[condottiere]

I tend to play humans or elves, but I thought playing a ShadowRun Ork might be interesting. To understand them, besides the obvious inner city ghettoization, and minority repression aspects, I tried calculating out their half-life life cycle, especially in regard to education:

Age
Two years old - Kindergarten
Three to eight years - Primary school
Nine to eleven years - Middle School
Twelve to fourteen years - High School
Fifteen to eighteen years - College/university
Nineteen to twenty two years - Medical school

In theory, an Ork would be emancipated at nine years, be eligible for retirement at thirty three. Since life expectancy fr Americans would be eighty four to eighty six, it would seem Orks physically deteriorate rapidly (four times human norm) after age thirty five.

I doubt that Orks would be quicker learners than humans, but I welcome any correction on my above assumptions.

[Bushw4cker]

I recently posted about ork life expectancy in regards to taking Aged quality. Posted under rules, titled 50 in Ork Years.

[condottiere]

If an Ork's productive life starts at nine years old, he has twenty seven years before age thirty five, but that would be after graduating primary school. If you assume you need to graduate at least high school, life would start at age fifteen, and would provide twenty one years. Twenty years provide five terms of four years each.

Formative years would be to age eight instead of ten, though teen years would be from age seven onwards, in theory.

For Orks, further education could actually start with an optional middle school; you could put them on an accelerated program,  though assuming their attention span is around human norm, not that many can take advantage of it. The same with college, it could be three years instead of four.

If an Ork wants to be come a licensed medical doctor, he'll only have thirteen years available to him to practice this profession, possibly more if he's in an accelerated programme.

For the Aged quality, it would staged at twenty five, thirty and thirty five years old, which would mean that at this late stage, you might as well be on borrowed time.

[Reaver]

This info is found mostly in 2e and 3e books.


Orks hit physical maturity at age 13. (Equal to a human of 25 years old). HOWEVER, they do not develop mentally at an increased rate. Meaning that 13 year old Ork has the mental facalties of a 13 year old. 

The employment and educational systems do not take an Troll's or Ork's shorter lifespan into account. Meaning they attend school at the same ages as humans. (And given their mental growth, its doubtfull they could learn anything going to school earlier. A 2 year old is a 2 year old, is a 2 year old. Not matter if he physically the size of a 6 year old!)

what this means is, for many Orks, getting a highschool degree and then a college degree means over half their life span is spent in school. (Assuming finished degree at age 21/22). This gives an Ork a 'work life' of just 8 to 12 years!

At 8 to 12 years worked, one has not even worked the bare minimum to receive even a half pension for retirement! (A half pension usually comes after 15 to 18 years of work!)


What this means is, for Orks (and a lesser extent Trolls) is that the 'system' literally works against them! Knowledge dictates worth in a modern economy, and gaining that knowledge takes over half their life. Leaving them very little time to earn a living, if they can even find employment!
And that is the other issue. Even after gaoning their college degrees, their short working lives (8 to 12 years). Gives very little reason for a company to hire them, their contribution levels are subpar to their physical age. (At 22 years old, fresh out of college, they are equal physically to a human of 40/50 years old...)

It is for these reasons (and others) that Orks are more likely then others to skip out on education and go directly to the labour market.... which also hinders them thanks to age requirements. (Many states have a minimum age reqiurement for work to avoid child endangerment and abuse.)

●●●

To sum up: Orks physically age faster then humans, but not mentally. The Laws do not take into account an Ork's increased growth rate, and are firmly set to the Human standards.  Since the Laws do not take an Orks growth rate into account, Orks often are left maginalized and downtrodden living in poverty because their lifespans are so short. Due to the short life spans and Human centric laws, Orks often can not earn enough to improve their status, nor provide enough resources to even help their children raise out of poverty....


'Neo Anachrist guide to modern life' (2e) has more info if you are interested.

[condottiere]

I've met eight year olds that are wiser, possibly smarter, than some adults; since logic is capped at five, probably rare for Orks.

Since my belief is that majority for humans should be at least twenty one, possibly twenty four, it would appear that Orks would never be able to really catch up, but we also tend to shelter our kids far more than in Olden Times, where most of them served as cheap labour, and probably rapidly adapted to their environment.

