[grid_roamer]

Pretty much.
 Since they have been the dominant race or at least close to the top of the order since the end of the First age....

And have been on the side of a diminished sapien presence often enough....

But to treat them as a cause of something like HMHVV or VITAS is not accurate. But then again who the hell cares....

[ImaginalDisc]

I'm just saying that while it is unlikely dragons caused the horrible contagious disease outbreaks of Shadowrun, they're a more plausible cause than metas.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Speaking as though I were racist ... you really think so?

Dragons aren't all over the place; many people in the world have never seen one in person.  Many people HAVE seen a metahuman.  Dragons are clearly a 'stable' form; compare to a Goblinizing troll or ork, who are clearly not.  If it isn't even a stable form, then it could also give rise to a mutated disease, one to which 'normal' folk don't have a very good resistance, but against which the 'more durable' forms of ork and troll (and dwarf!) just as clearly do have a higher resistance.

Dragons don't pop up everywhere and anywhere; metahumans do.

So really - you think a dragon is more likely to cause a new disease?  Or an unstable genetic freak like a 'metahuman'?

[ImaginalDisc]

Speaking as though I were racist ... you really think so?

Dragons aren't all over the place; many people in the world have never seen one in person.  Many people HAVE seen a metahuman.  Dragons are clearly a 'stable' form; compare to a Goblinizing troll or ork, who are clearly not.  If it isn't even a stable form, then it could also give rise to a mutated disease, one to which 'normal' folk don't have a very good resistance, but against which the 'more durable' forms of ork and troll (and dwarf!) just as clearly do have a higher resistance.

Dragons don't pop up everywhere and anywhere; metahumans do.

So really - you think a dragon is more likely to cause a new disease?  Or an unstable genetic freak like a 'metahuman'?

You mean the immortal, incredibly wealthy, super magically powerful Dragons from the land that time forgot, who run megacorporations, become President, have vast knowledge of everything weird that's been happening since before most people were born, and can also turn into seemingly ordinary people at will and dwell among us?

[Crimsondude]

Given their reputation, and their scarcity, it's not exactly a stretch.

Hell, prejudice decreases over time with familiarity. That has almost never been possible for dracoforms.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

You mean the immortal, incredibly wealthy, super magically powerful Dragons from the land that time forgot, who run megacorporations, become President, have vast knowledge of everything weird that's been happening since before most people were born, and can also turn into seemingly ordinary people at will and dwell among us?

Well, I think you're looking at this from an out-of-character, player perspective, as compared to an in-game Joe-Dirt perspective.  At the time the two massive viral outbreaks happen - the first in 2010, when 'spike babies' are being born, through 2011, when the Awakening happens with LOTS of elves and dwarves being born; the second in 2022, roughly a year after Goblinization starts taking place - dragons are either unheard-of or at least rare, definitely secretive, and virtually nobody knows that they have metahuman forms.  Nor are they 'fabulously rich', except by dint of legend.  Of the Greats, Ryumyo, Dunkelzahn, Lofwyr, Kaltenstein, Feuerschwinge (killed), Lung, and Aden are awake, and at least so far as I can tell, none of them throw around their wealth for a while.

So in the mind of your common, ordinary bigot, who's more likely to be the cause of a worldwide disease outbreak in 2010?  Weird little dwarf and elf babies?  Or not-even-awake-yet dragons?

[ImaginalDisc]

You mean the immortal, incredibly wealthy, super magically powerful Dragons from the land that time forgot, who run megacorporations, become President, have vast knowledge of everything weird that's been happening since before most people were born, and can also turn into seemingly ordinary people at will and dwell among us?

Well, I think you're looking at this from an out-of-character, player perspective, as compared to an in-game Joe-Dirt perspective.  At the time the two massive viral outbreaks happen - the first in 2010, when 'spike babies' are being born, through 2011, when the Awakening happens with LOTS of elves and dwarves being born; the second in 2022, roughly a year after Goblinization starts taking place - dragons are either unheard-of or at least rare, definitely secretive, and virtually nobody knows that they have metahuman forms.  Nor are they 'fabulously rich', except by dint of legend.  Of the Greats, Ryumyo, Dunkelzahn, Lofwyr, Kaltenstein, Feuerschwinge (killed), Lung, and Aden are awake, and at least so far as I can tell, none of them throw around their wealth for a while.

So in the mind of your common, ordinary bigot, who's more likely to be the cause of a worldwide disease outbreak in 2010?  Weird little dwarf and elf babies?  Or not-even-awake-yet dragons?

