Yeah, I meant latter. I blame sleep deprivation.

On the topic at hand, essence loss does seem to have some noticeable effects in the game world, even if those effects don't translate themselves into real mechanical terms that often. This seems especially pronounced as those last fractions below 1 are lost. So while Datajack Hut down at the mall probably doesn't have the right diagnostic equipment for such finely sliced essence manipulations, I don't see fine essence slicing being done in such locations in the first place. Most clinics that would perform such operations would be able to monitor those danger zone signs, and wake the patient sans procedure to let them know it can't be done. It might also help that most people who try going so close to zero are either SINless runners or black-ops operatives, both of whom are at regular risk of death anyways.

No. It's not even the more expensive crime - you may have to compensate for the loss of the earnings the individual would have racked up in a lifetime.

As it is not a person, but a creature, it has no posessions and thus no wealth.
It's material worth, on the other hand, is hard to guess... but it doesn't even count as an organ donor.

Thats just retarded. Are you Joseph McCarthy? I don't ever recall anything in communist philosophy advocating cannibalism resturants for the ultra rich to eat people alive.
Actually I think that communists would be pretty keen on stopping this kind of abuse.

But my point being that this is solely your opinion and good luck proving it in a court of law in the world of Shadowrun. If it walks like a metahuman, talks like a metahuman and doesn't show up as a hideous bug on the astral plane like a metahuman, then there's a good chance that Lonestar will treat it like a metahuman.

I don't fancy your chances when you shoot one and try to say that its blood-bourne disease renders it non-sentient or living. We're talking about a world where a spirit has a seat on the board of an international corporation. And that's a lot less human than a vampire is.

Actuall, that is not my opinion, but the opinion of the UCAS.
And every autopsy includes pathology, so HMHVV is found.

And yeah, in the UCAS, disrupting a spirit is only destruction of property.

Giving the latent hatred to anything awakend and non-metahuman widespread in the UCAS, shooting something that tried to suck the very life out of you isn't really a big deal.

i don't believe that's necessarily true. if your corpse is lying there with a bunch of bullet holes in them, what's the point in running a bunch of tests? no need to go poking around for more information unless there's an actual question about how the guy died.

That's exactly what a Commie-Mutant-Traitor would say

Really, I don't care if the person paying me has the legal right to possess money so long as that money is green and has pictures of dead people on it.

Believe me, you will when the heirs successfully sue you to get it back.

I've never come across that. Are there bounties on vampires, etc? What is the source for them having no legal status.

It doesn't seem realistic to me that Jane Wageslave has a prolonged affair with the sinister runner in the opera coat and then after a few months, with no visible change, still able to use her biometric credstick, still showing up to work, still paying her rent, etc. the court comes along and suddenly seizes her property and passes it on to her heirs. And I'm not talking about the issue of whether or not she is discovered. I'm saying that if she is discovered, I can't quite see a doctor coming along, asking for a blood sample and then saying "I'm sorry Miss Wageslave, but I'm afraid despite presence of heartbeat, you're dead. I know this is a shock to you but..."

You see my point? It would be very hard to claim someone is dead... to their face. So I'd be interested to know what the cannon material actually says. I had a vampire executive working for Renraku in one of my games. One of her staff was the Johnson and had to resort to hiring runners to get rid of her as she was such an effective manager that Renraku would never fire her.

I only have to shoot the Heirs in the face once. I could empty several machine guns into the vampire's face and simple be eaten for my trouble. From what I understand, being essence drained is the single most pleasurable experience in the universe, but I'd rather not.

Well, shooting the heirs is murder...

..while shooting the vampire isn't.

Given the SR4 rules for regeneration - go for the vampire.
It will drop like a stone from 1-2 good bursts.

What's the availability level of FAEs?

Jesus, if someone can tell me, I'll use them all the time....

I see you skipped my post. I've thought on this some more and vampires being legal non-entities doesn't make sense at all. So I'm really going to ask again where you are getting your information from. You are talking as if this is indisputable fact, but firstly corporate extra-teritoriality means that in a great many places shooting the poor HMHVV infected person is murder and secondly I'm still interested to know where it states in cannon that a vampire isn't a person under UCAS law. I'm not going to repeat a third time how absurd it is to try and argue in court that someone is dead when they are the standing there in the witness box... but it is.

-K.

..and I even stated that other contries might accept critters as persons.
But I'll look where it was stated that while the UCAS doesn't recognize spirits, critters and the like a legal entities, some NAN countries and the Tirs do.

After the events with shedim, such cases have become quite spread.

well, the thing is, unless it specifically mentions vampires as not being legal entities, then they are. vampires are not undead, in SR. they're just people with a disease that happens to have a peculiar method of incubation.

Shedim and Bugs are different. They are spirits inhabitating the person's body. Vampires are essentially the same person.

Quebec is a bit of an exception as they also paid a bonus bounty for pregnant ghouls as I recall. Nasty business all round, but they certainly aren't in line with UCAS in a lot of areas, so they probably aren't in line where vampires are concerned as well.

