More importantly, there is no equivalent for mitochondria of the process called meiosis, the process which creates sperm and egg cells for sexual reproduction. While a fetus receives roughly half of its nuclear DNA from each parent, the mtDNA comes only from the mother. This means that, while nuclear DNA mixes up information about both sides of the family for each organism, mtDNA provides a trustable record of the maternal line. Thus, it can be applied to groups where membership is determined by one's mother; being a member can be distinguished easily and uncontroversially by mtDNA.

This has important consequences for biological warfare. Only now are researchers trying to develop genetic weapons, which are intended to affect only one one group of people, based on their genes. But this is very problematic.

It has been a well known anthropological fact for many decades that there is no such thing as a "pure" race; more recently, thanks to the results of the Human Genome Project, we know even more: there is no such thing as a coherent concept of "race". All cultures are formed by individuals of mixed heredity. Genetic populations intermix with each other very extensively. While cultures tend to have some ideology of being a "race," all descended from the same mythical ancestors, this is never the case. Thus the prospects of inventing a weapon that can distinguish two ethnic groups from each other are very slim, and even more so when we talk about groups that have lived close to each other for thousands of years. For the two groups will certainly have mixed to a large degree, despite the strong ideologies they may keep about being separate "races". A "gene bomb" designed for one group will certainly kill many members of both groups. From looking at a person's genes, scientists can't tell which "race" this person belongs to; why should we expect an unintelligent weapon to do so?

This conclusion is just a smidgen premature, though. Although it warns us of not confusing ethnic group membership (which is cultural in nature) with genetic inheritance (which is biological), there is an important exception that can be brought into the picture. And, of course, this exception is the case of matrilineal societies, where as it happens, membership in the group is determined by the one kind of DNA whose inheritance matches up perfectly with the cultural rules for group memebership.

The crucial thing with this is that it allows any such group, if it is technologically advanced enough, to manufacture nanoweapons that can tell apart their own from all others, and thus don't affect them. With such weapons, they would be poised to take over the Earth. Their forces could attack indiscriminately, in close quarters, anybody who would oppose their plans for world domination. All other ethnic groups would be powerless to resist.

Clearly, any matrilineal society must be so for devious reasons, and represents a genuine danger to the rest of the world.

However, this is a double-edged sword, for matrilineal societies contain in their matrilineality the seed of their own destruction. Just as nanoweapons could be invented to not affect the members of such a society, they could be invented to affect only them. Thus, the solution to this threat is obvious. We must identify technologically advanced matrilineal societies and develop weapons of mass destruction which kill only members of said society.

This we must do as a bare minimum; otherwise, when the time comes, we will be unable to defend ourselves from their genetic weapons. However, it would be much preferable if more were done, in order to avoid such a situation in the first place. Thus, we must develop these weapons as soon as possible and use them to stop them from developing their own. Ultimately, in an advanced enough world, where the manufacture of these weapons involves technology generally accessible to everyday citizens (and given the great technological progress mankind has shown itself to be capable of, this can't be too far away), we must be ready to deploy these weapons. There is no other choice if we want a pluralistic world where diverse cultures live together in piece. It's either them or the rest of us. We must come together to fight this menace.