To use a bit more modern concept for what I'm trying to say:

You invest in an Ork laborer the same way you invest in a janitor.
You invest in an Ork laborer the same way you invest in a Mexican day-laborer you pick up at the Home Depot.

A gene defect maybe or the good old SR answer: magic?

I didn't intend for it to sound that way (if it was me you're referring to)... it was more of an attempt at justifying yet another screwy SR thing with bad RL science. Sorry if it came off that way.

To tell you the truth, it has been kinda bitchy/angry around here lately... it's not just you feeling that.

What is the relationship between Shadowrun and Earthdawn (now licensed to Living Room Games)? Will the storylines still be linked even though the games are now produced by different companies?
We won't deny that the Shadowrun and Earthdawn storylines have been linked in the past (in the cycle of magic, Earthdawn is the Fourth World and Shadowrun is the Sixth World). While FanPro will not ignore these links, we have no intention of making them a primary focus of the game. The FanPro Shadowrun and LRG Earthdawn developers have a good working relationship, and will make every effort not to conflict or contradict each other's storylines.

Taken from Fanpro's FAQ. So, FASA was building the major links between the two, but Fanpro has decided that it's not a major focus of the game. And while that connection does add to the whole thing, there are a number of players, especially coming into SR3 late or with SR4 that will never have played or maybe even heard of Earthdawn to know of these connections. Myself, I do own a bunch of ED books, but the connections, while making wo RPGs tied together with similar theme and mythology and such, works best so long as the company is actively making the connections. Here, they're just going to try not to screw things up for the other people.

Now, let's say that I go with the ED connection. But how do the elves who just recently were created know that they would live for that long? The immortal elves and scientists telling them about it, in the Tir Tairngire book. So, then we've got elves living 'forever', orks and trolls living 30-40 years, humans living a normal life span and dwarves living a fairly normal 'human' lifespan. I suppose that's a good reason for metahuman hatred, though I would see more people focusing on elves. Sort of like the issues people had with Vulcans in Star Trek: Enterprise; but I suppose that racism was due to their actions, not their biology.

LRG seems to be in serious (financial) trouble and have pushed back the release of new books. There wasn't a new metaplot-heavy book planned n the near future, so I doubt they will impact tht crossover of ED and SR in any time soon.
Same goes for RedBrick (not the trouble, only the latter).

<parannoia mode>
Yeah. Theoretically.
</paranoia mode>

Serioulsy, do all elves want to work their whole life? Be a wage-slave for 250 years, that sounds great.

They may not want to work for 250 years or so, but the fact remains that they /could/. Biogtry and racism never needed facts, just fear. And that's what gives it its power. It's like a conspiracy, it doesn't have to make any sense, it just has to be beliveable.

Ok, it is clear that shadowrun and earthdawn are related (both games feature Harlequin, for example). Now, elves are expected to live centuries, (But it depens on the specific races. Blood Elves, for example, lived considerably longer than their brethren) while orks and trolls a lot shorter. It is possible, though, as many mentionned, that is it a direct consequence of the orks and trolls more violent and difficult lifestyle.

Now, if you want the explanation about the immortal elves like Harlequin, I'm about to spoil you an earthdawn story plot. Let's just say Harlequin did something in the Triumph Fortress that "made" him immortal. It has nothing to do with his elven nature.

Priceless!

@Drraagh: Good point, I agree completly.

Regardless, an elf in the workplace is a dangerous thing. We have a few different possibilities here...

1) The elf decides to work for hundreds of years and the corp lets him. Over the centuries he continues to gain seniority (even a promotion every 20 years will mean you'll be VP before he's dead) and choke out people with a shorter life, not to mention continue to get higher and higher salaries as seniority earns them regular raises.

2) The elf retires after a set amount of time, but the corporation will continue to pay 2/3rds (or 1/2) of his salary as retirement until he dies. The corporation is now paying a tremendous amount of money for someone who doesn't provide anything. Soon you have a very small minority of people turning a good company into a GM situation, where more money is going to pay for retirement than for the actual production of whatever it is they make.

3) The elf retires (forced or otherwise) after a set amount of time and retirement monies have a cap (it's only the 401k or only pays out for a set number of years). The elf now reenters the job force with more training, experience, knowledge and abilities than the human competitors. Suddenly the mid-level jobs are crowded out, forcing humans to take the stupid jobs because they're always comparatively under-qualified. A master's degree in business is nothing compared to 40 years as VP of marketing.

4) On top of that, our modern culture seems to espouse the view that elves are simply more attractive. Now let's not kid ourselves, how we look has a great bearing on how well we do in the business world. Even an elf fresh out of college will beat an equally skilled human. They look sharper, and they'll cost less in medical costs towards the end. So even the entry level jobs are being crowded out.

