[mike wightman]

Here in the real world we have no different human races...

and yet our DNA shows evidence of the different human races that were interfertile and interbred hundreds of thousands of years ago.

So where are the different human races here on Earth...

as to the evolution of divergent human races after Ancient era transplantation:

In a short 20,000 years, the glaciers of the ice age began to
retreat. Nomadic human hunter-gatherers ranged over Dleqiats,
following herds of grazers. Slowly, these primitive men
developed the first rudiments of technology: stone tools, huts,
fishing. By - 250,000, a primitive human which the Zhodani
call Zhdatl (Homo Zhdatl; Learning Man) had established himself
in the northern mid-latitudes of Dleqiats. Shortly thereafter, a
rival race of primitive man called Vlastebr (Homo Vlastebr;
Superior Man) emerged in the southern mid-latitudes of the same
continent.
In about - 200,000, the two distinct human races clashed
as each expanded under population pressure into the other's
domain. The mixing of the races created (over the next 40,000
years) Zhdotlas (Homo Zhdotlas; Supreme Man). Zhdotlas spent
a long time in a period of very slow evolution. The prevalent
theory is that nearly 120,000 years was spent evolving basic
abilities to communicate vocally, establishing social customs
which favored survival and later ascendance.

I fail to see why Zhodani, Vilani, Solomani etc would not still be able to interbreed.

My greatest bugbear is that the typical Third Imperium human is actually of mostly Vilani herritage, with a few being Solomani/Vilani or Vilani /minor human race hybrids and then fewer still being pure Solomani or minor race human and yet this doesn't affect character generation one little bit - it's almost as if the longevity of the Vilani has been retconned away...

 

[aramis]

I always thought that the other human races (vilani, zho, Genoee (sp?), cassildan, etc) should have become different species. They should not in my opinion be interfertile with Terrans, at least not without genetic science help. I think this would make for some interesting social customs in the Imperiums, for instance, a noble of Terran blood could marry a Vilani for political reasons, but have a Terran concubine for purposes of making offspring.

Many mammal species with longer separations are arguably interfertile. It's only 300 KYA... versus 55 MYA for Zebra, Horse, Donkey, Prziwalski's Horse, and Quagga... and all those are interfertile, with Zebra and Horse having fertile offspring, as well as zebra and quagga.
Leopards, Lions and tigers over 5 MYA, with lions and tigers producing apparently viable hybrids. 300K is most likely to be mere subspecies, and at least viable non-reproductive offspring. Only where selection pressures were fierce and mutation high is there likelyhood of real speciation.

Plus, the scientific standard for speciation is no longer non-reproductively capable, merely distinct group that doesn't normally interbreed AND has significant morphological and/or biochemical changes. Most Canidae are interfertile, and most, it seems, are reproductively viable. See also the Coyotes and Grey Wolves blending back into a spectrum via hybridization (searchword "coywolf")

Oldest Sequenced Genome Sheds Light on Horse Evolution

Researchers have sequenced DNA from an ancient horse bone (about 700,000 years old), making it the oldest genome sequenced. The study shows that horses evolved longer ago than previously thought.

www.livescience.com

 

[whulorigan]

. . . it's almost as if the longevity of the Vilani has been retconned away...

It is possible that some of the genes associated with that longevity are actually recessive but widespread among Vilani (who were reprodcutively isolated for hundreds of millenia), and that interbreeding with non-Vilani with a much more widespread distribution of dominant "short-lived" genetics causes the trait to not be expressed in large mixed populations.

 

[Condottiere]

I got the impression, I think it was GURPS, that the Vilani have double the lifespan of default Solomani.

Considering I just finished, finally, watching Enterprise, maybe one of those many viruses we exposed them to shortened that considerably on a permanent genetic level.

Or Solomani genes infiltrated the First Imperium a lot more thoroughly.

 

[mike wightman]

It is possible that some of the genes associated with that longevity are actually recessive but widespread among Vilani (who were reprodcutively isolated for hundreds of millenia), and that interbreeding with non-Vilani with a much more widespread distribution of dominant "short-lived" genetics causes the trait to not be expressed in large mixed populations.

