The quality Genetic Heritage states that you start with one genetic modification for free. My question is, does this include transgenic alterations?

I would allow one geneteic mod. And free is free essence too...

Transgenic is genetic alteration right ? So it must be included.

Actually, it isn't. I believe there's an entire thread on that already on the forums somewhere.

They mean "free" as in "no monetary cost." Essence reductions are always noted as listing the word "Essence" when referring to the Essence cost.

But i thought someone couldn't be born with lower then 6 essence? If something was made part of you from birth then why should it weaken you?

Because you're still not fundamentally Human. That whole "naming" thing.

"Naming" being....?

So with enough modifications a baby could be born an inch away from being a cyber zombie then? Thats just awesome.

Genetic Heritage is inherited by a parent so it should count has a "SURGE" like phenomenon. It should not cost money or essence to obtain it. You can take it only once too. Else it would be too powerful.

I should have said the awesome was Sarcastic. Sorry, text and all make it hard and I sometimes forget but I concur with it basically being like Surge. You were born with it so it shouldn't stab you in the face. Anyway it doesn't matter, to each table it's own.

I should note that it is also possible to be born with less than 6 essence - or to have less than 6 essence - even if you have no cyber/bio/nano/geneware. Malnutrition, severe disease, genetic damage, radiation damage, toxins and other environmental hazards can lower your essence. It is assumed that this is an abnormal condition and such people do not make good shadowrunners, however, hence at chargen you are assumed to have full essence.

The ultrametamagic from Earthdawn that allows dragons to create new races.

Edit: Here's the old thread, complete with a quote from Synner.

Ghouls get born with less than 6 Essence too right?
And i mean the bred and born true ones, not the actual infected ones.
OK, one COULD argue that they are not human anymore . .

So what I am seeing is a transgenic alteration is alright, and the nuyen cost is waived. The essence cost is still up in the air. Am I interpreting this correct?

By the way, thanks for the speedy replies guys. Probably the second biggest reason why I love SR is DS.

I'd like to argue for the free essence costs, otherwise it is cheaper BP wise just to buy the genetic thingamajig. Not taking availability into the equation, no books with me here. The highest genetic option is like 30,000 nuyen if I remember right, and the quality is 10bp (50,000 nuyen worth).

That's a winning argument in my book.

I did not think like that but I think that Quality is far better than I thought ... Glucacon for all my characters ... that have flesh bodies

Incorrect... Genecrafted is 5 BP and applies a 20% discount to ANY genecraft modifications acquired ONLY during character generation, not after gameplay. (now unless you're getting over 250000 in genework... probably not your kind of thing... not a great quality).


Genetic heritage is 10BP. HOWEVER, it gives a 20% discount on TRANSGENIC alterations either before or after character generation. However, the quality allows starting with ANY genetic alteration at chargen for no $$$ cost (and refers to p72 which is the entire genetech section), and the ability to ignore availability is also very big (restricted availability is normally a 5BP quality in it's own right!) (obviously not adapsin).
So now the quality is giving you free $$$, a free restrictred availability, AND an ongoing cost reduction all for 10BP.


So no, you aren't getting dicked out of 50k of resources... (you still have the full 50BP to spend on resources.. though for a street sam or rigger.. this is a way to move resources out of the 50BP limit and into qualities!). In fact, as a quality, this is much cheaper than exceptional attribute (for genetic optomization for +1 to an attribute).


So no, you are by no means making any kind of a case for no essence cost. There still is an essence cost to the best of my knowledge.

Though to be honest, I feel that both the genecrafted and heritage qualties would have worked better as a 20% essence cost reduction. And that's what I would suggest house ruling them as. But that would be a house rule.

Ok so your blue eyes cost you for a customisation of the coloration of your eyes ... poor you, you get less essence ! So all people who don't have, Brown hair and brown eyes are starting with 5.8 essence.

That is exactly what you are telling. The modification is in herritage of a parent ! So it's FREE !

That is a Quantificational fallacy (proof by example). Just because a genetic alteration treatment exists to change your hair and eye color that costs essence doesn't mean that the Genetic Heritage quality for that treatment shouldn't cost essence (getting the treatment after birth fucks with your natural DNA, hence the essence cost).

