There is an occassional pinky born to ghoulish stalk, but they are rare.

-Frank

Hmmm... one of the reasons of getting 'protection' when going for a night out...

What are some of the srun equivalents for protection? Full body condom that is meshed with chainmail and kevlar? dont' bother answering, I'm being silly.

Oy, I still can't get it out of my mind about the one comment in SoA, where that one exec is being blackmailed because of a video of him, some underaged boys, and a HMHVV-infected panda...

Geez dude, take a chill pill. or rather keep it up and have a stroke in a few years for all I care. Whatever the case, I could be using the HMHVV thing wrong, but still, it was funny reading that in the SoA commentary. And guess what, we'll stick with HMHVV for pandas and koalas even if it causes you to die.

or better yet, push it even more so that someone gets a stroke or similar, faster

Oh, come off it Frank. I know you've got this mad hate on for the Ghouldom-as-virus thing, but you really should drop it.

Look, everybody and their brother agrees the name should be changed - HMHVV barely works for the ones that do drain Essence - but it's a family of related viruses. Would you rather there were, say, 14 different viruses that all caused really funky mutations in various metahumans (and other animals, in some cases)?

Actually, they do. Just look at Simian Immunodeficiency Virus and Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

OK. It's named Avian Influenza if it spreads easily in birds and not in humans. Human Influenza spreads easily in humans. Avian influenza is seriously not a problem among humans, definitionally. The worry is that if enough birds have a type of influenza in proximity to humans that a new human-infecting influenza will develope out of that large and geographically disperse genetic resevoire. As soon as it makes the jump and starts infecting humans it is labeled as a Human influenza.

The name "bird flu" is a slang term, not an acronymized scientific category. Similarly, the H1N1 influenzy (most devastating influenza outbreak ever) was called "Spanish flu", but again that was a term for where it came from, and not for what it infects.

Right. And those variations would be given new names. Probably HMHDV (Human Metahuman Dietary deficiency Virus), but possibly HMHHV or HMHLV depending upon how the categorizers felt about it.

Actually, humans playing around with viruses doesn't normally cause problems (biowarfare games excluded of couyrse). But yes, viruses mutate a lot - which is why there are so many names for them! The H5N1 virus is the current big scary because it has such a high lethality rate, not because it is particularly capable of infecting humans. The human infecting influenza variants on the market today are H1N1, H1N2, and H3N2. The "H" numbers refer to the type of hemagglutinin protein on the virus and the "N" number refers to the neuraminidase protein.

The concern of bird flu is that the new combination of antigens could mutate again and make a new combination of antigens that is simultaneously dangerous to humans and extremely deadly to those it infects. Right now the H5N1 virus is rather less dangerous to humans than pigs - who eat more people each year than the virus kills.

Actually, that's exactly why ghouls aren't vampires. They can transfer their disease with a bite, a vampire can only transmit the virus by killing its target with Essence Drain - a vector that is both unnecessary and unavailable to ghouls.

Yes. I would.

-Frank

Ack, if it fails the Ancient History geek level test, then we gotta simplify it!

Yeah. There was a period in FASA development in which HMHVV was the default explanation for basically everything - leaving us with quite a bit of absurdity. Paranormal Animals of Europe has an HMHVV variant every couple pages. Apparently in the future virologists have simply thrown their hands up in disgust and all magical communicable syndromes are lumped under the heading of "Human Metahuman Vampiric Virus" even when they don't afflict humans or cause vampirism. I'm surprised that Mantis Spirits aren't classified as an HMHVV vairant.

It goes the opposite direction I'm afraid. Drop Bears are a real (tongue-in-cheek) legend from Australia, and appear in several pieces of fiction in numerous sources. Drop Bears were listed as being an HMHVV variant, apparently as a joke about how many extra HMHVV variants had been written up, and the Drop Bear Thread is a running joke originally based on that description.

In short, it's simply something that has passed so far into meta-humor that it stopped being funny and became funny again and then stopped being funny again. The joke about how old the original joke had become has itself gotten old.

-Frank

Then it is time we refreshed the old joke about the old joke!

