beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2010-02-12 08:02 am
beccaelizabeth) wrote2010-02-12 08:02 am
Entry tags:
Genetics of magery
I have been poking the rules for GURPS magic again, getting more ideas for world setups.
So today I ended up trying to remember basic genetics, which I last paid any mind to, er, possibly 15 years ago. (It hasn't been quite that long since A levels... but I borked A levels.)
I was looking for a 'the magic comes back' urban fantasy background, and I thought with the recent population explosion simple maths might do it. If the chances of being a mage are one in a million then there's quite a lot of mages around by the end of the 20th century. Add in the new access to information on the internet, and the newest techniques for reading ancient books, plus the stuff like I saw in a documentary where texts that have been buried in the sand for centuries are being brought up in a more favorable political climate, and ordinary archaeological finds, and you have a possible critical mass of people who could not only find out about this stuff from newly reaquired texts but also have the talent to make it work.
Then I started thinking about the genetics of magery.
In GURPS there's an advantage called Magery. In low mana worlds (which this one is or we'd be throwing spells around today) only someone with at least Magery 0 can cast a spell. There's a recommended cap of Magery 3, which is also a prerequisite level for some of the more spectacular spells. So you can have Magery 0, 1, 2, or 3. So I figured, what if that's 4 independent recessive genes? Get yourself any one pair and you have Magery 0, any 2 and you have Magery 1, any 3 for Magery 2, and the full set of 4 recessives matching to have Magery 3. That could make it plenty rare, plenty unlikely, while leaving lots of Magery 0 running around being only able to sense magic and with limits on what they can cast. For most of history it would also make it mysterious. Because there's 4 different lots you could get two people who were mages, had Magery 0, but none of their kids could inherit it, because they had two different kinds of Magery 0. Their kids would be carriers though, so their grandkids could turn up Mages again. And when there's 4 independent genes involved there's a bazillion combinations. (Yes, bazillion is the science word. The less scientific is 'zoggin lotsnlots'.)
So then I tried to draw a square to figure out chances... and then I went on the computer and tried to get the computer to draw a square. Because it's hard and annoying. But the internet, as usual, provides. And then I went in paint shop pro and color coded it. So now I have a pretty picture to tell me how many people have which what magery if their parents start out with no magery but all the recessives.
... there's so many other potential starting points this isn't very helpful at all, but *shrugs*
Under those conditions you get 1:80:108:54:12:1, unless I've got it quite wrong. 1 absolute mundane, not carrying any of the recessive magic genes; 80 carriers, with assortments of recessive magic genes but no magery; 108 with Magery 0; 54 with Magery 1; 12 with Magery 2; and one and only 1 with Magery 3.
Not that human parents generally tend to have 256 kids, and not that they'd get it all tidy like that if they did. But the odds of turning up a super powerful Magery 3 are the same as turning up entirely without magic or recessive genes for it. 1/256. Quite small.
Two people with Magery 3 would always have Magery 3 children, just as two mundanes would always have unmagical children. Carriers could go every which way, depending. I could figure out all the if/then combinations but there's really no point. I'm just making up a story anyway. And I'm the only one who would decide how common it is to be a carrier in the first place.
So, anyway, all that maths and the big square, that just adds up to:
For a long time, nobody understood where magery came from. Very strong mages always had very strong mage children, everyone else had to guess. Nobody could tell who was a carrier, so magery could turn up in a family for no readily apparent reason.
Then there were persecutions. People with a little magic, but not enough to defend themselves, at best had to hide, at worst got killed. Magical communities got torched. Mostly the mages went away. A few Magery 3 families could be strong enough to avoid the hunters, and would have mage children, but only if they married other such families. Either there's strong ties between distant families, with any such tie increasing risk of discovery in that two can keep a secret if one is dead way, or there's isolated pockets of closely related people with an odd belief system. And they'd be trying to hide. Either way, magic goes back to being something secret that just turns up, sometimes, out of nowhere, when neither parent has it. This makes it difficult for mages to get any training, and leaves them very vulnerable.
Cue 21st century. In many parts of the world the persecution is over. And, finally, science has caught up: There's a test for the magery genes. Carriers can be identified, Mages confirmed genetically, and all the tricks of biotech are available.
Add that to the information explosion and boom, magic is back.
... with all the associated problems.
Plus a probable generation gap, as people decide magic is good edge for their children to have, even though they can't experience it.