Qualia is a gene from reptiles, don't you think having that incorporated into your genetic code (from your parents) should make you fundamentally less human?

Oh, dear. One of these days I am going to learn not to open a can of worms on this site.



While I would agree that the incorporation of reptile DNA into a human genome would make the human less, well, human by degree, I don't see humanity as a part of essence. Essence is usually defined as the body and spirit's holistic integrity. If such DNA were present from birth, would not the subject's holistic integrity be intact? The problem, as far as I can tell, is that we are trying to reconcile a scientific modification of a life form with an innately supernatural quality. When a person is an adult and their spiritual and physical selves are fully formed it is alot easier to tell the machine from man. But for an infant who was born that way, who can tell what is human versus what is science?

DISCLAIMER: I do not actually care one way or the other about whether my character pays essence for the modification or not. I am arguing this point merely for philosophical stimulation.

I think Essence is really a number of things.

But then, we have to remember that it's a vague magical concept and just go, "Right, Magic" and move on.

Within the standard level of mutation humans exibit (some people are smarter, or stronger or run faster, have heart disease... ect...) those people are still considered Human. Someone who has been geneticaly altered, before birth or as an adult, is no longer Human. People still call them human but but they are no longer truely Human as far as metagenes go.

"Who can tell what is human versus what is science?" is a good question and one that is difficult to answer.
I remember an old Twilight Zone episode where EVERYONE underwhent plastic surgery to appear identical. Males and females had 10 or so body types they could "chose" from and everyone was "beautiful." It is not a streach to replace plastic surgery with genecrafting given the time period the episode came from. Or the movie Gattaca, where everyone was genecrafted. From our point of veiw now those people are not human. They are transhuman. Both examples are transhuman.
The fact is that metagenes do care if your Human or not. If your parents where genecrafted (and are then transhuman) and you picked up those traits, you are genecrafted. Just because "Naming" has been left out of the SR books it is still part of the background for SR taken from Earthdawn. Now if that was not part of SR cannon I could see the argument that you would not take an essence hit for it the fact that it is there means that you have to take it into account.

Essence is the link of the spirit and the body. Animals have essence too !

Then why does the treatment cost essence in the first place, mm?

remeber that SR3, Bioware and Genetherapy were using Body Index. Not the precious ! If I gain a genemod and my decendent get it in heritage they would not be penalized for my mistake ...

Because any change you do to your body disrupts your spirit. Cyber/bio/nano/gene ware all disrupt your body/spirit link. So does exessive drug use or some other addictions. Any change to alter the chemistry (or some such) of your body dampens the spirits link to the body.

So if I'm on anti-depressants then my essence is taking a dive?

As can malnutrition, starvation, etc. While all characters with an Essence of 6 at character creation survived their childhood unscathed, the reality is that some Riggers and Street Sams placed their first 'Ware in essence holes that already existed.

Do you have a canon quote that backs up the claim that either Malnutrition or Starvation reduces Essence? I don't recall any text that confirms this.

Yes... When taken to the extremes that the book talks about when dealing with drug addiction.

That could just mean the character doesn't exercise. Or sits in a pile of his/her own vomit and feces all day. "Negligence" can mean a lot of things, and it's ripe for interpretation, I guess. There's no specific mention of malnutrition or starvation. I'm not saying that "you'll have to do better than that" (the quote is good enough for me), but given how many character backgrounds that we have of "I wuz a starvin child, but now that my totem found meh, I'm all magically shaman/adept. Woot.", it seems a bit of a stretch.

Guess they mean "I wuz a starvin child, but not quite starving enough for it to affect my essence any, because that would suck ass now that I'm awakened."

Or maybe they filled the essence hole with something, like a super thyroid.

Or maybe they filled the essence hole with something, like a super thyroid.

Only problems with that are that it doesn't create an essence hole, only 'ware does that and it doesn't account for starving mages who start with full 6 essence.

I would love to have body index again !

Well, I wouldn't call that argument valid enough to prove me incorrect, those additional factors you listed are almost never going to come in to play. The fact is the quality states it is for free, if you run with it charging essence then fine, but as it reads it is free. If you feel like arguing humanity and essence to show that it would cost essence, feel free, its just all fluff at this point though.

