Genetic Diversity

[BadOnion]

Why? We went that far in much less than 2000 years, and without the head start in knowledge these people began with. If anything they should be quite a bit more advanced than us.

[knowles2]

I agree they should be more advance than us.

An from what I have read on here, it seem the first Destiny crew made saw to record all there knowledge as best as they could, Kinos were use. The Nova technology would have evolve pretty fast on the planet.

Especially if they were organise and maintain there focus on building a stable civilisation for there children.

Even Wray did her duty.
I fine it quite believable that us Humans have that kind of focus and effort and willingness.


Why 80 people may be a tad to low, I fine it believable that with the right dedication and forsight and knowledge and lots of family planning they would be able to keep there genetic pool stable.

An also a bit of luck of having no major genetic defects amongst the crew would also help keep the gene pool stable. An diversity of the gene is also important having a good mixed of difference races and having the Lucian alliance there to would have helped.

[Mr Evil 37]

Point of interest: comparing the scientific realism of one sci-fi show with another is never a very good idea.

If every couple had three or four children, then the population would quadruple in roughly half a decade, and would continue to grow exponentially since they had setting up a colony as their goal. I don't think there would have been any problems at all.

Plus, with the way Scott gets through women he could probably sustain the colony all by himself.

[Gatefan1976]

While I cannot remember the actual Ep, TNG had a similar issue where the "backward" Irish folk became one with a Technologically advanced human colony that were using cloning to sustain thier population. In that instance there were some 160 individuals but Dr Pulaski said as long as each female had children by 3-5 different males for 3? generations they would create enough genetic diversity to rebuild both societies.

Now I don't know the math behind it, or even if it was accurate but the Destiny crew seems to have roughly 20 odd females onboard, so *assuming* the math used in Trek is correct, I think each woman would have to have more like 10+ kids to different fathers to re-seed a viable population base.

[KEK]

Someone did the maths in the other thread. It would work if it was control, but some of the men would have to wait a generation to get theirs, so to speak...

[Trinary]

Consider this. Every continent on Earth has similar ancient story about human ancestors coming from people on a ship after the big flood. When is that? Presumably, it was between 4 to 6 thousand years ago. Now the human population was around 7 billions. How many people on that ship survived after the big flood? Probably less than a dozen. Even the animals they brought over was just a couple of each.

For a 2000 year to reach a few millions is very possible. With language and knowledge that already developed, it will not very hard to reach millions. It's not something you could controlled once a civilization started to replicates, Lol! We're a replicator too...

[thekillman]

Each one of those children would have to be paired up with someone in an "arranged marriage" in order to keep maximum diversity and avoid the same families crossbreeding more then needed.

no.


there is no need for forced breeding. even with incest, people tend to fall in love with those who have the most different genes. a friend of mine studies medicine and he told me.

[morrismike]

As long as the society had rules to keep blood relatives (closer than uncles/aunts/2nd cousins/etc) from pairing it would be fine. I'm afraid after 2000 years any trace of race would be gone though. From a practical standpoint they'd want to encourage those couples with healthy (good eyesight and stuff like that) children to start pumping out kids.

[senilegreen]

Consider this. Every continent on Earth has similar ancient story about human ancestors coming from people on a ship after the big flood.

False.

[senilegreen]

I've watched every episode of SGU and some more than once. From what I remember of this season (the post LA invasion), looking at the 17 episodes, and then remembering how many different people there are - minus the loss of those few LA (leaving a few onboard)... I get that there would be damn few people in the founding population.

How many fertile females are there? I don't think it even adds up to 30. And many of them are not especially young.

It's not genetic diversity that is a problem, but the lack of bodies to do work.

[morrismike]

I've watched every episode of SGU and some more than once. From what I remember of this season (the post LA invasion), looking at the 17 episodes, and then remembering how many different people there are - minus the loss of those few LA (leaving a few onboard)... I get that there would be damn few people in the founding population.

How many fertile females are there? I don't think it even adds up to 30. And many of them are not especially young.

It's not genetic diversity that is a problem, but the lack of bodies to do work.

If the first wave of women pump out 10 kids per with several men it wouldn't be an issue. Star Trek did a show on this very topic. Ironically enough on the startrek episode, an extended liberty would have injected (quite literally) a whole lot of Enterprise genetic material into the cloner gene pool.

[MechaThor]

I don't think genes would be a problem, its not like anyone on the Destiny is currently related so no interbreeding from the start. Plus 80+ seems like enough, surly all these remote tribes and island populations have similar size groups? Also is it not true that most Europeans share a common ancestor anyways? Formed from a small group of people that came from Africa through Turkey or something?

[aquaman]

It would take 'genetically' 300 people, 150 men and 150 women with each woman having between 3 to 5 children by different men for 10 generations to have a viable gene pool that is not highly prone to genetic flaws

[sholva1]

yes, each woman would have to have at least 3 kids by a different father

[Egle01]

I've watched every episode of SGU and some more than once. From what I remember of this season (the post LA invasion), looking at the 17 episodes, and then remembering how many different people there are - minus the loss of those few LA (leaving a few onboard)... I get that there would be damn few people in the founding population.

Not that it helps much, but those LA members who died in "The Hunt" were still alive in "Twin Destinies".