Check out:world's only immortal animal

Reminds me of Time Lords, it even uses the same term: regeneration.

I heard it on NPR months ago.

And while the jelly is capable of returning to the polyp state, it doesn't mean it has to.

In any case, if we do figure out the trick and introduce it to the human body, just think about what it would be like to have to go through puberty every 10-20 years (oh the price of being immortal).

And what about the monetary price? This might not be around for something like 60-80 years...

Going through puberty in the same state as the first time would be too high a price. Going through it with ~60 years experience under your belt....

I'd be dangerous...

The idea of a Shadowrunner going through puberty is justly terrifying. When that teenager can back up their tantrums with arm mounted submachine guns and 50 years of martial art and melee experience..

Experience is written in the brain structure. If the brain reverts to newborn, so do your memories and experience.

Also, there are more than a few terrifying genetic diseases involving transdifferentiation, the most well known being FOP (and, of course, Roxborough's Syndrome). Might be a plausible tech babble explanation for Lenonisation though, where certain cells selectively are rejuvenated, or even for the physical effects of healing spells.

Personally it always irked me how only elves seem to be able to have that kind of immortality.
There wouldn't need to be a lot of them, and they wouldnt need to be machiavellian powermongers, but I would be VERY happy to see immortals from the other metahuman races as well in canon.

Elves seem to have that holier-than-thou vibe in way too many RPGs already.
I started disliking it way back in Tolkiens books where humans tended to be more noble, honorable and powerful the more elbish blood was in their ancestors thousands of years ago - always felt way too much like Darwin to me.

I'd really love to see an immortal Ork or Troll in canon.

There used to be dawrfs in the first germany book and the accompanying novels. But they were retconned out of German canon, pretty much. Theoretically, other human-derived immortals should be possible.


In SR, this is more reguzlarily encountered with PC orcs and trolls who complain about being racially stereotyped and then doing absolutly everything to live up to a negative stereotype. Makes me think twice to admit troll PC actually.

According to comments in the Tir Taringir book, all meta-humans have the gene complex which renders one immortal, it only seems to activate normally in elves, and for unknown reasons is assumed to deactivate in non-immortal elves as 300 years or so (the 6th world is to young to have had an elf die of old age). If this is true, it is only a matter of time before researchers figure out how to activate this complex in other species. Honestly, but 2100, I expect immortality to be the norm for mid to upper class individuals of all races.

Lucy

More Practical Problems:
What about your family/job while you're regressing into a spoiled brat?
Don't think your old job is going to allow some 16 year old to work there.

Yes, because evolution is dirty and nasty. Tolkien's elves were that way because they were there first, and Eru's firstborn. Men had the gift of mortality, and were Eru's favored. Wasn't there a mention in a german book of a kingdom of Earthdawn dwarves that recently stopped being stone? And there's probably one or two around keeping a low profile that made a spirit pact in the last era, or they may have died off from accident or violence.

If you are not talking about hwaldos from the pandur novels series, please elaborate O.o

Wasn't there an immortal ork in one of the SR2 books? Blackmoore or something? I remember there was a pair of pictures by the same artist of an ork, one in a SR book and one in an ED book that played off each other. Am I off my rocker here? Ancient History?

I am, though.

Always considered that a Caer that had never been opened and where the inhabitants have kind of degenerated. Them being throalian makes zero sense, since Throal was in what today would be Kazakhstan.

Right, I forgot about that. Yes, that is a distinct possibility.


I seem to remember that some Orcs on the Theran high council used blood magic to rejuvenate (though, this being Thera, that's hardly surprising, as they used blood magic for everything, including bringing out the trash. Thera is what Aztech wants to be when it grows up). I cannot seem to remember the immortal orc, but it would be possible with a spirit pact or magical activation of the stopwatch complex from the TT book.

Well, the fluff in the books does not make it look as if they had degenerated O.o
They still have art and magic. And going by the example of REM, from time to time some of them leave.
Also, they seem to have not too much of a problem with allowing people in who have a recommendation.


Wasn't the immortal Ork the one Master-Thief who stole his days from death/time?

Of course they have, basically being magical squatters who live off Fungus they scrape off the wallsof their caér. They have more magical knowledge than the average German mundane runner, but that's hardly surprising (and Pandur is the kind of idiot who is easily impressed).


To live in the gutters and breed metal bands with hideous names. That's not exactly like the immortal elves who found countries and send the Wild Hunt after everyone who pisses them off. Although it seems Kaltenstein has some contact with them (might Kaltenstein be Earthswallower the Vasgothian Great?).

