by
Warning: PG-13. Contains depictions of violence.
Who Goes There
At the war college in Noblain, Jean learned about the formalities of this international endeavor called War. From a technical standpoint, fighting commenced with formal ultimatums and then a Declaration of War, and concluded with formal declarations, armistice, truces and treaties based on agreed-upon protocols. War is supposed to be over when the Instrument of Surrender has been signed by the parties involved.
But then that only covered the technical aspect of the war. As for the psychological aspect, it’s actually never over, Jean learned from personal experience. For those who fought in the battlefield, the war may have ended, but the nightmares have just begun.
Even after the signing of the surrender document by Marley, Paradian Royal Marines Colonel Mikasa Ackermann-Kirschtein couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, because inside her head the war replayed itself, again and again, night after night.
It was hell on earth.
Six months ago, during the war with Marley
Mikasa made her way through the broken bodies, blood misted everywhere, limbs and equipment scattered throughout the forest floor. Fourth Platoon had been blown up, just like that. It wasn’t just the troops. Everyone had been blown to pieces: the platoon sergeant, the lieutenant, the forward observer, the communications operator, even the medic.
How could this have happened? The platoon had been eating supper around a campfire. Somehow they got bombed, but not by grenades thrown from outside the camp perimeter. Mikasa surveyed the mayhem and it was clear: the bombs had been sitting among them, right in the middle of the assembled group.
“What have we lost?” Mikasa asked her aide-de-camp, Layla Graf.
“Thirty-nine men are dead,” Graf said. “Eleven are wounded, seven critical.”
Three battalions of the Royal Marines were up on the northern mountains overlooking the ice burst stone mines. On the valley down below, surrounding the mines, were the Royal Army soldiers, providing anti-aircraft defence in the field using motorised two-gun sections. Behind the mountain range was the rough northern sea dotted by two battle groups of the Royal Navy, with the Navy-operated anti-aircraft guns dotting the coast on a series of towers. Up in the sky the Air Force was engaged in primitive anti-aircraft warfare and aerial reconnaissance.
The booming sound of artillery being fired continued throughout the day. The Paradian military’s mission: secure the natural gas mines.
Mikasa and her troops were tired, having spent two weeks engaging the enemy to secure the beachhead on the northern side of the island. They managed to force the Marleyan army to retreat. In desperation the enemy unleashed upon them their secret weapon: a weapon so horrific it drained the blood from the faces of even the most war-hardened Marine.
Today, Mikasa surveyed the damage. The Marines fought to the very best of their abilities, but it seems the nightmare was just beginning. Somehow, despite successfully preventing a bombing raid over the mines, an enemy aircraft was able to land soldiers that were now suicide-bombing Paradian troops scattered across the mountain range.
Mikasa glanced at Captain Stella Kraft. She was shaking with anger. The decimated Fourth Platoon’s lieutenant had been Kraft’s classmate and good friend at the academy.
“Are the ones responsible for this who I think they are, ma’am?” she asked Mikasa, each word spoken softly and deliberately, to hide the horror she was feeling.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. Child soldiers set up as suicide bombers,” Mikasa replied, putting on her steely facade. But her heart was sinking: it was her worst fear. Typical of Marley to use child soldiers. She’d seen them before: Gabi, Falco…They’d only been around ten years old at the time. But even Gabi & Co had it better, in a sad way. The children Marley sent to fight their battles in this war, they were doomed in the most terrifying manner.
“How could Fourth Platoon have such a child in their midst?” Kraft asked.
—— AD - CONTINUE READING BELOW ——
“Our Marines are like most other people, Captain. A child lost in the woods, asking for food…Anyone will let their guard down.”
“They’re not ordinary children, obviously.”
“No, they’re brainwashed and wired to the teeth. I doubt they know what they’re doing.”
“Survivors observed that the four children involved, aged anywhere between seven to ten, were in a semi-catatonic state,” Graf remarked. “But they chalked it up to the children being lost and hungry.”
“Have the Army been thorough in their evacuation of the villagers?” Mikasa asked.
“Of the eighteen villages in this area, all the children have been accounted for.”
“Meaning any child wandering the forest is a suicide bomber from Marley,” Kraft concluded. Turning to Mikasa, she asked, “Shall I order a shoot-on-sight regarding children wandering the forest?”
Mikasa looked at her officer. “No,” she shook her head, holding her gaze for a moment. “I hope you never reach that point.”
“But if they are found, we can’t take them as prisoners. They’ll simply detonate themselves,” Kraft argued. “An enemy is an enemy, regardless of age.”
