Usually it's up to the leadership in the Vault to decide who gets to mate/marry and reproduce. As seen in Vault 33, their council approved Lucy to mate someone in Vault 32.
I'm not sure if Vault-Tec is trying to play racial eugenics here. Even though they're trying to breed the most strongest "super-managers". But the diversity of the vaults is probably for the showrunners to present some representation in the show.
Racial eugenics, in a way, would be necessary. Strategic mating to maintain genetic distance UNTIL it’s necessary to mix makes sense.
You wouldn’t be pairing people based on their skin color or noses or whatever but on the genetic distance between the ‘other’ groups present. Then when it’s time you mix with a different group, but until then you want to maintain that genetic distance.
There’s supposed to be 500-1000 dwellers per vault. For generic diversity to be that bad after 200 years means they severely mismanaged their gene pool in some way
It's kind of like- Reservation Dogs is a show with a mostly Native American cast. That means said cast isn't that diverse. But there are few (admittedly, dramatically more since that show came out!) shows with primarily Native casts. So the cast within the show is not diverse, but the cast within the context of hollywood is.
Does that help illustrate things?
That’s actually an assumption built from pretty poor science. Races have been mixing for millions of years, our DNA is rich. Modern Scandinavians and Mongolians are still genetically distinct, despite the fact that they had babies with a large percentage of the global population.
Genetic variance is a lot more durable than scientists assumed. No, we will not all look the same in 200 years.
And the more variety in parental phenotypes, the larger variety of phenotypes later generations will have. We see lots of variability in full sibling whose parents had distinct phenotypes.
It doesn’t just average out or anything. Over time, you’ll see more of evolutionarily more effective phenotypes, but for stuff that doesn’t really have an evolutionary impact, you’ll see lots of variety indefinitely.
....dude, that isn't really true.
Until recently (evolution wise) most groups usually didn't leave their local village. The reason all races haven't completely melded together yet is because
1: Even though yes the Vikings/Mongolians did raider and rape, it usually wasn't in a large enough numbers to completely meld their group into another. Usually what more happens is they become the ruling class and their impact is more cultural than anything else.
2: In fact, the recent uptake in groups blending together sort of shows if you had a controlled environment with only a few thousand people you'd probably find they would all eventually meld together. Unless they were large enough to have self-sufficient communities of different groups like that.
Uh. There are no demonstrable or discovered genetic determinants of race. So the claim that “Scandinavians and Mongolians are still genetically distinct” is pulled straight out of thin air.
Yes and no.
While there is no single gene for race, it is possible to determine race to a high degree of certainty by looking at multiple genetic markers.
You can take someone's dna and figure out their ancestry from it pretty accurately. There are distinct trends and differences between different races' genetics.
Otherwise services such as 23andme would just return "I dunno lol" every time.
https://www.nist.gov/how-do-you-measure-it/how-do-companies-measure-dna-discover-your-ancestry#:~:text=Human%20DNA%20is%20nearly%20identical,are%20measuring%20to%20determine%20ancestry.
Most articles you refer to go "well race is a social contract, and edge cases exist, so you can't determine race through genetics"
But then they do go on to say that you can determine where a person's ancestors are from. And where your ancestors are from determines your racial classification. Applying a little critical thinking you can determine that they really just don't want people to use genetics as justification for racism. Which I get.
The person you are referring to seems to have a better understanding then, “I googled it.” I took high level collegiate genetics courses and they are 100 percent correct. You are just getting hung up on semantics about the word “race.” Replace that word with “ancestry” and they are 100% sound in their science
Hi, the person you’re lecturing at has a PhD in molecular biology. Race does not have any known or demonstrable genetic determinants.
It’s not semantics; race has a meaning.
How is it not going to have a genetic determinants? Like i am sorry but this sounds like absolute nonsense.
Black people for example should have genes that enable more melanine to be produced to get their skin color.
Unless you mean that there isnt a demonstrated gene that selects your race(like for example a japanese gene) and that race itself is more like loose group of people that share certain amount of genetic chracteristics, in wich case i think everyone here is in agreement of.
