Story Wednesday June 14, 2017

[hkmaly 490]

37 minutes ago, Scotty said:

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

That said, it is quite possible everyone has some immortal ancestor.

Everyone could have some sort of affinity, but based on how difficult it was for Jerry to detect Sarah's, maybe there's a factor in how strong the Fairy connection is that determines how likely a person's affinity would manifest, like someone who's ancestry has had 3-4 points where someone in the family hooked up with another magic user vs someone who's family maybe only had the one Elf who's descendants only married muggles.

It's going to be statistical thing, like there will be exceptions on both sides, but yes I would assume that on average, the strength of your affinity will depend on how many fairy "blood" (genes) you have.

(It doesn't need to be magic user ; marrying person who never awakened but his parents were strong magic users will be better than marrying weak magic user like Sarah.)

[chridd 31]

10 hours ago, hkmaly said:

We don't know about her having any particular affinity but we also don't know about her NOT having one. And even if it's not affinity, I would assume that all hereditary magic is from Fairy ancestors. It's possible that someone just has higher magic potential by random, but Nanase's hereditary and very reliable AND Tedd, who is seer, is her cousin and is seer because of his bloodlines. Quite likely she has at least part of that.

It doesn't have to be random, though; it could have some other explanation.  E.g., perhaps some mutation way back causes higher magic power and that's been passed on through the generations, or perhaps the griffins were seeing royalty because Nanase is descended from royalty in the griffins' world.

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

Everyone could have some sort of affinity, but based on how difficult it was for Jerry to detect Sarah's, maybe there's a factor in how strong the Fairy connection is that determines how likely a person's affinity would manifest, like someone who's ancestry has had 3-4 points where someone in the family hooked up with another magic user vs someone who's family maybe only had the one Elf who's descendants only married muggles.

I think Jerry couldn't detect Sarah's affinity because Sarah didn't have enough power, not because the affinity is weak.  (Although we don't know whether people with affinities can get non-affinity-related spells, or how easy/difficult it is for them.)

[Niranufoti 1]

13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

On 15.6.2017 at 11:58 AM, Niranufoti said:

Guys, all this speculation is nice and even largely coherent, but do we actually know that Pandora knows about Susan and Diane? I mean, sure, that guy with the mantle of Heka could've told her, but aside from that, I don't think there's ever been any encounter where she would've learned about the not-twin twins.

You mean we didn't SEE her around Susan and Diane right? Except she can go invisible - and usually IS invisible. I already mentioned I expect she did background check on all friends of her grand-godson just like Edward did, just with different methods.

She did seem quite able to miss rather big things and people, such as the whole So A Date At The Mall storyline (because she was napping), or even Catalina, whom she only took note of around Halloween (EGS:NP), even though she is directly connected to Susan as well as Rhoda, whom Pandora already marked. Also, she didn't even know about Dex being controlled and almost blowing up the dojo with Grace, whom she considers family, inside. Immortal abilities aside, Pandora doesn't seem too attentive.

[Drasvin 123]

17 hours ago, chridd said:

I'm not sure about Nanase, though.  As far as we know, she doesn't have any particular affinity and she isn't a wizard or seer.  She just seems to have an overall higher magic potential (which wasn't one of the things Heka listed)—basically higher magic stats, as opposed to specific abilities.  It's not clear whether those are related, or whether people like Nanase are descended from immortals; it does seem that having a magic affinity without having generally high magic potential is possible (Sarah).

While Nanase isn't a wizard, it's been hinted that Noriko is a wizard(I believe one of the Q&As used her silhouette one talking about wizards). So unless there's something funny with Mama Kitsune's and Noriko's blood relation, Nanase is descended from fairies. Doesn't mean she got the specific wizardry genes though.

3 hours ago, chridd said:

I think Jerry couldn't detect Sarah's affinity because Sarah didn't have enough power, not because the affinity is weak.  (Although we don't know whether people with affinities can get non-affinity-related spells, or how easy/difficult it is for them.)

Based on Catalina's name-based affinity, I think if the person can be given a spell based on an affinity, it prevents them from being given non-affinity-based spells.

