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TommyTwoToes
Someone had posted about running theyr SR group through Jurassic Park (an idea which I plan on stealing) and that got me to wondering.
  1. What Age are the Dinos from?
  2. Do they even fit into Canon?
  3. Does the K-T boundary mark the emergence of Horrors and the end of an Age?


Now, depending on the answers... if they are from one of the magic ages, they could be para-critters. Clones of them (as in the JP storyline) would make para-critters right?

I was sort of envisioning that the Runners were hired to extract Nedry from the facility with his cargo of genetic material. They arrive just before the storm hits (and just after the bulk of the island staff leaves). but have to extract him, remain undiscovered by the remaining staff, and get him off the island after the storm.

Now I just need to work up some stats for the critters.
Grinder
Editet the topic title (the <fluff> brackets aren't needed and it's canon, not cannon).
The Dragon Girl
I'm really not sure, but my instincts say:
The first age. The second age would be when magic smacked the dinos and made the Dragons, who started recording history and the ages.
nezumi
The dinosaurs are from the fifth age. The Creationists were right.
Mr. Mage
QUOTE (nezumi @ Jun 18 2010, 12:34 PM) *
The dinosaurs are from the fifth age. The Creationists were right.

Are they though? Doesn't Earthdawn take place in the fourth age? so if Dinos are fifth age that would mean metahumankind came first. But then again, Shadowrun already doesn't make sense half the time so why not?

This thread definitely caught my eye since just last night I petitioned my DM in DnD to have T-Rex as my mount....he didn't go for it...
Traul
Don't know from age they are, but they die to LMG FA bursts as anything else cool.gif
Mr. Mage
OK, now all I can think about is a dinosaur Cyber Sammy....dual wielding Assault Rifles
Samoth
QUOTE (Mr. Mage @ Jun 18 2010, 06:25 PM) *
OK, now all I can think about is a dinosaur Cyber Sammy....dual wielding Assault Rifles

Slap some dikote on that dino and we're in business!
TommyTwoToes
QUOTE (nezumi @ Jun 18 2010, 11:34 AM) *
The dinosaurs are from the fifth age. The Creationists were right.



I was almost (and I shudder to think it) going to go with the creationists (ok the super, ultra, off to one side creationists) are right in that there were no dinosaurs, that fosils are all a trick. Maybe a trick to help keep metahumanity focused on science as the answer rather than magic. But, nah its more fun to have dinosaurs. Especially physad raptors or some such.
Dr.Rockso
QUOTE (Traul @ Jun 18 2010, 12:12 PM) *
Don't know from age they are, but they die to LMG FA bursts as anything else cool.gif

Not if they are...WARFORM dinos!!1! vegm.gif
Drace
QUOTE (The Dragon Girl @ Jun 18 2010, 11:32 AM) *
I'm really not sure, but my instincts say:
The first age. The second age would be when magic smacked the dinos and made the Dragons, who started recording history and the ages.


If you want to keep all of the SR world into ages, this would be your best bet, but if you go by the game fluff, the dinosaurs existed in none of them.

The first age started Mar 1 23615 BC, while dinosaurs lived until roughly the end of the Cretaceous period, around 65 million years ago. I dont want to do the math for it right now, but that would be in the negative double digits for what world they existed in (If anyone really wants to try and figure it out, here is the link to the formula for this, at the end of the page)

But, a mystic adept raptor specializing in illusions and speed would be a great prime runner. Doesnt even have to be sentient really, just make the abilities act more like powers and let them hunt the players down and use other "lesser" raptors to be bait/cannonfodder
TommyTwoToes
QUOTE (Dr.Rockso @ Jun 18 2010, 12:29 PM) *
Not if they are...WARFORM dinos!!1! vegm.gif

Damn, I want to rig a T-Rex biodrone! love.gif
Mr. Mage
QUOTE (Drace @ Jun 18 2010, 01:33 PM) *
But, a mystic adept raptor specializing in illusions and speed would be a great prime runner. Doesnt even have to be sentient really, just make the abilities act more like powers and let them hunt the players down and use other "lesser" raptors to be bait/cannonfodder

I...Gah...Eh...wha?

