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On Sat, 8/1/15, Robert <xxxxxx@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

 Subject: Re: Aslan around the'Horn'? was Re: [TML] Aslan Border Wars
 To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
 Date: Saturday, August 1, 2015, 4:47 PM

 Phil Pugliese wrote:
 > IMO. after all the millenia & with a TL so much
 higher,
 > all this has become as moot as a paleolithic man
 arguing
 > that it'll be too difficult to artificially conceive at
 TL9.

 No.

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You are speaking as the equiv of a caveman to modern-day man.

You can't say w/ any certainty at all what will or will not be possible so far in the future & w/ such greatly advanced tech.
We can only speculate & that's really what the TU is all about.

p.s. And as far as 'limits & constants' go, TU canon violates those all the time. In fact it could be said that the TU could NOT exist w/o those very violations.

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 Biology has limits and constants, like physics.
 The typical Traveller TL hasn't got to the stage where you
 can redefine
 natural constants like pi.

 Genomes are unstable.
 For example, human nuclear DNA accumulates 1-2 new mutations
 with each
 generation - about one mutation every 30 million base pairs
 when gametes are
 made.

 Mitochondrial DNA has 1000 times the mutation rate, almost
 the same as RNA
 viruses (but the virus generation time is a lot shorter).

 Most clinical genetic syndromes causing disability affect
 multiple sites in
 different ways. The complexity is only now being realised
 with the advent of
 modern sequencing techniques.

 Then there's epigenetic modifications - methylation and
 other additions to
 DNA bases which affect function, and sporadic mutations also
 caused by
 post-natal environmental exposures. These are the basis of a
 wide range of
 conditions, most notably cancers.

 There's no reason to believe alien life is going to be any
 less complex.

 So from time to time someone is going to be infertile or
 have a disastrous
 genome, metabolic profile, or response to fertility
 treatments that
 precludes their use regardless of tech level.

 There's always adoption or cloning.

 Rob O'Connor

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Cloning is what Norris has done, no?

And, since the aslan is question held an imperial position, as does Norris, it makes it even more unlikely that he would die w/o a legal heir.

BTW, according to the storyline, when the conclave was held, the aslan clan-chief (the deceased was not the clan chief of his homeworld) of the of deceased's home system "explicitly forbade" any of the aslan delegates from voting for an aslan candidate!
I guess the whole idea was to present an extremely unlikely situation as an adventure nugget to attract the attn of some 'motley crew' to delve into.

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