This would all mix and match with, and to some extent depend upon, modern science. Unless and until mages developed biotech spells...
I have a vague feeling GURPS Biotech probably already thought of this, but it's what I been thinking on today.
You'd get a mixture of the whole nostalgic reaching into the past New Age feel, with the old texts revealing old spells, and a cutting edge dependent on new developments whizz, with the new biotech and the general attitude of experimental science applied to magery. You could play with the tensions in society, the wish to reach back to perceived stability and forwards to hoped for utopias. There's a layer of not understanding your kids, or feeling your parents are limited, that leaves a lot to play with, and combines in interesting ways with the ancient texts thing (ancient is full of smart stuff, but old people, on the other hand...). And then there's Clarke's Law: Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. And nowadays people treat much of their tech that way. How may people really know how their everyday world works? How many would even notice if you added another layer of the mysterious? But magic would depend on powers and resources quite different to the ones that limit and control technology. And they might not need to depend on anything but themselves. Entirely different groups could gain power. And some of them would have been around a very long time, and have long memories for why this whole 'testing' business is a really bad idea...
And, yeah, it would be a bit X men, but I think the ancient texts thing would add different spins, especially if you bring with them ancient philosophies.
It would be a bit lots of things, really. But hopefully a bit fun.
So then there's just figuring what the story is about fighting, what needs changed and what the risks are.
Wanted: equality.
How to get it: create a batch of people who really are genetically superior...
hmmm, now that's a tricky one...
And why I usually like my magic to be all about the studying. Study more, get more powerful. But I have to admit, some people get more out of their studying, and not everyone will get to the olympics however hard they train. It's only when those differences get interpreted as some people having more right to decide and control than others that it gets to be a problem.
You can play that through with magic. Some mages would want to rule, some to serve, some just to have fun. And magery would be entirely independent of both dexterity and intelligence, and certainly absolutely bugger all to do with race or gender. It would, however, get tangled up with money fairly quickly, seeing as biotech and net access are both money tangled things... But if the mages were persecuted once upon a time, their descendents could cluster in persecuted groups, ie poor people etc. The increased technical techniques for finding mages in the rich groups could be balanced by the increased availability of genes among the poor. Which would then lead to genes as an economic resource... and it all gets more complicated...
So today I ended up trying to remember basic genetics, which I last paid any mind to, er, possibly 15 years ago. (It hasn't been quite that long since A levels... but I borked A levels.)
I was looking for a 'the magic comes back' urban fantasy background, and I thought with the recent population explosion simple maths might do it. If the chances of being a mage are one in a million then there's quite a lot of mages around by the end of the 20th century. Add in the new access to information on the internet, and the newest techniques for reading ancient books, plus the stuff like I saw in a documentary where texts that have been buried in the sand for centuries are being brought up in a more favorable political climate, and ordinary archaeological finds, and you have a possible critical mass of people who could not only find out about this stuff from newly reaquired texts but also have the talent to make it work.
Then I started thinking about the genetics of magery.
In GURPS there's an advantage called Magery. In low mana worlds (which this one is or we'd be throwing spells around today) only someone with at least Magery 0 can cast a spell. There's a recommended cap of Magery 3, which is also a prerequisite level for some of the more spectacular spells. So you can have Magery 0, 1, 2, or 3. So I figured, what if that's 4 independent recessive genes? Get yourself any one pair and you have Magery 0, any 2 and you have Magery 1, any 3 for Magery 2, and the full set of 4 recessives matching to have Magery 3. That could make it plenty rare, plenty unlikely, while leaving lots of Magery 0 running around being only able to sense magic and with limits on what they can cast. For most of history it would also make it mysterious. Because there's 4 different lots you could get two people who were mages, had Magery 0, but none of their kids could inherit it, because they had two different kinds of Magery 0. Their kids would be carriers though, so their grandkids could turn up Mages again. And when there's 4 independent genes involved there's a bazillion combinations. (Yes, bazillion is the science word. The less scientific is 'zoggin lotsnlots'.)
So then I tried to draw a square to figure out chances... and then I went on the computer and tried to get the computer to draw a square. Because it's hard and annoying. But the internet, as usual, provides. And then I went in paint shop pro and color coded it. So now I have a pretty picture to tell me how many people have which what magery if their parents start out with no magery but all the recessives.
