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Kurious
QUOTE (Dr Funfrock @ Nov 23 2008, 07:32 PM) *
Phenotype adjustments are the interesting one. It is noted that Phenotype adjustments can occur as a result of exposure to radiation and the like. So the question really is, do mutations that occur as a result of radiation or food additives cause essence loss?


I think change to an existing gene, via tinkering, radiation or GM foods would cause essence loss.

I feel that if those changes are passed to your children however, their genetic code is natural (read: not altered) and their should be no essence loss for Jr.

Both in a logical sense, and a game mechanic sense Genetic Heritage should be a completely free genetic gift.
Kurious
I'm serious Ravor, explain this 'needs a great dragon to be natural' line of yours.

Because, it does not add up in my eyes.
Ravor
Ok, then I'll try. silly.gif

Yes, orks, trolls, ect were created by Dragons/Horrors, probably either at the end of the Zeroeth World or perhaps at the begining of the Second World. These changes were then made natural by the magical act of Renaming.

Because these genes require a certain level of Mana to express themselves this means that as the Mana Levels drop below a theshold they go dorment until only human children are born, then as the Mana Levels raise the dorment genes reactivate, resulting in cute elf babies and random teenagers exploding into trogs. SURGE is merely another expression of the same principle, who knows what sort of sick experiments happened in the previous ages of Magic and what magical "mistakes" the Sixth World is going to have to deal with?

Remember that the Mana Levels in the Sixth World are quite simply fucked up from what they are supposed to be in part because of the Ghost Dance and Big A's Astral "Remapping", the Bug Spirits were not supposed to appear this eary in the cycle, and they are one of last signs before the coming scourge.


So basically, until the Sixth World is able to unlock the secret of Renaming little Johnny is SoL. However, there is a huge advanatage that is being overlooked, Little Johnny's kids will never have to worry about the Mana Level dropping to the point where they are unable to pass they genetic advantage to their offspring.
Dr Funfrock
QUOTE (Kurious @ Nov 23 2008, 02:49 PM) *
I'm serious Ravor, explain this 'needs a great dragon to be natural' line of yours.

Because, it does not add up in my eyes.


OK, what you need to understand here is that we're delving deep into Earthdawn (the deep metaplot fluff for Shadowrun, basically) and looking at the roots of how magic in Shadowrun works.

Naming is a very important concept in Earthdawn. It never really gets brought up in Shadowrun because the only people left who know anything about it are Great Dragons and some IEs.

Basically "Name" in Earthdawn/SR magic is about what a thing truly is. A "True Name". Whereas a normal name is chosen because it fits the thing that is being named, true names work the other way around. If I have a boat, I call it a boat because that word fits what it is. Calling it a motorboat won't make it a motorboat; the name just doesn't fit. If I add an outboard motor to the boat, though, then it becomes a motorboat. The name changes to suit the thing.
With true names it's the opposite. if I change a thing's true name, then the thing itself changes to match the name. So "Renaming" a human to an elf makes them an elf. They have become, at the truest part of their substance, at the core of their existance, an elf. The universe itself recognises them as an elf, because Renaming effectively alters the universe.

If ordinary magic is exploiting a bug in the universe, then think of Name magic as like changing the source code of the universe and recompiling it from scratch. You're not just making use of some small glitch in the existing code; you're completely rewriting the code.
Cabral
Dragons aren't the only ones that can rename, IIRC. All metahumans were "Namegivers". But with the passing ages there is no indication that ritual of renaming survived the mana ebb. It likely persists among the Great Dragons and Immortal Elves/Orks/Dwarfs/T'skrang/etc but I don't recall any indication of it otherwise existing in the 6th world.

What remains are ceremonial remnants (ie, christening a ship) that have lost their magical power. Much like a wand is just a stick until you spend the time, karma and know-how to make it a foci, these ceremonies are just words and gestures until the awakened masses figure out how to make them more.
Ravor
Yeah, all metahumans were Namegivers.
Kurious
Ahhh, Earthdawn metaplotting...