The Ziru Sirka spread Vilani across the region of space we now call the Third Imperium. The vast majority of the human population of the Ziru Sirka are pureblood Vilani. The vast majority of the Third Imperium are still purebred Vilani. Their population was far in excess of any of the minor races they encountered, and you have to question if there would have been much interbreeding between the Vilani and some of those minor human races...

The population of Earth at the time of the ISW era was around the 12 billion mark - you would need to take a million Solomani to every major Vilani world to have a noticeable genetic impact... which is unlikely to have occurred.

 

[daryen]

A few random points:

- It is implied that the humans Yaskoydray took were homo sapiens. Whether that matches "reality" is irrelevant. However it needs to work out in the OTU (which is demonstrably different than "reality"), it worked out that Yaskoydray took homo sapiens. More recent discoveries in anthropology be damned. Note that some very minor human races could be based on Neanderthals or Denisovians, but pretty much all highlighted humans (Zhodani, Vilani, Solomani, Darrians) are based on homo sapiens. Maybe the Genoee or Suerrat (could have misspelled either or both) have a different source, but the main ones are definitely homo sapiens. The art is very clear and very consistent on that.

- It is pretty much stated (I don't remember where) that the bulk, or "typical", Imperial citizen is a combination of Vilani and Solomani heritages. Whether that makes sense and stands up to scrutiny doesn't matter. Imperial humans are mostly a combination of both. There are still lots of "pure-blood" worlds and groups of Vilani, and plenty of Solomani worlds (especially in the old Sphere), but most are mixed.
(Alternative approach: most Travellers are of mixed heritage. So, there could still be huge numbers of pure-blooded Vilani on a huge number of worlds, but the vast super-majority of them never become Travellers. That would be another approach that fits with the rules.)

- Vilani have a longer life. GURPS advantages make it basically double what Solomani get. I don't know what V&V said about it. However, when Vilani and Solomani cross-breed, life expectancy drops almost immediately, and after a couple generations disappears completely. Since the typical Imperial human is mixed, they basically share the same lifespan as Solomani.

 

[MichaelSTee]

I would think that zebra/quagga and coyote/wolf populations have mixed many times over the last 300K years, while Vilani or Suerrat have adapted separately on their own worlds during that time. That is why I feel they should not be interfertile, and are not so IMTU. But YMMV and that’s cool.

 

[whulorigan]

I would think that zebra/quagga and coyote/wolf populations have mixed many times over the last 300K years, while Vilani or Suerrat have adapted separately on their own worlds during that time. That is why I feel they should not be interfertile, and are not so IMTU. But YMMV and that’s cool.

Actually on Earth there are species that have been geographically separated for long periods which have diverged phenotypically and morphologically, but which are still interfertile despite no contact with each other. Some of them will mate naturally if reintroduced, and some will not while still remaining interfertile.

Now I can understand why it may be that there is no particular reason why a Vilani and a Suerrat would want to engage in interfertility . . .

(In fact, I am not sure canonically if Suerrat are interfertile with other subspecies of Humaniti considering some of their divergences).

 

[MichaelSTee]

Yes but those species on Earth that were separated were still on Earth. Now move one of those populations onto another world with different native life and see if they evolve differently. That’s my point.

 

[willtron3030]

Many mammal species with longer separations are arguably interfertile. It's only 300 KYA... versus 55 MYA for Zebra, Horse, Donkey, Prziwalski's Horse, and Quagga... and all those are interfertile, with Zebra and Horse having fertile offspring, as well as zebra and quagga.
Leopards, Lions and tigers over 5 MYA, with lions and tigers producing apparently viable hybrids. 300K is most likely to be mere subspecies, and at least viable non-reproductive offspring. Only where selection pressures were fierce and mutation high is there likelyhood of real speciation.

