> No, no. Look, all they need to do is select one Phoenix out of > however many there are as the Heir. There must have been some > criteria the House used (the least decadent of their number, perhaps? > The most decadent? The prettiest? The best poker player?), so the > Orb would surely recall what those criteria *were*. This probably wouldn't even be that hard. Aliera talks about her genetic work in ways that indicate an ability to pin down family lines. As long as someone could identify the Phoenix equivalent of an "e'Mondarr recessive" in each candidate, rights of succession could be easily determined just by consulting Imperial records.