That creates an interesting take on the debate.

I could go on about how I can easily see Genetic Heritage children expressing prior 'named' magic genes; just like someone who SURGES a beak. But, meh... go with what you feel is most fair and just.

Thanks for the info.
Ravor
You could say that, but then you are counterdicting the fluff, namely that the child has inherited her parents Sixth World genes.
Kurious
Not really, you would just be explaining why the child inherited the parent gene.
Ravor
Sorry, but I just finished rereading the Genetic Heritage Edge in Aug and it is clearly talking about the child inheriting Sixth World genetech. If you want to be the carrier of magically altered DNA then you already have an Edge that gives you that, it is called Changling and can be found in Runner's Companion.
Mordinvan
Just a few things. 1) Isn't shadowrun explicitly no longer connected to earthdawn? so isn't all this talk of 4th world and name givers effectively meaningless on cannon?
2) If it isn't and all is needed is a namegiver to do a renaming ceremony, which all metahumans are, then what would stop a renaming ceremony from stating a 'cyberzombie's' present state is its natural state and keep it from running amuck.

There might be no living human who knows the ceremony, but odds are someone somewhere wrote it down on a stone tablet.

Also since we almost have the science needed to create life from chemcials in a lab, SR 4 certainly would. Given we could use nucleotide combinations not seen in nature and rewrite an entirely new genetic code for this organism, but it would still be alive and have essence...... I'm not sure how you can justify charging someone essence for being born with genes ancestors several generations ago did not. This would effectively hault evolution, and lead to wide spread extinctions when climates changed.
Fortune
As far as I know, nothing has changed as far as the in-game Earthdawn-Shadowrun connection, despite real life issues.

As for stone tablets and the like, remarkably little (surprisingly little in fact) has actually been recovered from previous magical Ages. What has been discovered is typically immediately horded by someone like the Atlantean Foundation rather than being made openly available for use (or even study).
Fuchs
QUOTE (Fortune @ Nov 24 2008, 10:27 AM) *
As far as I know, nothing has changed as far as the in-game Earthdawn-Shadowrun connection, despite real life issues.

As for stone tablets and the like, remarkably little (surprisingly little in fact) has actually been recovered from previous magical Ages. What has been discovered is typically immediately horded by someone like the Atlantean Foundation rather than being made openly available for use (or even study).


You only need one Technomancer with access to the resonance realms (or whatever the TM metaplanes are called), the right talent and a desire to free information, and all the data gathered from those relics will be available, as long as the were ever entered into a computer. Doesn't matter if the computer ever was connected to the matrix or not.

So, all those hording organisations (and individuals) better never, ever use a computer to store data.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Fuchs @ Nov 24 2008, 05:05 AM) *
So, all those hording organisations (and individuals) better never, ever use a computer to store data.


I don't know if this is explicitly canon, or if it was something my GM made up that sounds plausible, but, anything you store on the Matrix (isolated or otherwise) is inherintly insecure: hackers can get into anything. If you want someone to keep from finding some info, keep it in a book.
Ravor
No less believable then the idea that some random Techno would stumble on usable Fourth World data in a realm that houses all data ever digitized, know what it was, and post it to the nets for everyone to find.


As for all metahumans being Namegivers, sure, but that doesn't mean that at current Mana Levels any mundane can invest the Renaming with the necessary mojo juice to alter something's True Name.
Kurious
QUOTE (Kurious @ Nov 24 2008, 12:24 AM) *
Not really, you would just be explaining why the child inherited the parent gene.


QUOTE (Ravor @ Nov 24 2008, 04:36 AM) *
Sorry, but I just finished rereading the Genetic Heritage Edge in Aug and it is clearly talking about the child inheriting Sixth World genetech. If you want to be the carrier of magically altered DNA then you already have an Edge that gives you that, it is called Changling and can be found in Runner's Companion.


Clearly you missed my point.

QUOTE
Genetic Heritage:
... It is thus possible that children have inherited genetically modified genes from one or both progenitors. ...