That is perhaps one of the most intriguing ideas I have read on this forum....kind of like Jurassic Park meets Most Dangerous Game meets Lord of the Rings...
Doc Chase
Wouldn't a raptor have to be sentient to be a Mystic Adept?
Drace
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Jun 18 2010, 01:47 PM) *
Wouldn't a raptor have to be sentient to be a Mystic Adept?


I meant if you couldnt find powers that did what you want, you could just use the mystic adept quality and do it (Not RAW, but I personally think F@%k RAW most of the time). Or you could have them be sentient, but since they are clones from something millions of years old, their sentiency is so alien to us it doesnt seem sentient (Like horrors, insect spirits, shedim etc).
MJBurrage
The "Age of Dragons" (now known as the "Second World") was from c. 18500 BC to c. 13400 BC

Earthdawn (also known as the "Fourth World") was from c. 8200 BC to 12 August 3113 BC

Based on those dates calendar makers such as the Mesoamericans were able to accurately predict magic's return on 24 December 2011.

As I recall, Earthdawn books implied that dragons were created by horrors in the age of magic before the "Age of Dragons" (i.e. the Zeroth World).

This leaves unaddressed in canon what came before, I can see three options:
  1. The world was only created at the beginning of the Zeroth World, and hence c. 28,700 BC. Dinosaurs remains are actually dead dragons or horrors. Carbon dating etc. is wrong because of the cycles of magic.
  2. The Zeroth World was the first cycle of magic, caused by the Horrors finding Earth. History before c. 28,700 BC is what science tells us.
  3. The magic cycles go back for much longer than described. The Zeroth World is just the oldest cycle documented in any fashion. Dinosaurs existed when carbon dating says they did but dealing with their own cycles of magic. Perhaps there were even Sapient cultures back then unknown even to the Dragons.
Mr. Mage
oh...jeez...I think I'll just stick to the 6th world thank you very much....
TommyTwoToes
QUOTE (Drace @ Jun 18 2010, 01:56 PM) *
I meant if you couldnt find powers that did what you want, you could just use the mystic adept quality and do it (Not RAW, but I personally think F@%k RAW most of the time). Or you could have them be sentient, but since they are clones from something millions of years old, their sentiency is so alien to us it doesnt seem sentient (Like horrors, insect spirits, shedim etc).

Now to make mentor spirits for the Raptor shaman......hmm they should have somehting named Hunger for a mentor spirit.
Drace
I honestly doubt that there was no world before the first and second, its just that the oldest creatures to survive the horrors (dragons) were born in the 2nd world, and since they are the first to record history and continue to live, they called their world the second since they knew it had to exist first.

For all we know, the 6th world isnt the 6th but the 1000th or something like that, its just been recorded as the 6th, since the dragons only existed for 5 and are the oldest sentient creatures. That we know of.........

And who knows, maybe there was no comet or ice age that wiped the dino's out, the horrors just had a large, scaly buffet.

And Dinosaur totems? Could be cool. Would they be based of specific dinosaurs? Just one general totem like with dragons? Hmmmmm......
LurkerOutThere
Personally as I've said elsewhere I'm very happy with Earthdawn not being the end all be all of answers about the Shadowrun comsos. I'm perfeclty fine with dinosaurs being from a previous to the first world age. I'm also fine with the Draconic creation myth being either wrong or a straight up lie.
Caadium
QUOTE (MJBurrage @ Jun 18 2010, 10:11 AM) *
The "Age of Dragons" (now known as the "Second World") was from c. 18500 BC to c. 13400 BC

Earthdawn (also known as the "Fourth World") was from c. 8200 BC to 12 August 3113 BC

Based on those dates calendar makers such as the Mesoamericans were able to accurately predict magic's return on 24 December 2011.

