This is a sandbox I've wanted to play in for quite awhile...but never has a story burned me so badly before; So, without further ado, my first story post anywhere.
Please be gentle, and forgive me if I screw something up somehow.
Anyway prologue first, and we will see how any reviews, formatting, or toe stepping goes.
Genetics has always been as much art as science, ask anyone. From the moment those special proteins gravitate
towards themselves, following a special recipe no mortalcan as yet, read, any organism subject to the vagaries of
such fate mutate. The truth is, not a single creature, plant, or even, yes, human...is the same as any other. Nor
are they the same as any other throughout all of history. There is always SOMETHING different from another;
perhaps a peptide regarding proper growth in regard to eyerods is stunted due to a minor mutation caused by
background radiation; resulting in an eye that might be a slightly different color than it would have been, and
slightly less useful nightvision than another person in the same family. Or an Rna sequence could be blanked in a
chromosome, causing the aspartate to be manufactured to a greateror lesser degree in the brain, and therefore
providing a case for how two different people in the same environment since birth, think differently in the first
place. Ack, I have a tendancy to ramble now; I'll try to watch that, sorry. My point was, genetics in particular
and science in general make no distinction; we are all mutants. Great (like that champion fellow perhaps, or that
guy that breathes fire in new york) or small (like you, having 'striking' eyes) the universe makes no
distinction, nor value judgements; despite this, the universe is a cold and dangerous place, in which certain
individuals have more of an edge in survival over those generally considered 'normal'. In the interest of
history, and with all due mental faculties bent toward impartiality, I will attempt to chronicle such general
mutations as I have encountered, and my own in particular; the purpose of the tale to point out all the
inconsistencies and fallacies inherent in the human condition, and to endeavor all mutants (for I reiterate, we
are ALL mutants) to understand that we are all one people, with the same emotional basis and thought template as
any other on this planet, and perhaps others.
Comments
interesting prologue
yes, we are all mutations, to a certain degree.
More Please
This has the potential to raise all sorts of fascinating issues. Write more please, and soon!
Mutants.
Indeed, we are all mutants and you present an impeccable scientific basis to support your hypothesis. To follow on from that, you describe how mutations are one of the main engines of survival in a gradually changing world and in that you are also right, but sadly you describe how nature and/or science makes no distinctions between extinction and survival ... mutations can contribute to both and do.
So what of the gender mutations and how do those affect survivability in the human species. I suppose in the raw natural conditions of human existence, gender mutations would have had little consequence at the basic simian level but sadly, once homo-sapiens starts to change his environment and social conditions then gender mutations become a bigger issue with every progression up the developmental ladder. Especially when morality and faith starts to evolve beyond the simple need for collective protection and defence of the group, or tribe.
Who amongst us older mutants, has not at some stage in their lives had their existence adversely affected by their gender mutations and why did it take so long for those social conditions to change. This begs the question ... are gender mutants simply sacrificial components in the evolutionary experiment or will they at some much later stage, become the bisexual fertilizers and receptors for the whole species. Who can tell and should we worry. That current consequential social stress is for me at least,a far bigger and more poignant question than the simple science of genetic mutations.
I'll be following this article/story/thesis with interest. I hope you have some useful scientific ammunition to support your observations. It'll make interesting reading.
Bevs. B.Sc., M.M., M.Sc,.
xx
We are all mutants ...
... we are all individuals. Each of us is different, in some way, from ALL others.
CAN THERE BE ANY DOUBT ABOUT THE BASIC TRUTH OF THIS? (Seriously)
So, what does this mean, in the context of the age-old battle between Individualism and Collectivism? The former is generally thought to be Bad, and the latter is generally thought to be Good.
You seem to be arguing in the other direction.
T
PS - Either way, you have opened a GIGANTIC can of worms. This ought to be fun. Thank you.
This is interesting, but you
This is interesting, but you might want to try to format your story differently. It's really hard to read this way.
Thank you for writing,
Beyogi
Thank all of you who have,
Thank all of you who have, for reading and replying. Beverly, I can't exactly tell you where this is going without spoiling, and that's a crime worthy of knives and thumbscrews, so I won't. Tarzana, if you can name me one instance of a collective having as much impact on a society, any society, as an individual, I'll eat something really disgusting.
And Beyogi, thank you for suffering through, and I'm aware of the issue; I plan to fix it for the first chapter.I'm a visceral type of person, I can look at something and go "wha?" and it looked fine in preview, and then the formats ate each other, and spit out my prologue in an almost lovecraftian "liveliest awfulness" fashion.
With luck, it won't happen again.
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Just to Have a Counter Argument,
With Bev in particular (if she writes about DNA mutations), I believe our gender ID problems are not the immediate result of mutations. I don't believe I was all set to be sis-gendered, when ionizing radiation blasted a base pair of my DNA pre or post fertilization. Mutations like this do happen; usually they are in noncritical, non genetic DNA -or- the base pair change or deletion is in a noncritical part of a protein molecule that still functions with a different amino acid in its sequence -or- the mutation is in a critical region of the (changed) protein created and the protein works less effectively or does not work at all, but there are well functioning proteins made from non-mutated DNA in the other chromosome of the pair. That is to say most DNA mutations don't change how we are structured or function, because of many layers of redundancy.
OTOH, fatal mutations can happen. A mutation will have the most effect if it happens to a sperm or egg or fertilized egg before many divisions. In these cases the nonfunctional DNA will be in all or much of the resulting organism's cells. However, (I'm not sure of this) a mutation might effect the way a sperm swims or doesn't penetrate the egg, so the sperm won't be part of a fertilized egg. In other situations, the fatal mutation might kill the embryo, stop it from implanting properly, mis-develop the placenta or various other activities that have to happen correctly to grow a functioning fetus. These mutated forms would then be washed away in the next period or cause a miscarriage.
A mutation in an adult is likely to be in one cell or if a group of cells are all irradiated or irritated by a carcinogen, the mutations in each different cell will almost certainly be different. A single cell mutation in certain parts of the DNA might cause un or mis regulated cell growth, resulting in benign growths or cancer.
DNA might have some effect on who becomes TS by creating structures more or less sensitive to endocrine disruptors or by other secondary mechanisms.
I'm not sure about this statement either; however it seems reasonable to think that I probably would be sis-gendered if my mother had not taken DES to try to prevent miscarriage of my pregnancy. I'm sure she and her doctors had no idea of the possible effects of DES to either male, female or intersex embryos.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
The formatting problem is
The formatting problem is likely that you told it you were using "with line breaks" *and* had the text you uploaded formatted with a return at the end of each line.
That turns each line in the original into a paragraph on BC.
What I do is write the text, with the right html codes for stuff like bold & italics, and then before uploading, I remove the returns except for the ones at the end of paragraphs.
That makes each paragraph become one horridly long line in the text editor, but it uploads just fine and comes out looking right on BC.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
Toe stepping?