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Yes, another thread about Immortal Elves

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SlowDeck

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« Reply #15 on: <05-24-14/1119:25> »
Would it be possible for there to be an Immortal Elf technomancer? Maybe a new type of Immortal Elf that results because of the existence of the Matrix? I was thinking that such a type of IE would be harder to tell, and one completely new.

That said, if IEs have a unique trait, I bet it would be easy enough to tell using a genetic test.

In either case, I really do get the hint that IEs are not mundanes.
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Sendaz

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« Reply #16 on: <05-24-14/1330:58> »
Wellll... Leonardo, aka Bright Light, from 'Black Madonna' is an IE and  while a magician seemed to have ties with the otaku--which were the predecessors to the TMs.

 Indeed his optical deck was supposed to be revolutionary-letting him connect direct to the matrix without the usual hardware and even have abilities similar to the otaku of the time without actually being one.

However, its all novel fluff and as a Carl Sargent / Marc Gascoigne piece, some parties argue just how canon it really is. 

I personally liked their work, but also recognized they bent the hell out of the mechanics at times so they do not always match up to the game, which can be a sore point when trying to use it as a reference point for any discussion.

So enjoy the reading, use it for ideas and be prepared to tweak it if you want to fit it into your table.
« Last Edit: <05-24-14/1335:41> by Sendaz »
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DeathStrobe

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« Reply #17 on: <05-24-14/1343:12> »
I don't think there's much in the text to support that kind of imagination.
Your imagination is wrong. Your guess is wrong. And AH and FrankTrollman are, of course, wrong.


If only there were books that contained histories of those nations' founding ...

Where there not nations of IE's in Earthdawn? I don't actually know. Which is why I'm asking. But if there were, I can't imagine they all died out between the 4th and 6th World.

And if UGE happened in 2011 and Tir Tairngire was founded in 2035, that'd put the oldest population at 24 but most of the population much younger than that. This is all based off of second hand information, I haven't read the Tir Tairngire source book, as a disclaimer. But, I can't imagine that a handful of 18-24 are going to hold off the SSC, who'd have a larger military presence. However, with IE support, I could see the tables easily turning.

Sendaz

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« Reply #18 on: <05-24-14/1405:07> »
Depends,  The Tir Tairngire book mentions Ehran playing the power behind the throne so to speak in the build up to the nation forming so some older hands were in play.

As for fending off the military, the book mentions how the newly formed Tir pounded the intial 3 columns of SCC armor vehicles with anti vehicle missles and assault mortars and further fending off  six different attempts by SCC, though it never really specified any of being hand to hand engagements. 
So it sounds like this was a lot of ranged firefight which doesn't need quite the same amount of manpower a full on the ground army would.
How much was automated systems and how much specialists rigging it all together we could not say, but again it could probably be run with pretty lean numbers.

And this is not counting whatever mojo Ehran may have brought into the mix.

In a year's time the Tir turned around and starting pushing south into northern Cal. By then they had openly visible combat mages and reportedly a couple of dragons helping out.
This latter bit raises the question of how long were they training up for this as well as wrangling services of some spellwyrms, assuming they were not spirits taking a dragon form.
« Last Edit: <05-24-14/1408:46> by Sendaz »
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Critias

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« Reply #19 on: <05-24-14/1420:40> »
I don't think there's much in the text to support that kind of imagination.
Your imagination is wrong. Your guess is wrong. And AH and FrankTrollman are, of course, wrong.


If only there were books that contained histories of those nations' founding ...

Where there not nations of IE's in Earthdawn? I don't actually know. Which is why I'm asking. But if there were, I can't imagine they all died out between the 4th and 6th World.
No, there weren't.  The handful of IE's we know about -- and there really aren't many of them -- were also the exception, not the rule, in Earthdawn (and many were high-Circle adventurers back then, royalty, etc).  There were elven nations, but not IE nations (just like not every elf in the Tirs is immortal, in SR).

Quote
And if UGE happened in 2011 and Tir Tairngire was founded in 2035, that'd put the oldest population at 24 but most of the population much younger than that. This is all based off of second hand information, I haven't read the Tir Tairngire source book, as a disclaimer. But, I can't imagine that a handful of 18-24 are going to hold off the SSC, who'd have a larger military presence. However, with IE support, I could see the tables easily turning.
The three ways to reconcile the age thing are to either accept that even the awesome first-and-second edition writers could grossly oversimplify stuff, get psyched up, and make mistakes, or to genuinely believe the Tirs were formed with armies of child soldiers or to imagine dozens of thousands of immortals, themselves all thousands upon thousands of years old, mobilizing as a modern army (after being secretive for centuries upon centuries), in order to carve out Oregon as a nation (and who have done nothing noteworthy since then, and have all just faded back into modern society and pretended not to be thousands of years old, except for that half-dozen of them that shadowrunners share conspiracy theories about).

