Say I'm a Hermetic Mage, and I summon and bind a Force 1 elemental, then use it to Spell Bind one of my spells. 24 hours later, it ceases to exist. Now, did I briefly bring a sub-sentient tool into existence, or did I enslave a free-willed being and torture it to death?

Obviously there is no one right answer to this, since its a controversy in the setting. But what's your opinion?

It has the Sapience power, dropping its force to zero on a whim is immoral.

-Frank

Depending on your view of morality.

-Siege

It just disrupts the spirit, kicking it back into the metaplanes for a while. I wouldn't do it for kicks, as the spirits obviously don't care for the practice and you want to be on their good side if one goes uncontrolled on you, but if there was a legitimate need for it, I wouldn't lose sleep on the issue.

If you see spirits as independent and sapient entities the whole process of summoning is deeply immoral.

Depends on how you do it. Perhaps in summoning them you beg for a favor, and pay the price up front in the form of drain and bringing them from the metaplanes. Most mystical cultures that delve into such things don't demand and force spirits to do their bidding, they ask, they beg, and they offer sacrifices (summoning materials). Is kicking a spirit back to the metaplane via force drain immoral? Sometimes, depends on how your character and you view it. Someone who asks the spirit to do this will likely feel bad about it, but the spirit hasn't been destroyed at all, merely sent back to its home. Someone who creates these spirits might not feel bad at all, or they might feel very bad about it. Depends. Some might view the spirits as disposable servants, that which you give you can take away you see. Others might view the spirits as their children, and find the idea of disrupting their own creations in such a way appalling.

It all depends on how you and/or your character look at it.

There is also the 'nobility of sacrifice' angle.

Shadowrun has a few magical threats that even spirits seem to get involved in. The Loa (Ghede in particular) have a bit of a problem with the Shedim, in the novel 'Burning Bright' Kyle Teller's elemental and ally spirit are disturbed by talk of insect spirits, the Yucatan conflict and Aztechnology's quick fix solution got regular spirits and toxic spirits going at each other hammer and tongs.

Thus there are things, besides being summoned up by some arrogant flesh and blood magician, that upset the denizens of the astral plane.

So the possibility exists, however remote, of a situation in which a spirit would be prepared to sacrifice itself in this manner to further some agenda it supports. It would certainly be an unlikely occurence, especially for your typical shadowrun. But it could happen, and that would mean that spell binding could not be seen as inherantly immoral but that it becomes immoral depending on the circumstances under which it is done.

this is one of the aspects of sr that may looks nice if put into a major plotline.

still, the end result should be that people have to make up their own mind.

Hey, is there any indication on whether it's legal in the UCAS for registered mages to do this? It seems like if there's a legal precedent, that might help.

Legal Precedent? Spirits have ZERO rights in the law. you can do whatever teh fuck you want to one, and the courts won't even recognize it's existance.

Except in some Awakened Lands where just summoning some kinds normally accepted spirits is a no-no because either the spirits have the same legal standing as humans....or more.

Eh, call me an Urbanocentrist, but I was talking about REAL nations, not piddlin' tribal states. (Just kidding!)

( I kid because those Piddlin tribal nations have a tendency to cause volcanoes to erupt near places I live.)

really? personally, i wouldn't want to be causing volcanic eruptions in Lofwyr's stomach... those folks must be absolutely nuts, if they're gonna tick him off that bad

So far, he just thinks it's indigestion.