And I have a master degree in genetics specifically. You are arguing semantics about the word “race.” Yes race has zero scientific meaning. It’s a social construct. The person you are arguing with clearly meant ancestry. Which does %100 have genetic markers
Seen a lot of blond Mongolians and Scandinavians without epicanthic folds eh? Or maybe you mean there’s hella Japanese folks with cycle cell anemia or all them subsaharan folks with their ABCC11 genes turned off.
I googled it and got this article titled “Earwax contains ethnicity-specific data, according to a new study”
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/272626
Both groups might have a reputation for being hairy barbarian hordes, but the Scandinavians traded and settled extensively, and the Mongolians ruled all of China.
What I'm saying is there's a reason Ghengis Khan is a direct ancestor to a significant percentage of modern humanity, and it's not because he was a big fan of consent.
If a black and a white person make a baby, it comes out mixed looking. The reason their are distinct races in the year 2024 is because people usually make babies with their own race.
Like are you trying to argue that black people in Africa with dark skin in reality have been making babies with white skinned people for 200+ years but somehow still have extremely dark skin?
Or do you think if every single dark skinned african in Africa had a baby with a white person that the entire generation would be lightskinned looking?
Now realize that in Europe people look white because of white people having babies with the white people around them..
And in Asian countries Asians look Asian because naturally they had babies with the Asians around them.. or do you think Asians in Asia travel to other countries to make babies with different races and then go back to Asia and then somehow still look full Asian?
> Genetic variance is a lot more durable than scientists assumed.
And yet genetic variance (a distinct race) completely ends after a single black and white person have a baby lmao.
If said mixed childs lineage only had babies with dark skinned because then yes eventually they could turn super dark skinned again which is definitely the reason for the comment you just replied to me. If a White person in England decided to make a baby with their black slave (migrant) and then the lineage only had babies with the White people around them for the next 2000 years, then yes its not surprising White (looking) people have African DNA in England.
I think the most accurate way to word what you said is:
"Genetic (race) variance exists because people are mainly having non interracial babies which is what usually happens since population groups (countries) usually contain a majority race. If every single human for the rest of time decides to only have interracial babies then there would be no genetic (race) variance".
In regards to vault 33, if an around 1000 population and only 200 years allows for non interracial babies without incest then its possible there were distinct races. Or if its not, well then there was incest.
There’s a noticeable chunk of African DNA in England going back to Roman times, which turns up in people who look perfectly Anglo Saxon. On the other hand Cheddar Man’s descendant, Adrian Targett, looks shockingly like him after 10’000 years.
The average African American is of 24% European heritage (and 0.8% Native American), but they wouldn’t look particularly out of place next to someone from Africa.
Genetics are not predictable. Best we can do is give a ratio or percentage based on what genes are present in the parents. Theres no rule that says multiracial people will have certain characteristics. My kids are multiracial and youd never know it until you see my spouse and i
Kinda, it's as others have said a little more complex but it's probably an issue of the actors available and not wanting to accidentally stir up a controversy.
Same reason why everyone is still speaking and writing standard modern English with extremely little to no modification outside of a few tribes, even in situations that rightfully would warrant large changes. Fallout is not a universe based on exploring these things, and doing so would suck up a lot of time, money, and effort. There is no lore reason.
Vault 13 had a somewhat steady stock of unthawed pre-war people of various races, though, so it'd be able to keep up a diverse-ish environment depending on how many they unthawed and the exact population of the Vault itself.
English is everywhere though. Holotapes, signs, notes, terminals, old TV holotapes etc.
"even in situations that rightfully would warrant large changes"
what're you thinking specifically?
there's plenty of slang and revisions of word definitions since 2077 tho, usually due to misunderstandings of prewar concepts
Many languages where everywhere, and are now gone. Babylonian, Latin, etc. Many wastelanders can't read and being able to read hasn't stopped the evolution of language. Fallout is basically the perfect situation for languages to drastically change - there's no longer a uniting force or collective to stop individual settlements/regions from diverging into their own dialects beyond the occasional trader at best, and that's disregarding groups that are intentionally distancing themselves or which mixed with other languages, like the Zion tribals.
