[Lextius]

@justadude

I understand that infant mortality figures.  I would counter that it doesn't seem to matter how the death rate reaches such comically high rates.  The infant mortality rate in Angola (Africa is just such a useful go to to describe horror) is 180 deaths / 1000 live births.  My point, though, is that Angola is a blighted hellhole. 

The thing about Angola is that it isn't located next door to my metroplex/shopping mall.  I don't buy fro-yo, catch the latest action movie, then cruise home in my BMW within sight of the slums of Luanda.  If I did these things then the people who live in those slums would likely stop my BMW with burning tires, pull me out of my car, take my fro-yo, then rape and murder me (with the exception of the fro-yo these all appear to be things that the folks in Angola do a lot of).

Again, I don't really care how you get to the meta-humanitarian crisis that is "Ork life in Seattle".  What matters is that the numbers suggested at in theme create a world, and that world is worse than the worst places we have on earth.  As a GM I can embrace this- which means that the people of Seattle are willfully blind to living next to a humanitarian crisis the likes of which the world has yet to see, or I can suggest that maybe Orks 1) don't have litters, or 2) don' t mature so fast.

I don't know which is better- maybe there's something to be said about a world where things below the 15th story of your highrise is like Mogadishu from Black Hawk Down (incidentally- Mogadishu as depicted in Black Hawk Down is less violent than the ork slums).  For me it is hard to reconcile the civility and functionality of corporate UCAS with this depiction of the slums.

[CanRay]

"Currently" being the First World.  You start hitting the Second World and Third World countries and...

[Reaver]

All I can say is: " I can see it."

Yes, the Ork communities in the barrens are hellholes. Death rates are through the roof (thus accounting for the low life span.) They live in crowded conditions sleeping 6 (or more!) to a room, they drink dirty water, and survive on scraps thrown out by others. And along comes a "little" out break of pnemoania... and no medicine to stave off drowning in their own lungs.

So they organize. They set up their roadblocks of burning tires, they jack up those BMW driving wage slaves, and along KE or LS SWAT teams in their heavy armor, and heavy machine guns and "happy smiles"... and mow down those Ork "terrorists" or "gang members" or whatever (not that it matters any, they are SINless after all)

And in the end, cause they have no where else to turn, nothing work against their poverty, nothing to prove that they ( the vast majority) are not gangbanger-anarchist-murdering-raping hoodlums that the media says they are, they slink back to their diseased slums, drink their dirty water, eat the infect soy-paste until the next outbreak comes along...

No one cares. They are orks after all so why should they? They are the mentally stunted, over muscled, degenerate "Tusker", not actually PEOPLE. After all, they could go out and get a job if they weren't so lazy. And those that HAVE jobs? Well they are stupid (probably from the inbreeding you know) so they take longer/cost more to train, so why not pay them less? And then there are all news stories and how "violent" orcs are, and all crimes they are involved in/with....

(starting to see the dystopian worldview now?)

Long story short? It's Hell on earth out there, away from the corporate housing enclaves. Racism is rampant (racism as in troll/Ork/elf/etc). Life is cheap, and body tissue has value. No one cares what is happening to anyone else as long as they are safe and they don't have to see it. (in that regard, it's similar to today)

[CanRay]

*Cough*  Dystopia.  Sounds about right to me.

Just live in your AR world where everything is sunshine and rainbows, John Q. Wageslave, everyone is happy.  Now, back to your 8-8/6-day a week job.

Did I not call it?

[JustADude]

I don't know which is better- maybe there's something to be said about a world where things below the 15th story of your highrise is like Mogadishu from Black Hawk Down (incidentally- Mogadishu as depicted in Black Hawk Down is less violent than the ork slums).  For me it is hard to reconcile the civility and functionality of corporate UCAS with this depiction of the slums.

Long story short? It's Hell on earth out there, away from the corporate housing enclaves. Racism is rampant (racism as in troll/Ork/elf/etc). Life is cheap, and body tissue has value. No one cares what is happening to anyone else as long as they are safe and they don't have to see it. (in that regard, it's similar to today)

Welcome to the Sixth World.

[CanRay]

Don't let the dystopia kick you in the reproductive organs on your way in.

Oh, who am I kidding?  It's going to do that anyhow!

[Mason]

Interesting arguments, but I'd like to point out that the this whole Orks have litters thing was just a joke someone on Shadowland cracked that became literal truth in 4th. Who knows why. But the original intent of Shadowrun was not that there are that many Orks around. Orks are described as the fastest growing population in all the metatypes, but that doesn't match the birthrates described here.

[raggedhalo]

I'm pretty sure that orks producing litters was canon in SR2, but I don't have my books handy to check.

[Xzylvador]

"within a few generations of occupying an area, orks are going to either need to expand (pressing in on the wealthy and moneyed interests), or consume themselves in a conflagration of blood, disease, and horror that has no rival currently on this earth."

Your calculations might be right.
Although I do think that the Ork race may actually suffer from what you so painfully describe as "comically high death rates", who's to say your prediction won't come true in the next couple of decades?
They've been around for 50 years now; for an Ork that would be ~4 generations. But they started at a pretty low number and first had some catching up to do. Then a lot got killed because of racism when they were new and Night of Rage and  well, all that crap and their "expected" growth is stunted by bad/worse/hostile living conditions...