Here is the what. You are hung up on the why having to be tied into some Earthdawn metaplot event called 'naming'.

To which, I said (or at least attempted to convey), one could say the gene went from parent to child because of a previous 'naming'. I.e. long ago someone 'named' the new genes that science is duplicating now. The child's genetic code accepts the parents altered code only because long ago it was 'named'.

It makes sense to me, but it may not to you. Regardless, I don't use Earthdawn metaplotting... and find it ridiculous to charge the essence for the Genetic Heritage PQ.

QUOTE (Mordinvan @ Nov 24 2008, 09:07 AM) *
Also since we almost have the science needed to create life from chemcials in a lab, SR 4 certainly would. Given we could use nucleotide combinations not seen in nature and rewrite an entirely new genetic code for this organism, but it would still be alive and have essence...... I'm not sure how you can justify charging someone essence for being born with genes ancestors several generations ago did not. This would effectively hault evolution, and lead to wide spread extinctions when climates changed.


Well said.
AllTheNothing
QUOTE (Kurious @ Nov 24 2008, 07:13 PM) *
It makes sense to me, but it may not to you. Regardless, I don't use Earthdawn metaplotting... and find it ridiculous to charge the essence for the Genetic Heritage PQ.



The problem is that as it was, the quality was highly exploitable: 10 bp and you could have any geneware essencefree, add that little line in the transgenic genemods that states that with the GMs approval geneware can be used to grant bioware bonusses and inherited synapsic booster start to crop up; so to balance its high exploitability they tooke away the very essence (pardon the pun) of the quality making it quite worthless.
In my hopinion the quality needed to be balanced but not butchering its very meaning (not to mention its usefullness) but making the bp cost scale with the essece cost avoided (this would mean that the greater the benefit the greater the cost).
For those who care there's a suggestion of mone in the first page of this thread.
From a pseudo-scentific point of view genes don't determine all the aspect of an individual (twins have the same genoma yet ther are differences, even clones are just very similar to the original but with differences), they play a very big role but they are NOT the only factor, gene give the template but it's the body growth and development that determine what expression genes will have. Essence loss from geneware is mainly dued to metabolical changes, and alterations in energy flux within the body (no it's not the difference in genes themselves, type-O cloned organs have the DNA of Mr. O, so they are foreing genes to anyone else, yet unaugmented type-O organs can be implanted on anyone whithout essence loss), said alterations throw the holistic balance out of .. well balance, but if the body has'n finished its development it can adapt to some degree and make up to part of it (as the body developes the spirit evolves so can regenerate a little; I think GitS has some good points at reguard in the scenes in which the A.I. 2501 askes the Major to merge with it). The logical consequence would be that essence cost is inversely proportional to the time passed betwen the augmentation and the subject reaching adulthood; to simplefy the thing I would say that the seguent rules should do just fine (hey chummers this are just my 0.02 nuyen.gif ... let me ramble a little):
If genemod tooke place after the subject reached the adulthood the full cost must be payed.
If genemod tooke place after the subject reached the adolescence and before adulthood the cost is reduced by 25%.
If genemod tooke place after the birth and before adolescence the cost is reduced by 50%.
If genemod tooke place after the beginning of the cellular differentiation in the embrio and before birth the cost is reduced by 75%.
If genemod tooke place before beginning of the cellular differentiation in the embrio the cost is reduced by 100%.

Just my fragging 0.02 nuyen.gif
Dr Funfrock
@Mordinvan - OK, basically the explanation runs that evolution is "natural", tinkering with genes is "unnatural". The trick is, you need to start applying occult reasoning as opposed to scientific reasoning. When we discuss "nature" here we mean "Capital N Nature". Like native American shaman nature (to give just one example). We're talking Gaia theory and mother earth and all of that.