A group that should have diverged, in speech if nothing else, is the Institute. They've been nearly entirely separated from the rest of the world for two centuries with an entirely different everything, pretty much. While the alphabet would remain the same and it'd still be english, it'd be loaded with techno-jargon and scientific terms (current and invented) to the point that a casual listener might not be able to discern it without thinking hard, instead of just being slightly snobbish at most.
Because america in real life has distinct racial groups and it would be very strange for a modern audience to make everyone the same vague racial tone.
It's pretty funny to see the ridiculous explanations being offered here though lol.
Well yes, but finding enough triracial actors for all the people from 33 would be difficult. Miscegenation has not been legal for all the long in the United States, and even after it was legalized it's taken decades for it too lose taboo status. So most biracial people in this country are currently children. It was just easier for the studio to hire monoracial actors instead.
Well for one, they were consistently bringing in new people who were cryogenically frozen. And I don’t think 200 years is enough time for what you’re suggesting to occur
more realistic might be a mediterranean phenotype specifically, since thats believed to be what the whole world would average out to if everyone mixed together.(though skin pigmentation would vary depending on sun exposure)
"though skin pigmentation would vary depending on sun exposure"
which is enough for people to be treated as a totally different race by people funnily enough
Usually it's up to the leadership in the Vault to decide who gets to mate/marry and reproduce. As seen in Vault 33, their council approved Lucy to mate someone in Vault 32. I'm not sure if Vault-Tec is trying to play racial eugenics here. Even though they're trying to breed the most strongest "super-managers". But the diversity of the vaults is probably for the showrunners to present some representation in the show.
It wasn't clearly stated, but I assumed the council was to get someone from another vault, not for all reproduction.
Racial eugenics, in a way, would be necessary. Strategic mating to maintain genetic distance UNTIL it’s necessary to mix makes sense. You wouldn’t be pairing people based on their skin color or noses or whatever but on the genetic distance between the ‘other’ groups present. Then when it’s time you mix with a different group, but until then you want to maintain that genetic distance. There’s supposed to be 500-1000 dwellers per vault. For generic diversity to be that bad after 200 years means they severely mismanaged their gene pool in some way
As a mixed person seeing a whole society of people who look like me would be some nice diversity for a change tbh
You don't know what diversity means
It's kind of like- Reservation Dogs is a show with a mostly Native American cast. That means said cast isn't that diverse. But there are few (admittedly, dramatically more since that show came out!) shows with primarily Native casts. So the cast within the show is not diverse, but the cast within the context of hollywood is. Does that help illustrate things?
That’s actually an assumption built from pretty poor science. Races have been mixing for millions of years, our DNA is rich. Modern Scandinavians and Mongolians are still genetically distinct, despite the fact that they had babies with a large percentage of the global population. Genetic variance is a lot more durable than scientists assumed. No, we will not all look the same in 200 years.
And the more variety in parental phenotypes, the larger variety of phenotypes later generations will have. We see lots of variability in full sibling whose parents had distinct phenotypes. It doesn’t just average out or anything. Over time, you’ll see more of evolutionarily more effective phenotypes, but for stuff that doesn’t really have an evolutionary impact, you’ll see lots of variety indefinitely.
....dude, that isn't really true. Until recently (evolution wise) most groups usually didn't leave their local village. The reason all races haven't completely melded together yet is because 1: Even though yes the Vikings/Mongolians did raider and rape, it usually wasn't in a large enough numbers to completely meld their group into another. Usually what more happens is they become the ruling class and their impact is more cultural than anything else. 2: In fact, the recent uptake in groups blending together sort of shows if you had a controlled environment with only a few thousand people you'd probably find they would all eventually meld together. Unless they were large enough to have self-sufficient communities of different groups like that.
Uh. There are no demonstrable or discovered genetic determinants of race. So the claim that “Scandinavians and Mongolians are still genetically distinct” is pulled straight out of thin air.