“I know that,” Mikasa said. She looked at the captain. Only nineteen years old but already prepared to kill anyone when ordered to do so, was the brave face she was trying to put on. But Mikasa could clearly see the terror in the young woman’s eyes.
“No shooting children. Let’s wait for the report from the investigating team before deciding what to do,” the colonel decided.
Bad news from across the mountain range came in hard and fast. The child suicide bombers were racking up casualties. Major Nadine Huber radioed that six other platoons have been bombed. The casualties were piling up: two hundred and eleven dead so far. They had to find the bombers quickly.
The Army and Marines’ bomb disposal units, plus the forensics team from the Military Police were currently investigating three of the crime scenes.
While they waited for the results, Mikasa’s team was tasked with finding the culprits. Spreading out the maps of the mountainous terrain, she gathered her battalion’s commanding officers and ordered them to set up their squads in certain locations.
“I want a pincer formation here, here and here,” she said, pointing at the map. “All Alpha sections move from in a downward sweep, Bravo sections going upward like this. On each of the nine trails here, bound up by squad. Put up a four-man walking point per squad, that will clear the terrain ahead of the main group. Trip any ambushes. When a child is spotted, put up a signal. Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage. Next group sees flare and creates a diversion here on this spot, away from the forward squad. Our goal is to find them. Once we locate them, surround them with a wide berth. Leave the rest to me.”
“Is there a chance the children might be scattered in small groups?” Kraft asked.
—— AD - CONTINUE READING BELOW ——
“During the day, perhaps, but since nightfall is nearing they are most likely to congregate,” Mikasa surmised.
She stood from her vantage point and waited for the formation to do as planned. Her own team was edgy. The anticipation felt worse than whatever was waiting for them in the darkness of the forest. She felt the restlessness of her team as each of them tried to quietly cope in their own miserable way.
“Initial investigative report is here, ma’am,” Layla Graf, Mikasa’s aide, said as she held a lengthy piece of paper filled with dots and dashes. It was their military version of the Morse Code, as radiotelegraphy was the most common means of communication at that time. Graf quickly read out the report.
“Something terrible was found out by the forensics team. A significant portion of the bomb wiring was found embedded in each child’s cardiovascular system, making it near impossible to remove the explosives without blowing up and killing the child, plus whoever’s in his or her vicinity,” said Graf.
“It seems we can’t force the children to surrender and then attempt to remove the bombs from them,” Mikasa remarked sadly. There goes her idea of finding a way of putting the children to sleep and then getting the bomb disposal unit to safely purge the explosives from the children’s bodies.
“The sergeant from Sixth Platoon tried to do that, it says here,” Graf said as her eyes scanned the report.
“Was it Kurt Winkler?” Mikasa asked, already knowing the answer, not wanting to hear it.
“Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid so.”
Her heart sank. She knew Winkler. He was a good man, reminding her of her old commanding officer, Ian Dietrich, the man who gave up his life so that Eren Jaeger could plug up the hole in Wall Rose during the Battle of Trost.
Sergeant Kurt Winkler was a soldier formerly with the Scouting Regiment, back in the days when Erwin Smith was still commander. He came from the same class as Petra Rahl, and joined the Scouts along with Oluo Bozado. But he left them to join the Garrison after his daughter was born.
Perhaps it was a good thing he left, because after the Second Battle of Shiganshina, the one where Marlowe Freudenberg died, there was no one left from his class among the Scouts. Yet Winkler was the sort of man who belonged in the battlefield, and despite being a father he knew he was the type to thrive during wartime. His desire to protect his family gave him the impetus to fight. During the titan era a man could choose to hide behind the walls, but now that it was man versus man there was really no place to hide.
Away from his family, he found comfort in pulling the trigger and killing the enemy. But when he encountered a child suicide bomber in the forest, his paternal instinct overcame his instinct for self-preservation.
He looked at the wired-up child. He was going to try to talk her down, to make her surrender. If that was successful, then they could remove the explosives from her body. That would save her life, and the platoon’s.
“What’s your name?” he asked the catatonic little girl.
“Maria,” the child answered. She was a skinny child, with dirty blonde hair and flat, lifeless brown eyes. She spoke Eldian, but had an accent he couldn’t place.
“How old are you, Maria?”
—— AD - CONTINUE READING BELOW ——
“Nine,” was the reply. Shit. She wasn’t much older than his own little one.