And, of course, to pork women and offer the reader grautitiously detailed descriptions of a dwarf penis. Thank you, Mr. Alpert. I had a good laugh.


And run about with a huge exclamation mark inscribed with DRAGON FUCKIN MAGIC in astral space hanging above them. Guess they were either curious and/or were obliged to respect dragon emissiaries. That, and Pandur knew the seekrit word!

You are a bitter little man O.o

I am actually rather tall. And I dislike Pandur as a character. ^_^ But yes, my post now sounds rather cranky. Must've been me being annoyed by the seminar I was in while posting. It's not I dislike the stuff as intensely as it may seem.

The idea of the underground dwarfs was okay to me, actually, making me a minority in german fandom.

Nah i liked the idea too . . Goes to show that in germany, the dwarves are where it's at, not the sissy-boys ^^

Not too much of a fan of dwarfs, myself, but it was a nice idea, and I pity how Eismann had them written out. Dwarfs rule the underworld and all. Very germanic actually. And a good counterpoint in the setting to all the otehr awakened countries.

And Pomorya is rather uninspired, especially the writeup in Laender der Verheissung. Prefer Tir na nOg, myself. Place is so much like modern Germany, it's creepy.

Troll kingdom is a ncie place too, at least if you also have read the Vasgothia section in the Thera book. I like to make people run into a distorted zone there occasionally. Even had some see the Towers in the distance once. Weirded them out. ^_^

I'd need to check my Theran Empire book for that orc, but from what I remember from that book the office of emperor alternated between the theran houses and it caused a big scandal when the ruling house chose an obsidiman for the office because they live so long, keeping the power in the hands of that house.
So even if they did rejuvenating blood magics, their life expectancy would still have been much lower than the 900 years average of obsidimen and far from true immortality.
Which is strange in itself, considering they were powerful enough to do bloodmagic on a level that kept the worldwide mana level from declining naturally and artificially delayed the oncoming of the fifth world.

It seems their copy of the Books of Harrow lacked a few pages.

Elves in ShadowRun have the "holier than thou" attitude because of the "holier than thou" attitude that fictional elves have. Remember, Sperethial is Tolkien Elvish. You have to be a pompus jackass to believe that it's really a 10,000 year old racial language.

Nope, that just means that Tolkien was an Immortal Elf and wrote part of his own history/culture into the LotR. After all, isn't a writer's first rule "Write what you know?"

If you play in the canon setting, no, it is not.


I am of the opinion he was a reincarnated pathwalker and had those lingering memories he just did not know how to deal with otherwise.

It would have to be in the billions (or future equivalent). There are 6 billion people on earth now and it is going to double about every decade. If we eliminate natural death, we will quickly run out of livable space and natural resources.

Thus leading the way to requiring massive space exploration ;-}

Lucy

No, genocide on a before unknown scale.

would you be willing to tell me more about this kind of stuff?
i am interested in learning more about these things ^^

The 2 options are not incompatible... indeed, they easily go hand in hand, with certain populations making Arks to avoid the impending genocide. I'm just imagining the effects of someone spreading an air-born virus which activates the stopwatch complex in all metahumans infected. The ramifications of such a thing would be truly frightening.

That sounds familiar...

And not the first time either...

... because building a spaceship with room for hundreds or even thousands is the first thing you do when there is a nuclear war. And even if the arks were built, they ould certainly be drestroyed as everyone races to them to force their way in and everyone else out.


Magic genes cannot be jump started by a virus, so far as has been established. Ad even if they could, the development of such a virus is very unlikely to go unnoticed, and it would warrant an immediate omega order.

The outcome would be cataclysmic though. Extinction level event and all that.

Building such a ship would indeed be one of the first things I would consider if I saw the majority of the population of earth become immortal, as there would be a good 10, maybe 15 years before wars reached their peak and such actions became unfeasible. Small scale wars would start nearly immediatly, but I don't think it would plummet into global nuclear war that quickly. Mind, the world is no longer ShadowRun at that point, but rather some slightly pre-apocalyptic, post cyber-punk game with magic. Also, if I were building such an ark, my goal would be to get as far from Earth as possible, which wouldn't really lend itself to settling the solar system anyway...



HMHVV is a virus that activates magic tied genes...