A rather more disturbing example would be the recruitment of child soldiers, and in what can't be just limited to the favelas of Brazil, disposable gang enforcers.

I think that Ork kids grow up quickly, mentally and physically, but that education and experience would be bottlenecks.

You can fastrack college to three years, if they can maintain their focus; I don't know about primary and secondary, because half of the unwritten curriculum seems to be socialization.

[Bushw4cker]

I think the life expectancy of Orks is not just that they age quicker.

First off,  I think the natural life expectancy of a healthy Ork is probably about 4/5's that of human. (Trolls about 5/6)

If a Human could potentially hit 120+, I think an Ork could potentially hit 100. I don't think Orks are Mayflies, like some of the replies seem to suggest.

I imagine the discrimination and problems that face the Ork community make anything we see with the current problems faced by African Americans seem trivial. Violence is probably the number one contributing factor to the low life expectancy.

I think the second most contributing factor to lower Ork lifespan is nutrition, which more than likely is linked to poverty.  It probably doesn't help that Ork mothers give birth to litters of children with each pregnancy.

[Reaver]

No, the extremely reduced lifespan of Orks is well established both in multiple rulebooks over multiple editions as well in multiple books of fiction.

And while crime, poverty and diet do play a part, even an ork born to a wealthy family, lives in a zero crime area, and eats the best food available will have a very hard time seeing 40, let alone 50.


Is it fair? Nope. But who said life was fair? Orks just do not live as long as humans. And remember, an ork is NOT a human. (Very closely related, granted, but not human).

They are Orks, an entirely different species in the Homo genus. They are bigger then humans, stronger and hardier then humans, have more and larger teeth then humans (36 compared to 32). But they are not green
(But apparently an off shoot is Red skinned as I recall)

And biologically they would have to be short lived given their reproductive cycle. (6 month pregnacy, births of 2 to 12, with 4 being the average...).

If they had a human life span and reproductive span. A single couple could produce 416 children! (2 birthings a year, 4 rugrats at a time from the age of 13 to 40).

Just how quickly to you think it would take for the world to reach overpopulation when 20% of the world population is Orks?

<well, if a single family could produce 400 kids during their reproductives lives (based on a human length reproductive cycle)  it would only take 3 to 4 generations....>

Now compare that to what is actually published (furtility of 10 to 28 = 18 years) is 144 kids. But again with a much shorter lifespan, meaning overcrowding is less of an issue. (It'll still happen given the high birth rate, but take much longer).


But the bigger question: how many kids actually survive to childhood? THIS is where poverty, diet, and sanitation come in. Most Orks are dirt poor. (Laid out some the reasons up top), couple the poverty with a lack of social services, and the cost of food, lack of sanitation and I imagine the death rate of infants is high. A healthy human eats about 3 to 4 pounds of food each day. Orks being bigger mass would require a little more... 4 to 6 pounds a day? So to provide for a typical birthed family, a single time (meaning 4 kids) means to survive the family is consuming 24 to 36 pounds of food a day!

To an destitute family, that is one heck of an expense! And we havn't even covered clothing or housing....

[condottiere]

Retirement age is generally accepted to be sixty five for humans, though increased lifespan (and social security insecurity) has pushed it up in some places to sixty seven, and outside such consideration as opening up opportunities for the next generation, could well end up at seventy.

Which should basically be thirty five in Ork years. Or in our more generous times, thirty two and a half, and thirty three and a half.

Their physical robustness should allow them to continue to thirty five, compared to human workers, whose physical capacity to continue manual labour was one of the reasons for this programme.

Equal rights legislation would ensure that they would be allowed some time to enjoy the fruits of their labour before they shuffle off this mortal coil, though it's likely in less enlightened regimes, they'll be forced to work until they drop, which would be the harbinger that their physical body is about to fail.

If my assumption is correct, that after thirty five, Ork bodies age four times faster, by the time they reach forty, their bodies would be the equivalent of a ninety year old human's.

Gamewise, the important thing would be that between the ages of nine and thirty five Orks, would have potentially a productive life of  twenty seven years, compared to a human's between eighteen and sixty seven of fifty years.

Pensions are to finance the desired lifestyle after retirement; health insurance for Orks after age thirty six would likely be astronomical.

