SURGE numbers? Options

[Pepsi Jedi]

Ok I've not read the 'Year of the Comet' book, I was off other places for most of 3rd edition Shadowrun and am just getting back into the game.

From SR4A, I can tell that the Comet flew by and POOF numbers of people mutated.

What percentage did so? Seattle 2072 says 10% of it's population are SURGE changelings. Did 10% of people around the world ((Spread over all metatypes)) Experience SURGE?

It just struck me as ALOT of freaky mutants running around. Conversely.. Seattle has 2% trolls. But 10% SURGE?

Help a guy out, and someone explain this to me?

[X-Kalibur]

Perhaps it was meant as 10% of each metatype population?

[Pepsi Jedi]

No it clearly said that it was 10% of the Seattle population, as it cut across all metatype.

[Makki]

because of Seattle's already mixed and somewhat liberal population, Changelings from everywhere else try to immigrate to Seattle and gather

[Pepsi Jedi]

*Nods* I was wondering if that was it.

What was the global percentage of SURGE peoples? When the comet flew past how many people are now walkin' round with gills or shiva arms or something?

[Saint Sithney]

because of Seattle's already mixed and somewhat liberal population, Changelings from everywhere else try to immigrate to Seattle and gather

I really don't get the "cultural Mecca" thing in a world where you'll find whole cultures like the NAN which would revere changelings as expressions of the Great Spirit seeking to welcome humanity back into the folds of nature. I get the 10% figure in that changelings are meant to be an LBTG analog, but, from an in-game standpoint, cultures all over the world aren't the same as before. Why hang out in a violent, nasty metroplex run by a racist mayor when they could all just go hang out in Missoula and ride bikes?

[Pepsi Jedi]

I had __NOT__ even thought to group it with LGBT numbers. *BLINKS*

Is that what it's supposed to be???

[Rasumichin]

Some people interpret it this way.

Regarding your original question, about 1% of the overall population SURGEd.
It's most common among humans, especially mundanes.
Metavariants, drakes and technomancers express much less often.
Infected often express during the transformation if they have latent metagenes.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Ahh thank you!

1% total population SURGEd.

That's what I was looking for. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) That seems much more..... *waves hand* In line with the other Shadowrun freakyness.

[Patrick Goodman]

I had __NOT__ even thought to group it with LGBT numbers. *BLINKS*

Is that what it's supposed to be???

As someone at least partly responsible for SURGE in the first place (I was one of its few champions back in the day, and fought for it fiercely), I can say with a little tiny bit of authority that if it was meant as a LGBT analog, nobody told me. When Mike presented the idea for Year of the Comet, it was just a way to throw a new wrinkle or two into things. How well it succeeded is left to someone else to determine. I wasn't altogether happy with how it turned out, but it wasn't nearly the train wreck it could have been.

[Mongoose]

Not all changelings are freaky mutants. A lot could pass as freaky norms who have unusual makeup jobs / implants. Think skin dye, decorative cybereyes, cosmetic bioware, etc. Others aren't even that outlandish; folks who just swim really well, can see in the dark, have abnormally good stats, or have odd magical interactions, for example.

I wouldn't be shocked if it was something like 5%+ of the world was SOMEHOW affected. Of those, probably 80% are really hard to notice without testing / magic, 16% are within "modified human" norm (ie, restricted to visible features found in the "normal" population of enhanced metahumans) and only like 4% are "freaks". (This is just a guess, using the "80/20" rule.)


Note- per Earthdawn, the mana level in the 4th world was high enough that Humans were wildly variable, even without considering metatypes. A human ED character could technically have almost any color of skin / build, and certain "subcultures" had stats outside the human normal range. That would support SURGE effects hitting a pretty high level- eventually.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Which books address this the most? I'm guessing "Year of the Comet" but are there others?

[Mongoose]

I'm going partly off what I rember from YOTC, and partly from Runners Companion. If you assume all SURGEd are the metatype varients, they are gonna be pretty visible. But my impression (from YOTC, and its not contradicted in RC) is that most SURGED just have a minor trait or two.

[Ol' Scratch]

Perhaps it was meant as 10% of each metatype population?

Uh.

How would that matter at all? 10% of the total population includes the metahuman population, which is what "10% of the [general] population" translates into. Not "10% of the human population" or "10% of the total population consisting entirely of trolls even though they're only 2% of the total population."

[Pepsi Jedi]

I'm going partly off what I rember from YOTC, and partly from Runners Companion. If you assume all SURGEd are the metatype varients, they are gonna be pretty visible. But my impression (from YOTC, and its not contradicted in RC) is that most SURGED just have a minor trait or two.

No the Metavariants are not SURGE expression. They're different.

[Caadium]

LGBT

Okay, I'll admit, this is one abreviation I'm not familiar with; what am I missing this time?

[Pepsi Jedi]

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender.

It's the 'pc' way to describe the included these days.

[Saint Sithney]

As someone at least partly responsible for SURGE in the first place (I was one of its few champions back in the day, and fought for it fiercely), I can say with a little tiny bit of authority that if it was meant as a LGBT analog, nobody told me. When Mike presented the idea for Year of the Comet, it was just a way to throw a new wrinkle or two into things. How well it succeeded is left to someone else to determine. I wasn't altogether happy with how it turned out, but it wasn't nearly the train wreck it could have been.

Unintended synchronicity?!
Next thing you'll tell me is that awakened numbers matching up with the expression of schizophrenia is just a coincidence.
It's all, like, numerology, man! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Medicineman]

Ahh thank you!

1% total population SURGEd.

That's what I was looking for. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) That seems much more..... *waves hand* In line with the other Shadowrun freakyness.

Yes its 1% worldwide
2% in industrialised Areas
and 10% in Seattle (seems to be a Harbor for SURGE fugitives from the NAN )

with a freaky Dance
Medicineman

[MindandPen]

From Year of the Comet, page 137.

In reality, the actual percentage of those affected by SURGE in the world of Shadowrun is quite small - less than 1 percent.

-M&P

[MindandPen]

From Runners Companion, pages 57-58.

Changeling is the common use term for metahumans afflicted by SURGE (Sudden Recessive Genetic Expression). Per definitionem, changelings are metahumans that have inherited one or more aberrant metagenetic traits from their genetic lineage.

[- SNIP -]

Changelings are neither a race nor a metavariant.

[- SNIP -]

While about 1 percent of the global population qualifies as changelings, frequency of new SURGE expression has decreased significantly though it has become obvious that expressed traits are hereditary and potentially recessive.

-M&P

[SpellBinder]

Probably modified by those with a SIN and/or are more obviously a changeling as not all metagenetic qualities are exclusively metagenetic. See Runners Companion, page 110 for a list of various qualities (both positive and negative) that you need not be a changeling to take yet can express as a SURGE.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Ahh thank you.

Trying to catch up on some of the metaplot I missed.

Now if I can figure out what this ore stuff is, and what happened at the Renku Arc, I'll be gettin' some where. lol