“Listen, Maria. You don’t have to blow yourself up. You don’t have to die. You don’t have to obey what your Marleyan superiors commanded you to do. You are safe on this island. My name is Kurt Winkler. I have a daughter like you. I want to help you. Will you let me help you?”
“Okay.”
For three hours Winkler and two experts from the bomb disposal unit worked on her. All the while Winkler talked to her, told her about Paradis, about his daughter back home named Irene. But no luck. They couldn’t unwire and remove the explosives without detonating them.
“I knew it wouldn’t work. Life sucks,” Maria said. With her dead brown eyes she looked up at Winkler. “I’d have liked to be Irene’s friend. Sorry,” she said, before self-detonating by tapping the heel of her foot in a certain pattern.
Sergeant Kurt Winkler and six others were caught in the blast, their bodies turning to pink mist.
The group was silent after Graf finished reading. But Mikasa was the first to speak. This was no time to mourn. The enemy children were killing her troops left and right. She had to do something, and fast.
“Is heel tapping the only way for the children to self-detonate?” Mikasa asked.
“No, ma’am. Eyewitnesses report a whole array of methods: craning the neck quickly, knocking the knees together, bending over backwards…the methods seem to vary.”
“Can’t we just surround them and shoot them one by one in the head?” Kraft asked. They’d been brainstorming what to do when the bombers were found.
“I’m afraid that’ll be too dangerous, Captain,” Graf replied as she scanned the report. “The wiring goes up all the way to the top of the bomber’s head, it seems. Eyewitnesses said that shooting a bomber resulted in an even larger blast radius, the bullet shot quadrupling the effectiveness of the bomb and engulfing the shooter in flames.”
“We drop bombs on them from above, then,” Kraft suggested.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Major Herman Radowitz countered. “I’m from this part of the island and I know the forests are very dry at this time of the year. We mustn’t risk a forest fire that we can’t prevent from spreading. The fire might spread down the valley below. The canals surrounding the mines have very little water this season. Too dangerous.”
“We surround them with tranquilizer darts and shoot at the same time,” was Kraft’s next suggestion. “How we safely dispose of them after sedation is another matter altogether…”
Mikasa shook her head. “I’m afraid that won’t do. Based on the reports there are probably around three dozen of them on this side of the mountain range. For that tactic to work we have to dart each of them in the neck, all at the same time. A tranquilizing dart can fly a maximum of twenty to twenty-three yards. If at least six of them become aware of the darting and manage to self-detonate, the magnitude of the blast will reach the darters. We’ve seen each bomber’s astonishing blast radius, Captain.”
“Another risk with a tranquilizer dart is that when it hits the target, it needs to stick to it for at least thirty seconds before making any impact,” noted Sergeant Ingrid Klein. Before joining the Marines, she was a veteran hunter from the village of Daupa, the same one Sasha Braus came from. “If within those first few seconds they still manage to self-detonate, then the darters might be caught in the blast.”
—— AD - CONTINUE READING BELOW ——
Captain Stella Kraft’s voice was filled with anger and frustration. “What do we do then?”
“First we locate them, then wait for the cover of nightfall. Leave the rest to me,” Mikasa replied calmly. But her mind was reeling, thinking fast.
Fourteen of the child bombers took out two hundred and eleven of her commandos. There were likely three dozen more bombers still roaming the forest looking for troops to blast to oblivion. She feared they had enough explosives on them to take out half of what’s left of her brigade. There was only one thing left to do.
With the rest of the battalion given orders on what to do, the colonel stood at her vantage point and surveyed the forest, waiting for the signals to come.
Captain Kraft stood next to her, sighing heavily, then said in a defeated voice, “I can’t believe Marley’s much-ballyhooed secret weapon turns out to be child suicide bombers, literally walking, ticking time bomb kids.”
“I’d rather fight titans,” Mikasa remarked. “Marley has gone to the dogs since General Theo Magat was assassinated.”
“I’ve read they used to drop titanized Eldians over enemy territory. Now that Eldians can no longer titanize, they do this. Victims aren’t even old enough to enter the military academy!”
“During the titan era, the child soldiers Gabi Braun and Falco Grice from Marley told me they started training at the age of five. But they were training to be elite weapons of war. These poor children we have here, seems to me they were just picked off the streets, brainwashed, wired and then sent off to war,” Mikasa said.
“Human beings are capable of great depravity and utter evil, is what I learned from this war,” remarked Kraft, noting how her boss’ voice was filled with pain.
The colonel simply nodded as her eyes continued to scan the forest.