... there's so many other potential starting points this isn't very helpful at all, but *shrugs*
Under those conditions you get 1:80:108:54:12:1, unless I've got it quite wrong. 1 absolute mundane, not carrying any of the recessive magic genes; 80 carriers, with assortments of recessive magic genes but no magery; 108 with Magery 0; 54 with Magery 1; 12 with Magery 2; and one and only 1 with Magery 3.
Not that human parents generally tend to have 256 kids, and not that they'd get it all tidy like that if they did. But the odds of turning up a super powerful Magery 3 are the same as turning up entirely without magic or recessive genes for it. 1/256. Quite small.
Two people with Magery 3 would always have Magery 3 children, just as two mundanes would always have unmagical children. Carriers could go every which way, depending. I could figure out all the if/then combinations but there's really no point. I'm just making up a story anyway. And I'm the only one who would decide how common it is to be a carrier in the first place.
So, anyway, all that maths and the big square, that just adds up to:
For a long time, nobody understood where magery came from. Very strong mages always had very strong mage children, everyone else had to guess. Nobody could tell who was a carrier, so magery could turn up in a family for no readily apparent reason.
Then there were persecutions. People with a little magic, but not enough to defend themselves, at best had to hide, at worst got killed. Magical communities got torched. Mostly the mages went away. A few Magery 3 families could be strong enough to avoid the hunters, and would have mage children, but only if they married other such families. Either there's strong ties between distant families, with any such tie increasing risk of discovery in that two can keep a secret if one is dead way, or there's isolated pockets of closely related people with an odd belief system. And they'd be trying to hide. Either way, magic goes back to being something secret that just turns up, sometimes, out of nowhere, when neither parent has it. This makes it difficult for mages to get any training, and leaves them very vulnerable.
Cue 21st century. In many parts of the world the persecution is over. And, finally, science has caught up: There's a test for the magery genes. Carriers can be identified, Mages confirmed genetically, and all the tricks of biotech are available.
Add that to the information explosion and boom, magic is back.
... with all the associated problems.
Plus a probable generation gap, as people decide magic is good edge for their children to have, even though they can't experience it.
This would all mix and match with, and to some extent depend upon, modern science. Unless and until mages developed biotech spells...
I have a vague feeling GURPS Biotech probably already thought of this, but it's what I been thinking on today.
You'd get a mixture of the whole nostalgic reaching into the past New Age feel, with the old texts revealing old spells, and a cutting edge dependent on new developments whizz, with the new biotech and the general attitude of experimental science applied to magery. You could play with the tensions in society, the wish to reach back to perceived stability and forwards to hoped for utopias. There's a layer of not understanding your kids, or feeling your parents are limited, that leaves a lot to play with, and combines in interesting ways with the ancient texts thing (ancient is full of smart stuff, but old people, on the other hand...). And then there's Clarke's Law: Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. And nowadays people treat much of their tech that way. How may people really know how their everyday world works? How many would even notice if you added another layer of the mysterious? But magic would depend on powers and resources quite different to the ones that limit and control technology. And they might not need to depend on anything but themselves. Entirely different groups could gain power. And some of them would have been around a very long time, and have long memories for why this whole 'testing' business is a really bad idea...
And, yeah, it would be a bit X men, but I think the ancient texts thing would add different spins, especially if you bring with them ancient philosophies.
It would be a bit lots of things, really. But hopefully a bit fun.
So then there's just figuring what the story is about fighting, what needs changed and what the risks are.
Wanted: equality.
How to get it: create a batch of people who really are genetically superior...
hmmm, now that's a tricky one...
And why I usually like my magic to be all about the studying. Study more, get more powerful. But I have to admit, some people get more out of their studying, and not everyone will get to the olympics however hard they train. It's only when those differences get interpreted as some people having more right to decide and control than others that it gets to be a problem.
You can play that through with magic. Some mages would want to rule, some to serve, some just to have fun. And magery would be entirely independent of both dexterity and intelligence, and certainly absolutely bugger all to do with race or gender. It would, however, get tangled up with money fairly quickly, seeing as biotech and net access are both money tangled things... But if the mages were persecuted once upon a time, their descendents could cluster in persecuted groups, ie poor people etc. The increased technical techniques for finding mages in the rich groups could be balanced by the increased availability of genes among the poor. Which would then lead to genes as an economic resource... and it all gets more complicated...