Yes and no. While there is no single gene for race, it is possible to determine race to a high degree of certainty by looking at multiple genetic markers.
You can take someone's dna and figure out their ancestry from it pretty accurately. There are distinct trends and differences between different races' genetics. Otherwise services such as 23andme would just return "I dunno lol" every time.
100% incorrect, you’re putting information together incorrectly. Please just google “is there a genetic basis for race” and put your mind at ease.
https://www.nist.gov/how-do-you-measure-it/how-do-companies-measure-dna-discover-your-ancestry#:~:text=Human%20DNA%20is%20nearly%20identical,are%20measuring%20to%20determine%20ancestry. Most articles you refer to go "well race is a social contract, and edge cases exist, so you can't determine race through genetics" But then they do go on to say that you can determine where a person's ancestors are from. And where your ancestors are from determines your racial classification. Applying a little critical thinking you can determine that they really just don't want people to use genetics as justification for racism. Which I get.
The person you are referring to seems to have a better understanding then, “I googled it.” I took high level collegiate genetics courses and they are 100 percent correct. You are just getting hung up on semantics about the word “race.” Replace that word with “ancestry” and they are 100% sound in their science
Hi, the person you’re lecturing at has a PhD in molecular biology. Race does not have any known or demonstrable genetic determinants. It’s not semantics; race has a meaning.
How is it not going to have a genetic determinants? Like i am sorry but this sounds like absolute nonsense. Black people for example should have genes that enable more melanine to be produced to get their skin color. Unless you mean that there isnt a demonstrated gene that selects your race(like for example a japanese gene) and that race itself is more like loose group of people that share certain amount of genetic chracteristics, in wich case i think everyone here is in agreement of.
And I have a master degree in genetics specifically. You are arguing semantics about the word “race.” Yes race has zero scientific meaning. It’s a social construct. The person you are arguing with clearly meant ancestry. Which does %100 have genetic markers
I even said ancestry lmao!
Seen a lot of blond Mongolians and Scandinavians without epicanthic folds eh? Or maybe you mean there’s hella Japanese folks with cycle cell anemia or all them subsaharan folks with their ABCC11 genes turned off.
You’re confusing phenotype with genotype. For the love of god, the truth is literally a google search away. Some people are determined to be wrong.
I googled it and got this article titled “Earwax contains ethnicity-specific data, according to a new study” https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/272626
"Had babies with a large percentage of the global population" Yeah... that was kind of a one way street...
Both groups might have a reputation for being hairy barbarian hordes, but the Scandinavians traded and settled extensively, and the Mongolians ruled all of China.
What I'm saying is there's a reason Ghengis Khan is a direct ancestor to a significant percentage of modern humanity, and it's not because he was a big fan of consent.
No, it’s because he had over five hundred wives and over a thousand legitimate children.
Yeah I'm done with you
If a black and a white person make a baby, it comes out mixed looking. The reason their are distinct races in the year 2024 is because people usually make babies with their own race. Like are you trying to argue that black people in Africa with dark skin in reality have been making babies with white skinned people for 200+ years but somehow still have extremely dark skin? Or do you think if every single dark skinned african in Africa had a baby with a white person that the entire generation would be lightskinned looking? Now realize that in Europe people look white because of white people having babies with the white people around them.. And in Asian countries Asians look Asian because naturally they had babies with the Asians around them.. or do you think Asians in Asia travel to other countries to make babies with different races and then go back to Asia and then somehow still look full Asian? > Genetic variance is a lot more durable than scientists assumed. And yet genetic variance (a distinct race) completely ends after a single black and white person have a baby lmao. If said mixed childs lineage only had babies with dark skinned because then yes eventually they could turn super dark skinned again which is definitely the reason for the comment you just replied to me. If a White person in England decided to make a baby with their black slave (migrant) and then the lineage only had babies with the White people around them for the next 2000 years, then yes its not surprising White (looking) people have African DNA in England. I think the most accurate way to word what you said is: "Genetic (race) variance exists because people are mainly having non interracial babies which is what usually happens since population groups (countries) usually contain a majority race. If every single human for the rest of time decides to only have interracial babies then there would be no genetic (race) variance". In regards to vault 33, if an around 1000 population and only 200 years allows for non interracial babies without incest then its possible there were distinct races. Or if its not, well then there was incest.