As I recall, Earthdawn books implied that dragons were created by horrors in the age of magic before the "Age of Dragons" (i.e. the Zeroth World).

This leaves unaddressed in canon what came before, I can see three options:
  1. The world was only created at the beginning of the Zeroth World, and hence c. 28,700 BC. Dinosaurs remains are actually dead dragons or horrors. Carbon dating etc. is wrong because of the cycles of magic.
  2. The Zeroth World was the first cycle of magic, caused by the Horrors finding Earth. History before c. 28,700 BC is what science tells us.
  3. The magic cycles go back for much longer than described. The Zeroth World is just the oldest cycle documented in any fashion. Dinosaurs existed when carbon dating says they did but dealing with their own cycles of magic. Perhaps there were even Sapient cultures back then unknown even to the Dragons.


As the one whose runners are currently gathering the materials to open Jurassic Park, some of these intrigue me as added "Wha!?!" factor. I don't think #1 would be true because what would kill off a planet of Horrors? Maybe a Giant asteroid did it, I wouldn't think it would be any large magic as that would fuel the Horrors instead of eliminating them, I just don't know.

Depending on how the players enjoy the Jurrassic Park, and what shape the party is in when they are done, perhaps that won't be a finale, but a gateway into some big SR history with the Horrors and such.
Saint Sithney
Oh, man, but how awesome would it be for the Dinosaurs to be Horror-forms?

Somebody recreates them and then their massive bodies and tiny minds are like empty and waiting vehicles for malevolent spirits! Suddenly, evil magic killing machines go crazy on the tourists!
Dumori
I'll keep my dinos in biotech labs being made in to chimeric and warform cirters. How about a T-rex cyber zombie???
sabs
QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ Jun 18 2010, 07:54 PM) *
Personally as I've said elsewhere I'm very happy with Earthdawn not being the end all be all of answers about the Shadowrun comsos. I'm perfeclty fine with dinosaurs being from a previous to the first world age. I'm also fine with the Draconic creation myth being either wrong or a straight up lie.


YOu do know that Earthdawn was created from the notes about the pre-history of Shadowrun they came up with when doing Shadowrun 1st Edition
LurkerOutThere
Yep, that doesn't make it any less silly.
Lucyfersam
I tend to go with dino's existing before the first age of magic and the creation of dragons... there is also at least 1 shadowtalk reference to dragon fossils dating back older than 1 million years, implying history as presented in Earthdawn may be be inaccurate. Who knows, Dinosaurs could have been the template from which the first dragon's were created.

-Lucy
Draco18s
QUOTE (MJBurrage @ Jun 18 2010, 01:11 PM) *
The "Age of Dragons" (now known as the "Second World") was from c. 18500 BC to c. 13400 BC

Earthdawn (also known as the "Fourth World") was from c. 8200 BC to 12 August 3113 BC


So by extrapolation (and some rounding error) the dinosaurs died out at the end of the -12745th Age (that's a negative sign people. Negative twelve-thousand, seven-hundred, and fourty-fifth).
Mr. Mage
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Jun 18 2010, 04:35 PM) *
So by extrapolation (and some rounding error) the dinosaurs died out at the end of the -12745th Age (that's a negative sign people. Negative twelve-thousand, seven-hundred, and fourty-fifth).

I don't know if I should applaud or pity you for actually going and figuring that out...
Draco18s
QUOTE (Mr. Mage @ Jun 18 2010, 03:44 PM) *
I don't know if I should applaud or pity you for actually going and figuring that out...


Neither. It's simply math.

65000000 divided by 5100.
KarmaInferno
QUOTE (TommyTwoToes @ Jun 18 2010, 01:33 PM) *
Damn, I want to rig a T-Rex biodrone! love.gif


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93B072j-E3I




-karma
Mr. Mage
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Jun 18 2010, 04:45 PM) *
Neither. It's simply math.

65000000 divided by 5100.

