On 29/10/21 10:01, Rupert Boleyn - rupert.boleyn at gmail.com (via tml
list) wrote:
>
>
> On 29Oct2021 0831, Jim Vassilakos - jim.vassilakos at gmail.com (via
> tml list) wrote:
>> Terrans/Solomani are interfertile with Vilani, but are either
>> interfertile
>> with Zhodani? The Zhodani are taller and have four fewer teeth, but I
>> haven't seen anything about whether or not they are able to breed
>> with the
>> other major human races and, if so, whether or not children produced
>> from
>> such unions are sterile.
> I don't see why they wouldn't be - height is enormously variable in
> the human population of Earth today, and not having wisdom teeth is a
> not too uncommon trait today as well.
>
Rupert,

GT 2e explicitly addresses this on p38, in its library data.
"Most branches of Humanitiy are interfertile, although some of the more
extreme variants are not.  For taxonomic purposes, all are included in
the family Hominidae, and the vast majority are genus _Homo_. Solomani
and Vilani are _H. sapiens sapiens_, Zhodani are _H. zhdotlas_."

Same genus, different species implies (IIRC) children can happen, but
not fertile ones.  Same species, different subspecies implies (IIRC)
fertile _female_ children and mostly-fertile _male_ children.

That may well depend on how far apart _H. sapiens_ and _H. zhdotlas_
are, taxonomically.

GT: AR1 p10 sidebar mentions two intermediate races (not necessarily
species), _H. zhdatl_ and _H. vlastebr_ , which, in true human fashion
when they met, clashed violently.  However, "the two distinct Human
races contacted one another, leading to both clashes and inter-mixing. 
The mixing of the races produced a hybrid race, _Zhodotlas_ (_H.
zhodotlas_ )".

Taking all that gubbins as written, I don't find it a surprise (even
starting from a founder group of _H. sapiens sapiens_ ) that the Zhodani
speciated from baseline, even without Ancient interference.    I find it
a bigger surprise that, modulo Ancient silly buggers, the Vilani didn't
(especially with not having to survive on the biohazard zone us mob call
Terra).

However, judging from the wiki page on Neanderthal humans, they could be
_either_ a seperate species (_H. neanderthalensis_ ), _or_ a seperate
sub-species (_H. sapiens neanderthalensis_).

There was gene flow on Terra between archaic and modern humans, which
further muddies the waters.

Personally (and thanks to that gene flow, rumbled ~ 10 years after GT:
AR1 was writted) , I would treat the Zhodani offshoots (_zhdatl_,
_vlastebr_ and _zhdotlas_ ) as _subspecies_ within _H. sapiens_. Thus
the Zhodani in my various TUs (Naturallyverse, Advisoryverse) are
interfertile with baseline Solomani.

Vilani-Solomani interbreeding in the Advisoryverse has been possible for
just under 30 years, so the earlier Terrani hybrids are, if fertile,
reproductively mature, and, most likely, some would be parents themselves.
That would bring the WTF needle down to the vinyl even further for the
biologists - how in name of deep fried cheesy *FNORD* did such a
seperated population of _H. sapiens sapiens_ happen?

Alex