Shadowrun Berlin

I just wrote me a wolf (an actual German expression stating that I just wrote a long, WAY TOO long text that took a lot of effort („Ich habe mir gerade einen Wolf geschrieben“)) on the #shadowrun subreddit, trying to put my very complex thoughts about the life expectancy of orcs – and the changing concept of this meta-racial „feature“ in general – into words.

Since reddit does not accept the contribution (returning an error message, no further explanation given), I’ll just drop it here and try sending a link to reddit 🙂

Wish me luck.

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A REPLY TO THE POST „ORC LIFESPAN“ ON REDDIT/SHADOWRUN

[Short notes/prefaces: Racism is a minefield. As are the very definition of what concepts like „beauty“, „strength“ and „weakness“ even mean. Since I am just writing a reddit comment here and not „A Comprehensive Treatise on the Social-Economical Evolution of Meta-Racial Properties in the latter HAlf of the 21st Century“, PLEASE forgive me for generalizing and simplifying even though „the devil is in the details“. I mean no evil. Also, please note that I am from Germany and NOT an English native speaker, so I MAY use words that have a „subtext“ in the current discussion happning in the US (esp. universities) that I am TOTALLY unaware of. Again: I just try to get m thoughts across and I mean no evil.]

In the earliest editions, Orcs had a shorter lifespan, causing all kinds of in-game problems = fantastic storytelling opportunities for (and against) them. In later editions this was downplayed as „social factors“ and „racist pseudo-science“, so orcs – according to SR6 RAW – have the same biological lifespan as „normal“ humans, but not necessarily the same life expectancy (as they are poorer and face racial biases, do not generally have access to the best/necessary medical services, are more often victims of violence and drug abuse etc. – so: lower average lifespan is bc of outside social/societal factors, not genetic traits or somesuch).

That is the official line. And frankly said: It is complete bull… errh, I mean, I think the decision to downplay and reframe the orc life expectancy/lifespan is debatable at best, and a horrendous error at worst.

Let me explain (and again: this is MY PERSONAL OPINION, NOT the official line).

Shadowrun – as far as I understood what the original authors presented me, back in 1989 – was all about the fact that real-world racism is COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT, because we are all humans with no distinguishable physical or mental differences that would „warrant“ any distinction (apart from clichés, stereotypes and (mostly colonial) politics, sure).

SHADOWRUN, however, has metatypes with „actual“ and quite obvious differences, some of which are directly baked into the – again: obvious(ly profit-driven) – employment strategies of the corps, and not only the megas.

Side note: All this is REALLY beautifully explained and brought to life in the SR novel CHANGELING by Christopher Kubasik, my very very VERY VERY favourite Shadowrun novel of all times.

Like, let’s just say elves live (theoretically) forever (= do not die of old age), while orcs die early. Now who would you hire to get an incredibly expensive education – a long-term investment your corp will profit from for a (theoretical) unlimited amount of time in the future –, and who will you hire „as-is“ (with no further investment into skills and knowledge fields) to „just do as you’re told“ and maybe „burn out“ fast („Hire and Fire“).

THAT Is the reality of the soulless capitalist machine of the Sixth World.

And a setup like this leads to incredibly interesting stories, BECAUSE it is abstract and purely FICTIONAL.

For example, „Beautism“ (also: „Lookism“ = positive bias vs good-looking ppl leading to beautiful ppl getting better jobs, earlier promotions, better pay, lesser sentences, being assumed to be innocent more often, striking WAY better deals in negotiations etc.) is most definetly a thing in RL.

Elves (who are generally being described as being „more beautiful“ than other metatypes (the most beautiful elves are more beautiful than the most beautiful norms AND the totality of elves is more beautiful on average than all norms on average, which still means that there may be very well be breathtakingly beautiful norms (or orcs, or trolls, or dwarves) and dead-ugly elves, BUT …) will get good jobs more easily than, say, trolls, will get promotions before „Mister Unassuming Norm“ AND since they do not have to retire by foce of old age they will „clog“ the lead positions of several „tiers“ of corporate life sooner or later.

[Short note on the concept of „What is beatiful?“: Very simply said, „beauty“ is a social construct and not an absolute value, yes, but in the modern age (meaning both our RL and SR) what is beautiful gets defined by media (movies, music stars, yellow press, fashion shows). It is pretty well established in SR (mostly shown in artwork) that Sixth World media basically still follows the same beauty standards that we adhere to today, so the „elf bodytype“ and a young/ageless appearance is absolutely a trait you can bank on.