Yes, I have to agree my friends, while trolls and orks may look frightening, and we have to be on guard against their stealing our daughters, its the elves who are the true threat, since they want to steal our way of life.

Shut elves out of the work-force. Support mandated 'retirement periods' on elves and dwarves and support human-only jobs. Vote for proposal 503 this September.

Human is best. Humanis.

We have to worry about elves. THey'll not just try to steal our daughters, but our wives and our girlfriends and our gay friends and pretty much anyone else.

At least if you tend to the standard assumption that charisma is looks alone and the higher it is, the hotter you are.

Superbly put, polyclub-brother. But not only must one be concerned about elves that remain in the workforce; one must consider the effects of long term elven investment. Why you or I might put our money into a pension scheme in the hopes of retirement, saving enough to see us through our end of days, but an elf will have the view of steady investment, buying into companies, etcetera. And the logical conclusion of this steady progression is the emergence of an elven upper class accumulating an ever greater percentage of the World's wealth. And once in place, who could ever break through the new glass ceiling of elven plutocracy? And if this has occured to us, you can be certain that it has occurred to the elves. Even now, you can be certain they draw their plans not merely against us, but against our children and our children's children.


Heh! Stepping out of character, Nezumi that was a great piece of writing. I did a little excerpt from a polyclub meeting piece of fiction and I'd love to steal borrow some of that and stick it in there. It makes for great background flavour.

For anyone about to sign up for Humanis, there are a few counter-arguments for those who can put their fear to one side for a moment.

For the first, the whole premise is one of finite wealth. In viewing humanity and metahumanity as a whole society, no regard has been made towards the beneficial effects of having members who may live for three hundred or more years. Can you imagine Shiawase polluting the rivers and seas when the CEOs know that in a hundred years time they'll be living in a toxic waste pile? Can you think of the benefit to society when the hindsight that prevents wars and oppression isn't reset every 50 years, but endures for centuries? And not to mention the potential wealth generation of having people in the workforce who do have two hundred years experience. What matters it if some people have a larger slice of the pie when the pie is so much bigger than before?

Secondly, little regard is made to the population numbers. Repeatedly in nature, we see long-lived creatures with low rates of reproduction. Even if elves did not naturally follow this pattern which I certainly expect they would, birth control technology is available and we can expect normal social patterns to have a limiting effect on childbirth. After all, who wants thirty children? Elves are a minority of (meta- )humanity and are likely to remain so.

Thirdly, the technology is already here to stave off the ageing process. And though it isn't perfect yet, it's getting better every year. The problem of hyper-long lived people gradually taking over must already be confronted. And we should worry less about the elves that naturally have a long life and perhaps have biological and psychological ways of dealing with this inherent in them, but about those who acquire such long lives through affluence and technology.

For the second, there's no regard to the numbers involved.

Imitation Racism, nine out of ten gamers can't tell the difference.*


*: Even though most of them put up with it throughout most of their school life.

Not only *could* they work for 250 years, they may well have to! Even working for a quarter of a millenium, an elf would still have another 100-150 years or so of retirement to look forward to. Just look at what's happenned to inflation, technology, the average spending level in 150 years. In 1920, you could get dinner and a movie for a dime. Yearly salaries were in the tens to hundreds of dollars. That was eighty years ago; a retired elf will live twice that long! Think of how much inflation will have reduced their savings to nothing in that amount of time, without millions in investments to keep them afloat.

Ok, this was never addressed, so I thought I'd poke my nose in.

In the book 'Never Trust and Elf' Kham's grandfather was in his 50s and the leader of the Ork underground. Attending to him was and elderly looking Ork woman, who was Kham's mother - supposedly to be only in her mid-30s. The fact that Kham's mother looked older than his grandfather (he was a human goblinized, not born Ork) was the big controversy of the story.... Dodger and his mentor (apparently spike babies), barely looked to be out of their 20s - yet both had been around since before the Awakening.

Like a few users here on Dumpshock, I like to give a little artistic license to the book stories and not take it to be cannon, seeing as some novels I've read seem to barely follow cannon at all. My opinion on Trolls and Orks is that, since many are in the low income bracket - often below poverty level, they generally have shorter lives. Not because they age faster than humans, but because their lifestyle and consequent lack of advanced medical care shortens their lives.

Yeah, but imagine the kind of rates a professional with a hundred and fifty years experience could command. Lawyers make the majority of their money in the five to ten years before they retire, and I imagine at least some other professions are similar. That's a lot of time to climb the corporate ladder and acquire funds so vast as to never have to worry about money again.