Anyhow, I don't really get the problem or what this thread is about. For all I know you might be spot on and the next big world-wide problem to deal with in SR5 won't be dragon wars, AI's or bugs but Ork Overgrowth. Or all the numbers you're using might be completely and utterly wrong and useless. What's their source, how'd they get their numbers and what's their agenda?
"Lies, damned lies and statistics."
I for one am going to go with my gut feeling on this one and that is: Orks really don't have it easy. And problems caused by the 'too' rapid increase in their population numbers -will- solve themselves through famine, disease and crime of an unprecedented scale. And you know what? 95% of the Wageslave population won't even hear about it on the news. And the 5% that does inform themselves will use that knowledge in just in the same way that we now get to say crap like "Africa is just such a useful go to to describe horror" and then give the estimated infant mortality rate of some far away place. It's a useful statistic to throw around, but as long as it doesn't really have an impact on the way we live our lives bigger than the annual donation to charity to clear our conscience, that's all it is.*

Someone on the forum once suggested they've got the same amount of life on 'em as humans, but they burn it up faster.

I'm slightly amazed people read the things I write... and horrified that they remember it!


_{* I would just like to add that this may sound/read more harsh or personal than it is intended. It's a sad but simple fact that in modern society people are getting more and more detached from the suffering of others. I'm not without fault here either. Seeing how society has evolved in the Shadowrun universe, I can only see that emotional detachment increase.}

[Lextius]

Anyhow, I don't really get the problem or what this thread is about.

This thread is about the population explosion that would occur if the ork birthrate, gestation period, and sexual maturation rate were as they are described in the books.  The problem is that, assuming only that orks are as likely as similarly socio-economically situated humans to engage in sexual activity and that ork fertility rates are similar to humans, within a very short time period any region with a statistically significant ork population will see a rapid shift in demographics.  In order to offset that shift in demographics there will need to be a normalizing force, which is likely to take the form of massive ork slaughter.

And problems caused by the 'too' rapid increase in their population numbers -will- solve themselves through famine, disease and crime of an unprecedented scale.

I think that the implications of that unprecedented famine, disease, and crime is what we're discussing.

And you know what? 95% of the Wageslave population won't even hear about it on the news. And the 5% that does inform themselves will use that knowledge in just in the same way that we now get to say crap like "Africa is just such a useful go to to describe horror" and then give the estimated infant mortality rate of some far away place

Right, but I get to say that because 1) It's a far away place, and 2) I'm callous.  I think I'd be much more engaged with the human suffering in the Congo if mass graves were being dug 2 blocks away.  More importantly, my community looks very very different if 2 blocks the worst depravities of Liberia are happening- either I live in a police state with massive walls and barricades keeping those people and their problems away from me (in which case I'm aware of the issue but turn a blind eye to it), or I live in a world in which I'm constantly afraid of the overflow dangers.

The implications for racism, classism, and civil rights are staggering.  As storytellers I'm curious whether we treat these numbers seriously, if we use them to further our stories, or if we simply ignore them. 

[Reaver]

A quick wiki search turned up this lovely factoid:
"in 2010 7.6 MILLION  children under the age of 5 died worldwide, " with starvation as the major cause. Followed by disease.

That's now, SR takes place in a hellhole future so I can see it being really worse off.

As for how I incorporate it into my games? I do and I don't.

My runners REFUSE to lay low in a barrens area just cause they are tired of having their car alarm AR going off every 5 minutes. And you can only gut so many would be car thief gutter punks (and then watch as the others surge forward to strip the corpse bare of clothing!) before you realize it's a wasted effort.

The soulless gun bunny doesn't mind it so much as it gives him a chance to sit on a crappy rooftop and fiddle with his smart link (lots of targets down there you know, and the cops don't care!)

I don't dwell on it, but I add it to the color of the world when they go into the crappy parts of town. It makes them shut up about "low paying jobs" cause they realize that yes, they ARE replaceable as far as the Johnson sees it. (course it remains to be seen if a gutter punk can put off a pro's job, but hey, who knows!)

[crisses]

Having not explicitly gone over the relevant portions of cannon/RAW SR4 on orc birthrates, I have a suggestion that saves orcness from the horrifying calamities suggested and puts them firmly into the RAW suggestions that Orcs physically mature at 13 before their brains are ready.

Birth-spacing.

In a human woman, one can get pregnant nearly immediately after birthing -- but with the exception that while she is breastfeeding she is likely not to ovulate.  So breastfeeding leads to natural birth spacing for a human.

Perhaps orc women either 1) have a higher birthing-death rate given their poor healthcare so the babies may or may not make it, and the mother isn't alive to have another litter... or  2) have a much longer spacing between pregnancies to balance the sub-species out i.e. 3-4 years between or more?

Giving birth to multiple children doesn't mean that 6 months later (approximate orc gestation IIRC) the lady orc is alive, well, and knocked up again.

Sorry, but I studied midwifery....before home-birthing my own kids (with a professional midwife).  If they're SINless, living in the lowest poverty levels, and there's no public healthcare to speak of, these ladies are home-birthing, possibly without a midwife.  So babies are stillborn, mothers are dying, young children just don't "make it" to adulthood -- in addition to the "teen mortality" of the gangs.  If you think that there would be too many bodies laying around in the slums, consider that there's the symbiosis of the ghouls who may be "clean up squads" and help out with that little problem.

To the OP:  I agree, it's a hard-knock orc-life.  Yes, that should probably be played up more than it is.  Certainly kudos to people who work that into an orc character's background.  "Lost 10 of his 15 siblings (listing the many gruesome ways...), and mom died birthing the 3rd litter..."

[CanRay]

Don't get me started on the "Murphy" family. 

[CitizenJoe]

Metahumans give birth to humans that MIGHT be metahuman.  There's no massive population explosion of orks if 80% of their children don't goblinize.

[CanRay]

Ork life cycle:  Born, cause early death of parents, join a gang, become a Shadowrunner, get shot after someone geeked the mage because you're the ork with the big gun.