Basically a scientist looks at a piece of DNA taken from a human, and a piece of dna that has been rearranged by a machine, and says "They are both natural, because both come from nature. One was simply adjusted by human intervention, which is no different then if was adjusted by random chance. All that has happened is that the building blocks of the DNA strand have been rearranged." You see to a scientist there is no difference between chance and intentional change because the outcome is the same. But in occult terms there is a difference, because whilst the outcome is the same the intention was different. In occult reasoning words can have power based on their intention, whilst science says that word is a word, no matter what you meant by it. These are the kind of lines you need to think along.
So the Shaman says "This DNA strand took on a new form by what you call 'chance' but what I call the pattern of nature. Evolution is a part of the natural order of things, something woven into the very being of the universe. This other DNA strand took on a new form because of human intervention. This change did not come about as a part of Nature, but through the action human will with the intention of creating this change. Because a Human defied the natural order, this DNA strand is unnatural, and it will be damaging to the person's essence. Even when inherited by a child, that DNA strand will be unnatural, because the child was never meant to inherit it. They were meant to inherit the original, untinkered DNA strand, so that child will now suffer the consequences of their parent's revolt against nature."

@Kurious - OK, you don't use Earthdawn metaplot (by which I take it you mean that you explicitly ignore any metaplot elements originating from Earthdawn). That's perfectly reasonable, and indeed it's clear from the way the Shadowrun fluff is written that it was designed to accomodate GM's making up their own explanations for stuff. The problem is as soon as we start discussing people's personal versions of the setting there's no common point of reference anymore. Any rules interpretation that you make based on your own version of how the Shadowrun universe works is inherently specific to your game. That doesn't mean we can't start batting people's personal interpretations back and forth anyway; it's always cool too see other takes on the setting; but it doesn't mean you can just shoot down people who are trying to explain how the actual canon background works just because you happen to be uninterested in it. Essentially the explanation that Ravor is offering is the one that is best supported by the existing Shadowrun and Earthdawn fluff material.
A really good reference guide for Earthdawn can be found on Ancient History's site: http://ancientfiles.dumpshock.com/
He covers a lot of the connections between Shadowrun and Earthdawn, so that you don't need to go through all the Earthdawn books yourself.

To address the other point raised by Mordinvan; Earthdawn still forms the basis of the Shadowrun setting. Because the license is now in the hands of Redbrick, any changes that Redbrick make to Earthdawn canon will not carry over into Shadowrun, but as I understand it anything in Earthdawn prior to the license change is still considered canon (unless there have been any specific contradictions that I'm not aware of). Obviously any word from the Catalyst guys would be helpful here.
Kurious
QUOTE (AllTheNothing @ Nov 24 2008, 09:39 PM) *
The problem is that as it was, the quality was highly exploitable: 10 bp and you could have any geneware essencefree, add that little line in the transgenic genemods that states that with the GMs approval geneware can be used to grant bioware bonusses and inherited synapsic booster start to crop up; so to balance its high exploitability they tooke away the very essence (pardon the pun) of the quality making it quite worthless.
In my hopinion the quality needed to be balanced but not butchering its very meaning (not to mention its usefullness) but making the bp cost scale with the essece cost avoided (this would mean that the greater the benefit the greater the cost).


I remember seeing nanotech having that 'emulate bioware/cyberware' caveat, must have missed it in the geneware section.

Regardless, if a player is trying to cheese 'ware' the GM should say 'no' (sh1t, even saying free of nuyen cost to synaptic boost is ridiculously unbalanced and cheesy). But, when looking at the genetic options in augmentation- I don't think any are game breaking to have for free (both in nuyen and essence).

@Dr Funfrock- thanks for the link. I have no experience with Earthdawn, but will check that out when able.
Dr Funfrock
OK, I just did what all of us should have thought of ages ago, and searched for the Augmentation Errata thread.

Direct quote from Synner: "Free" refers to the nuyen cost only.

That at least answer's the OP's question.
Cabral
Check post 10. pbangarth beat you to it. wink.gif
Dr Funfrock
Huh. I must have missed that.

And here was me thinking that most of the confusion over Naming was down to us not having a clear ruling on the specifics of Genetic Heritage.
pbangarth
Nope, the ruling was clear. People just didn't like it.