That's a fair point. I may be biased because when I look at real life conspiracy theorists (as opposed to proven real life conspiracies, like the Business Plot Gen. Smedley Butler ratted on) they tend to either blame the most powerless possible groups, or attribute semi-divine influence to groups with real power.

[Mirikon]

You should pick up the Conspiracy Theories book...

[ImaginalDisc]

You should pick up the Conspiracy Theories book...

I need to get my hands on lots of the fluff splats. The Underworld book in 3rd was a thing of beauty.

[grid_roamer]

You mean the immortal, incredibly wealthy, super magically powerful Dragons from the land that time forgot, who run megacorporations, become President, have vast knowledge of everything weird that's been happening since before most people were born, and can also turn into seemingly ordinary people at will and dwell among us?

Well, I think you're looking at this from an out-of-character, player perspective, as compared to an in-game Joe-Dirt perspective.  At the time the two massive viral outbreaks happen - the first in 2010, when 'spike babies' are being born, through 2011, when the Awakening happens with LOTS of elves and dwarves being born; the second in 2022, roughly a year after Goblinization starts taking place - dragons are either unheard-of or at least rare, definitely secretive, and virtually nobody knows that they have metahuman forms.  Nor are they 'fabulously rich', except by dint of legend.  Of the Greats, Ryumyo, Dunkelzahn, Lofwyr, Kaltenstein, Feuerschwinge (killed), Lung, and Aden are awake, and at least so far as I can tell, none of them throw around their wealth for a while.

So in the mind of your common, ordinary bigot, who's more likely to be the cause of a worldwide disease outbreak in 2010?  Weird little dwarf and elf babies?  Or not-even-awake-yet dragons?

That's a fair point. I may be biased because when I look at real life conspiracy theorists (as opposed to proven real life conspiracies, like the Business Plot Gen. Smedley Butler ratted on) they tend to either blame the most powerless possible groups, or attribute semi-divine influence to groups with real power.

I see your logic clearly and its a good motivation to base character interactions on....

Who would really take the time to know a being that may be 100,000 years old and suspend all belief in technology, written history, their own experiences to embrace magical knowlwdge? In 2075...

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

I see your logic clearly and its a good motivation to base character interactions on....

Who would really take the time to know a being that may be 100,000 years old and suspend all belief in technology, written history, their own experiences to embrace magical knowlwdge? In 2075...

Not quite sure how you meant this, though I do get a sense of sarcasm, but that I don't mind.  My point - in general - is that the 'X caused Y' (X being either 'metahumans' or 'dragons, in this case, and Y being 'VITAS I and II', since those have been the only big global disease outbreaks in the SR timeline) concentrates both on a) what you can reach, b) what you can 'do something about', and c) when the outrage began.  Two different sets of metahumans came into existence right around the same time as each VITAS outbreak; it doesn't take a genius (and being not-a-genius helps) to link the actual disease to 'the metahuman disease'.  Dragons, on the other hand, weren't even around at the time the first disease made it onto the scene.

So the VITAS-Metahuman link provides for a very real reason why Humanis and the Human Nation both exist and keep their membership strong.  "Metahumans got bad genes!!  Them bein' born caused VITAS-I back in 2010 an' 2011, an' them goin' Goblin caused VITAS-II in 2032!!  What'll happen next time some damn metahuman type comes out?  Izzat gonna wipe out civilization?"  SURGE could have (maybe should have) been much worse, because it could have been very rapidly spun into 'kill ANY metahuman before we get a full-on VITAS-III outbreak.'

However, I do agree that in the Conspiracy Theory chatrooms, the thought that VITAS and maybe HMHVV are plots of a dragon (or dragons).  Because that sort of person will ignore obvious 'fact' and say 'well, Nachtmeister COULD have left instructions that, when metahumans started to show up, his fanatical followers were to release a disease he'd given them five thousand years ago...'

Spin into your games as you will. 

[ImaginalDisc]

Dragons, on the other hand, weren't even around at the time the first disease made it onto the scene.

Um, point of order. People were not aware of them, but they were around.

VITAS starts in Mexico in January 2011, and Big D did his big reveal in January 2012.

People knew by the time their New Year's resolutions were forgotten that incredibly powerful dragons had been hiding in the world for a long time and they emerged from hiding roughly at the same time as all sorts of weird magical shenanigans. They SAID that they had nothing to do with it, that the world has its own natural magical cycles, but the potential for a conspiracy there is not at all unprecedented, especially given how blurred together events can seem from 63 years on.

