If you're reading this, you're probably familiar with the posts suggesting (proving?) that ork reproductive rates given in the core books are unsustainable. Instead of simply ignoring what the book says, though, I'd like to assume that it's all 100% accurate, and generate a bit of discussion as to how Sixth World powers might work to limit Robustus populations. Real world solutions, like the one-child policy in China, for example, has, according to Chinese authorities, prevented more than 250 million births between 1979 and 2000. And in India, only people with 2 or fewer children are eligible to serve in positions within local governments. Would these methods be effective in dealing with ork overpopulations? What if the Sixth World put its own spin on them?

I'm imagining government/corps-sponsored incentives for voluntary sterilization; revocation of SINs for repeated "offenders"; assaults by pro-Humanis organizations involving physical or chemical castration; hard payouts for ork parents to give excess children up for adoption to other orks; etc.

Or all of the above?

What ideas can you guys think of to limit ork populations?

-milk.

Malthusian prospect.

OOC Runner's Companion says that for unknown reasons Ork reproductive rates are plummeting.

IC
"After long arduous work, we have achieved the start of our goals brothers. Future generations will have a cleaner planet. Let us not give up , let us press so that this beautiful future meets our children instead of our grandchildren and when that is done, we push to retire in a better, cleaner and safer America!
--The White Dove
"

That Dove guy is a Dreakhead

BlueMax

Don't orcs only live 50 years?

Also... what is the survivability rate or orc children?

I haven't read the posts, but if an orc gives birth to 5 kids but only 1 actually survives to maturity, then it works out just fine.

I guess I need to work the search-fu a little and get some more information on this... it sounds interesting.

My guess is that after the first litter-5 to 6 kids-she says get me some sterilization. That would be it. Even then the growth of the ork population would not be slowed. Also there might be a natural imbalance of male orks to female orks. Say 2 males for every female. Orks also have shorter life spans (due to poverty and violence maybe).

Also-ork kids might have a stronger prediliction for danger. As their bodies mature faster they can do more, but their mental maturity is still quite young. This could lead them into getting into fights with older kids (and hurt or killed that way).

Sterilisation additives in the local water supply. Long term environmental poisons causing uterine scarring sprayed from chemical trucks at 5 in the morning. Forced sterilisation of any ork who comes in without insurance at local hospitals.

Have you read "McHugh's Modest Proposal"?

Soylent Green is... Ork babies?! Ewww!

Ethnic cleansing?
Free abortions and sterilizations?
Drugs in the water to make Orcs infertile?
A subtle poison in the Orc branded baby formula to sterilize most of the newborn Female Orcs? (this one is particulrly hidious, poor families will lean on the cheap formula and by the time the effects are detected the damage has been done to nearly 2 full generations - into the roladex it goes...)

I wish I was joking.
Assuming a 50/ 50 gender split - and nothing in the books states otherwise (and they have had some wacky detailed things stated out) , and assuming each Orc Female has ONE litter of 6 (the average if I recall) and relatively high (15% or so) infant mortality, each 2 orcs produses 5 young per generation. We have had aproxamitly 2 Orc generations. For each Orc their was at goblinization we now have 6.25 young Orcs.

These numbers are VERY conservative.
At 2 litters (not an unreasonable average) we are looking at 1 to 25 starting orcs to current young. This is gross. Assuming a middle ground you are looking at about 12 to 1

I'm running this angle as I find it unlikely the masses of the Orcs as presented in the material will have access to fertility clinics for controlled impregnation to keep it to one child per preggers. If you want to have this freely avaliable as a charity (Proudly supported by some Humains fronted organization) it could do what you want. As would drugs and government incentives etc etc etc...

government incentives only work for SINners. the charitable organisations offering birth control might work, but i find it doubtful they'd make it into the poorest parts of the barrens, which is where a significant portion of the ork population will be (certainly not all, but quite a few). also, don't forget; not only do orks die sooner, they also reach sexual maturity earlier. an ork female could very well have had 2 litters by the time she's 14 years old...

