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Kirr Mistwelder wrote:

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Ok, I said I'd get back to this and I meant it. Here we go.

First up, one of the assertions you make is that the Force stripping continued over generations through breeding, like it was bred out of them. I got the impression though that Yuuzhan’tar stripped them of the Force (and I love your explanation of midichlorians by the way, it's the first time I think I've actually liked their use in Star Wars - because it actually helps the explanation of the Vong's lack of Force presence) - so wouldn't the breeding just maintain that status quo, as opposed to continuing to breed it out of them? Let's take the example of Tay Sachs - if you take a population in isolation where no one has it as a recessive gene, then no one is going to show up with it in a successive generation. I would think this Force stripping would work the same way - once it's removed, no successive generation will wind up with it because it's already been taken out of the gene pool.

You also make a point to say that you believe there were some force using Vong who existed after the expulsion - is there a case for this, where we know of a Vong who could touch the Force prior to Zenoma reconnecting them to it? I would think it's not scientifically implausable that a particular gene could be removed from a host body, and once accomplished that could be replicated over an entire population. I'd almost go so far as to say that any Vong who did devolop the ability to touch the Force after the expulsion are more likely to be mutations themselves - exceptions to the rule.

Obviously, this is all my own opinion - looking to continue the discussion and see what you (Gina) or anyone else thinks.

There is the concept of natural selection and selective pressure. In biological systems, rarely is there complete ablation of a gene. Only by biotech engineering is that possible, and it is thought that not EVERY cells accepts the ablation. We see that in the various strains of mice depending on their background. When mice are lethally irradiated, the cells used to repopulated the lost ones if they take is the selective pressure--otherwise the animals die...

When scientists create knockout mice to examine the requirements of gene function in a specific disease process, rarely to the knockouts reflect a major change until there is a selective stress pressure on them, such as heat, cold, lack of food, change in diet, exposure to drugs/chemicals/agents, etc. And sometimes that shows nothing. SOMETIMES it is the genetic background of the mice. There are a dozen or so varieties of mice that a scientist can purchase: I usually used C57BL/6J for my studies in cholesterol because they were hyperresponsive to high fat, high sugar diets. Whereas, if I use a Balb/c or other strain, they could eat those poor diets and nothing will happen to them.

They had the same genes in the same place, so what's the difference? The variation of the actual code called single nucleotide polymorphisms and the extra-environmental effects called epigenetics. Most human beings are not inbred strains of mice--so the correlation of one genetic disease, most often MANY GENES that are involved, may not be similar in other human beings...  Such as, one person gets the flu and is okay, other person sick for 3 weeks... Peanut allergies work like that. Some people can smoke like a chimney and never get cancer, others become a metastatic tumor just by looking at tobacco on television.  It is the diversity in genetics and natural selection that keeps some genes present, versus others.

In a planetary consciousness, whether than decision was actively made, I keep reading the Yuuzhan Vong being insistent on their behavior to do their damage. Yuuzhan'tar could not sustain that, so it loosened its selective pressure requirements in the Force. Some Yuuzhan Vong were more attune in the Force than others. The one's with less midichlorians lost their ability rapidly--guess who could reproduced that quickest--genetic fitness and fecundity we call it... Whereas, those who had more midichlorians, while they may have lost theirs slower, may have had other issues that ostracized them from the community impacting their genetic fitness and fecundity. If you don't reproduce, the game is done!!! *shrugs*

Onimi is a different case...He was smart in investigating and breaking his protocol. But, when he added Yammosk cells in his brain--assuming a Yuuzhan Vong brain anatomy is similar to humans--then that suggests that the control of the Force powers in living beings occurs in the brain and the body follows what the brain says. That is not the case for every human disease out there. Your heart stops, your brain is not thinking clearly by default... Its not telling your heart to slow down in blood pressure or decrease your cholesterol...Fact is your heart rate doesn't need the brain to work fully...Hence, heart transplants--yeah, that's one of the battles the early physicians had when they started doing them... So, I would not think in EVERY case that the "Living Force" that works in cooperation with the "Unifying Force" is SOLELY CONTROLLED by the brain - I have no evidence one way or another, by looking at the similarities in systems biology.

