[CitizenJoe]

But the orks are NOT concentrated in the slums.  Orks are fairly uniformly distributed amongst the metroplex at around 15 to 20% of the population.  Then notable exceptions are Redmond, Snohomish and Everett districts where humans far outnumber metahumans.  Actually, Humans far outnumber the metahumans in all of the districts but more so up north.  So any environmental impact on orks is going to hit humans even harder.

Of course, the real trick here is that there isn't a problem at all.  Look at dogs.  The larger breeds don't live as long as the smaller breeds.  I'm not saying the orks are dogs, what I'm saying is that Orks are a larger breed of humans and thus follow the same trend that dogs do.

[Mirikon]

Just because there are orks in every neighborhood doesn't mean that the orks in those neighborhoods have the same standard of living as others in that neighborhood. While there are orks in the middle class, most of them are poor, at best.

[JustADude]

But the orks are NOT concentrated in the slums.  Orks are fairly uniformly distributed amongst the metroplex at around 15 to 20% of the population.  Then notable exceptions are Redmond, Snohomish and Everett districts where humans far outnumber metahumans.  Actually, Humans far outnumber the metahumans in all of the districts but more so up north.  So any environmental impact on orks is going to hit humans even harder.

According to SR4A, p71, Orks and Trolls are statistically more likely to be SINless than other metatypes. That means they're statistically more likely to be living in the slums and barrens.

In the 19th century, before modern healthcare, rich families had an infant mortality rate of 80-100 per thousand. In the slums infant deaths were closer to 300 per thousand. Given that Barrens families would probably have nearly as little to work with, medically speaking, as 19th century slum-dwellers, 25%-30% of all Ork deaths being younger than the age of 5 would not be unlikely.

And that was before things like Ghouls wanted to eat you.

Exactly my point.

I figure any increase in availability in medical care among the truly impoverished since the 19th century (Pediatrician Magician, anyone?), which is not a given in a Dystopia like Shadowrun, is more than offset by the increase in the lethality of other factors.

So, for simplicity, lets say 25%-30% of all Orks die right at age 5, that means that in a population with an average lifespan of 40, that's an extra 11-15 years for the remaining 70%-75% of the population... and that's assuming that if they survive past age 5 they all live until they die of natural causes in their early-to-mid-50s.

The fact that a good portion of that 25%-30% would die well before 5, plus violent death along the way for those that survive to adulthood would probably push the average Ork's actual lifespan up somewhere closer to the late-50s, if not early-60s, if he manages to make it to "Natural Causes".

Still well short of a normal human, who can make it to 90s or better under the same "ideal" conditions, which is appropriate for the fluff.

[CitizenJoe]

Environmental impacts are not a study of racial lifespans, but rather a study of local lifespan.  Orks in the Barrens tend to have shorter lifespans than humans in downtown.  That's like comparing apples to bicycles.  Do orks in the Barrens have shorter life expectancies than Humans in the Barrens?  If so, why?  Do the Cascade Orks have shorter lives than the Cascade Crow?  What about the Sinsearach Elves?

But again, that doesn't matter because there is an existing precedent for larger breeds living shorter lives.  I don't have to make up some sort of weirdness to explain it, just look at dogs.

[JustADude]

Environmental impacts are not a study of racial lifespans, but rather a study of local lifespan.  Orks in the Barrens tend to have shorter lifespans than humans in downtown.  That's like comparing apples to bicycles.  Do orks in the Barrens have shorter life expectancies than Humans in the Barrens?  If so, why?  Do the Cascade Orks have shorter lives than the Cascade Crow?  What about the Sinsearach Elves?

But again, that doesn't matter because there is an existing precedent for larger breeds living shorter lives.  I don't have to make up some sort of weirdness to explain it, just look at dogs.

So why do Trolls live longer than Orks? Answer: Orks are more prone to doing stupidly dangerous stuff and getting themselves iced at a young age.

And yes, humans in any given situation live longer than Orks. The lifespan for Humans p72 of SR4A are rather low as well. "65" may be the average for Humans, but that includes all the infant deaths, stupid teenagers, and people who get themselves dead in their 30s and 40s. Like I said, the same calculations give a human a "hard" liftspan of 85-90, with a "soft" lifespan of somewhere over 100... which jives quite well with what we know about current human lifespans.

[CitizenJoe]

Here's some hard numbers for you.
There are about 390 thousand orks in the Seattle Metroplex.  About 100K are in the Puyallup District, with a large group around Carbonado.  Another 100K are in downtown Seattle.  These are your sample areas making up over a quarter of the Urban Ork Population. There are 800 thousand Cascade Orks.  That means that your statistical average is going to be strongly biased towards the Cascade Ork lifestyle, not your presumption that orks are gutter punks.

As for Trolls living longer than Orks.  That may be true, but they still have shorter lifespans than Humans.   

[JustADude]

Here's some hard numbers for you.
There are about 390 thousand orks in the Seattle Metroplex.  About 100K are in the Puyallup District, with a large group around Carbonado.  Another 100K are in downtown Seattle.  These are your sample areas making up over a quarter of the Urban Ork Population. There are 800 thousand Cascade Orks.  That means that your statistical average is going to be strongly biased towards the Cascade Ork lifestyle, not your presumption that orks are gutter punks.