Plus, the scientific standard for speciation is no longer non-reproductively capable, merely distinct group that doesn't normally interbreed AND has significant morphological and/or biochemical changes. Most Canidae are interfertile, and most, it seems, are reproductively viable. See also the Coyotes and Grey Wolves blending back into a spectrum via hybridization (searchword "coywolf")

Oldest Sequenced Genome Sheds Light on Horse Evolution

Researchers have sequenced DNA from an ancient horse bone (about 700,000 years old), making it the oldest genome sequenced. The study shows that horses evolved longer ago than previously thought.

www.livescience.com

[Off-topic: I saw a husky/coyote mix yesterday; It looked like a white-eyed, demon-possessed chihuahua.]

I side with interfertility. The broad label of "Humaniti", albeit derived from ancient Solomani languages, should be expressive that, after being scattered around known space by the Ancients, despite all the local adaptations to differing environments, selective breeding - and perhaps a little DNA tinkering - by the Ancients, Humaniti remains a single hardy and fecund invasive species spreading among the stars.

 

[aramis]

[Off-topic: I saw a husky/coyote mix yesterday; It looked like a white-eyed, demon-possessed chihuahua.]

I side with interfertility. The broad label of "Humaniti", albeit derived from ancient Solomani languages, should be expressive that, after being scattered around known space by the Ancients, despite all the local adaptations to differing environments, selective breeding - and perhaps a little DNA tinkering - by the Ancients, Humaniti remains a single hardy and fecund invasive species spreading among the stars.

I've seen a fertile Dimond Lynx and Domestic cat hybrid. It was reproductively viable, 30 lbs, and friendly but odd.... How do we know it was viable? It sired a litter... of cats that looked like bunnies from the neck aft...

The variety of >300 KYA interfertile with fertile offspring is huge. Many species, especially mammals, speciate by physical separation, and remain fully reproductive within genus or supergenus, and often fertile within family and subfamil with non-viable offspring.

There are even a number of mules and jennies who have been fertile - 'taint many, but it does happen from time to time, so Mules and Horses are right on that edge.

Felines, the genetics are showing that modern domestic cats are a spectrum between two wild species... the African wildcat, and the asian forest cat, and are still mutually interfertile. A third has been bread in to create a new breed, too, in the last 3 decades...

It's incredibly interesting to me. Several scientists have noted the barrier to chimp/banobo with humans is the difference in number of chromosomes... but that has to be last two million years, since the MRCA is about 2 MYA genetically, but the anatomical seems to be about 6 MYA... edges of the territories? Changes in numbers of Chromosomes are a shockingly big barrier... You need at least two to have the change within a breeding lifespan...
And we know that H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis are the same number of chromosomes, as are H. denisova...

300 KYA is the earliest of H. sapiens... and the earliest of h. neanderthal. And also towards the later end of H. erectus.

Let's see... I ffound the following list of species that were extant 300 KYA

14 Homo erectus (200,000-1.89 million years ago)
15 Homo heidelbergensis (200,000-700,000 years ago)
16 Homo rhodesiensis (125,000-400,000 years ago)
17 Homo neanderthalensis (40,000-400,000 years ago)
18 Denisova hominin (48,000-765,000 years ago)
19 Homo floresiensis (???-50,000 years ago)
20 Homo sapiens (300,000 years ago-present; you are here!)

The Ancients had 6 or 7 species to pick from..., or maybe 6 and made a 7th.

AFAICT, DNA is only available for 3 - Denisova, Neanderthal, and Sapiens. And the genenetics show evidence of viable interbreeding...

So... the MRCA with Chimps and Bonobos has to be before the speciation of neanderthalensis from earlier.

It's very interesting how spot on Marc was...

Source for the list: https://www.zmescience.com/science/timeline-human-evolutio-423/

 

[willtron3030]

AFAICT, DNA is only available for 3 - Denisova, Neanderthal, and Sapiens. And the genenetics show evidence of viable interbreeding...

I could see this as the basis for an erotic novelization of the, uh, "meeting of minds" between Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Sapiens: On the Orgy of Species.

Sadly, Jean M. Auel already slaughtered, butchered, and consumed the Darwinian Romance genre whole, then cracked the bones and gnawed the marrow.