Peter
AllTheNothing
QUOTE (Kurious @ Nov 25 2008, 12:33 AM) *
I remember seeing nanotech having that 'emulate bioware/cyberware' caveat, must have missed it in the geneware section.

Regardless, if a player is trying to cheese 'ware' the GM should say 'no' (sh1t, even saying free of nuyen cost to synaptic boost is ridiculously unbalanced and cheesy). But, when looking at the genetic options in augmentation- I don't think any are game breaking to have for free (both in nuyen and essence).



1 bp = 5000 nuyen.gif
As I said the bp cost should be proportional to the essence cost avoided, the increased bp should compensate the money saved.
The problem is in the bp cost.
Dr Funfrock
Well, arguably essence is one of the single biggest causes of confusion in all of Shadowrun. There are good explanations for how it all works, but as I've been trying to point out they require you to think in very non-scientific ways, which is something that a lot of roleplayers aren't so comfortable with in my experience.
Mordinvan
QUOTE (Dr Funfrock @ Nov 24 2008, 03:51 PM) *
You see to a scientist there is no difference between chance and intentional change because the outcome is the same. But in occult terms there is a difference, because whilst the outcome is the same the intention was different. In occult reasoning words can have power based on their intention, whilst science says that word is a word, no matter what you meant by it. These are the kind of lines you need to think along.
So the Shaman says "This DNA strand took on a new form by what you call 'chance' but what I call the pattern of nature. Evolution is a part of the natural order of things, something woven into the very being of the universe. This other DNA strand took on a new form because of human intervention. This change did not come about as a part of Nature, but through the action human will with the intention of creating this change.


This statement is problematic for any number of reasons, not the least of which being 'nature' has no will of its own. Even in SR4 there are spirits who love it the way it is, and spirits who want to make the earth as lifeless as the moon, there is no constant direction about the "order" of it. In addition the viruses used to do genetic engineering are of natural origin, and they change the DNA using natural means. Saying that because someone somewhere wanted a particular outcome to this viral infection suddenly making it unnatural is just a little "Crazy" to me. Lastly my example was creature a brand new organism from scratch using nothing but chemicals. We can almost do it now, in SR 4 they will be able to.
Step 1) Make a mathematically perfect Genetic code (does not exist in nature)
Step 2) program a genome of a novel organism (never existed before)
Step 3) Chemically manufacture the zygote of this organism (never existed before)
Step 4) Allow it to grow and mature
This THING will be alive, and well, but will never have been named in any ceremony, and by the earthdawner's arguments should not therefore even be alive, but will be.
It will have genes never seen on the planet before, as will its offspring. If it is alive it has essence, but since it hasn't been named it can't have a natural pattern.
Anyone else seeing a problem here?

The only reason essence is charged for that edge is to preserve game balance, which in my opinion would not be broken for allowing it be to essence free anyway, so long as the costs involved reflected the amount of essence not paid lost. It would also reflect the fact that your soul has never known you NOT having that stretch of DNA and should have no reason to object to its presence.
Ravor
No, in the Sixth World said creature would not have ( Essence 6.0 ), instead its Essence would be calculated based off the difference between its Pattern and the closest "named" Pattern. IF said difference brought the artifically engineered creature to ( Essence 0.0 ) then for reasons that Sixth World science can not explain the creature would never carry to term and always be stillborn.
AllTheNothing
QUOTE (Ravor @ Nov 26 2008, 07:59 AM) *
No, in the Sixth World said creature would not have ( Essence 6.0 ), instead its Essence would be calculated based off the difference between its Pattern and the closest "named" Pattern. IF said difference brought the artifically engineered creature to ( Essence 0.0 ) then for reasons that Sixth World science can not explain the creature would never carry to term and always be stillborn.