“What will you do when we find them, ma’am?” the captain wanted to know. She saw Mikasa give an order to her aide-de-camp Graf, who went inside the colonel’s tent. The shadows from within gave her an idea of what their leader was planning. It made her uneasy.
“I’ll do what I have to do,” was Mikasa’s vague reply. The expression on her face was stoic, unflinching, the dark eyes made even darker with a cold, calculating, far away look to them.
Captain Kraft glanced furtively at her boss and shuddered.
Thank you so much for reading! Please consider sharing a thought or two in the comment section below. Your comments give me life and are a real source of encouragement. xoxo, hana
References
Junger, Sebastian. (2011). War (Reprint ed.). New York, NY: Twelve.
Carcaterra, Lorenzo. (2003). Street Boys: A Novel. London: Fawcett Publishing.
Next – Chapter 12: What Had to Be Done
Back – Chapter 10: The Sacrifice
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Humans are indeed terrible beings! That is why I’m a biologist, so I can spend my whole day worrying about RNA transcription, splicing and other molecular processes hehe. Though I have a weak spot for our species, pains me to see how lost we are and how little we care about others.
Poor Mikasa, having to deal with this impossible situation.
A molecular biologist! That’s fantastic. What a cool job you’ve got! Last year I read Margaret Atwood’s sci-fi trilogy (the MaddAddam series) and one of the characters there was a molecular biologist + genetic scientist who went totally berserk 😀 It was so cool, I loved the story so much and wish to incorporate elements of it in my writings (in the future).
Do you remember the boy Philip whom I introduced in Chapter 1 of this story? I named him after my favorite science fiction writer, Philip K Dick. I absolutely adore his works, especially the ones dealing with biology and genetic manipulation. My favorite films are also either adapted from his works or inspired by them.
Now that I’ve an idea of what you do, there are a million questions in my head! I’m stoked XD Is it okay to ask your opinion about genes? If you’re busy at work then please just ignore me!
Okay, first question:
Do you think the jeankasa baby (seen in manga Ch127) will be as strong as Mikasa?
In my story I made up the following narrative about the Ackermanns:
Breeder Ackermann (Grp A) = weak + fertile
Awakened Ackermann (Grp B) = strong + infertile
Mikasa belongs to B, so we see her suffering in this story. But in Part VI I want to use ‘magic’ to make her have a baby. If the baby inherits the strong gene, will she only be half as strong as her mother when she awakens, because she’ll only be ¼ Ackermann, ½ Eldian and ¼ Hizuruan?
Levi = Ackermann mother + Eldian father
Mikasa = Ackermann father + Hizuruan mother
We know that Ackermanns are a tribe within the Eldian race (like a subset of Eldians). I want the jeankasa baby to have both the strong gene (from B) and the fertile gene (from A). I want to limit the combination here so that the fertile gene will only produce one child who can awaken. This is because of Kenny Ackermann’s case:
Older child – Kenny (Grp B)
Younger child – Levi’s mum (Grp A)
Originally, anyone in Grp B shouldn’t have the fertile gene, but I use magic to make Mikasa have it (the magic comes from Eren’s daughter, Princess Ymir, who inherits some part of Founder Ymir’s powers. Founder Ymri was able to touch the source of all organic matter, so I’m giving Princess Ymir the ability to make genes mutate).
In other words, if the jeankasa baby inherits the strong gene from Grp B, but also the fertile gene from Grp A, do you think she should only be half as strong as Mikasa and able to have only one child who will be part of Grp A?
I’m sorry if I’m not making any sense! I have other questions as well, but I see this one has gotten so long already XD Sorry!
First, I have to say what an interesting person you must be! The range of topics in which you showed to have knowledge is enormous. Wish I could be that much skilled.
Yes! I do remember Philip, and if I can guest, he can be either the result of the adventures of a younger Jean, or he can be that other kid (Jürgen?) whit a changed name (though I haven’t had the opportunity to finish Bladesmiths and Librarians, so I may be wrong).
Feel free to ask whatever! Science must be shared everywhere!
If I correctly understood one can only be weak and fertile, or strong and infertile, and we are to assume that each trait (weak/strong; fertile/infertile) is the outcome of expression of a single gene. What you described is called genetic linkage, but I think that you already knew it.
If Princess Ymir can somehow alter the genetic sequence of a given gene, it is totally plausible that Mikasa’s kid can be strong and fertile, once the child inherited from it´s mother the traits for strongness and fertility. That requires both somatic and gametic cells form Mikasa to be changed, since she needs to express herself the trait and also be able to transmit it to her offspring.