What I am saying it was improbable that Onimi was born with the Force...He obtained the Force powers albeit mutated form through his transplant. I would stick with that canon.

The ONE person I think that had Force powers that has not been explored is Cvulkang Lah. Why, judiciousness, cunning warrior, won many battles in the Void, wise in his training and helped his son when he needed him... ((Of course what my fan fiction is a tad bit about... )). I don't think he has fulminate in his abilities, but he had some Force prediction abilities - that just was clairvoyance. To me, he was smart and wise enough to not speak of those things to his surrounding, because he knew of the ostracism he would face depending on the full description of the creches and crechelings...

Other than that...He was one of the few who we not outright killed because they expressed some powers in the Force.

The reason why I say it was not uprooted from the Yuuzhan Vong is when they landed on Zonama Sekot, some immediately felt the connection. Harrar was one of them. It was like an epiphany, a heavy burden had been lifted--he was born again... Same for several others... It is thought that Nas Choka was one of them. So, I don't know...I need to read more, problem is, I read too much into it with sticky notes, etc.

Iurus wrote:

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I think it's more that those who shared the ability to touch the Force became Shamed (like Onimi) and therefore were removed from the gene pool.

But it had to be something for obvious...overt mutation, inability to be shaped/shaping gone bad. Obviously, Force Users could be shaped.  Many withstood the Embrace the Pain and while it could flip Jedi and make them Sith somehow, it did not transfigure their ability to have the Force unless there was the shaping or that they were born with a genetic suppression. Another name to call it is the "Thrifty Gene Hypothesis"...You don't need it until necessary and causes genetic problems more than one needs. Such as sickle cell anemia, hypertension and diabetes...There is an evolutionary, environmental reason to have these genes exist at the time.

For Sickle Cells - beta cell Thalassemia is for the malaria
For Hypertension - holding large quantities of water due to drought
For Diabetes & obesity - energy use during famine

The environment tightly controls our genetic and moreso our epigenetic responses to these change. If we don't adapt we die and go extinct... Simple really...

I just think that across caste there were off shoots of  Force sensitivity in some of the individuals that prevented their reproduction, in an evolutionary process called "population bottleneck" which increased the genetic drift of the Force power alleles (genes).

Iurus wrote:

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What I mean is, rather than some sort of ostracization simply for using the Force, their genes were edited or devolved in such a way that midichlorians being used would cause a reaction that led to physical deformities and hence, shaming.

I have to concede that is is possible. Because there are several scientific research articles on that concept: Hair and skin, Musculoskeletal Disease & Fat, and Childhood Deformities.

So, let's just say that the Yuuzhan Vong midichlorian complex levels in their mitochondria were severely mutated to cause Force stripping--a good pathological definition... I am saying overtime, it is a "use it or lose it " kind of thing--since the midichlorian complex levels were mutated, they were not used or selected for due to the loss of Yuuzhan'tar. OVER TIME the levels got lower and lower over successive generations. Those that had midichlorian complex levels commensurate to that of the weakest padawan Jedi levels does not mean the Yuuzhan Vong's were functional or functioned fully--that is called "necessary and/or sufficient" in molecular biology.

So that would mean to me that Yuuzhan Vong who had elevated midichlorian complex levels, mutated or not, could become deformed in a way that got them ostracized and eventually shame, and it is possible that elevated midichlorian complex levels are variegated and/or chimeric from one cell to another, due to the aforementioned selection pressure.

When we say elevated midichlorian complex levels in a Yuuzhan Vong, we mean the weakest padawan level Jedi, if that... Definitely not Sith levels--who I suspect have high unstable levels.