[Beta]

They may well not age the same way that humans do.  Compared to most mammals humans live for a very long time after their prime breeding years (I've seen a theory that grandmothers helping to care for children, freeing update mothers to do more work, could be the evolutionary benefit to supporting so many non breeders).  Perhaps orcs don't have that?  That their life cycle is not wildly different than baseline humans, just accelerated modestly ... until middle age where they decline very rapidly and die at a very high rate.  Which would also tend to lead them to work until near the end.

Also, in the shadow run world, I have to ask, what is this "retirement age" you speak of?  Sure, some may save up enough to stop working and relax, but I doubt there is much if any government funding for the elderly, and few company pension plans!

[Reaver]

Depends on where you are in a company.

If all you do sweep floors for 30 years, I doubt your pension is very high. But if you are a middle manager, that's a different story.


And while SR is a dystopia, companies are companies, and need labour. To keep and recruit people, you have to offer something....

And THIS is where you get into the ultra murky world of Corp Culture. Every Corp has it, and every Corp flaunts it... Be it the 'Team work, consessious decision making, fluid leadership style" of Horizion, the "Corp, family, world view, coupled with Personal responsibilty and direct leadership" of Renraku, or the "we are all God's creatures, embrace the dirvesity" of Evo.

It is Corp Culture that allows Aztec employees to get prescription Nova Coke from the Corp Pharmacy. (Cause people gotta relax, man!). Or the 'recreational attendents' of Wuxing (aka prostitutes).

Many AA and AAA corps run their own housing complexes, restaurants, shops and stores. (And some companies only pay their staff in Corp Script, ensuring that the paycheck can only be spent in their stores!)


Corporate Diwnload, Coporate Guide and others go into the whole Corp Culture much more deeply, and as I recall CD goes into the perks an average employee enjoys working with each company. (Some are amusing, some are down right horrific in their implications)

Good reads if you are interested.

[condottiere]

I've heard of the grandmother theory, as well. I think that the guys think they form the local think tank and database.

Aging could accelerate once you hit thirty five, for example:

Ages
Range  Increase  Human
35-36         3          70-72
36-37         4          73-76
37-38         5          77-81
38-39         6          82-87
40-41         7          88-84
41-42         8          85-92
42-43         9          93-101

[Tecumseh]

Some points below, meant to further discussion since I am enjoying it.

If we are defining human as "homo sapiens" then orks are indeed human. Metatypes have been subspecies of homo sapiens since at least since 2nd Edition. (I don't have 1E so I can't reference it.) Now some of this is semantics, and in the Sixth World the colloquial use of "human" is homo sapiens sapiens, but saying that the other metatypes aren't "human" doesn't fit with the (fictional) scientific taxonomy.

Here's a quick table of ork and human life expectancy by edition.

Edition	Orks	Humans
2nd	35 to 40	55
3rd	35 to 40	55
4th	35 to 45	55
5yh	not provided	not provided

For reference, the current global life expectancy - averaging out between men and women, and different regions - is 71.4 years, according to the World Health Organization. Having a life expectancy of 55 years (which is the steady value provided for humans across multiple editions) is the equivalent of modern day Somalia and Nigeria. Living in the Sixth World is hard; dying is easy.

[Kuirem]

Edition	Orks	Humans
5yh	not provided	not provided

It is provided, right in the core page 380 (NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS chapter). Human average lifespan is 55-65 years and Ork is 35-45. So the same as in 4th.

[condottiere]

You have life expectancy and life span.

As I recall, I think it was Zimbabwe at the height of the AIDS epidemic, had an average male life expectancy of thirty five.

For humans, fifty five indicates a lot of premature terminations, whether due to too much cholesterol, environmental pollution, or lead poisoning.

It's hard to credit that their tough physiques deteriorate that fast, but it could be a general or overall breakdown, including Alzheimer's.

[Reaver]

Think of it as accerated aging. They mature much faster, and die much faster.

But basically, its just their life cycle. End of story.

Horses are physically stronger then humans, and larger, but only live 20-30 years (and 30 is old for a horse!).

Moose and Elk live 18 to 25 years. Caribou for about 14. (Hence part of the reason they are on decline in parts of NA, especially in areas of BC)