I feel like the horrors' most dangerous weapon is diversity in their attacks. In response, our best solution is diversity in defenses. With billions of people around, I see no reason why we wouldn't implement most of the ideas suggested, including an autonomous lab that, a few thousand years in the future, takes a bunch of preserved embryos or eggs and sperm and creates a new group of metahumans in the case that everyone previous has been killed off.

Actually, that would make for a very interesting RPG. You and your companions are alive on this bountiful planet where once a great civilization thrived, but now has been left to seed and the remains of whatever the horrors twisted and mutated during their stay.

at least this time i voted.
I was a lurker without a login back in those days. Now i am a lurker with a login, big deal.

Edit: I was just promoted to Moving Target, oh my.

Their diversity does not make them dangerous, it makes them weak. Because they do not have any sort of coordination their ability to damage metahuman society is rather limited. Their strength comes in sheer numbers and sheer power, but a cordinated effort by a group of metahumans can take down even the most powerful of Horrors. In fact, many solitary Horrors have been been slain by bands of metahuman adventurers and crusaders.

hyzmarca, diversity isn't always a barrier to coordination. After all, we have a navy, an army, and an air force, not a bunch of redcoats marching around with airsoft rifles. If coordination works well enough, then diversity will help them kick our ass.

Not that they will, of course. I have a feeling that they need to get to our plane of existence because outside of it, they can't develop all that well. There's something special about the physical plane for them, and I think they need to feed here. So while we're inventing shit, they're eating each other alive, because whatever metaplane they're on isn't enough for them to survive easily.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

If the Horrors come on a global because your GM wants them, then whether we can beat them or not will be up to him.

If they come in a FanPro product then whether we beat them or not will depend on the continued marketability of a Horror-blasted Earth.

From an in-game perspective whether we can beat them or not isn't really determinable, because so little is known about them. Heck, we don't even know if they can be nuked or not, and whether it requires one like was used on Chicago or a regular one will do the job.

Although I have to agree with James on whether 'offical Fan-Pro' Horrors could be beaten or not, I'd say more then likely they would simply skip ahead to Earthdawn II instead of playing through the actual Scrouge...

However, a common theme that I've noticed in the Pro-Human side is the idea that meta-humanity would band together in unity to face the Horrors and thus be able to hold them at bay if not wipe the floor with them, and to that I ask this simple question, when has humanity ever banded in near-total unity to accomplish anything at all? (Look at the panic over terrorism/security and how quickly people are to rush to judgement there.)

Now on the flip-side, I don't believe that the Horrors are paragons of unity either but then again I don't think they really have to be as my understanding is that they don't really have an over-arching goal other then to feed, so that even if they could wipe meta-humanity out completely as a 'race' they wouldn't...

Of course I could be wrong given that I'm not a huge Earthdawn fan. *winks*

*Edit*

For those who don't like my terrorism example, then think about the various factions and their disagreements on how best to wage the Cold War.

Interesting... And long-running... Topic.

I know it's probably worthless to say it, but...

Here's the ways I see it going down.

1: The world is flooded by some descendant of FAB-III. Suddenly the majority of Horrors are no longer a threat. Military drone riggers, hidden in very deep bunkers whose connections to the surface are either flooded with FAB-III, Mana Warps, or both. These will deal with any manifested horrors, and plenty of them are going to wind up having to manifest. The war drags on for a Very Long Time, with the Horrors unable to breach the underground bunkers except through the old-fasioned way of breaking down the door - doors which are guarded by main battle tanks, emplaced guns, and Dragons. (Dragons will by now have learned that if you don't work with Metahumanity, you die opposed to them.) The war drags on a very long time, Horrors scrimping by, wandering a blasted wasteland, hunted from the skies above and the black above it, ranging from surface holdout to holdout for what meals they can find, preying on themselves as they can, and eventually get forced to abandon Earth.


2: Metahumanity cannot stand and fight as they would like to do. As the Horrors start threatening to cross over, Metahumanity builds huge arcs and lifts off to claim their birthright amongst the stars. As the Scourge starts in full, Metahumanity turns their most powerful weapons and destructive magics back on the cradle of their civilization, cracking the planet Earth like an egg. In an instant, the horrors are flashed out of existance - those which were manifested by obvious means, those which were inhabiting the Astral find themselves in the middle of a Grade-A Mana Warp which is rapidly dissipating into a Mana Nothingness.