Yes, there is body sculpting and esp. leonization, so the (mega-)rich have a means to fight against this (or any other) „unfair“ advantage (nothing new here), but what about middle or lower management? Strange as it may seem, by 2080 most (if not all) McHugh restaurants will be managed by an elf – and all of the other employees will hate them just for being an elf and being the boss, OBVIOUSLY. And is he/she, the elf boss of the local McHugh’s, happy? OF COURSE NOT! Because being an elf, you are held to HIGHER standards „as seen on Trid“ and „as told to you by your parents and elf propaganda“: You are being fed the idea of actually being superior, of being destined for greatness, and while the „lowly“ orc can defend his failures (everybody has them!) by being of a certain metatype, or being brought up in a difficult neighborhood, or being discriminated because of that time you hit a classmate in 5th grade because you misjudged both your temper AND your physical strength, YOU, being the elf, YOU, having ALL of the advantages according to media and elitist elf policlubs, have NO excuse for the failure that you are. And always WILL be.

And hierin lies the rub: Actually „playing“ with ingame/inworld mechanisms that are based on FICTIONAL concepts like magic (and not only AI), or dragons (and not only Zuck/Bezos/Musk), or meta-racism (metatypes with actual, measurable differences in a profit-driven, feudal-capitalist world) is fascinating, interesting and even insightful, leading to a deeper understanding on the actual world we live in and, even more importantly, the human condition.

Downplaying these differences and relegating the SR metatypes (and metavariants, and metasapients) to „RL racial stereotypes that are only codified into fantasy tropes“ is misleading at best, and DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS at worst.

I already TRIED to explain this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments/1hf8i0p/comment/m2fbmv2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[tl;dr: RL racism is like „The Fraggles“ fighting about whether you are pink or blue or green (= pointless and obviously stupid), while SR racism is a world where the Fraggles do not care about their individual color since there are tiny Dozers and giant Gorgs with VERY different bodies and minds walking around (all races in The Fraggles will of course come together and overcome their differences, since Jim Henson was WAY too good for this world].

I „get“ why CGL decided to downplay racism in SR via reducing/abandoning the actual (stat-wise, age-wise) differences in light of the recent and current racial discourse in the US of A (insofar as I, living in Germany, am aware of them), ESPECIALLY in light of the raging DnD/Hasbro/LotR discussion.

I STILL think downplaying or abandoning the „orcs die young“ trope is the wrong step.

You want to say that all SR metatypes/metavariants are actually, factually (more) equal?

That is nice notion – BUT trolls still are way bigger, making them better hires for construction or bodyguard jobs where size and strength are an advantage, AND they incur a +10% lifestyle „tariff“ that puts them at a SEVERE economical advantage throughout ALL lifestyles.

Is this also just a social factor? Are you actually bullsh1tting me?

But OK, let’s assume the size of trolls is just a pseudo-scientific racist stereotype, too: they are just vertically disadvantaged, much like dwarves, and what is „big“ and „small“ anyway?

What about centaurs, then? Are they just like other people, too? Or merrows? Is their dependency on water just a neo-colonial trope, and merrows are only the racist representation of the Bajao people of Southeast Asia?

You can twist and turn as much as you want: In the end, there are two kinds of racisms in the Sixth World:

– ONE: the „OLD (BS, and in-game THANKFULLY mostly irrelevant) RACISM“ being about the color of the skin and minor differences in facial features (that most ppl do not give one iota of frag about – BUT these features MAY still contribute to the „starting point“ of any individual’s background (a POC troll from the worst part of town has it worse than a white Troll whose family has been a founding member of an elitist university some 500 years ago)).

– TWO: „NEW (META-)RACISM“ of sitting beside a guy in the metro that is 2x your size and being NATURALLY AFRAID of him.

Regarding this „New and Fictional“ Racism of the Sixth World, there are of course still several, even countless layers, the most important being:

– ONE: SOULLESS EFFICIENCY. Example: The investment of a corp into an elf student will pay off longer than investing into an orc (the same goes for a pimp BTW).

– TWO: TRADITIONAL RACIST „RULES“. Example: If the world sees orcs as somewhat „less“ or values their death as „more acceptable“ since they do not live as long as „norms“ anyway, it is preferable to recruit them in jobs that have a higher mortality rate and/or are of minor interest to the public (esp. since „beggars/orcs can’t be chosers“, so hiring orcs will be cheaper in most cases).

This is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the discussion around whatev Tolkien MAY have meant by originally drawing up the various races in LotR, AND totally different from the history and even CONCEPT of „high fantasy TTRPG“ like Dnd:

The actual differences between the „norms“ and the other metatypes is NOT about whether i.e. orcs are EVIL(tm) by nature, or what race/metatype is „better“ – it is about a ruthless, cutt-throat world with physically and mentally different kinds of sentient beings living in it who are ALL BASTARDS!

There is no better or worse, no good or evil, no lawful or chaotic. Just people walking on 2 or 4 legs, gliding snake-like on the floor, flying, swimming, being huge or tiny, having differing affinities for magic and in part VERY different powers … and the soulless neo-feudal capitalist world swallowing them ALL.