There are some countries (like Japan in SR) that might do things like sterilize at goblinization, without telling them. And its certainly possible for something like.. a tailored bacteria to be made that has a much higher chance of killing young orcs (or other 'undesirable' races) than a 'pure' human.
Industrial waste, no medical care, starvation, and violence can easily account for the rest.

SIDS

Imagine how much damage a Mage could do by summoning a low Force spirit with orders of "Go forth and smother as many trog babies as you can!" Or perhaps a Decker could insert similair code into the interactive toys that are all the rage.

The code could eventually be traced (if anyone cared to), but the spirit thing is scary. What are the chances that there is at least one mage in Humanis?

I hope to read some of the materials discussed here, like Runner's Companion, before I give too definitive of an opinion here-but I hope they do tie something like this into the "meta plot", and i hope it doesn't suck.

while i'm sure there are mages in humanis, i'm also pretty sure that humanis hates mages only slightly less than they hate metahumans (though, as i said, this is hardly going to mean that it's impossible). the main problem i see is that if a mage does this on a regular basis, someone is going to track it back to them (because i give it a much better chance that the substantially larger portion of the population that are *not* part of humanis has a mage capable of tracking the spirit back to the summoner, telling half a dozen of his mage buddies, and sending 6 force 6 spirits as a welcoming committee to the magician who was thinking he's so clever).

Well the Spirit can also be traced. I'm sure that there'd be one Street Shaman out there who'd track it down. But magic is quite scary for combat characters, imagine what it'd be like for impoverished mundanes.

Escalation would be my answer. Promote the image of self-destructive behaviour in music and media that the Orks follow. Sneak in guns and drugs freely for the gangs. Target the small middle class and increase their debts and push them back below the poverty line; targetting middle-class ork students with drugs, or simply getting them into debt.

While most of the suggestions here are wonderfully in-line with the general dystopic theme of the game, I think the most likely answer would be that voluntary contraceptive technologies are probably incredibly cheap and readily available. Nobody really wants to see the destitute cranking out hordes of children that nobody can or will support, least of all the poor themselves (as there's no guaranteed support system anymore). So male and female contraceptive options are probably heavily-subsidized.

That way, those who support such things get a facade of humanitarianism and respectability while persuing their goals of reducing the undesirables - all without the risk of being exposed for engaging in supervillian-like acts of evil such as murdering babies, poisoning the water supply or releasing lab-bred plagues that couldn't possibly backfire.

but backfiring is half the point! So much plot potential

Feed the Ghule overpopulation with 'em.

yeah, but there are parts of the barrens that don't see police presence, let alone social worker presence. what do you do about them? remember, back in the day, *children* were your social security program. for anyone without a SIN, that is still basically true; your only hope of being supported in your old age is for your kids to take care of you.

Free MMORPG subscriptions for orks.

I think the best idea is the whole: make their media violent, make guns readily available...let them take care of themselves...Make it even seem profitable for them...And this is why Horizon is so dangerous...

because we all know giving people guns and encouraging them to be violent when they're right on your doorstep couldn't possibly have any negative side effects...

For the most part, you don't do anything about them, unless you can get a positive media story out of it. Otherwise, you leave them at the mercy of the barrens and rely on contracted security services to keep them there. If they breed like devil rats or get eaten by devil rats - that's their problem.

But, really, I imagine there are pretty much no social workers anywhere in SR. There are probably private contractors (whether legitimate or shadow-run) that replicate some of the functions, but I imagine most of what we would be familiar with as social work has probably fallen by the wayside - replaced by pure law enforcement: fines, imprisonment, and confiscation. But nothing like a systemic social safety-net or anything. Those subsidized contraceptives and whatnot I mentioned wouldn't be just handed out (though some of the freelance clinics may do so) , they'd just be sold extremely cheaply (likely one of the few things that you can still pay cash for) and advertised towards the desired market segment.

