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Somewhat inspired by the whole "Y Chromosome/Space Marine" bit, i'm kinda curious now as to how GW/BL attempts to explain the methods of how either the Kroot or the Tyranids incorporate genetic information from their lunch meat/dominated captives.

Admittedly i'm not an expert on either one of these two race, just knowledge of the most general outcomes - so i'll turn this over to someone who is with a simple question..

How do they accomplish the incorporation?

First off they are xeno races whose DNA( if they have such a thing) does not work like that of a human. Those are tow examples of the most aline of 40k races.

secondly, by a lot of hand waving and making things up

To use logic to figure out how 40k works will drive one insane.

Hunterindarkness wrote:

secondly, by a lot of hand waving and making things up

Well yeah i know its "A Wizard Did it" type of explanation - but i'm curious as to see how far they decide to push the limits of their fiction.

Well a Wizard did it of coarse. Some creatures really do have the ability to extract DNA, but they tend to be microscopic.

My theory is that kroot and tyranids have these creatures living in them. Inside of a gland. They collect DNA bits and assuming the new bits don't kill them, they start to produce the compounds on the DNA and then release that compound into the body to cause a change.

Index Xenos: The Kroot
By Graham McNeill
(...)
However the strangest quirk of Kroot digestion is their ability to extract potentially useful strands of their food's DNA. Adeptus Mechanicus Genetors have long been aware that much of the double helix structure of DNA is in fact blank. Used to separate those areas that do contain genetic information. The Kroot have somehow inherited the ability to incorporate useful DNA codes into their own genetic make up. Larger Kroot, called Shapers, who have an instinctive understanding of this process, can direct their kindred to consume certain prey in order that in successive generations, they may take on elements of those genes.

More information in the OOP book Xenology (take everything in it with salt), where they describe a second brain around the stomach to organize this genetic process.

Kroothawk wrote:Index Xenos: The Kroot
By Graham McNeill
(...)
However the strangest quirk of Kroot digestion is their ability to extract potentially useful strands of their food's DNA. Adeptus Mechanicus Genetors have long been aware that much of the double helix structure of DNA is in fact blank. Used to separate those areas that do contain genetic information. The Kroot have somehow inherited the ability to incorporate useful DNA codes into their own genetic make up. Larger Kroot, called Shapers, who have an instinctive understanding of this process, can direct their kindred to consume certain prey in order that in successive generations, they may take on elements of those genes.

GW's bit there is what used to be thought was the case in real world science. The problem with this little bit is that modern research is increasingly revealing that the so called "junk" DNA bits are not actually junk or blank, but serve some role in modulating those parts that do encode for proteins. Another bit of GW science falls to the march of progress.

Iracundus wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:Index Xenos: The Kroot
By Graham McNeill
(...)
However the strangest quirk of Kroot digestion is their ability to extract potentially useful strands of their food's DNA. Adeptus Mechanicus Genetors have long been aware that much of the double helix structure of DNA is in fact blank. Used to separate those areas that do contain genetic information. The Kroot have somehow inherited the ability to incorporate useful DNA codes into their own genetic make up. Larger Kroot, called Shapers, who have an instinctive understanding of this process, can direct their kindred to consume certain prey in order that in successive generations, they may take on elements of those genes.

GW's bit there is what used to be thought was the case in real world science. The problem with this little bit is that modern research is increasingly revealing that the so called "junk" DNA bits are not actually junk or blank, but serve some role in modulating those parts that do encode for proteins. Another bit of GW science falls to the march of progress.

The guys who write this stuff are gamers and writers, and very few of them have the education necessary to understand and extrapolate the science when they are writing. It's a game, and the fluff serves the rules, with only passing relation to reality.

Iracundus wrote:GW's bit there is what used to be thought was the case in real world science. The problem with this little bit is that modern research is increasingly revealing that the so called "junk" DNA bits are not actually junk or blank, but serve some role in modulating those parts that do encode for proteins. Another bit of GW science falls to the march of progress.