Of the three, explanations, I believe Occam's Razor generally swings towards the first as the most plausible.
« Last Edit: <05-24-14/1422:27> by Critias »

SlowDeck

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« Reply #20 on: <05-24-14/1429:43> »
The three ways to reconcile the age thing are to either accept that even the awesome first-and-second edition writers could grossly oversimplify stuff, get psyched up, and make mistakes, or to genuinely believe the Tirs were formed with armies of child soldiers or to imagine dozens of thousands of immortals, themselves all thousands upon thousands of years old, mobilizing as a modern army (after being secretive for centuries upon centuries), in order to carve out Oregon as a nation (and who have done nothing noteworthy since then, and have all just faded back into modern society and pretended not to be thousands of years old, except for that half-dozen of them that shadowrunners share conspiracy theories about).

Of the three, explanations, I believe Occam's Razor generally swings towards the first as the most plausible.

The second is also extremely plausible. Basically, the NAN were still reeling from dealing with the U.S. and with their own internal problems, and the elves had a bit of time to gather strength. A group of clever, well-armed child soldiers led by a couple of people who know what they're doing could easily manage to capture and hold a lot of territory... especially considering how reluctant real soldiers are when it comes to firing at children. That may also explain why it is Tir Tairngire wasn't simply overrun by the SSC; they didn't have enough soldiers willing to shoot kids and were still reeling from their recent victory.
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DeathStrobe

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« Reply #21 on: <05-24-14/1443:44> »
(and who have done nothing noteworthy since then, and have all just faded back into modern society and pretended not to be thousands of years old, except for that half-dozen of them that shadowrunners share conspiracy theories about).

Well, they could have been running and hiding from Sirrug, and/or being killed by him. Shadowrun is so riddled with elaborate conspiracies that its not impossible for immortal elves to rethink their public stance and go back into hiding. It is still possible that there is a Great Dragon out there that has been hiding out since the awakening, I fail to see why it'd be implausible for IEs to do the same.

Though, I will concede the point that it does sound like the IE population is incredibly low, like double digits. Though for a servant race, you'd think that there would have been more of them to...you know, service the dragons.

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« Reply #22 on: <05-24-14/1510:51> »
Given the chatter about downcycle hunting in Aztlan, my guess is that there is a lot more concern for IEs hunting Great Dragons than the other way around. At best, Sirrurg got one when attacking EuroAir 329, but some IEs (especially Aithne Oakforest) have killed more than a couple based on Hestaby's assessment during Survival of the Fittest and sheer numbers. There are nine Great Dragons of Barsaive alone in ED's Dragons (and references to Lofwyr and Denairastas). There are only about two dozen worldwide in SR.

Just to be clear what the canon is (Threats, 58):
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Less than 25 immortal elves are known to exist, and none have been born since the Awakening. Immortal elves possesses an immortality gene that is triggered by the rise of the world’s mana level. (Allegedly, the Seelie Court of Tir na nOg and Tir Tairngire’s Council of Princes have perfected a genetic test that reveals the presence of the gene in an elf.) Also, note that the immortality gene may lie dormant in an elf, so theoretically several other “unawakened” immortal elves may exist.
The only way I can reconcile the wording of the first and last sentences is to infer that the "unawakened" IEs are spike babies like Dodger. Any new ones would be 18 or under (Threats was set in 2057).

Tír Tairngire was not composed entirely of elves when it seceded, and it's not a novelty of history for a revolutionary political regime to turn around and isolate and punish those very people who helped secure a new regime's existence. Anyway ...
« Last Edit: <05-24-14/1542:15> by Crimsondude »

Mirikon

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« Reply #23 on: <05-24-14/1706:22> »
Where there not nations of IE's in Earthdawn? I don't actually know. Which is why I'm asking. But if there were, I can't imagine they all died out between the 4th and 6th World.
There weren't nations of IEs in Earthdawn. There were elven nations, but even then the 'immortal elves' were something of a myth or urban legend to most people, even though an IE was sitting on the throne of the elven court. Remember, the IEs learned the art of secrecy and manipulation at the feet of dragons.

Would it be possible for there to be an Immortal Elf technomancer? Maybe a new type of Immortal Elf that results because of the existence of the Matrix? I was thinking that such a type of IE would be harder to tell, and one completely new.
Possible, but it would have to be an Immortal Elf born recently, and most of the immortals are... not exactly the spreading wild oats kind. You'd be looking at a second (maybe third) generation from the original dragon parent. Possible, but unlikely, and there is not exactly a large sample size to go from. Also, the immortality only extends to the second or third generation removed from the dragon parent, so if, say, Frosty had kids, there's a high likelihood that they would not be IEs.
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Senko

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« Reply #24 on: <05-24-14/1907:58> »
Where's that from? I can accept a recessive gene but I'm really not happy with the idea of a magical gene that dissapears after a few generations. Maybe one like the  magicians gene in that its spread throughout countless generations but requires a certain mana level to wake up as it were and even then its not entirely something I'm comfortable with.