As for Trolls living longer than Orks.  That may be true, but they still have shorter lifespans than Humans.

Where did you get your numbers? Seattle 2072 says way otherwise.

Looking at the numbers, based on percentage of the total ORK population, and not percentage of population per region, and factoring in known things like Orks and Trolls tending to get stuck with crappy, low-paying work compared to "prettier" Metatypes, it seems to me they bloody well are concentrated on the poor end of the spectrum. Now, admittedly I didn't sit down and do a population breakdown graph or anything, but that's what it comes off as when I glance at the "at a glance" charts.

Also, not seeing anything about any Cascade region except a few offhand mentions, but from what I have read it doesn't sound like it's got too much going for it in the way of medical facilities, either.

And, dude, if your theory about "bigger dogs die faster" were true, Trolls would have to have an average of something like a 20-30 year lifespan. They're twice the mass of an Ork but live a decade longer. Your theory is false, regardless of whether Humans live longer than either.

[CitizenJoe]

I got those numbers from a Wiki that says it was current as of 2072.  District percentage of orks X district population = number of orks in district.  The 800K orks in Cascade Ork comes from the SSC population 8,590,00 with 14% ork but only 11% Cascade Ork. so I bumped that down to 10% to account for the non-orks in the Cascade Orks.

Now lets look at your speculation about jobs.  Let's say 20% of the jobs are nice cushy white collar jobs (which aren't as safe as you're making them out to be but whatever)  Now lets say that cultural bias gives them all to humans.  Now, we'll go to the most Metahuman area, the Puyallup Barrens.  That still leaves 29% of the humans with crappy jobs.  Which is almost 25% more humans than orks, working those crappy jobs.  Why isn't the Human lifespan reduced?

[CanRay]

Well, there's your problem.  Wikis aren't canon or encyclopedias.

...

I miss my encyclopedias.   

[Zilfer]

Here's some hard numbers for you.
There are about 390 thousand orks in the Seattle Metroplex.  About 100K are in the Puyallup District, with a large group around Carbonado.  Another 100K are in downtown Seattle.  These are your sample areas making up over a quarter of the Urban Ork Population. There are 800 thousand Cascade Orks.  That means that your statistical average is going to be strongly biased towards the Cascade Ork lifestyle, not your presumption that orks are gutter punks.

As for Trolls living longer than Orks.  That may be true, but they still have shorter lifespans than Humans.

Where did you get your numbers? Seattle 2072 says way otherwise.

Looking at the numbers, based on percentage of the total ORK population, and not percentage of population per region, and factoring in known things like Orks and Trolls tending to get stuck with crappy, low-paying work compared to "prettier" Metatypes, it seems to me they bloody well are concentrated on the poor end of the spectrum. Now, admittedly I didn't sit down and do a population breakdown graph or anything, but that's what it comes off as when I glance at the "at a glance" charts.

Also, not seeing anything about any Cascade region except a few offhand mentions, but from what I have read it doesn't sound like it's got too much going for it in the way of medical facilities, either.

And, dude, if your theory about "bigger dogs die faster" were true, Trolls would have to have an average of something like a 20-30 year lifespan. They're twice the mass of an Ork but live a decade longer. Your theory is false, regardless of whether Humans live longer than either.

I'd like to offer up that I'm willing to bet while trolls and orks may get into situations that could get them killed, that trolls come out of it more often than Orks, just because of their toughness.

[Lextius]

If you don't mind me saying, I think my point got lost somewhere in the discussion.

The question isn't "how" an ork dies- violence, disease, a dingo eating the ork baby- they all contribute to an image of what it means 1) to be an ork, and 2) what it means to live within viewing distance of an ork slum.

My point, and I haven't really heard an explanation that suggests this isn't the case, is that orks, within a few generations of occupying an area, 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. 

The problem is that if we were to describe hell we'd probably use places on earth as starting points.  The DNC is something like 8 times less violent than a theoretical ork slum.  Liberia is 7 times less violent- and they eat people there. 

My point, at its core, is that orks don't live in a blighted dystopian society.  They don't like in a violent and diseased hellscape.  They live in a place 7 or 8 times worse than a violent and diseased hellscape.  I wonder how many of us GMs make a point of that.

[CitizenJoe]

You know, it could simply be a matter that 90% of ork children are human.  If you crank out 20 kids but only one is an ork, you don't have the ork population growth problem.

[Mirikon]

While the life cycle for orks is shortened by the various factors mentioned, it should be noted that an ork (that didn't goblinize) at age 40 would be the equivalent of a human at age 95 or so today. Their lifespan is simply shorter than that of a human, just like an Elf has a lifespan of several centuries.

If you want to ask why? Magic.

[CanRay]

That, and a tusker just can't catch no break! 

[JustADude]

Lex, go back and look at my numbers for per-modern-medicine infant mortality rates, which are very applicable since the idea of "cheap healthcare" is pretty well gone in Shadowrun, and the poor areas are pushing 100,000 people per medical facility even if they could afford it.

The infant death alone cover most of your estimated "80-150 per 1000 per year", with the remainder easily made up for by a few Ghoul and Paracritter attacks and gang warfare.

It may not be anything "currently" on this earth but, historically speaking, it's same old drek, just a different day.