That's pretty much like most of inner city United States.

I agree with Chrysalis regarding the problem as a direct parallel to common inner city problems. Also as I read down the posts I started to replace the word Ork with Black Individual or Hispanic etc... some of the media problems and cultural issues are greatly represented here regarding (Black/Hispanic) people.

"Promote the image of self-destructive behaviour in music and media that the Orks (Black/Hispanic people) follow. Sneak in guns and drugs freely for the gangs. Target the small middle class and increase their debts and push them back below the poverty line; targetting middle-class ork (Black/Hispanic people) students with drugs, or simply getting them into debt."

Very interesting...

...and now I have some ideas for what Alamos 20k is going to be up to for the next story arc....

Yes, there are times I think that SR Orks/Trolls are meant as veiled political commentary on minorities
in RL. The fact that you can easily say that the creators of SR might not have wanted to deal with
resurgent skin-based racism, and instead chose to go a more sub-species-ist route...

No need for secret plots

Just pass a few laws and regulations to "control" the situation.


The parents (of all meta types) are taxed based on the number of children they have after the first which doubles for each child after the second (got to pay for those social services (like using the sidewalk and breathing)).

Initially include an exception for multiple births on the first pregnancy, but gradually remove it over a few decades or so.


The Sinless are not citizens and there for are committing a crime if they became pregnant (attempted delinquency of a minor - attempted smuggling of a minor over national border - Tax evasion).
Being sinless and not on birth control is a felony.
Charges dropped for voluntarily termination and temporary sterilization.
All sinless are required to be on birth control (freely provided at no charge). Reversible for a "small" fee.


Birth control is mandatory for anyone under 21 (both sexes). That will cut a female Orc's childbearing years in half.


To go one step further, the birth control in the water is a good idea. Just require potential parents to pay a "small" fee and take a "Parenting Class" before they get a prescription for the antidote to the birth control drugs in the water.

You could always crop dust the barrens with inhalant based sterility drugs. Possibly some type that is easily reversed if you have the money to afford it so you don't have to worry too much about accidentally sterilizing someone important.

I tought it was very obvious that orks and trolls stood for real life minorities. The "orxploitation" mentioned was just the last such "Hint".

I found it pretty odd that they went with Orxsploitation after Shadowrun has spent the last 20 years drawing orks around latino stereotypes and trolls around african american ones, but I guess trollsploitation doesn't have the same ring to it.

This is wrong. If there is a middle class for orks and trolls (I add trolls because it has come up in the course of the thread), then they are working for a Corp, and the Corp will "take care" of them. It is possible for a Corp to force sterilization, but when they could instead breed and train specialized brute fighters... you get the point.

More than likely, the ork population that are accepted into a Corp are very similar to modern-day Japanese: they focus their lives on "having fun" and their jobs instead of actually settling down and making a family. Especially if they know they only have roughly 50 years, they most probably would want to climb the Corporate Ladder rather than either splitting their already limited time between family and career, or simply be a homemaker (although purist homemakers would not neccessarily be uncommon).



If SINless are caught, they go to jail and recieve a Criminal SIN, if they are not brutalized and killed before reaching the jails. The cops don't regulate the SINless like you suggest; they are SINless - they have no legal protection at all. If they are found, while breaking a law or not, simply being SINless is a crime that is punishable by jail time.

But, recieving a Criminal SIN is for those fortunate enough to actually make it to the jails and to survive them.

Back to the main thread concept: there would be a certain population size that would be self-sustainable, where those at a natural peak would be able to be reduced to amino/nutrient soups and fed to those born, and where there would be no such thing as "natural cause" death, since allowing one to live that long would be a drain of resources. This would be especially true if the population in question were also Infected: this is what I'm thinking about for my current campaign, in fact.

Meh, just sell hunting rights and allow the wealthy to legally kill the SINless for a fee.