At this point, number 2 diverges.

2a. Metahumanity moves forth to settle other planets, finding them devoid of the Horrors. Terraforming is done, and in not too long, Mars and other inhabitable planets farther away have Manaspheres capable of supporting the suspended Dragons and other such creatures that Metahumanity brought with it.


2b. Metahumanity finds that the other worlds offer no safe haven from the Horrors. The great ships ply the void, forging asteroids and planets for materials, using robotic drones, and eventually the ships grow greater, until they sustain their own manaspheres strong enough to support the Dragons and other such dual-natured beasts that Metahumanity adopted on their great voyage. These great arcs are carefully regulated, never allowed to grow in Mana strength to such lengths that Horrors could find them livable - arcs that do so are evacuated and destroyed, the dragons placed back into suspension until they can be woken up again. As the Sixth World draws to a close, presuming that the mana cycle even matters in space, research into ways to sustain the fading magic begins, and the cycle is rendered more or less meaningless, with the conditions of the early Sixth World maintained indefinately.


3: Horrorws r0xx0r our s0xx0rs, just like last time. The ED-humping crowd is vindicated, until they realize that includes them too, and suddenly they wish for giant space arcs that give the finger to the Horrors.

Not me. I'd say (meta)humanity is worse than the Horrors can ever be. That's why we'd win. To take the Cold War example, we are too greedy for Communism and we'd be too evil for the Horrors. They are obsolete.

I have to agree with toturi on this. Man isnt a naturally 'nice' race.
And one thing mankind has always done well is make up new and exciting ways to kill things. Im fairly convinced that the horrors would be no exception.
If they had issues cracking open a karn before, wait untill they crack one open to look down the barrel of a tank.
Look at the last time we came into conflict. We had pointy sticks, and wicked good magic. Now we have much pointer sticks, and a bit less magic. But are also WAY better orginized.

We're gonna have much better magic; we have both the immortal elves and more extensive magical research (6 billion people, 60 million magicians, way more than in the 4th world.)

Well, if we can't beatt the horrors, we certainly can beatt the dead horse.


On the subject of horrors, I was recently corresponding with Nisarg/RPGPundit about why things like Cthulu are scary. This is what he told me:

I don't get what he means by post-modernism. I thought postmodernism is the acceptance that life has no meaning, of one's ignoring that life has no meaning. It seems as if the postmodernist would be likely to shake hands/tentacles with Cthulhu.

And I don't think that Horrors are Lovecraftian; Horrors are too anthropomorphic. They care about us, or rather, our suffering way too much to be truly alien. What's alien are the invae, and even those resemble real insects at heart.

And it doesn't matter whether the Horrors can be beaten on their home plane; to exist on the physical plane and therefore harm us, they have to, well, you know, exist on the physical plane. And that means they can be hurt with a frigging shotgun.

They did win the first time. If they lost, it was only in that the magic levels dropped. They're not fighting a war of extermination here.

~J

Well, if you believe the dragons egotistical tale:
They had won, then lost, then were winning until they couldn't stay, and then all of recorded human history.

Possibly with a few repeats of the "winning until they couldn't stay then something".

Yeah, they won round 1. Imean we took to cowering in magical bunkers to wait it out like an atomic war. And eventually (1500 years?) later it was safe to come outside again.

But with bigger and badder everything, unless THEY have evolved and learned, I dont think they can do it again. But if they have.... eek.

I noticed your deliberate misspelling of "beat." Nice.

The only problem is that you didn't misspell "the."

He's a question, a bit off topic but related.

Could something like the Dissonance be Artificer learning to take the matrix after slipping by before the bridge was secured?

Also, are the metaplanes/netherworlds connected to each other or is Earth's Astral space a "hub". Are we the choke point for extraplanier entities to spread? Or do they just like to eat us cause we're so tasty?

Edit:

Should point out "Eat our pain and fear because it's so tasty".

I think Earth's space is a metaplanar hub. But I don't think they're here because of that; that wouldn't have been enough for them to want to linger here.