Except for the fact that in "Year of the Comet" (at p.29) there's a guy (might be a girl) named Feral who states that scientist have created creatures out of whole cloth, and that was 2061, the timetable is advanced by 9 years betwen YotC and Augmentations. Maybe metahumankind do produces lifeforms without stillbirth.
The essence cost is there for balance reasons only (and as I've already said I think it was to change the bp cost to solve the issue).
Fortune
All shadowtalk is not necessarily the truth.
Sceptic
QUOTE (Fortune @ Nov 26 2008, 11:13 PM) *
All shadowtalk is not necessarily the truth.

What?!? Sacrilege! It's all true.

Especially the mutually contradictory ones.
AllTheNothing
QUOTE (Fortune @ Nov 26 2008, 11:13 AM) *
All shadowtalk is not necessarily the truth.



You've got a point but while it's not necessarily the truth it can't be just dismissed as false.
Ravor
None of the shadowtalk on that page counterdicts my theory so it's a moot point either way, especially since it seems to me that Feral was talking about retroviri which would suggest the corps started with an existing subject. However, even if the corps did not start with an existing subject then my theory still allows for the possiblity of a viable creature as long as the Pattern is similiar enough to something that already has a True Name that the new creation has a positive Essence.
hyzmarca
This argument, right here, is the reason that they should never have gotten rid of bioindex.

Back when FASA was making it, genemods didn't cost essence. Since they invented both systems, I think that they'd know. Essence loss was solely the result of cutting out bits of flesh and replacing them with inert metal and plastic. Genemods and bioware cause different problems, however, specifically that they were imperfect and too much would compromise the health of the subject. They also calledsed virtual magic loss, which wasn't actually that virtual.
Dr Funfrock
QUOTE (Mordinvan @ Nov 25 2008, 09:40 PM) *
Saying that because someone somewhere wanted a particular outcome to this viral infection suddenly making it unnatural is just a little "Crazy" to me.


This is precisely the point I am trying to get across.
It sounds crazy because you're still approaching this whole thing with the wrong mindset. It doesn't matter where the tools come from, or even how you use them. What matters is why you use them.

Learn to think crazy. It's the only way you're ever going to make sense of half of the Shadowrun universe.

Put it this way; a man tells you that he didn't really murder his wife, someone else forced him to do it with the power of their mind. He's crazy, right?
Someone tells you that faries stole his children away. He's crazy, right?
Someone tells you that spirits speak to him in his dreams. He's crazy, right?

Welcome to the Sixth World. It is constantly made clear, throughout the Shadowrun material that science, even the scientific approach of the hermetics, does not have all the answers. To actually understand what's going on with all of this (and remember, this is stuff 99% of the denizens of the Shadowrun world do not understand properly themselves) you need to break out of scientific thinking.

And to answer your second point, yes, you are correct that the technology should exist to allow scientists in the Sixth World to create new creatures out of whole cloth. So why haven't they succeeded in doing so?
ReverendMo
While going back a bit and stepping away from the magical aspect, here's one line of thought to justify the essence cost... while the child may have been born with the genetic tweak, the mutation was still very recently introduced into their genetic lineage... I could see something more akin to a sliding scale, with subsequent generations inheriting the trait for less essence cost until it really has become a natural state. Until that point though, their genetic code would still be somewhat "off."

Keep in mind that unless both parents have the same genetic modifications, or the kid's genes are tweaked in utero (which would be more akin to an initial gene-tweak than inheritance), there's the standard genetic dominant-recessive hokey-pokey going on, which means some of mom's "clean" genes might not appreciate dad's tinkered ones. One kid could have it, the next not, and so on. As it becomes more stable through the family line, it'd become more and more of a truly natural state, integrating better with future generations.
Mordinvan
QUOTE (Dr Funfrock @ Nov 26 2008, 12:45 PM) *
So why haven't they succeeded in doing so?

I don't seem to remember it saying anywhere that they had either a) tried or b) failed
Ravor
That is a silly thing to say, for the following reasons.

a) Why wouldn't the corps delve into a field with such protential for profit?

b) Why aren't custom lifeforms on the market?
Dr Funfrock
I'm with Ravor on this one, Mordinvan.

