Greg Rapawy said: >Mellar, a crossbreed (therefore a member of no House >by birth) succeeds in joining the Dzur by defeating >seventeen Dzur champions in successive duels. >Vlad comments in _Yendi_ that as Zerika is the last >surviving Phoenix there is now no way to produce a >Phoenix heir except through crossbreeding. I'm surprised Dragaereans can crossbreed. Since they have the actual genes >from Orca and Dragons and such, you'd think they would be incompatible. I've read that humans and apes are 99.something percent identical, but hybrids are not possible. Donkeys and horses produce mules, offspring that cannot reproduce. No doubt the Jenoine cleaned up any genetic incompatibilities. Has Steve ever hinted at what species' those pre-Kieron houses that didn't survive to become one of the 17 were based on? Oh, and does anyone know how long it was between the time the Jenoine set their experiments free and Kieron created the empire? I'm thinking it had to be many generations of Dragaereans - thousands even. You'd think all the houses would be jumbled together melting-pot-wise. Or perhaps the Jenoine also instilled some type of genetic imperative to breed true, which is why cross-breeds are so despised.