Now comes the catch: did the Ackermanns acquire new genes (for these traits) or do they have different variations in regular genes (exclusive Ackermann alleles)? Because depending on the answer, things can be a little confusing.
For instance: Mikasa received the exact genetic sequence of her father (if we let recombination aside), the only Ackermann parent. So, both of them should express the same phenotype (traits, for example, strongness) because they share the same genotype (genetic sequence), unless they have the same genotype, but her father had the gene for strongness repressed which would account for their different phenotype. Much alike, Kenny and his sister received the same genetic sequence from their Ackermann parent.
I imagined that the awakening it’s a triggering event that repress the gene for fertility but at the same time, promotes the gene for strongness which would explain why they can’t be both. This would allow all Ackermann to be able to have a child as long as they don’t awake. Whit Ymir intervention, the Ackermanns would remain fertile even after the awakening.
Moreover, if they all share the same genetic sequence, Mikasa’s child would probably be as strong as she is once gone through the awakening process. Does this make sense to you?
Question: why they can only have one child with the possibility of awakening? Unless this is a matter purely of storytelling. Rewarding genetics, there is no such impediment (except in the case that the older child expresses a pheromone that will act upon the rest of the offspring, but this is another wild thing hehehe). I think I understand what you are trying to do (and I love it!).
I don’t know if I made myself (somewhat) clear, but I loved to hypothesize over it. What do you think? It seemed that you imagined a different array for this situation, right? For the purpose of narrative, you can set the rules that you consider the most fitting for your story, but if you really want to use genetics knowledge properly, some doubts must be clarified. For example: How Kenny´s mon give birth to two Ackermann with so different setting of traits? Does the Eldian genes play roles in this too, for instance, in case of recessiveness?
Let me know what you think. I´m currently on vacation and I have free time. I´ll be pleased to help if I can.
OMG Thais, thank you! Thank you so, so much for this! In Part VI of the novela (“The Protegee”) I’ve been wanting to add a chapter when, after Mikasa gets miraculously pregnant, Hange & team + Levi are incredibly shocked and astounded and they discuss in genetic terms how it could have happened. You’ve just given me enough material to write up a whole chapter!? Thank you from the bottom of my heart! Of course I’ll acknowledge your contributions and add a link to your preferred page if you like ❤ xoxo
I’m currently queuing at the supermarket and reading this with my iPhone. When I get back home I’ll write a proper reply (with additional questions!) on my computer. Ah, so excited!?
I’m back!?
This part is actually quite important and necessary to the story, and I need your advice in making up a scientific-sounding reason for it 😀
My narrative is that, when the royal family had the Ackermanns genetically manipulated, apart from the infertility factor they also added a limiting factor of some kind that almost guaranteed only one awakened child per family. This is necessary so that the Ackermanns cannot form an army against the royal family.
Let’s say a Breeder Ackermann breeds 10 children, five of whom awaken. If one Awakened Ackermann has the strength of a full squadron, then in a few generations they can form an entire army of supersoldiers. This may sound good on the surface, but the Ackermanns have free will. They are not slaves to the royal family. If they decide to make the royals their enemy, then an army of them can exterminate the royals easily. To prevent the awakened Ackermanns from becoming too numerous and thus impossible to control, there is the ‘limiting allele’ or something like that.
Can there be some plausible genetic explanation for this? Or do I have to rely on magic? XD
Which brings me to my next question:
(2) Can I make Princess Ymir’s ability to alter genetic sequence be limited to female Ackermanns only?
This is related to the above in that I need to put a limit on Princess Ymir’s power. If she can alter everyone, then that would put her on par with Founder Ymir. Princess Ymir does not have the full powers of her ancestor, but only remnants of it. This is because she’s the eldest child of a titan shifter father and a royal mother. But she isn’t a titan shifter herself, thus her power should be limited. Also, Eren Jaeger removed the power of Eldians to titanize, so there’s only ‘leftover’ power in the world at present.
I think I understand the rule in genetic linkage that says the nearer two genes are on a chromosome, then the chances of recombination is lower. That’s why we have the Weak+Fertile and Strong+Infertile as the common combinations. Princess Ymir breaks this linkage and creates a Strong+Fertile recombination for Mikasa.
For the current Strong+Infertile Mikasa, her infertility occurs because when the awakening happened, it created an environment in her body where the dominance of the Strong allele causes an error during meiosis resulting to miscarriage. Her miscarriage comes in the form of light bleeding, like a regular menstrual period.