Vampire Pandas on the flanks, Dropbears in the van! Form a spear of darkness! Charge!

On-topic: Yeah. Ghouls do get it on, you know. Like if they didn't, there won't be a ghoul nation.

Nothing unusual. If not for your exposure to the mirth that is the drop bear thread, you too may realize how absolutely normal nit-picking and arbitrary flames really are. Drek, go look at any gun discussion, you can sometimes find 3 RL gun experts arguing about whose complete house-rule set is more perfect.

That's great. But well I for one didn't write it up. But I'm gonna say that the animal is infected with HMHVV because it's simple enough to get the meaning across and people know what I'm talking about. The fact that I did not look up the specific virus in this regards, well then tell me what the virus name is specifically for vampiric pandas. part of the Drop bear strain? subclassed via the Panda?

Henceforth, I shall instead call it the VIRUS*-infected PANDAS

* Said virus being related to the Drop Bear Strain, related to the HMHVV strain in humans that causes vampiric conditions within the subject. Such condition includes symptoms of wanting to cuddle with an individual and suck their bloods out. By no means should one be in close proximity with such infected subjects and should one be aware of one, please remove self from the area and contact the local authorities. By no means should one deal with one themselves, leave it to the trained professionals. And above all else do NOT copy any moves you see by the Awakened Hunter ™ series, all such moves were done by a trained professional with years of experience and an onsite fully staffed medical team and a heavily armed response team.

It's more like a 10k marathon at this point really.

BTW< how 'bout 'mad cow' if you don't like the example of the bird flu.

Honestly I think HMHVV is more akin to UGE. Basically, it's an abbreviation for something they made up to classify something that they did not understand. UGE (Unexplained Genetic Expression) was named such becuase people were scareed, had no idea what was going on, and it became a catch phrase to make people feel scure. "No, you're kid isn't a demon, he's just a UGE baby." I thin they described it almost exactly like that in the source books actually. Advanced the time line 4-50 years, and they have a much better idea of what trolls and orks are. THey're not so unexplained anymore, although no one has the exact details (except for the Profezzor).

HMHVV is the same thing. By now they have a much better idea about it, and you can be sure that the scientists and lab rats in SR have much more complicated names for it. But we don't need that. If you feel so inclined to name each variant seperately, then do so. But for the world at large (and players) HMHVV is recognised and familiar enough to get the idea across.

Exactly. Mad cow, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is a prion, not a virus. And even then, once it affects humans it becomes new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (nvCJD). Note that because it is a protein ailment and not a viral agent, it can be (and is) named after people. Viruses never are. Spongiform encephalopathy in humans gets treated the same way that things like Huntington's Disease are for the purposes of naming.

-Frank

What? I loved that thread!

sum of snitch! mark the calendears and someone call Guiness!

Wow. That works surprisingly well. Of course, the proteins aren't independently alive and are incapable of caring about things, so they aren't literally angry. But the analogy is pretty tight - it is the folding (the "shape") that makes the protein damaging (or "angry" if you will), not the actual amino acid make-up of the chain. So you can carry on with that I suppose. It might get you some strange looks in an X-ray crystalography lab, but for a street definition it is certainly close enough. The important part about prions is that they are non-living and non-genetically induced. "Angry Shapes" gets that across fairly well actually.

---

My complaint is not that people have to use scientifically accurate terms, or that they have to have micro-organisms (and sub-organisms) behave like they normally do once they invke Magic. My complaint is only that if people do decide to whip out the science-speak to make themselves sound smart, that they at least do us the curtesy of looking up what that science speak means so that they don't undermine the story.

Did you know that Shadowrun has half-ghouls? I'm pretty sure its not supposed to, but now it does. Here's why:

Originally, ghouls were caused by goblinization. We all know how that works, it's an all or nothing process that is invoked if the mana-sphere takes a shine to your non-coding DNA sequences. Goblinized parents are more likely to have goblinized children, but since the non-coding bits are a little different there are no guarantees. So back then, an individual was a ghoul or not a ghoul, right?