Ork overpopulation is not and probably never will be a problem. However, as far as your average human is concerned ork population is. Evolution, god, mana, whatever you want to call it made orks in a manner that they will maintain a steady population, just like every other species out their. Now your humanists out their would LOVE for ork overpopulation to be a viable threat, but the hard core reality of it is that most likely it won't ever be.
That said on a similar topic, orks aren’t humans. Anthropology has pretty much proven that the "races" we see in humanity really have no or very little actually baring on the kind of human produced, and that all the differences in behavior and cutler are all socially created. However, the awakening throws all these rolls out of the window. Orks, Trolls, Elfs, and Dwarfs are not human and should not behave the same way socially as toughs of other species. They should experience emotions in ways that simply aren’t "Human" because they just are not human. I'm tired of the portrayal of the goblinized races set as today’s ethnic groups because they shouldn't be "forehead aliens" cast by the way society sees them into a roll. They should be a whole different species, with a different set of reactions, but influenced just as much by the Society around it.
~Just my two Nyune~
Warning posts my be deluded by dyslexia, I'm not nearly uneducated or stupid as my posts make me out to be.

I'm also one of those that think orks & trolls are supposed to be reminiscent of today's minorities. Heck I've heard a good argument comparing techonomancers to homosexuals (ie: many are prejudiced against them, "outed" technomancers are at risk of being a hate target, you could be standing next to one and not even know it... etc, etc) Anyhow, I like it cause it lets people explore racism as a storytelling tool without having to drop 'N'-bombs and such.

Anyhow, as such, they are at risk to all the problems of those in poverty in inner cities: disease, drugs, crime (both victims of and perpetrators of), gang warfare, higher toxicity and pollution levels (lead paint anyone?), STDs, genetic disorders that treatment cannot be paid for, and the list goes on.

Poverty kills. If an ork has a litter of 5 or 6 and only half survive to see 30, how are they going to become overpopulated?

Actually, orks and trolls, and elves and dwarves are "human" in all the ways that matter. They are a subspecies, not a separate species. (We are Homo Sapiens Sapiens. They are Homo Sapiens Something Else) The fact that interbreeding can occur proves this. So why should they react to the same basic stimuli any differently than any other human?

I agree, mainly because the rules of this game completely align with this. Humans as we know them are Homo Sapiens Sapiens, orks are Homo Sapiens Robustus, trolls are Homo Sapiens Ingentis, et cetera. It is entirely possible that the above poster has played a little too much D&D, as the different races are in fact separate races alltogether.

I also should point out that "overpopulation" is a lie: it is always a problem with food transportation, not overpopulation. In the late 90's, it was found that the entire population of the world could fit into the state of Texas with the population density of New Jersey, and recently it was found that the entire population of the world could fit into Jackson County (IIRC, it was in the far north east), Florida... Twice. It is also well known that the entire (human) population of the earth can all go drown in Loch Ness at the exact same time. So there is in fact no such thing as "overpopulation," only a lack of available resources. If it's overpopulated where you are - move.

The game would be losing a lot if the different metahuman races were not human anymore. That a troll and a dwarf are just humans that look different (forehead aliens) and how the world reacts to that is an important theme of Shadowrun.

If anything, I think Shadowrun underestimates the reaction people would have if magic started working again. Do you really think the Department of Homeland security would tolerate the thought that someone could just conjure up an elemental and rip an engine off a plane in mid flight without anyone being able to stop it? Or political leaders having to wonder if someone in the crowd during election season was reading their minds?

I think the government would freak. They'd have a full on psychotic break, and start rounding up everyone with the Talent and consider permanent imprisonment and isolation.

Heck, you can even try some other things as well. Set up free hospices, but only for "Normal" humans. put taxes on the Elves, Dwarves, Orks,a dn Trolls for marrying and having children, use this money to offer free medical care
for normal human parents, important goods for normal humans right after marriage to set up home, a year paid vacation for the mother, and a copy of Brackhaven's Memoirs....

