On 12/16/05, Michele Riccio <mr1 at rcosta.com> wrote: > On 15 Dec 2005 at 16:21, Davdi Silverrock wrote > > > > > He was a Jhereg. A *courteous* (as in "courtier") Jhereg, but > > nevertheless a Jhereg. > > But all Jhereg are hybrids, as I keep having to emphasize. > > My brain is not fully engaged (office holiday party...) however, I > seem to remember Alieria (?) telling Vald that the Jhereg began as > castoffs from other tribes, a mishmash of genetics, but over time > "even a mishmash becomes recognizable". This, to me, seems to > indicate that while the Jhereg once consisted solely of crossbreeds, > this is no longer true. > Um. I am not a geneticist, but it seems to me that "mish-mash" is simply the end state of unrestricted crossbreeding. Think of it this way: Say you have 31 colors of beads (corresponding to traits unique to each original tribe). 16 sets of colors only mix with each other; however, the 17th set can be any combination of the original 31 colors. Now, a mix of two out of the original 16 colors would be obviously a mix, consisting of two distinct colors - but so too is a mix of a combination of the 31. The mixture of 31 is "recognizable" exactly because it has so *many* of the varied colors of the 31, but it is thus still a mixture. Or at least, I think that's how it works, and until a geneticist informs me otherwise, that's what I will hold to.