u/Charming-Ad5881

I’m developing a short story taking place in the future after germline gene editing has been legalized in order to completely eliminate monogenic disorders. But, some crazed sports-parents have used this to basically make super athletes. The story follows the news coverage on the Supreme Court’s ruling on physical enhanced individual’s participation in professional athletics.

What do you think are the upper limits of what this type of gene editing could accomplish? Could germline editing enhance endurance significantly by altering an individuals lung capacity? Can it thicken the viscosity of your cerebrospinal fluid so that it’d be significantly harder to knock them unconscious? What would be the effects of these changes if possible.

I think a large majority of the fandom seems to place more importance on succession laws than the story itself does. People have codified the inheritance laws of Westeros in this very neat and tight box that makes perfect sense and can be applied the same way for any case. Meanwhile, that is not the case whatsoever. That’s like the point of every major war in Westerosi history.

GRRM said, “Well, the short answer is that the laws of inheritance in the Seven Kingdoms are modelled on those in real medieval history... which is to say, they were vague, uncodified, subject to varying interpertations, and often contradictory.” I bring this up to bring more nuance to the conversation of Jon’s legitimacy. My take on it is this: It doesn’t matter. Whether Rhaegar got his marriage with Elia annulled and married Rhaegar in secret (I think this is very unlikely and just unrealistic) or not, I think if Jon is discovered to be the son of Rhaegar he will have a claim to the throne even if everybody knows for 100% certainty that he is a bastard.

Can his claim be challenged? 100%. Is it non existent? No. I feel like people think it’s as black and white as if he’s legitimate he’s king if he’s a bastard then he’s not. If that was the case then Catelyn’s concerns about Jon threatening the inheritance of her children would be completely irrational and characterize Cat as unhealthily paranoid. I mean hell, if anything were to happen to Tommen before fAegon and Dany came to Westeros I’m sure the stormlands would press Edric Storm’s claim against Myrcella’s (hypothetically speaking ofc because Edric isn’t even in Westeros but just using the scenario of a bastard against a “trueborn”).

Now all of this being said, I don’t think Jon will take the throne or even want it. Nothing about his character or his story would make me think that’d even be on his radar even if he discovered his heritage. This is more so to put in my two cents about the conversations that are had about his inheritance to the iron throne.

I wanted to do my own take on realistic versions of mythical creatures and I thought of a concept for the werewolf that isn’t actually a shapeshifter but more like a wolf-like species that evolved to mimicry human appearance and behavior. How do you think their body plan would work?

I was thinking of something similar to “Man’s Mockery” by Zilla Net (idk how to hyperlink) but I want it to be more wolf like than dinosaur like. And I’d still want them to realistically be mistaken for either a person or a wolf from maybe a far enough distance, depending on whether they’re standing on their hind legs or not. Any advice or suggestions that could improve my concept?

A tiefling is the product of a human with demonic blood in their ancestry (be it from an actual demonic ancestor or a deal with a demon made in their bloodline or consumption of demon blood) or another tiefling. But if two humans can produce a tiefling would they still be considered a race/species since they don’t need genetic compatibility to produce one? I feel like it’d be more akin to a condition like Huntington’s disease or Marfan syndrome since those also only need one parent to pass on the trait.

Say hypothetically a ghost box or some other transdimensional transportation device was opened by someone and they accidentally transported you from your native universe of Earth-1218 to Earth-616. It is the current mainline timeline and you can appear in any city you’d like. Although you are still you, no x-gene, no inhuman gene, no alien ancestry, etc…You only have the things on your person, but you can still access your bank account with your card and phone and you have access to the internet of the Earth 616 world. What would you do?

Looking back at the start of the rebellion I find the Mad King’s actions so funny. Arrests Brandon Stark and puts him on trial (reasonable, he threatened the life of the prince), has Rickard Stark burned alive (neither fair nor reasonable at all but he was insane), orders for the head of Ned Stark (he’s related to the two guys who just pissed him off so I guess? But it’s not like he wanted to end the Stark line because he lets Benjen live 😭), then calls for the head of Robert Baratheon?? Completely out of left field. His only crime was being best friends with the guy who’s dad and brother you just killed.

I think it would make sense if it was some sort of deranged test of Jon Arryn’s loyalty as opposed to anything else but it still just kills me how Robert could’ve been executed for literally nothing. Actually, less than nothing because Ned was almost executed for nothing.

Did Vaush ever publish the superhuman story idea he was talked about a couple years ago? Very interesting concept to me I’d like to see where he went with that. He said he’d post it on Wordpress

I’ve been thinking about it and I feel like the targ dynasty never “needed” to come to an end. I know Tywin had resentment towards Aerys and Targaryens in general but if that wasn’t the case, would keeping all the remaining Targaryens alive and in power work? Imagine he took in baby Aegon as his ward and raised him to be king. Let Viserys, Dany, and princess Rhaenys, live with another major house like the Tyrells or Martells. The eldest of them all was Viserys and he was only 7. If they were all raised to believe Rhaegar and Aerys were evil would they ever harbor any ill will towards the houses that killed them? Even Elia could go back to Dorne, we don’t know much about her character but she couldn’t still have had that much love for Rhaegar after what he did. And Tywin could still fulfill his power hungry ambitions by raising the future king, then marrying him to his daughter, and likely being his hand. It would be riskier, with the kids being unpredictable on how they would react to the rebellion once they were old enough to understand but I think it could’ve worked if they were all manipulated.