So I was thinking about Mobian species inheritance a bit too deeply in conversation with @doodletycoon06. Now, barring odd hybrid situations like cases from Archie comics (which I'll swing around to in a later post), natural born Mobians tend to inherit either one or the other parent's species. So there have to be rules, right?
So let's bust out the Punnett squares. But first, some ground rules.
Certain species are likely to be dominant over some, but recessive against others. Now, this could probably be calculated more or less with a little statistical analysis and crowd counts, but what am I, mid 2010s big math era Matpat?
1. Let it be assumed that species that are more numerous will be dominant over those that are less numerous.
2. Let it also be assumed that isolated groups of same-species Mobians will tend towards being homozygous, while Mobians from crowded, multi-species population centers tend to be heterozygous for reasons that will soon become clear.
Now, for this all to work and for long-unexpressed ancestor species not to make random and unexpected appearances (remember: the child inherits their species from one of the parents, NOT further back), there needs to be one last element: a recessive "other" allele. The gene that does not express, letting the other species rise to the surface.
An important additional argument for the "other" gene is that without it, mixed species siblings would not be possible, and they canonically are. Without an "other," whichever parent carries the dominant species would pass it on to *all* their children.
Thus, 3. let it also be assumed that there is an unexpressed "other" gene that is ALWAYS recessive to the other allele.
All set? Premises accepted? Okay, let's go.
For argument's sake, let's take a big city bat and an echidna from an extremely isolated tribal community.
Now, there's quite a few bats out there in the big wild world, but not that many echidna, even assuming that there must have been breakaways, splinter tribes, et. al. over the centuries.
Thus, echidna must be an extremely recessive species. Certainly relative to bats, a populous and widespread species.
Our bat lady comes from a big city- let's say she's heterozygous to give our echidna genes a chance. Our echidna, on the other hand, is homozygous.
So now we have three genes in play: dominant Bat "B", recessive echidna "e", and unexpressed other "o".
Our bat lady, then, is B/o, while our purely hypothetical echidna warrior is e/e.
This gives us four possible outcomes.
Not bad! That's a 50/50 split, right?
Okay. So what about the kids? How is this inherited?
Remember, kids ONLY inherit species from their IMMEDIATE parents. That means that our bat children are FULLY bat, and our echidna children are FULLY echidna.
No surprise echidna babies down the bat line. No peekaboo bats down the echidna line.
Our bat kids are heterozygous. They have their dominant Bat allele... and another.
Another that did not express.
This allele is passed down, leaves a trace in their genetic line as their "o".
These kids had a non-bat allele in their makeup, but they are fully bat.
Our bat kids are B/o, just like their mother.
Now, with our echidna kids, it becomes a little less intuitive.
Because what are they? They are fully echidna, aren't they? Sure, there's an "o" there when they're formed, but the "other" gene literally does not express. Its only function, in fact, is to not express, to enable recessive species to take its place. So what are our echidna kids left with?
Homozygous e/e. Just like their father.
In essence, the alleles "switch" places along the generation in the way they are passed down.
Which then leads the children to have their own children, and so forth in perpetuity.
It would also explain how a species can simply disappear or dissipate over the years, even without a hypothetical chief of a certain isolated tribe of a extremely recessive species making some very, very bad choices.
Which leaves only one question and one alone: what happens to o/o crosses?
To which I say, as a general cop out: non viable embryo. But I'm very willing to be argued with on that one!
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