One of my readers ended up scratching his head over werewolf dominance in my Alpha Underground series. And while I don’t want to add an infodump within the book (since, let’s face it, 95% of readers don’t care why Hunter is so dominant as long as he is), I figured I’d share my answer here for anyone who wants to delve in deeper.
The astute reader of Shiftless will recall that werewolfism itself is a dominant, X-linked trait. That’s part of why halfies give the patriarchal culture shivers — a male child of a female halfie has a 50/50 chance of being a normal werewolf…or of being entirely human. Not a good deal if, like Chief Wilder, you were hoping your wife would spit out a male heir who could carry on the family name.
While halfies are relatively easy to understand if you’re fond of punnet squares, the factors that decide a werewolf’s alpha stature aren’t quite so simple. There’s an element of genetics to it, but also a bit of epigenetics and some plain old environmental effects (aka nurture instead of nature). Bloodlings are more likely to be alphas because they spent their childhood in lupine form, and alpha shifters do tend to be more connected to their wolves. Males are more likely to be alphas because testosterone works into the equation, and so does being raised to be bold rather than submissive.
That said, there’s also an element of chance in the equation. You know how some families have a blond mother, father, sister, and brother…then one last kid who’s raven-locked? No, he’s not necessarily the milk man’s son. Genes are complicated things, and sometimes strange combinations or mutations pop up and create the unexpected.
So while my reader thought that the 75%-human heritage of someone like Hunter should water down the bloodling half of his nature and create a more mild form of alpha dominance, you can probably gather by now that the uber-alpha in question is 100% shifter genetically (having inherited the dominant werewolfism gene from his halfie mother — see punnet square above).
But he’s not a plain old werewolf, even by bloodling standards. Instead, hybrid vigor is also coming into play. (If you don’t remember that term from Bio 101, I’ll wait while you look it up.) For an example within my Wolf Rampant world, do you remember that oddly powerful halfie from Feint of Heart (one of the episodes in the Bloodling Serial)? She got dealt some lucky cards in the way her human and werewolf genes aligned, so she ended up more powerful than both parents combined. Not necessarily more dominant…but as Hunter shows, that can happen as well.
And then there’s the semi-magical element that I don’t want to ruin if you haven’t read Alpha Ascendant. Plus the fact that alpha dominance is something you can nurture just like you can rewire your brain with cognitive-behavioral therapy (more relevant to Fen’s own adventures).
But I probably already lost most of you at epigenetics, so I won’t ramble on further. Still, if you were grumping at your kindle and trying to understand why Hunter is an uber-alpha instead of a milksop, perhaps this post will make the complications of werewolf dominance a little more palatable. Thanks for reading!
(Yes, I was a very geeky biology major in college. Why do you ask?)
If it is an enzyme/hormone that triggers the change, then:
*drinking WW blood (meat??) might trigger a change.
*in some cases it slips the placental barrier and get to the kid–bloodling.
That’s such a great explanation for bloodlings! I’m totally going to steal it. 🙂
It might also explain why shifting might not produce a human shaped child.
Why would it?
OK, magic, but that too has rules.
So in your early books about bloodlings I wondered if the whole pack shifted around the birthing mom, would that force-shift the kid.
I still do wonder a bit.
You need more then one set of squares.
WW to WW produces WW
WXhx to xy (half werewolf fem human male) produces
Xw Xh
HX FEN HfEM
HY WWMALE HMALE
HALF WW TO HALF WW: wont happen, males are all or nothing.
Full Female ww to full male human:
XW XW
HX FullFm Fen
HY male WW Male WW
similar to that for Male WW vs Female human.
Where Fen means halfling.
human (1/2) half wolf (1/2) full wolf (1/4) if the ofspring is fem, and if male:
Yeah, I’ve got all of those squares written out in a notebook for other worldbuilding points. But I figured just pointing out Hunter’s heritage was plenty for the non-geeky layman. 🙂
What happened to my first comment?
Sorry about that. The blog is set to send all comments to moderation to keep the spam out. So new comments won’t show up until I notice and let them through.
Ok reinstating some of that first comment:
punnet squares (not chi squares that is statistics) have the dominate gene the one that produces an enzyme or hormone.
So the WW gene does such.
So that enzyme is likely in the blood, maybe in the milk and/or urine of a were.
Meaning with much research it can be extracted, giving some normal a night of running as wolf.
That’s embarrassing. You’re totally right about punnet vs. chi squares. I guess that genetics class was longer ago than I thought. 🙂
And intriguing world-building addition. I like the idea of temporary werewolves….
In more of your direction,
if the WW enzyme is used up, then some will have the ability to regenerate it faster.
If a woman shifts in her pregnant state, she will have a better chance of having a bloodling baby as the placenta could shift.
Alternately the Bloodling gene is another female linage gene.
Although you haven’t gotten into details regarding such… coupling betwixt weres in human form as opposed to wolf form could, maybe, have a supernatural element not to be slighted during conception… which could also be part of bloodling genetic formation?
OK, honors biology and what little I did in college was something like 30yrs ago, but I still remember counting fruit flies!! So, since weres are supernatural, not all ‘natural’ explanations could… explain. Right?
If a WW needs extra boost, and the enzyme is found, that could help.
If the pack wants to have a predictable first shift for someone, or a boosted one, injecting the enzyme could help.
Feel free to use all this. I have been a science nut since about 1963 (3rd grade)
As the use of contraceptives has put human female hormones into the environment, creating feminized critters, there might be some really odd things downstream of a leaky WW cesspool.
Just thinking.
Blood types.
Canines have their own set, humans have their own set. You characterized WW blood as muddled, mixed, no recognized type.
This means that a transfusion at a hospital could kill.
But a responsible hospital will test before transfusion. So, maybe safe. Just leave the blood tech wondering why none of the 4 types would match.