This is true, but I was implying more that you sounded (to me at least) as if you were giving a lecture about the history of Dinosaurs in relation to the age of Magic....

Bu then again, I tend to talk about Shadowrun on this forum as if it were real too (or at least that I wish it were...sigh)
So guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite...hehe aren't we all? I suppose the way I said it didn't quite come out how it sounded in my head.

Anyhow, -12745? That is a pretty big (or small) number there....
MJBurrage
QUOTE (Lucyfersam @ Jun 18 2010, 04:33 PM) *
I tend to go with dino's existing before the first age of magic and the creation of dragons... there is also at least 1 shadowtalk reference to dragon fossils dating back older than 1 million years, implying history as presented in Earthdawn may be be inaccurate. Who knows, Dinosaurs could have been the template from which the first dragon's were created.
That assumes that dating methods are accurate in a world with magic cycles. (unaddressed in canon as far as I know)
Saint Sithney
QUOTE (MJBurrage @ Jun 18 2010, 02:05 PM) *
That assumes that dating methods are accurate in a world with magic cycles. (unaddressed in canon as far as I know)



I don't know what ^that^ assumes though. Some sort of magic which uniformly speeds up the rate of radioactive decay on a universal level?
Shinobi Killfist
QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ Jun 18 2010, 03:24 PM) *
Yep, that doesn't make it any less silly.


You mean awesome, not silly right?

Because earthdawn is awesome.
MJBurrage
QUOTE (Saint Sithney @ Jun 18 2010, 05:10 PM) *
I don't know what ^that^ assumes though. Some sort of magic which uniformly speeds up the rate of radioactive decay on a universal level?
Could be. I could see two takes:
  1. Magic has no effect on the science underling dating methods, and the world is much, much older than recorded draconic history.
  2. Just like nuclear bombs have post awakening issues, things we consider fundamental or constant are also effected by magic.
    Perhaps radioactive decay etc. is sped up by ambient magic. Not enough that the Sixth world has noticed yet, but magic levels are still low.

Sengir
QUOTE (MJBurrage @ Jun 18 2010, 09:05 PM) *
That assumes that dating methods are accurate in a world with magic cycles. (unaddressed in canon as far as I know)

And since so far the question whether magic influences radioactive decay has not been addressed, the answer should be no. Changing decay rates would have far too many consequences to be something which can be added to the universe retroactively...that doesn't mean it's impossible, just unlikely as long as decently sane persons are involved in making the storyline wink.gif
Caadium
Okay, I'll admit I never really got into ED (mostly becaue I hated the mechanics). However, where is the info coming from that an age is ~5100 years? Given the ebb of Magic, isn't it possible that the 2nd Age was much further back than I've seen posted above? Or is there somthinhg that has concretely dated it that I don't know about.
stevebugge
QUOTE (Drace @ Jun 18 2010, 10:33 AM) *
If you want to keep all of the SR world into ages, this would be your best bet, but if you go by the game fluff, the dinosaurs existed in none of them.

The first age started Mar 1 23615 BC, while dinosaurs lived until roughly the end of the Cretaceous period, around 65 million years ago. I dont want to do the math for it right now, but that would be in the negative double digits for what world they existed in (If anyone really wants to try and figure it out, here is the link to the formula for this, at the end of the page)


Certainly dinosaurs could have existed 65 million years ago, the Manacycle might have been going by then too (speculation) but based on the Earthdawn Magic Fluff the fact that Dinosaurs were not Name Givers pretty much means that they can live 65 million years ago without being part of an age.

