So it all depends on what you mean by "pure-blooded." In the case of a politician on a primarily Solomani-settled world, we  would likely be concerned only with having Solomani genes back to the date when that planet was settled. E.g. none of his opponents in the Party will dare claim a better one pedicure since nobody wants to risk bringing up that period where the Sollies were in Imperial favor and sowing their seed widely, only to later get ejected from court in disgrace.

On Jul 17, 2016 10:21 PM, "Kenneth Barns" <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 00:01, Abu Dhabi <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

By that logic, we now on Earth IRL are all a lovely shade of brown, with no particularly distinctive subgroups, given that we've had upwards of 50 000 years of sharing a common planet since the emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens. Why do you assume that human mating is some sort of brownian motion process that happens entirely randomly, without any guidance from the conscious minds humans are equipped with? Why do you assume that all of Terra is some kind of Coruscant-like city planet with no isolated populations? Why do you assume that extraterrestrial immigration was both extremely massive and completely unrestricted? 

Dear Abu,

Not necessarily.  Modelling indicates that the "most recent common ancestor" (do a Google search for it), an individual that  everyone alive today is descended from, probably lived some time in the middle ages.

In the words of one paper:

"No matter the languages we speak or the color of our skin, we share ancestors who planted rice on the banks of the Yangtze, who first domesticated horses on the steppes of the Ukraine, who hunted giant sloths in the forests of North and South America, and who labored to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu."

Now that doesn't mean that we all are "a lovely shade of brown".  Particular genotypes and phenotypes are going to be found in different proportions in different populations, and will continue to define those populations.  And mate preferencing will continue to keep groups of people differentiated one from another - I agree that "guidance from the conscious minds humans are equipped with" is a major factor in human mating.

But if one European sailor to the far East in 1500, has one child with one local lady, and that child survives to have the mean 2.1 descendants each 20-year generation, then there will be 113 million descendants of that sailor by now.  Even if those 113 million people have no other European ancestors, and are thus are 99,999,998 parts in 100 million "Asian", none of those people are still "pure blood".  And that is is only 500 years (25 generations).

In the context of the 4000 years of Terran contact with the interstellar community, it is inconceivable that any world that has had contact with the interstellar community within the last few hundred years would have any "pureblood Solomani" remaining.  The Islands Cluster is a rare exception, as it has only come into contact with "pollution" in the last 5 generations or so.  Still, just _1_ romantic liaison between an Imperial and an Islander in the first few years of contact means 32 mixed-race descendants by now, and thousands in a couple of hundred years.

Cheers,

KB.

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