 

8 minutes ago, Niranufoti said:

She did seem quite able to miss rather big things and people, such as the whole So A Date At The Mall storyline (because she was napping), or even Catalina, whom she only took note of around Halloween (EGS:NP), even though she is directly connected to Susan as well as Rhoda, whom Pandora already marked. Also, she didn't even know about Dex being controlled and almost blowing up the dojo with Grace, whom she considers family, inside. Immortal abilities aside, Pandora doesn't seem too attentive.

Pandora likes her naps.

Also, I think she took note of Cat before Halloween, but didn't give her a mark before then because she hates name-based affinities with a passion. She relented on Halloween because her plans for the day weren't panning out like she wanted (and the universe was mocking her).

[Scotty 1,061]

6 hours ago, Niranufoti said:

such as the whole So A Date At The Mall storyline (because she was napping)

She wasn't just napping, she spent a fair bit of the day watching Sarah attempt to figure out how cast the mark spell she got, and then later that night talked to Sarah about it.

6 hours ago, Niranufoti said:

or even Catalina, whom she only took note of around Halloween (EGS:NP)

She probably knew about Catalina's affinity a for a while before the events of Marker and Escape, her "the universe is taunting me" sounds like Pandora had refused to mark Catalina before just out of principle because of Pandora's dislike of Name Based Affinities, but now that she's lacking in decent marking options, suddenly here's Catalina again, and so Pandora grudgingly gave in and marked her.

6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Also, I think she took note of Cat before Halloween, but didn't give her a mark before then because she hates name-based affinities with a passion. She relented on Halloween because her plans for the day weren't panning out like she wanted (and the universe was mocking her).

What he said...

6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

While Nanase isn't a wizard, it's been hinted that Noriko is a wizard(I believe one of the Q&As used her silhouette one talking about wizards). So unless there's something funny with Mama Kitsune's and Noriko's blood relation, Nanase is descended from fairies. Doesn't mean she got the specific wizardry genes though.

I don't think that because your parent or other relative is a mage or wizard, that you're guaranteed to follow as one. It was said that being a wizard is a distinction you are born with, so that sounds like it could be a genetic thing, maybe it follows the same dominant/recessive rules that other traits follow. Noriko and Edward are wizards and they assumed that Tedd would be as well, but apparently both had a recessive gene or mutation which caused Tedd to be born a Seer instead. Nanase might have ended up getting the mage recessive genes from her parents, or maybe Mama or Papa Kitsune had mage as the dominant gene that got passed to Nanase.

[Vorlonagent 442]

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

I don't think that because your parent or other relative is a mage or wizard, that you're guaranteed to follow as one. It was said that being a wizard is a distinction you are born with, so that sounds like it could be a genetic thing, maybe it follows the same dominant/recessive rules that other traits follow. Noriko and Edward are wizards and they assumed that Tedd would be as well, but apparently both had a recessive gene or mutation which caused Tedd to be born a Seer instead. Nanase might have ended up getting the mage recessive genes from her parents, or maybe Mama or Papa Kitsune had mage as the dominant gene that got passed to Nanase.

I tend to think being a "Wizard" is an affinity, not inherently different than Susan and Diane having an affinity for making stuff out of magic.

I tend to look at magic heredity like adding waveforms.  Looking at Tedd, if Ed Verres' "wizard" waveform (I just assume he is one) is 180 degrees out of alignment with Noriko's, you get a flatline result, which is what everybody thought Tedd was.  But instead they actually got a perfectly in sync waveform and Tedd's ability went stratospheric, but without any obvious signs of it.

[hkmaly 490]

14 hours ago, chridd said:

It doesn't have to be random, though; it could have some other explanation.  E.g., perhaps some mutation way back causes higher magic power and that's been passed on through the generations

Mutations tend to be random - what I meant is that someone may have magic power even without magic genes (which are, IMHO, all from fairies).

14 hours ago, chridd said:

or perhaps the griffins were seeing royalty because Nanase is descended from royalty in the griffins' world.

I think royalty used to have strong magic on this world too, before someone took opportunity after some magic reset and started the whole "magic is bad".

10 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Based on Catalina's name-based affinity, I think if the person can be given a spell based on an affinity, it prevents them from being given non-affinity-based spells.

Based on Jerry being able to give Sarah non-affinity spell, I think it depends on strength of affinity and it's not absolute, more like the stronger the affinity the harder is to avoid it.

14 hours ago, chridd said:

I think Jerry couldn't detect Sarah's affinity because Sarah didn't have enough power, not because the affinity is weak.