You might build the Ark on Mars, and slowly move an appropriately skilled and hand-picked crew out there before setting off. The public wouldn't care (out-of-sight, out-of-mind), and governments/corporations might even help you if they can get some use out of the shipyards you would need for such a thing (Hey guys, help me build a multi-billion newyen spaceshipyard, which I will then abandon to you. Just give me some cute, cuddly peeps with giant brains).

I would assume that certain corps would be the ones building, they are not dumb and would immediatly see the consequences of any sizable population of immortals on the world as it stands. A population of even as few as 100,000 immortals completely breaks the way the world works, and smart corps would prepare for it with a variety of contingency plans, at least one of which would be "get us as the people we really need the hell out of here in case everything falls apart."

No matter how you look at it though, having grantable immortality without a huge cost associated with it (like HMHVV's essence drain) would completely chance the world of SR. Given the current status of the setting, I would still expect something like that to happen within the next 50 years, but would be incredibly unlikely within the next 10 (and therefor won't affect the setting as written for probably 2 more editions ;-} If you want to extrapolate forward though and set your game in the future of SR, it's something to bear in mind.

Lucy

Is this stopwatch complex originate from the mana level, or is it supposed to be something that the metahuman races have in a natural fashion?

According to the Tir Taringir book, all metahumans have the complex, but it is only active in elves for an unknown reason. It is theorized to turn off at some point in elves, but the researchers were unable to find any reason why it would turn off. The research on this was suppressed by the Tir govt. so little work has probably been done on it since the early 2050's, though now that the Council has fallen in the Tir it is likely easier for that data to find its way into the hands of other researchers (or by this point for other researchers to have duplicated it). Between this and study of HMHVV, I really rather expect researchers in SR to create biological immortality eventually, my guess is in the 2100's to 2110's. It could certainly happen faster if a GM wanted it to, but as stated it would change the world dramatically almost overnight.

It is unclear from the description of the research if it is related to magic level, though given the IEs were active during the downcycle once active it does not appear to require much mana to stay active.

No, it 'rewrites the host DNA'.

Magic genes are only activated when magic is present. They are otherwise junk DNA.


Slowly (and "on mars") being the limiting factors of this plan.

True, but what is the minimum population size you need for an Ark when everyone is immortal? Two? 10,000? I'm not sure how to go about answering that question.

I don't have my books handy, but I'm pretty sure Running Wild talked about HMHVV potentially activating the magus complex rather than rewriting the DNA as an explaination for why many but not all vampires are magicians.

Also, rewriting the hosts DNA to make it produce magical effects is not functionally different from activating a magic related gene complex that is already present but needs something else to trigger it being coded into proteins. In the end it is still a virus changing a DNA structure to cause it to express magical effects.

With Leonization, SR basically has 100,000 immortals NOW. The actual number may be somewhat smaller or larger, but repeatable age-removing treatments for the top-earning 1% of the population has been a fact since SR2.

300. 300 genetically independent individuals* are sufficient enough to repopulate without risk of genetic diseases. It also accounts for accidental death and infertility, otherwise you could do it with 200.

*Eg. brother and sister are counted as one. Second cousins would be "genetically independent."

Genetic diseases can be handled with the biotech in the SR universe, so boinking your sister is viable. Infertility you could possibly handle the same way, but I think you would have only a small few accidental deaths and a great deal more "accidental" deaths. 300's a good place to start though, thank you.

Depends on how much biotech you can shove aboard your arc. It'd be easier to just grab more people and cryofreeze them.

But yes "accidental death" was more meant as "unplanned cessation of life prior to bearing children." E.g. landing on some god-forsaken planet and having the local wildlife eat people.

Leonization in SR2 had an essence cost, so it wasn't true immortality (I think those have been gotten rid of since, can't remember for sure though). I was also assuming an immortality that is automatically passed on to children, which Leonization isn't. Once you have 100,000 genetically immortal people, the idea of controlling that to prevent it from becoming a rapidly growing population of immortals is nigh impossible, unless that genetic immortality also dramatically changes the fertility of the immortal.

Mmmm, tasty people-meats.

Here is a surprisingly germane comic: http://www.smbc-comics.com/

I'm not entirely sure about that. Inbreeding increases the chances of a number of bad genetic things happening, not just the increased potential for genetic diseases. Genetic drift is the kind of thing that might not be pathogenic, or even necessarily a problem, until it causes a catastrophic failure in one or a number of biological systems, to the point where genetic re-writing isn't an option. I'd avoid sister-boinking as a rule.