And in response to the point about Shedim and Bug Spirits, as has been said, these are demonstrably different entities that simply steal bodies. A vampire is someone who has undergone some physiological changes due to a disease they have acquired. I've now gone back and read the entry for vampires and essence drain in SR4, and I can't even find any reference made to the victim of a vampire having to die in order to become one. It says that a token amount of some material such as blood sometimes accompanies the essence drain, but in vampires, the essence drain doesn't actually have anything to do with the process of becoming a vampire. That depends solely on infection. So it seems as though one can become a vampire without undergoing anything that resembles death at all.

While vampires are not undead in the classic sense, the original person lost all of their lifeforce and thus died.

The creature arising is classed as 'Sanguisuga europa' and thus not a 'homo sapiens' - meaning they only would be recognized as full legal entity through an act of congress.

I'm starting to get a bit put out by the way you're skipping my points. I said this earlier - there's nothing in SR4 vampire description, the essence drain power or the descriptions in previous editions that I can find, which says a vampire died at any point. Certainly by the mechanics published, someone can become a vampire without passing through any physical state that would medically be classed as dead, nor are they required to even lose all their essence. Check the book, Robert. It does not say that they are dead. It says that they are infected.

But this is probably irrelevant in legal terms anyway as many people have reached clinical "death" and then been resusictated. A vampire is demonstrably the same person that they were before infection.

Actually, Sasquatch are non-metahuman and considered sentient and can be legal citizens and the book says there is a campaign to have nagas treated similarly. And I think dragons are considered legal entities across the board, not just the Big D. There's also at least one cannon free spirit that has legal status (Buttercup). None of this touches what might be considered legal in corp jurisdiction.

SR4 under the critter section says that the United Nations recognized Sasquatch as sentient in 2042.

It says that stating that vampires aren't legally people because they're not homo sapiens doesn't hold up when other non-homo sapiens are legally people. You said Dunklezahn was "pretty much the only exception." and I've just provided several species where non-homo sapiens are people. Earlier you said that vampires are not people because they are dead. We've discounted that one. We've also shown that due to the continuity they are distinct from shedim and bugs which were your other examples. The remaining case for vampires not to be legally people is your maintenance that they would not qualify due to being non-homo sapiens. Now I'm challenging that one. I think it would be absurdly silly for someone to try and prove in court that jane Wageslave is now non-human due to having contracted a disease and it's therefore permissable to murder her. I don't think that would get far at all in SR2070. It is not believable to me.

Nope.
Each and every species needs to be 'added'.

Actually, this is twisted enough to be perfectly fitting for the world of SR - at least for me.

You know, a world were even unregistered humans don't have civil rights.

Save time and money - get a Demolitions skillsoft and build one yourself.

X-Men FTW

They are a lot harder to build than people think, once you get past the dust initiator class. And they have lots more operational limitations than the casual observer might expect.

If the creature is a talking serpent (naga) then they probably need to be "added". But if the creature is your employee Jane W., who has total continuity from before infection to after, still turns up for work and maintains all the same relationships and financial processes that she always did, then I think it would take a court case (and a big one) to "remove" her. We're not talking about adding someone in this case, we talking about "Your honour, I'd like to call as witness Proffessor Dubious from the University of Romania who will now testify that this individual has ceased to be human and I should now be able to shoot her."

A very big difference. I just don't see it happening.

Strange, I see it the other way round. A world where someone who prays on the souls of others and cannot stand the sunlight is your manager is more dystopian, to my mind.

Each their own, though.

Ah, but if you kill one, are you a murderer, or have you just commited a minor crime, like killing someone's pet rabbit?

That would make a big difference.

Please tell that to the HMHVV infectees that are neither cool nor angsty - ghouls.

Those views are not mutually exclusive. Especially as, like I said multiple times, it is completly up to a state or corporation what they accept as a person.

If Joe Average turns into a vampire, he looses everything.
If a CorpExec does, it just means that that his business associates have to re-arrange their shedules.

Of course, if he ever should miss to produce results...

Actually, it's Paranoia.

The main point of the joke was that you can't correct a Glitch when using Skillsofts - because you can't spend Edge.

Nah, vampires and ghouls are just people with a disease. The real monsters are trolls. They seduce our wives and ruin them for normal-sized men.

Paranoia, learn it; love it.


Back to the insane battle, if one were willing to sacrifice the hostage then blowing up the house and everything in it would be a good idea. Personally, I say in every hostage situation the best solution is to kill all of the hostages. This way the hostage-taker loses all leverage over you and it discourages future hostage situations.

They all only seduce the wives? Be afraid...

I wonder if you'll gain notoreity with that policy.

If you do get Notoriety, it might actually turn out to be a good thing.

The real monsters are the IEs that walk around with high Force Orgasm spells. You cannot help but love them.

That sounds like something from La Blue Girl. Is it can it be hentai SR time please?

The whole question of the legality of the vampire is petty moot for this group. They have 3 street sams and a mage in their group. I'm pretty sure that they have enough stuff to get themselves arrested for their whole life without worrying about killing a vamp. Lonestar is just as likely to have major issues with them as with the vamp.