Princess Ymir ‘fixes’ this error during the meiosis phase, and creates a recombination. The caveat here is that she can only do this for female Ackermanns. This is because females in general have a higher rate of recombination. Princess Ymir can only alter meiosis during oogenesis.
Can this be an acceptable explanation? Or did I misunderstand the whole genetic thingy?
I need this kind of limit to Princess Ymir’s power because one of the topics I want to tackle in Part VI of the novela is the ethical and moral conundrum of creating supersoldiers and other genetically enhanced humans.
If Princess Ymir can fix both Mikasa and Levi, and the government proposes a supersoldier army program, Mikasa will refuse to participate because she doesn’t want to be a breeding machine.
But Levi is more practical and far, far more expedient that she is. Their technology prevents them from creating test tube babies, but a fertile Levi would be willing to impregnate a harem of women in order to create a supersoldier army.
Levi is willing to do such a thing because the war with Marley has killed too many Eldians and he doesn’t want that to happen again. But if they have such a powerful army, then Paradis will become invincible and can easily achieve world domination. I don’t want that to happen because it’s boring! If there is only one superpower nation in the world then the narrative becomes Big Bad Wolf vs Little Pigs (Great Eldian Empire vs rest of the world) and I want to avoid that kind of storyline. I would rather have Paradis be the underdog.
That’s why I need only one awakened Ackermann per family, and only Mikasa being fixed but not Levi.
Does this make any sense at all? I like the idea of ‘magic’ but ‘pure magic’ is boring. I like magic mixed with science, because it’s more believable 🙂
Any thoughts and advice will be very much appreciated! Thank you so much in advance!
“My narrative is that, when the royal family had the Ackermanns genetically manipulated, apart from the infertility factor they also added a limiting factor of some kind that almost guaranteed only one awakened child per family”.
“Can there be some plausible genetic explanation for this? Or do I have to rely on magic”?
I can´t think of any genetic excuse for just one child among a given n of offspring to be awakened. In nature, even with the lowest possibility for something to happen, let´s say a rare genetic disorder, I can´t assume that only one child will inherit this problem (though I can narrow it down to one gender).
You can argue that the necessary setting to trigger the awakening is unknown, and thus irreproducible. You can say that both genetic and environmental factors are important for this event to happen. So, Levi can impregnate as many women as he can, but nothing will guarantee his children of being awakened, even if they have the exactly genetic sequence of their father.
Besides, you can talk about the morality of triggering kids or adolescents to become super soldiers. It seems to me, one can only awake after a traumatic or extremely stressful situation. Will Mikasa allow that to happen to her daughter or will something awful and not intentional happen to the child?
“Can I make Princess Ymir’s ability to alter genetic sequence be limited to female Ackermanns
only?”
“Can this be an acceptable explanation? Or did I misunderstand the whole genetic thingy?”
What you described makes totally sense, and it was very well planned. It´s interesting how very specific Ymir´s powers are by being capable to alter meiosis in a particular phase of oogenesis (Sorry Levi! hahaha).
I want to point this out: “…or the current Strong+Infertile Mikasa, her infertility occurs because when the awakening happened, it created an environment in her body where the dominance of the Strong allele causes an error during meiosis resulting to miscarriage.”
The strong allele is dominant? Since Mikasa presents this allele, her father must have had the strong allele (but didn’t have the opportunity to awake), so how could he have left offspring? Shouldn’t he be infertile? Or Mikasa´s mon contributed with this?
This is the problem of having alleles for strongness and weakness, and fertility and infertility. To me, makes more sense if you have phenotypes for strongness, weakness, fertility and infertility. Is like a wrote you before: I imagined that the awakening it’s a triggering event that repress the gene for fertility but at the same time, promotes the gene for strongness which would explain why they can’t be both. This would allow all Ackermann to be able to have a child as long as they don’t awake. Whit Ymir intervention, the Ackermanns would remain fertile even after the awakening.
What I thought is: Ackermanns have two new genes, one that will affect in their strength and other responsible for interfering in their capacity for leaving offspring (let’s say for a matter of trade-off they can´t be both). At birth they are all fertile because the gene for strength is repressed. However, some will undergo the awakening process as a result of a traumatic or stressful situation, which in turn promotes the expression of the strongness gene but at the same time leads to the repression of the fertility gene (because of a conformational change in the chromatin). This way you can have the two phenotypes strong+infertile or weak+fertile without having to deal with the combination of different alleles.