I think something like that was attempted. Then they realized they were trying to round up people who could just conjure up an elemental and rip an engine off a plane in mid flight without anyone being able to stop it. The Awakened are more than capable of defending themselves.

Plus, the first real use of magic was to help establish the amerindian nations, which I assume offered refuge to any Awakened who wanted it.

Only in the retcon version, in the original timeline the NAN didn't like white Mages anymore than they liked white mundanes.

I beg to differ, yes Orks, Trolls, dwarfs, and dandelion eaters are subspeices of humanity. And are therfore have an equal stake to humanity as anyone else. But when it comes down to their nature, the nuts and bolts they are not the same of humanity. It makes very little sense for them to return to their baser forms in the awakening if all that changes is their body. I finder a better parallel to the Metahuman-human differation as to that of the man is to woman.
Yes wemon and men are both human, yes they both have equaly capacity for talent or culter influnce. Wemon and men both can be set into a unlimited amount of combinations. But their are some basic diffrences (non-biological) in the way they behave and reason.
The point hear being that if the metahuman varaitions are souly artifical then the story is a masked retelling of our curent condition. And in many ways it is a retelling, but the awakeing didn't just rejumble the sets in wich humans clasify themselfs. It braught into the mix a set of creatures that ARE diffrent from humanity, but still deserve the same treatment. Its just as hard a story to tell of the one that we already live in where we make-beleive that people are diffrent from us because of the color of their skin but its a wholl new ballgame when it comes to the sixth world.

Metahuman Variations are solely artificial, and it is a masked re-telling of our current condition... That is indeed what it is all about...

Keep the Faith

Hmm.. I've read somewhere in the books that magic triggered a set of genes/a set of genomes that couldn't be expressed until there was a high enough level of mana. Thus Homo Sapiens evolved into the awakened genetic variantions of humanity.
Thus the odd one out is in fact the purebred human, because he hasn't got anything that marks him as special in the eyes of what ever gods and goddesses he devoutly follows.
A hoary old chestnut I like to tell: If you want to see a purebred human, go to the zoo.

Odd data: Humans as we know them today, has jumbled DNA/scrap DNA, that the human molecularscientist has no idea what is for. Weird, eh?
Me?? I am counting down to 2011. With my luck, I turn into a mundane orc or a troll. If I am fortunate, then I get magic. Hey, a girl can dream, eh?

I know I am a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to certain things, like the color of a person's skin, but I never thought of orcs= hispanics, trolls= american/indian. Maybe it is because I am not american and do not see it as such. I probably should have, but I didn't.

My two nuyen. So far. Most of what I wanted to say, has already been said. Other than ork life is hard, harsh and brutal. You compete from you are born until you die. If 1-2 child from each litter survives, I'd be surprised. And as a mom myself, I know how hard it is to take care of infants and toddlers, tweenies and teens.. You bet I'd make sure that I do not get pregnant again and again and again. It is hard on the body!

I concur with you, for the most part. Just to qualify your position a bit, though, differences can be magnified by social conditions, training, even (un)natural selection. Take for example, the situation of a two-year old child running, squealing and waving her hands. Now, have her observed by two dogs, a Labrador Retriever and a Border Collie (I won't pick on the obvious breed everybody picks on). Same species, inter-breedable, but the responses to the stimulus will be very different, even if the individuals receive the same basic training.

And I concur with you for the most part because as you will leap to say, people are not dogs.

This made me laugh... mostly because people are dogs. And that is a minor slight on dogs, not people.

SELF - is cynic - Y/N? Y

Wow, beat me to the punch, I was guna use the dog annology.

<points to the IC symbol>

And your are all still wrong. Dogs came about and have been bred for millennia. Trogs, fairies and dopey's kind are a new byproduct of the gift of magic. If we purge those who have been cursed, its a small price to pay for a better society.

Unless, perhaps your going to tell me Barghasts have always been around?

The White Dove.

/The bar guests though
//you can never get rid of them