I think that in normal cases, affinity is giving you power to use it.

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

10 hours ago, Niranufoti said:

or even Catalina, whom she only took note of around Halloween (EGS:NP)

She probably knew about Catalina's affinity a for a while before the events of Marker and Escape, her "the universe is taunting me" sounds like Pandora had refused to mark Catalina before just out of principle because of Pandora's dislike of Name Based Affinities, but now that she's lacking in decent marking options, suddenly here's Catalina again, and so Pandora grudgingly gave in and marked her.

Yes. In fact, based on how she reacted on Catalina she knew about it before looking at her. Compare to her reaction to Kitty, where she noticed the affinity first and only afterwards realized it's name-based.

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

10 hours ago, Drasvin said:

While Nanase isn't a wizard, it's been hinted that Noriko is a wizard(I believe one of the Q&As used her silhouette one talking about wizards). So unless there's something funny with Mama Kitsune's and Noriko's blood relation, Nanase is descended from fairies. Doesn't mean she got the specific wizardry genes though.

I don't think that because your parent or other relative is a mage or wizard, that you're guaranteed to follow as one. It was said that being a wizard is a distinction you are born with, so that sounds like it could be a genetic thing, maybe it follows the same dominant/recessive rules that other traits follow. Noriko and Edward are wizards and they assumed that Tedd would be as well, but apparently both had a recessive gene or mutation which caused Tedd to be born a Seer instead. Nanase might have ended up getting the mage recessive genes from her parents, or maybe Mama or Papa Kitsune had mage as the dominant gene that got passed to Nanase.

Even genes you have may not activate. While your example is incorrect - seer seem to be kind of wizard, despite not being able to learn spells - and "mage" is something completely unknown in EGS, Nanase might be not wizard because the combination of genes she had didn't expressed that affinity. However, I think her children will have good chance to be wizards.

52 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I tend to think being a "Wizard" is an affinity, not inherently different than Susan and Diane having an affinity for making stuff out of magic.

Agree, it seems to work the same way.

52 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I tend to look at magic heredity like adding waveforms.  Looking at Tedd, if Ed Verres' "wizard" waveform (I just assume he is one) is 180 degrees out of alignment with Noriko's, you get a flatline result, which is what everybody thought Tedd was.  But instead they actually got a perfectly in sync waveform and Tedd's ability went stratospheric, but without any obvious signs of it.

No. Based on Noriko's knowledge of family history, that "out of alignment" stuff don't happen.

I think that what happened with Tedd was that his gene combination made him seer, which suppressed any wizard abilities he would have if the genes would be just little different.

 

[Scotty 1,061]

2 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Even genes you have may not activate. While your example is incorrect - seer seem to be kind of wizard, despite not being able to learn spells - and "mage" is something completely unknown in EGS, Nanase might be not wizard because the combination of genes she had didn't expressed that affinity. However, I think her children will have good chance to be wizards.

That's why I added the mutation possibility, like maybe Tedd did get the Wizard genes from Edward and Noriko, but there was a mutation which had unexpected results for Edward and Noriko.

The mutation isn't completely random though like some sort of environmental condition triggering it, but because it's magic based it could have some strict conditions that maintain it's rarity. Heka mentions that while seers are rarities among rarities, Tedd isn't the only one, how many seers there are in the world is unknown, but it could be 5, 50, 5000 out of 7 billion, 5000 could still be considered very rare. But the fact that seers are born from the right mix of ancestry in both parents does reinforce the idea that it's genetic in some way. maybe it's not so much an extra chromosome that determines it, but rather an extra bit in the genetic code of all chromosomes. This could go along with Vorlonagent's "waveform" idea in that this extra bit in the chromosome might not mean much to anything, unless the chromosome gets paired with another that has the same extra bit or something.

[hkmaly 490]

9 minutes ago, Scotty said:

The mutation isn't completely random though like some sort of environmental condition triggering it, but because it's magic based it could have some strict conditions that maintain it's rarity. Heka mentions that while seers are rarities among rarities, Tedd isn't the only one, how many seers there are in the world is unknown, but it could be 5, 50, 5000 out of 7 billion, 5000 could still be considered very rare. But the fact that seers are born from the right mix of ancestry in both parents does reinforce the idea that it's genetic in some way. maybe it's not so much an extra chromosome that determines it, but rather an extra bit in the genetic code of all chromosomes. This could go along with Vorlonagent's "waveform" idea in that this extra bit in the chromosome might not mean much to anything, unless the chromosome gets paired with another that has the same extra bit or something.