Ymir would only have to fix this conformational change in order to be possible for Ackermanns upon awakening remain fertile. The next generations would still need to undergo the process of awakening to be as strong as Mikasa and Levi, though nobody knows how to achieve that, which somewhat reassurances the royal family.
What you thought and how you described this whole situation is amazing! I just tried to write you some suggestions to make things a bit simpler. But, by no means change what you conceived because of what I said if you are satisfied with what you wrote. I believe that in literature we can play a little with scientific concepts, up to a certain point, of course. So far, what you have been sharing with us is very plausible inside the SNK world.
Let me just say that I’m in love not only with your stories, but also with the depth that you give for all the characters! Thank you so much!
Thank you, Thais! One of the reasons I’ve hesitated in writing about jeankasa’s baby is that I’ve no viable explanation that will make it compatible with my theory of the Ackermann Curse. Now that you’ve shown me a plausible way out, I can write about the baby we saw in Chapter 127 without destroying my story. This is wonderful, because I want Part VI (titled “The Protegee”) of the novela to be all about children/youth and the 104th+vets raising them!
I wish I could write more about all the other characters I love, including Reiner, Zeke, Annie etc. So far I’ve written nothing about the Marleyan Eldians when I really find them very interesting and worthy of fanfics. I love playing amateur psychologist and my god, these three so need to go to therapy!
I’m working fulltime so I don’t get to write as much as I want. When I come home from the office my (paltry) brain is tired so I just mindlessly watch TV and write on the weekends. But I hope the anime coming out in the fall will inspire me to write daily and watch less trashy television.
How long is your vacation? I want to know how long I can keep on asking you my stupid questions about genes?
“This way you can have the two phenotypes strong+infertile or weak+fertile without having to deal with the combination of different alleles.”
Thank you so much for clarifying things for me. Because of you my understanding of the Ackermanns (our version of them!) has improved greatly.
Please see if I got it right:
Phenotype (P) = genotype (G) + epigene (GE) + environment (E)
Conclusion: jeankasa baby is fertile but to become strong she needs to be E triggered
Is my diagram correct?
I actually want this to be as simple as possible. If it’s too complex, then it would beg the question: where did the ancient scientists (who experimented on the Ackermanns) get such advanced knowledge and technology? I just want to assume that there was a one-in-a-million genius geneticist hundreds of years who headed the experiments. Even then, it has to be simple enough for a lay person to grasp, otherwise I won’t be able to write about it!
It’s important that Hange is still grappling with classic Medelian inheritance-level of knowledge and early 20th century technology. If they have the ability to do IVF (1970s-level Earth tech) etc already then they can just take the Ackermanns’ egg+sperm and play with them. As it were, they’re still dealing with the limitations of their time. Hange knows about genetic linkage and other exceptions+additions to Mendelian inheritance from her own experiments as well as new discoveries by other scientists, but overall they’re still dealing with incomplete knowledge.
You’re absolutely right here. You just reminded me of what I wrote about the Ackermann Curse at the start. It is precisely the randomness of the awakening that (1) makes the Ackermann experiment a failure because it cannot be reproduced or controlled, and (2) prevents the Ackermanns from over-multiplying and forming an army that might rebel against the royal family.
With this I think we solved the Ackermann mystery! THANKS TO YOU!!!
I want to write a chapter where, when Levi finds out Mikasa is pregnant, he tells Hange, let’s make a supersoldier army, and Hange explains to him in genetic terms why this is rather impossible 😀
One last question:
In your personal opinion, do you think Levi wants a child?
Both Mikasa and Jean have shown in canon they want/expect kids, but I don’t know if Levi does. What do you think? If Levi wants a child then I will remove the limit on Princess Ymir’s power. If he doesn’t want children, then maybe it’s good he’s infertile so he can have lots of sex without consequences.
I want to make everyone happy in my novela ?
Hello again! Yes, your diagram is correct. I’m glad you understood, I was afraid I didn’t explain it properly to you.
“I actually want this to be as simple as possible. If it’s too complex, then it would beg the question: where did the ancient scientists (who experimented on the Ackermanns) get such advanced knowledge and technology? I just want to assume that there was a one-in-a-million genius geneticist hundreds of years who headed the experiments. Even then, it has to be simple enough for a lay person to grasp, otherwise I won’t be able to write about it!”