While not every GW science has to make sense (today), in this case your critique doesn't apply. Kroot are said to have extra blank space in their DNA reserved for new genes, in addition to the necessary parts you mention.

I don't think you are getting the reference:

As I hope you have learned, sister, the bulk of normal DNA contains no data but merely serves to divide the data that does exist. The Kroots' mutation turned this space into a blank slate for retention of new genetic data.
p. 10, 1st Tau Codex

Written by a Tau Earth Caste member, the phrasing of that sentence clearly means Tau DNA is also like that, in the sense of having "junk" in between coding sequences, and that the Kroot have mutated to use this space to absorb new stuff.
Aside from the 1st implausibility of 2 separately evolving species to settle on the exact same method of storing genetic information and also having large sequences of non-coding sequences, the description in that passage reads like a 1980's understanding of "junk DNA". It sounds like someone read a popular article on DNA and ran with it from there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noncoding_DNA

Now leeway can be granted to some extent considering the publication of the Tau Codex was in 2001, but it is just interesting that in this particular attempt to appear current with real science, GW has managed to get itself into a position where advancing science has contradicted and obsoleted the original position. That is the amusing bit. If GW had been a bit less specific about the details, that particular aspect might have aged better.

Of all the various fields, GW manages to at least techno-babble to at least a somewhat plausible science fiction extent on most....except biology. The Tyranids are no exception to this rule, and the only Tyranid Codex with more plausible and accurate sounding babble was the one that Sherman Bishop (an outside player/writer/Tyranid fan) participated in writing. BL is no exception either and the writing in Xenology is rife with simple basic errors of terminology and the like that one would expect a Tech Priest in the biological sciences to at least get right. I understand the majority of the GW and BL staff are not biology trained, but if they could get Sherman Bishop to help out for the Tyranid Codex, surely it should be possible to find some other biology trained fan/player to edit the techno-babble bits in other works.

Iracundus wrote:
Of all the various fields, GW manages to at least techno-babble to at least a somewhat plausible science fiction extent on most....except biology.

Well it shouldn't come as a giant surprise that inaccuracies exist (heck that was kind of the point of the thread - to see where basic science stopped and "A Wizard Did it" began).

To be absolutely honest - one can page through all the major scifi franchises and find that only a few (ex. often cited to me - Star Trek) bothers to fact check against what is currently out there (and in the case of Star Trek, apparently hiring PhDs to write scripts/vet techno-babble is not unheard of). Sometimes its extensive and other times its as simple as "How do we get around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? Heisenberg Compensaters! How do those work..? *cough* moving along.."



Although as Iracundus pointed out, Biology really does seem to be GW's weak point.

Xenobiology is RL Earth Sciences' weak point, since we have no aliens to study and simply assume that intelligent alien life will be oxygen-breathing, carbon-based lifeforms. So... Kroot and Tau DNA has blank spots. This has nothing at all to do with Human DNA.

Sometimes its extensive and other times its as simple as "How do we get around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? Heisenberg Compensaters! How do those work..? *cough* moving along..

A little off topic but the correct answer is: 'It works very well, thank you.' Someone asked it at a convention Q&A session and that was the answer that the tech guy gave to the audience member, from memory.
If you look at most science fiction as soon as it gets into specifics it dates rather badly, taking into account Star Trek alone with respect to the official timeline we should have already had the Eugenics Wars and sent a whole load of prisioners into space.

Buffytrek wrote:

Sometimes its extensive and other times its as simple as "How do we get around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? Heisenberg Compensaters! How do those work..? *cough* moving along..

A little off topic but the correct answer is: 'It works very well, thank you.' Someone asked it at a convention Q&A session and that was the answer that the tech guy gave to the audience member, from memory.
If you look at most science fiction as soon as it gets into specifics it dates rather badly, taking into account Star Trek alone with respect to the official timeline we should have already had the Eugenics Wars and sent a whole load of prisioners into space.

Now that is a great anecdote!

And you are very correct about scifi's "aging" if you will. The father of Cyberpunk fiction, William Gibson, made similar remarks regarding why it was much easier about writing "near future" situations than writing about _the_ future.