Mutation and combination are usually considered separate effects.

Seers being rarity may be maintained by them needing exact combination of genes. Which has hardly anything to do with waveforms.

Also note that species with different number of chromosomes are not compatible for reproduction, so unless magic is involved (or Uryuom power, which has it covered), Tedd still has 46 chromosomes.

(Meanwhile, squirrels have 80, so who knows how many Grace has. Vampire bats have 28, owls 26, what else was Vlad combined with?)

[Vorlonagent 442]

34 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

No. Based on Noriko's knowledge of family history, that "out of alignment" stuff don't happen.

I think that what happened with Tedd was that his gene combination made him seer, which suppressed any wizard abilities he would have if the genes would be just little different.

Out of alignment does happen.  When Tedd was a baby, nobody was saying "This is impossible.  Tedd must have some ability."  Tedd's lack of ability was treated as an unfortunate but possible outcome.

What is a seer if not a super-wizard?  Wizards can learn spells by seeing them used.  Tedd takes that same ability to an extreme: He sees how they work.

[Scotty 1,061]

4 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Also note that species with different number of chromosomes are not compatible for reproduction, so unless magic is involved (or Uryuom power, which has it covered), Tedd still has 46 chromosomes.

That's why I said it wasn't extra chromosomes, but extra bits inside the chromosome, The idea being that Immortals/Fairies have the same number of chromosomes that Humans do, thus making them compatible for reproduction, but their chromosomes has some extra stuff that defines how they're Immortals/Fairies, and that gets passed along to Elves, then Elves pass it along to their offspring and so on until there's no physical evidence of Human relation to Immortals/Fairies, but the magical connection is still there.

[hkmaly 490]

39 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Out of alignment does happen.  When Tedd was a baby, nobody was saying "This is impossible.  Tedd must have some ability."  Tedd's lack of ability was treated as an unfortunate but possible outcome.

Noriko did.

34 minutes ago, Scotty said:

That's why I said it wasn't extra chromosomes, but extra bits inside the chromosome, The idea being that Immortals/Fairies have the same number of chromosomes that Humans do, thus making them compatible for reproduction, but their chromosomes has some extra stuff that defines how they're Immortals/Fairies, and that gets passed along to Elves, then Elves pass it along to their offspring and so on until there's no physical evidence of Human relation to Immortals/Fairies, but the magical connection is still there.

Those "extra" bits inside the chromosome are usually called genes.

[Scotty 1,061]

1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

Those "extra" bits inside the chromosome are usually called genes.

Yeah yeah, my brain just suddenly decided it couldn't remember that....

[Vorlonagent 442]

3 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Noriko did.

That makes it her problem.  All others as authoritative on magical heredity as Noriko, accepted Tedd's apparent lack of magical ability.

[chridd 31]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Mutations tend to be random - what I meant is that someone may have magic power even without magic genes (which are, IMHO, all from fairies).

Mutations are random when the mutation happens.  I was saying that it's possible that Nanase inherited magic power from her parents (not random), but that if you go back far enough to where the genes for high magic power originated it could be a mutation rather than an immortal.  (...although the point about Noriko probably being a wizard suggests that the descended-from-immortals idea could be right.)

[hkmaly 490]

1 hour ago, chridd said:

Mutations are random when the mutation happens.  I was saying that it's possible that Nanase inherited magic power from her parents (not random), but that if you go back far enough to where the genes for high magic power originated it could be a mutation rather than an immortal.  (...although the point about Noriko probably being a wizard suggests that the descended-from-immortals idea could be right.)

While technically possible, I think it would be too big evolution step ... meanwhile, with much easier source of magic genes ...

(It might actually be more likely for some virus to do horizontal gene transfer than for magic genes appearing as mutation independently on fairies.)

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Noriko did.

That makes it her problem.  All others as authoritative on magical heredity as Noriko, accepted Tedd's apparent lack of magical ability.

With "it's just possible". No talk about specific possibility of strong genes cancelling each other. Which suggests that the base for their conviction wasn't research but anecdotal evidence, just as Noriko's.