What's more, you argued yourself that it should be doable in the setting. Why make that argument, if you don't then intend to offer some reasoning as to why it isn't being done? It's like saying "It makes complete sense that people should be able to travel through time" and then leaving that hanging.

Ravor's points are pure economics, and corps believe in economics. If there's profit to be had, it will be had.
Mordinvan
QUOTE (Ravor @ Nov 27 2008, 09:42 AM) *
That is a silly thing to say, for the following reasons.

a) Why wouldn't the corps delve into a field with such potential for profit?


Because the writers may not have the required in depth knowledge of biology to suggest such things are possible in the first place. They might... but given how some cyberware "works" I'm guessing not. For example, coat titanium in calcium phosphate, and the body doesn't know it is there, so titanium bone lacing should be completely invisible to the body, and in fact essence free.

QUOTE
b) Why aren't custom lifeforms on the market?

They are, see augmentation.
Ravor
Firstly nothing in AUG suggests that symbionts are your theorical "mathematically perfect genetic code" as opposed to being based on existing creatures. Secondly, think about why bone lacing still costs Essence if according to science it is "completely invisible" to the body.
Dr Funfrock
QUOTE (Mordinvan @ Nov 28 2008, 10:05 AM) *
For example, coat titanium in calcium phosphate, and the body doesn't know it is there, so titanium bone lacing should be completely invisible to the body, and in fact essence free.


And yet Titanium Bone Lacing is not essence free, and Naming explains why.

You seem consistently unwilling to accept an explanation that completely explains, from one simple root cause, every single apparent inconsistency in Essence loss, just because that explanation is "unscientific", and yet you're working with a setting where it is made entirely clear that magic breaks all previously understood scientific rationale.

Levitate completely fails to account for conservation of motion.
Fireball breaks the laws of thermodyamics.
Heal, under the right circumstances, creates matter out of nothing.
Sandstorm creates matter out of nothing, and then returns it to nothing.
Quickening laughs at conservation of energy. Set up a quickened Alter Temperature spell in your fridge, and save on your power bills. So long as you don't take the fridge through a ward, that spell will last, quite literally, forever (or until the mana cycle fades at least).

As long as you refuse to accept that Shadowrun is a universe underpinned by magic, you're going to keep beating your head against a brick wall every time you try to understand the setting.

Occams Razor; the simplest solution is often correct.
Naming is the simplest solution, and it is established in canon to be a perfectly valid solution.
You can either keep picking holes in every single part of the rules and the setting, or accept that it does actually work, and you're just having trouble understanding why.
Mordinvan
QUOTE (Dr Funfrock @ Nov 28 2008, 11:43 AM) *
And yet Titanium Bone Lacing is not essence free, and Naming explains why.


No... not really. As naming is a 4th world phenomena, and that has been removed from cannon.

QUOTE
You seem consistently unwilling to accept an explanation that completely explains, from one simple root cause, every single apparent inconsistency in Essence loss, just because that explanation is "unscientific", and yet you're working with a setting where it is made entirely clear that magic breaks all previously understood scientific rationale.

And i'm also working in a world where enough time for evolution to have substantially changed life since the last naming has occured, so that when manna resurges nothing will be recognized by its previous name, and pretty much everything should be dead.


QUOTE
Levitate completely fails to account for conservation of motion.
Fireball breaks the laws of thermodyamics.

Heal, under the right circumstances, creates matter out of nothing.
Sandstorm creates matter out of nothing, and then returns it to nothing.
Quickening laughs at conservation of energy. Set up a quickened Alter Temperature spell in your fridge, and save on your power bills. So long as you don't take the fridge through a ward, that spell will last, quite literally, forever (or until the mana cycle fades at least).

If the world were a closed system I would agree with you.... however it clearly is not, as so I don't.
Energy is siphoned from the astral and meta planes to generate magical effect, and so in fact has a source as opposed to coming from nothing.

QUOTE
As long as you refuse to accept that Shadowrun is a universe underpinned by magic, you're going to keep beating your head against a brick wall every time you try to understand the setting.