Walt Disney died in December 1966 and was given a quiet, private funeral. A month later the first person was cyrogenically frozen with the intention of revival at an undetermined date in the future. Years later conspiracy theorists rolled the two events into one and found all sorts of spurious reasons to assume that Disney had himself frozen despite no supporting evidence and a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that Dragons are responsible for disease outbreaks in Shadowrun; I am saying that given how conspiracy theories work it is inevitable that at least a minority of people believe that.

http://www.snopes.com/disney/info/wd-ice.htm

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Dragons, on the other hand, weren't even around at the time the first disease made it onto the scene.

Um, point of order. People were not aware of them, but they were around.

VITAS starts in Mexico in January 2011, and Big D did his big reveal in January 2012.

People knew by the time their New Year's resolutions were forgotten that incredibly powerful dragons had been hiding in the world for a long time and they emerged from hiding roughly at the same time as all sorts of weird magical shenanigans. They SAID that they had nothing to do with it, that the world has its own natural magical cycles, but the potential for a conspiracy there is not at all unprecedented, especially given how blurred together events can seem from 63 years on.

Sorry, Imaginal, your information is incorrect.  I do not disagree that conspiracy theorists will lay VITAS at the feet of dragons, but the 'merely extremely prejudiced', the people who would join Humanis, are going to blame it on metahumans.  Let me timeline it for you.

1980's: Elf/dwarf spike babies have been appearing at least this far back (ref. Dodger, 'Secrets of Power' trilogy).
The closer you get to the Awakening (24 December 2011), the more spike babies appeared.

The rest of these are paraphrased from the Sixth World Almanac, specifically pp. 19-23.
10 February 2010: VITAS is discovered in India.  It rampages across the planet within weeks, and over the following months kills 25% of the world population.
22 June 2010: French economy breaks under the strain of VITAS.
28 October 2010: Madagascar has lost 10.5 million of their 14 million inhabitants; the rest flee the island.
13 January 2011: Unexplained Genetic Expression (elf/dwarf births) gets into full swing.
14 March 2011: Newsweek becomes the first major media source to label UGE births 'elves' and 'dwarfs'.
24 December 2011: The Great Dragon Ryumyo emerges from hibernation, the first of his kind to do so.  As the change in 'World' is marked by the first great dragon to awaken or the last to hibernate, his emergence marks the start of the Sixth World.
25 December 2011: Celedyr emerges, just missing his chance to be the early bird.
3 January 2012: Hualpa emerges.
27 January 2012: Dunkelzahn emerges.

So VITAS blows away a quarter of the world population between early and late 2010, and no dragon is seen until a year after VITAS settles down.  However, UGE becomes statistically significant enough around January 2011.

I'm not saying that people conspiracy-theorizing in 2070+ aren't going to say 'dragons! dragons!' the way they always do; I'm saying that people at the time, before dragons even showed up at the end of 2011, would be saying 'it's those damn weird births', i.e. metahumans/elves/dwarfs.  Thus, Humanis, the Human Nation, and all that jive.

Saying 'they were around' is pedantic; they were around in hibernation, yes, and 'we' know this 'now', well after the fact, but they were not around and active - only a very few individuals (immortal elves) even knew of the literal existence of dragons.  To boot, it was two months short of two years from the time VITAS hit that dragons popped out of their holes; the massive increase of UGE happened mere months (if that!) after VITAS died down.

Again, I agree that many conspiracy theorists are going to lay it at the feet of dragons, great or otherwise.  I (strongly) disagree that at the time, people would have had any such thought.

[Bruce]

And probably, theorizing that dragons were somehow involved with the appearance of VITAS would be part of the 'dragons are responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened to me... er, that is, the world' crowd.  The sort of conspiracy theorists that even Plan 9 makes fun of.

In many respects, the source material underestimates the social impact that VITAS would have had on the Sixth World.  Along with the economic impact.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Just so, Bruce.  IMO, a 25% kill record, wiping out entire villages &c., could have literally redrawn the maps.  Civilization collapses - go take a read of 'Executive Orders' by Tom Clancy.  One of the characters in the book explains it pretty well - civilization collapses, people isolate themselves until the plague burns itself out.  This is real Black Death material, except that while the Black Death took three years to cull 30+% of Europe's population, VITAS was taking 9 months to reap 25% of the global population.  (450 million in India alone.)

Saying that the source material underestimates the impact is a gross underestimation in and of itself.