"Free" has been directly stated by the developers to mean "zero nuyen", in line with their usual policy of explicitly stating when something affects Essence.

Whatever one may construct logically, the developers have been quite clear that the quality means "zero nuyen, full essence cost."
The argument that it gives you a good availability item would be of note, except that there is only one piece of Transgenics of availability above 12 (adapsin), and it explicitly that it is brand new, so there is no way it can be tied to Genetic Heritage. Heck it is not even allowed to affect wear bought during character creation.

So, while aestetically interesting, and maybe appropriate for character background, it is really hard to make that quality make sense pointwise.

Yours,
Joel

Point-wise, it is similar to hard-maxing an Attribute costing 25 points. I see it mainly for street samurai who have already spent the 330,000 Nuyen from Born Rich and In Debt, and still need to get Reakt. Getting more gear after you get the 250,000 Nuyen becomes more difficult and expensive.

I do agree that it doesn't make sense to take the quality if you haven't maxed out your Resources already.

Quote please ... anyway I'll ask.

Why does the quality not make sense? For 10 BP you get 9 BP worth of free gear (Presuming you take the optimization) and then get a 20% discount on all geneware you buy. Provided you buy more than 25000 worth of geneware (not hard as they are expensive) then the quality has paid for itself not even taking into account any future purchases that might be made.

Also, for those who think that 'free' means no essence: Mystery Mod says the ware is free but it still costs essence. And why do you think that 'free' means both essence and nuyen but '20% discount' doesn't mean both essence and nuyen?

Personally I've always presumed that it cost essence just like anything else if only for the fact that it never once mentions essence.

Ahem, from earlier in this very thread.

This is a bad argument... Not only that, people come w/ brown, blue, green, etc. eyes naturally and genetics are such that you can end up w/ a lot of different colors w/o any essence. Your parents did not pay essence to have their eye color set... and if they did it was from human DNA not edited in any way most likely.

Further, if the change was purely cosmetic surgery, changing your eye or hair color would not change your essence... nor would colored contacts. Look at minor modification under biosculpting.


In order to make this argument, you don't argue the harmless cosmetic surgery case. You need to argue that someone who severely disrupts their genome w/ something like Reakt, Qualia, or Space adaptation (.4 to .5 essence) can pass this disruptive change on to their offspring w/o disrupting their natural essence at all. (sidenote: while most critters have 6 essence not all do... ) The essence loss is because you've deviated too far from the human 'norm'.


Joel:
The quality only applies after chargen discounts to the phenotype group. However, the quality itself allows the entire section for the initial mod. So genewipe is another option.

When I posted this thread all I wanted to know was if transgenic modifications counted for genetic heritage. I assumed they meant zero essence. Although when I read these replies I can appreciate the arguments about essence cost. I feel that in this case the rules are not about philosophical arguments about what is human or what is essence. I think the philosophical debate is very interesting and can lend some insight about the 6th world as we see it. But we all know what happens when one tries to make SR fit reality.

Ok so Dragon should not have 12 essence they are not human, they should have less. Genetically herited feature is part of your code ! You are no longer human you are something else ! You become a changeling and still have your essense ! So the heritage should just make you a changeling.

I'm still not sure why people think they get this mod without an essence cost. No where in the description does it say it doesn't cost essence like normal. It just says 'free' which seems very obviously a reference to nuyen only. Kind of like when you get stuff for free from the TV adds, you just pay separate $10 shipping and handling.

Remember that it also says you get a 20% discount. Why does anyone who thinks 'free' refers to essence not also think the 20% discount does as well? It is fairly simple. If essence isn't specifically mentioned, it isn't adjusted.

Well, I'm done arguing, I was proven wrong

*Sigh*

Naming.

Naming makes new creatures and gives them a "full" 6 essence. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, etc. were all Named. A human genetically modified towards cockroaches has not been Named.

As for dragons having 7-12 essence, I can't say. I suppose it's a crunch reason for giving them 7-12 Magic without needing to initiate.

That explains a lot