And I don't think Verjigorm's the worst Horror in existence; maybe the worst one to walk the Earth, but not the worst one when compared to ones on other planets. This thought is supported solely by the assumption that there are horrors on other planets.

We still don't have canon life on other planets though, no way of knowing exactly how extraplanetary manaspheres work, right?

Though I recall something (maybe in reading Ancient's files?) about Harliquin and some runners/characters traveling to another modern world via the metaplanes? Implication being that it had already been taken over by the Horrors and turned into a post apocalyptic wasteland type setting. Basically the perfect terrain for Horrors.

Anyone remember that or am I talking out of my ass? Does that have any bearing on the advanced modern society of Earth 2070 and it's chances of surviving the Horrors?

I seem to recall reading something on AH's page about some strange bones being recovered from Mars that resembled Dragon bones but tested as something else... I think it was in Big D's will....

OS: the harlequin's Back adventunre has a metaplanar "place" like that, although it's never really addressed as to why it's like that. but any magic use there inflicts wounds on the user.

Ravor: There are bones yeah, althouhg what they are hasn't been said either way. AH keeps saying "there's no proof they're dragon bones" or soemthin' to that effect. There's an adventure in the Missions adventure book that deals with this.

When I got home I busted out HB and read that section (Don't worry, I have my GM credentials somewhere around here...). I guess it can't really be held with any credibility because it was a quest. There were some low-low-low (implied by text, no hierarchy to back up positions) level Horror minions in the back and they were pretty nasty critters.

I was also planning on tossing a few wraiths at my players since they just arrived in Cancun on Oct. 29th 2070 with the intension to knock off a minor government secretary. Seeing as the day of the dead was coming to this contested territory I figured a riot may be in order. Have you ever checked out the stats on those things?

If they are a low level horror minion as well, a precursor to what is to come, we have some problems. The average Awakened runner might be able to take one down if he gets the drop on one and it hasn't gotten it's spirit energy up to full yet. IF these guys are the rank and file of a Horror invasion we are in for some serious trouble.

I don't want to get bogged down in the numbers game, but in terms of sheer ability, the average man is a weapon for these guys. Unless some effective anti-Horror measures can be taken metahumanity is going to be play doe for them when they come back. Considering the current state of awareness in the Sixth World I'm going to have to call metahumanity boned.

Meh, metahumanity is boned already, the question is who does it, and do they do us the dignity of lubing up first.

Just so you're clear (since your post seems to indicate a lot of reverence for the horrors, but doesn't indicate you think every individual is unbeatable) many horrors are really not very tough at all. Some can be taken down with a trusty chainsaw or a few sniper rounds to the head. Some are defeated by simple water purification! The only thing that makes them horrors is they're from another metaplane and they generally consume unusual stuff to survive.

Clearly there's some debate as to how not tough some horrors go, since just two days ago I got poked with:

Gnashers can be killed by sufficiently sharp sticks, it's true. I may have misspoken above. What makes them difficult to kill is that they travel in packs of, again, several dozens. They're dumb, but they're hungry. Still, enough automatic fire should put them out of commission.

Dread Iota, on the other hand, are relatively powerful and very difficult to kill, and "infest streams, ponds, springs, lakes, and even rain clouds" in "masses".

~J

We are the Horrors.. how can we escape ourselves?

Ysrthgrathe knows.

~J

You can't stop the horrors, Nobody can stop the horrors!

*dances*

Right. But again, they're decently proficient spellcasters (IIRC roughly equal to grade 2 or 3 initiates). One Powerbolt and the Dread Iota are coming through.

~J

That's why all water filtration centers (and any other societally important sites) have shitloads of Nimue's Salamanders in them.

Substitute "a few explosive rounds in the general vicinity" for "a few sniper rounds to the head" then. That's how a modern military kills just about everything anyway.

I think the problem is scale, every Horror is looking for a piece of the action as it were. Where as not every meta is going to take to the street with bravery and determination to thwart this threat. In fact, knowing the world today, I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the first world didn't try to welcome their new Horrible masters and cut some kind of deal so they could get back to their AR world.
That is assuming the invasion hasn't started already and the poo state of most of the worlds population isn't already feeding the bastards.