And then they retconned the history of goblinization research, where apparently despite the fact that a virus was the original and disproved hypothesis for goblinization, noone had bothered to repeat the ork and troll research on ghouls and ghouls actually were caused by a virus. O-K. The reason that ghouls usually have ghoul babies is reported in Cyberpirates - Krieger Strain modifies the host's DNA and the virus is often passed from mother to child. So the ghoul causing virus that people managed to disprove the existence of and then subsequently find 40 years later is a retrovirus that affects the germ line.

So if you're a ghoul male, and you impregnate a human female (giving her a Krieger prophylactic or just using artificial insemination) then you have a child that has half ghoul-modified DNA and half normal human DNA. This child can even goblinize, making a half-ghoul troll.

---

That's what I object to. If people use real science words and don't know what they mean, they end up undermining the setting. I can accept that you can't make a living vampire with immuno-suppressants and a hypodermic filled with vampire blood because HMHVV is magic and doesn't have to follow your rules, man. Sure, that's the kind of suspension of disbelief that you have to accept when you start throwing Magic around. But when you start coming up with pseudo-science explanations ("the Magic altered his DNA to give him Ghoul Powers!") then it starts being subject to analysis and prediction by real science, which can take the story into directions we don't want.

We've all seen D&D close enough to know that we don't want half-ghouls running around. And yet, the Krieger-strain plotline gave us exactly that. And that's... unfortunate.

-Frank

Originally, ghouls were assumed to be caused by Goblinization, because the already-present retrovirus activated when the mana rose.

You're reading the facts wrong here. Ghouls were initially assumed to have Goblinized, and science initially approached Goblinization as being a result of a retrovirus. It was discovered that Goblinization was not caused by a retrovirus, and Ghouls were created by a retrovirus. Call it a retcon if you must, but metahumans don't Goblinize into Ghouls, the people at the time just thought they did. Later research proved them wrong.

The retrovirus would likely be passed along in the semen and Infect the child, but there is no evidence that the genes ghouls pass on is altered. If you want to take a further example, in SR2 (Bug City) that some metahumans can resist the retrovirus, and though they may gain some physiological changes or become carriers, they are not ghouls. That's as close to "half ghouls" as you're going to get. The reason those exist is because unlike Goblinization, Ghouldom is a condition caused by a retrovirus. Ghouls are not a race unto themselves. It's a very different argument than why you can't have, say, half-elves or half-orks.

Personally, I have no problem with someone in Shadowrun running around half-blind because of a close encounter with a ghoul.

What I'm saying ! is some times you guys/gals go way to far.

And Critias you really have to tone it down, i'm not attacking anyone.


You my fellow dump shocker have to stop trying to attack every one, i know you may be small in real life, but you have to try to stop being a tough guy on the forum, it's really really getting old.

(1) I wasn't attacking anyone. You know what that looks like, and that wasn't it. Why knee-jerk and tell me to calm down, when I'm obviously not riled up?

(2) How do we go "too far?" By expecting a little realism in our game? By examining, and noticing discrepancies within, the dark corners your average/casual gamer may not notice? Welcome to Dumpshock. That's what happens here. We don't just come here to chittity-chat and pat each other on the back over how awesome Shadowrun is, and how cool we are for playing it. We come here to look at it, discuss it, examine it closely, dissect it, tear it apart, talk about what we don't like as much as what we do. It's the internet. Expecting endless positivity is remarkably naive.

(3) Don't say "I'm not attacking anyone" and then make ignorant, ridiculous, assumptions about how "small" I am in real life, or guesses as to how I act or why I act it on-line. You don't know me, you don't know anything about me. You don't know who I am or how I am, except for how I happen to act (in posts you notice, the negative ones, of course), on one little forum in one little corner of the internet (one little part of my life).

We done? If not, take it (back) to PMs.

Man you have problems.

Now I was'nt attacking any one, did i specifically name any one?


But now i am attacking.

Quoted to keep Mister Platinum from editing to cover his tracks before moderators arrive. I'm also done posting to this thread until such a time as whatever-his-problem-is gets resolved. Sorry for the disruption, everyone.

That was so stupid I died a little.

On the inside.