Critias

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« Reply #25 on: <05-24-14/2005:50> »
Where's that from? I can accept a recessive gene but I'm really not happy with the idea of a magical gene that dissapears after a few generations. Maybe one like the  magicians gene in that its spread throughout countless generations but requires a certain mana level to wake up as it were and even then its not entirely something I'm comfortable with.
One could argue that if it's NOT recessive (and extremely so, dwindling as the draconic blood is dilluted by generation after generation), the planet would be overgrown with immortal elves.  Because we know there aren't that many, and because we know they're fertile, the logical extrapolation is that it can't breed true very often at all, and it can't breed true after second or third generations, or by now -- millennia later -- the place would be overrun with people never dying of old age.

There were few in Earthdawn, and there aren't still few in Shadowrun, so they couldn't have been breeding true in the thousands and thousands of years in between.

SlowDeck

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« Reply #26 on: <05-24-14/2009:37> »
Is it possible the lower magic level made it impossible for them to breed true?
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Critias

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« Reply #27 on: <05-24-14/2030:00> »
Is it possible the lower magic level made it impossible for them to breed true?
Sure, why not?

Mirikon

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« Reply #28 on: <05-24-14/2043:20> »
This is from the Dragons sourcebook for Earthdawn, written during the death of FASA.

Quote from: Dragons, pg 140
DRAGON-KIN
Dragon-kin are Name-givers born of or descended from the mating of a Name-giver and a dragon in Name-giver form. They have certain unique abilities as a result of their heritage. Without careful breeding and a regular infusion of dragon-blood, most families of dragon-kin become ordinary Name-givers after many generations as the dragon blood is slowly diluted. Dragon tradition now forbids dragons mating with any of the Young Races to produce dragon-kin, and the practice has been banned since the dawn of the Age of Legend. Violating this tradition is one of the few actions that is likely to result in a dragon being banished from dragon society. As a result, the number of these Name-givers in Barsaive is extremely small and is constantly decreasing.

So my bad, not 1-2 generations, but the effects go away, as the dragon blood thins out. And while all races can produce dragon-kin, only elf dragon-kin are known to be immortal. The children of the Denairastas clan of Iopos are known to be long-lived, but whether they are immortal isn't clear (they tend to have many unnatural deaths well within a human's life-span). This leads to my own personal belief that the Black Lodge is, in fact, the descendants of Denairastas. It would explain how they gained their knowledge without any immortal elves, and would make the 'Ultimate Master' of the Black Lodge to be Denairastas himself. If the Outcast is still kicking around, then the Lodge's actions during the Dragon Civil War are put in a new light.
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Critias

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« Reply #29 on: <05-24-14/2122:39> »
This is from the Dragons sourcebook for Earthdawn, written during the death of FASA.

Quote from: Dragons, pg 140
DRAGON-KIN
Dragon-kin are Name-givers born of or descended from the mating of a Name-giver and a dragon in Name-giver form. They have certain unique abilities as a result of their heritage. Without careful breeding and a regular infusion of dragon-blood, most families of dragon-kin become ordinary Name-givers after many generations as the dragon blood is slowly diluted. Dragon tradition now forbids dragons mating with any of the Young Races to produce dragon-kin, and the practice has been banned since the dawn of the Age of Legend. Violating this tradition is one of the few actions that is likely to result in a dragon being banished from dragon society. As a result, the number of these Name-givers in Barsaive is extremely small and is constantly decreasing.

So my bad, not 1-2 generations, but the effects go away, as the dragon blood thins out. And while all races can produce dragon-kin, only elf dragon-kin are known to be immortal. The children of the Denairastas clan of Iopos are known to be long-lived, but whether they are immortal isn't clear (they tend to have many unnatural deaths well within a human's life-span). This leads to my own personal belief that the Black Lodge is, in fact, the descendants of Denairastas. It would explain how they gained their knowledge without any immortal elves, and would make the 'Ultimate Master' of the Black Lodge to be Denairastas himself. If the Outcast is still kicking around, then the Lodge's actions during the Dragon Civil War are put in a new light.
Keep in mind, though, that was "many generations" back in the Earthdawn days, with that mana level (not during the great down cycle).  I'd default to it being quicker to happen/dilute, now, personally (and even quicker totally between mana spikes).