Which part? The 4th world naming? Cause that part isn't part of the setting any more. Pretty sure either A.H. or Synner made that reasonably clear.

QUOTE
Occams Razor; the simplest solution is often correct.
Naming is the simplest solution, and it is established in canon to be a perfectly valid solution.
You can either keep picking holes in every single part of the rules and the setting, or accept that it does actually work, and you're just having trouble understanding why.

it also makes no sense and would result in the exctinction of all life on earth if any signicifant evolutionary changes had happened.
It also doesn't answer the question of what happens if I reengineer an organism during a manna ebb, so its 'meta' genes are inactive, and make a completely new life form. Is it and its ancestors perfectly healthy till the next high in the manna cycle when they all die?
The fact is the 'rules' must make sense for both when mana is present or mana is absent or else you get problems of nearly all life dying off at each turn of the cycle.
Tachi
QUOTE (Dr Funfrock @ Nov 25 2008, 03:00 PM) *
Well, arguably essence is one of the single biggest causes of confusion in all of Shadowrun. There are good explanations for how it all works, but as I've been trying to point out they require you to think in very non-scientific ways, which is something that a lot of roleplayers aren't so comfortable with in my experience.


So uh, can you tell me why, exactly, dragons have such a high essence? I've been curious about that for a while, is it their age? Size? Or that they were "first"?
HentaiZonga
That's... really a shame, since Naming and Patterning is a very, very good mechanic for figuring out magic and Essence related stuff.
Hagga
To tangent:
If you take an infusion with, say, Endure and it becomes permanent - are you forever non sleeping and almost certainly hallucinating?
Stahlseele
seems like it
Hagga
Well.

I wonder how long before the GM rules I fall asleep in the middle of a run. Not good.
Dr Funfrock
QUOTE (Mordinvan @ Nov 29 2008, 06:08 AM) *
Which part? The 4th world naming? Cause that part isn't part of the setting any more. Pretty sure either A.H. or Synner made that reasonably clear.


Care to actually point out some examples of that? So far everything I've heard on Earthdawn is simply that they can't control the content any more because someone else has the license. That doesn't invalidate previous content. There's not a lot of sense in throwing out everything that the setting is built on.
Ravor
Over the years there has been too many clever little tie-ins between the two for the devs to be able to deny that Earthdawn is Shadowrun's Fourth World with a straight face and until they are willing to retcon the fluff from previous Edtions away that basic truth will sadly remain. Of course, with that said to my knowledge the devs have never admitted the truth and made said connection "cannon" or offical for that matter.

Still if not for Pattern Warping why does your bone lacing cost Essence when science says it shouldn't? Approach your answer from an IC angle instead of screaming "game balance".

Hmm, good point about evolution, but there are several answers that works.

( 1 ) Everything we know is wrong....

Not my favorite explaination, but if you believe the elves and the dragons the world is only between twenty and thirty thousand years old and pattern warp from evolution loses most of its bite, assuming of course that evolution is remotely related to Fifth World understanding.

( 2 ) Mana never truely Ebbs....

As far as I remember this wonderful little tib-bit is actually "cannon", even at the lowest ebb of the downcycle, there is still Mana trickling throughout the giasphere. What this means for our discussion is that under "Pattern Logic" the rules are the same in the Fifth World as the Sixth, which means that Essence exists at all times, we just can't measure it with Fifth World technology.

( 3 ) Natural is better than Unnatural...

Cyberware costs more Essence then Bioware, and in order to lessen the Essence cost great care and expence is taken to make the implant as tailored and custom as possible, in-other-words, the closer the implant is to the Named Pattern the less Essence it costs. The more natural the change to a being's Pattern the less Essence said change costs, and as a natural process evolution doesn't cost Essence at the scale Shadowrun's Rules focus on.
Ravor
As for the Essence of Dragons something to remember is that according to their own legends they either Horrors or at best Horror Spawn so the basic rules don't apply to them. Meta-humanity are one step further removed from the Horrors and hence their Patterns are less "solid" in a magical sense.
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