I believe that much alike mankind which have been artificially selecting what we now know as domesticated animals, the ancient Eldians were only performing experiments by trial and error. I don’t think they knew exactly what they were doing. But Hange, with the knowledge she gathered in the last years can look back and hypothesized what may have happened in terms of genetics.
“You just reminded me of what I wrote about the Ackermann Curse at the start. It is precisely the randomness of the awakening that (1) makes the Ackermann experiment a failure because it cannot be reproduced or controlled, and (2) prevents the Ackermanns from over-multiplying and forming an army that might rebel against the royal family.”
While I wait for the next chapter of the manga, I keep your story fresh on my mind, so I remembered what you wanted for this curse to be. Then, I just had to find a reasonable explanation that could fit in what you thought.
In your personal opinion, do you think Levi wants a child?
OMG! This is by far your most difficult question hehehe. I don’t know! Which decision do you think you will regret the least after writing upon his fate? Though, right?! I honestly think that he already has lots of kids (all the remaining Levi’s squad), and he has been doing a pretty decent job looking after them. Whatever you choose I know I’ll love it.
I’ll probably go back to lab in September, not sure what day because of Corona. But don’t worry, ask away whenever. If there is something in which I can help with, I’ll gladly do it.
Thank you so much for your generosity and patience! It helps so very much when my questions can get answered by a real scientist.
I’ve written a few chapters of Part VI already, including that magical moment between Princess Ymir and Mikasa. Now, thanks to the material you gave me, I can write the part about Hange and Levi discussing a supersoldier army after they find out Mikasa’s pregnant 😀 I’m looking forward to it—it’ll keep my mind from having anxiety attacks over my fears of what’ll happen in Chapter 132 ?
There are so many stories I want to write but now that it’s the end of the month, I’m starting to get overly anxious about the manga once again. If Jean dies in canon, I think I’ll go into cardiac arrest and just drop dead on the spot ? I love all the characters in the manga but Jean is my absolute favorite. Unfortunately, he’s a minor character; I’m fully aware that unlike EMA, he’s completely disposable whenever Isayama feels like it. I just hope I’ll have the strength to carry on with the novela even if something terrible happens in canon.
As for Levi having kids, to tell you the truth, I’ve always dreamt of him having (adopted) children with Erwin, the love of his life. Now that Erwin’s gone, Hange would be the best candidate for a partnership. For so many years I’ve seen Hange as Levi’s best friend but not lover, the way I see Marco as Jean’s best friend but not lover. I’ve always been an eruri shipper, but given the happenings in canon I’ve warmed up to levihan. Levi’s so hot he can be paired with anyone and it’ll work! 🙂
Thank you so much once again, Thais. See you in the comments section of the other chapters of this story! Sorry for keeping you in Chapter 11 like, forever! ?
omg i don’t know if i’m ready to read the next chapter! i’m ready to use the tissues lolololol
I didn’t go into extreme detail about the killing as I wanted to keep the violence rating PG and not R. I’m still a total amateur when it comes to describing gore so I kind of glossed over it. I’m not sure if it was a good decision, though.
omg omg omg don’t tell me philip was one of those kids omg omg omg
Oh Myri, you’re so sweet and attentive, remembering the first chapter and the little boy in it. Thank you for taking note <3 That’s exactly what I want my readers to wonder: whether Philip was amongst the child soldiers. Let’s see how the story unfolds!
the saddest thing is that it is not fiction that powerful people use children to do bad things, it is unfortunate that we are the hegemony of the world
I’ve seen a couple of BBC documentaries on child soldiers IRL and they were heartbreaking. Sometimes I complain about my childhood lot in life (dysfunctional family and all that) but it’s really nothing compared to the horrific reality of the child soldiers. It’s really sad to think how they were brainwashed and forced to kill against their will. The extreme trauma will surely last until the day they die.
omg omg omg
Get ready for badass Mikasa, but with enough angst to cover the tip of Mount Fuji 😉
this gonna be so brutal am afraid to read next chapter 🙁
I reckon you can take it! The pain and brutality level will be around that of Levi’s in the Forest of the Giant Trees when he was with Zeke…
have learned this while going out and about my daily life 🙁
We humans are horrible creatures, is what comes to mind when I look at the mess we make of our own lives and that of our planet. It’s utterly sad that it’s us at the top of the food chain. That’s why I keep on praying for alien life to come by spaceship–a race so superior to ours it will finally make us feel the humility we were born with but lost along the way. I’ve never enjoyed being human and always wonder if there’s another dimension or plane of existence out there untouched (or at least, not yet destroyed) by the disease that’s the human race.