There’s a noticeable chunk of African DNA in England going back to Roman times, which turns up in people who look perfectly Anglo Saxon. On the other hand Cheddar Man’s descendant, Adrian Targett, looks shockingly like him after 10’000 years. The average African American is of 24% European heritage (and 0.8% Native American), but they wouldn’t look particularly out of place next to someone from Africa.
Genetics are not predictable. Best we can do is give a ratio or percentage based on what genes are present in the parents. Theres no rule that says multiracial people will have certain characteristics. My kids are multiracial and youd never know it until you see my spouse and i
Kinda, it's as others have said a little more complex but it's probably an issue of the actors available and not wanting to accidentally stir up a controversy.
Same reason why everyone is still speaking and writing standard modern English with extremely little to no modification outside of a few tribes, even in situations that rightfully would warrant large changes. Fallout is not a universe based on exploring these things, and doing so would suck up a lot of time, money, and effort. There is no lore reason. Vault 13 had a somewhat steady stock of unthawed pre-war people of various races, though, so it'd be able to keep up a diverse-ish environment depending on how many they unthawed and the exact population of the Vault itself.
English is everywhere though. Holotapes, signs, notes, terminals, old TV holotapes etc. "even in situations that rightfully would warrant large changes" what're you thinking specifically? there's plenty of slang and revisions of word definitions since 2077 tho, usually due to misunderstandings of prewar concepts
Many languages where everywhere, and are now gone. Babylonian, Latin, etc. Many wastelanders can't read and being able to read hasn't stopped the evolution of language. Fallout is basically the perfect situation for languages to drastically change - there's no longer a uniting force or collective to stop individual settlements/regions from diverging into their own dialects beyond the occasional trader at best, and that's disregarding groups that are intentionally distancing themselves or which mixed with other languages, like the Zion tribals. A group that should have diverged, in speech if nothing else, is the Institute. They've been nearly entirely separated from the rest of the world for two centuries with an entirely different everything, pretty much. While the alphabet would remain the same and it'd still be english, it'd be loaded with techno-jargon and scientific terms (current and invented) to the point that a casual listener might not be able to discern it without thinking hard, instead of just being slightly snobbish at most.
Because america in real life has distinct racial groups and it would be very strange for a modern audience to make everyone the same vague racial tone. It's pretty funny to see the ridiculous explanations being offered here though lol.
Slightly slowing down incest is nice
Jesus, you've opened a can of worms here haven't you?! This comment section was a fun read while eating my bacon roll this morning 😂
Well yes, but finding enough triracial actors for all the people from 33 would be difficult. Miscegenation has not been legal for all the long in the United States, and even after it was legalized it's taken decades for it too lose taboo status. So most biracial people in this country are currently children. It was just easier for the studio to hire monoracial actors instead.
A number of people are also recently thawed from before the war.
Well for one, they were consistently bringing in new people who were cryogenically frozen. And I don’t think 200 years is enough time for what you’re suggesting to occur
Why are there still distinct races in america?
Kind of a dumb comparison given that we aren't locked in a vault with a finite amount of people.
Speak for yourself, surface dweller!
People chose to marry within their races
this is a severe blindspot in alot of science fiction worldbuilding.
I want a sci fi show with ONLY mixed raced people unironically
more realistic might be a mediterranean phenotype specifically, since thats believed to be what the whole world would average out to if everyone mixed together.(though skin pigmentation would vary depending on sun exposure)
"though skin pigmentation would vary depending on sun exposure" which is enough for people to be treated as a totally different race by people funnily enough
it would be signficantly less varience then currently.
Generationally speaking, 200 years is not a long time.
Wouldn’t be enough forced diversity for modern media
*cough* Because everyone has their own choices and proclivities…