The Beginning of the first age lines up pretty nicely with the supposed dawn of Humanity
Daylen
Dragons killed the Dinos and have been around since, but haven't told anyone.
crash2029
From what I have been able to gather from this discussion the introduction of sapient species in SR/ED seems to coincide with the introduction of the earliest forms of Homo Sapien Sapien. Since humans recognizable as such have been around for only a few hundred thousand years. The Cenozoic era, specifically the later Pleistocene epoch, seems to be the location of most of ED's history/pre-history. When you consider that the Pleistocene epoch by itself was ~2.589 * 10^6 years long, and dinosaurs as we typically define them were extant during the Mesozoic era (251-65.5 million years BCE) it seems that there is plenty of time for them to occur. As a theory, what if the mass extinction event that ended the dinosaur era was Horror-related? Perhaps the scourge is what killed them off and radically altered the Earth's cliamte. The altered climate and lack of huge predators would naturally lead to more a homonid-friendly evolutionary stage. Horrors in pre-history would also account for the odd fact that nearly every culture on the planet has similar myths of monsters.
Martin_DeVries_Institute
Guys n' gals, we already know what happened to the dinosaurs. As you can see, neither Horrors nor dragons were involved.
Mesh
The earliest archaeological records of mystic adept sentient velociraptors are found in a cave in southern France. Cave paintings (believed to be over 50,000 years old) clearly show a hot Lone Star officer in an armored bikini using the velociraptors as mounts only the raptors had chromed out cyber-forehead drills and crude sapphire belly button rings.*

Mesh

* Reference from p103 Seattle Sourcebook 7201
Macavity
QUOTE (Mr. Mage @ Jun 18 2010, 05:25 PM) *
OK, now all I can think about is a dinosaur Cyber Sammy....dual wielding Assault Rifles


T’skrang seem obviously descended from several species of Dinosaur, so I would say that Dinosaurs would have to be from at least the 3rd Age, if not much further back. There is nothing of course stating that the T'skrang weren't hold-overs from a previous Age - such as the 2nd Age - whom made it through the low-ebb in magic to the 4th world - in which case their Saurian ancestors could have existed before the cycle of Ages began.

T'skrang cyber sammy I can see! Though more likely to be a T'skrang Gunslinger Adept.
Snow_Fox
QUOTE (Grinder @ Jun 18 2010, 11:26 AM) *
it's canon, not cannon).
something 60 feet long with teeth as big as my hand comes charging at me, and I want a cannon around!
Snow_Fox
more approriately the more intelligent bipedal dino went into hybernation when the moon entered earth's orbit around the Eocean(sp?) era. They occassionally wake up when disturbed by some deep drilling corp and tend to be very grouchy .
Stormdrake
All just throw this bit in. The cycle that Earth Dawn was part of (the 4th world) was longer than the norm. Longer than 5100 years at least. This comes from Earth Dawn canon. It was suggested that the down cycle (5th world) was as long or even longer than the 4th world. That was was bandied about back in 1st edition but I don't know if it ever made it into canon. Any one else remember this?
Stormdrake
QUOTE (Snow_Fox @ Jun 18 2010, 06:56 PM) *
more approriately the more intelligent bipedal dino went into hybernation when the moon entered earth's orbit around the Eocean(sp?) era. They occassionally wake up when disturbed by some deep drilling corp and tend to be very grouchy .


Doctor Who reference? Gotta love the Doc. Who by the way is a mystic adept, lol
Snow_Fox
Doctor who? I was just refering to something I encountered the last time I was on Wenley Moor.
Drace
QUOTE (Caadium @ Jun 18 2010, 05:44 PM) *
Okay, I'll admit I never really got into ED (mostly becaue I hated the mechanics). However, where is the info coming from that an age is ~5100 years? Given the ebb of Magic, isn't it possible that the 2nd Age was much further back than I've seen posted above? Or is there somthinhg that has concretely dated it that I don't know about.


Its using the mesoamerican calender that gave birth to the mayan calender. Its mentioned canon a few times by Ehran I think aswell as one of the greats. (really wish I had my books with me right now......)

Now all I want to do is find a way to bring in dinosaurs for my game, or have characters surge to dino-hybrids......
Snow_Fox
A Jurassic park type situation is probably a better bet-keep it scientific or at least psuedo-scientific
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