[Marcus]

This question gets a little to far down the meta-concept . For my game There is no doubt that the corps would have looked at trying all three of these things, and simply determined that it is not possible at this time. Clearly if they could bring people back from the Dead they would, and same being true for the other two.  The limit was established to distinguish SR from D&D, and that's really that. I'm sure the dev's could reverse that choice if they wanted to, but i would be surprised if they did.

[MijRai]

Eh, I would personally assume every AAA has a team working on at least one of these things, regardless of if it is actually possible.  If they were to somehow make it work, they'd basically become even more of a juggernaut in the world.  Side-discoveries would probably cover the costs, and it gives the opportunity for them to mess up and have Bad Things^(c) happen. 

[Dwagonzhan]

Raise Dead is the least offensive because you normally need direct access to the body in most instances where it applies in other games.
Of course, this still detracts from the threat of a highly lethal game.

Well with the possibility of burning Edge and buying Edge on the spot for 5 Karma if you're at 0, the lethality of a game is only as high as the players allow it to be.

Well, so long as you ignore the "training time" for improving any Attribute, sure.
At my table, that doesn't fly and I don't brook HoG-heavy nonsense. Not without damn good reason.

[Slipperychicken]

The explanations for things that *are* possible in the lore are already so vague and handwavey that they might as well be the author telling you that it just works. I really wouldn't expect much more than that for lore restrictions.

Besides, it's good practice for them to keep things open in case they want to put out material that seems to violate a rule that was previously established.

[Xexanoth]

Well with the possibility of burning Edge and buying Edge on the spot for 5 Karma if you're at 0, the lethality of a game is only as high as the players allow it to be.

Well, so long as you ignore the "training time" for improving any Attribute, sure.
At my table, that doesn't fly and I don't brook HoG-heavy nonsense. Not without damn good reason.

Edge is a unique quality. Because it reflects the character’s luck, it requires no special amount of time to raise.
 Edge can be raised anytime the character has the Karma to do so.

[Senko]

I admit I also like bad thingstm.

[Dwagonzhan]

Edge is a unique quality. Because it reflects the character’s luck, it requires no special amount of time to raise.
Edge can be raised anytime the character has the Karma to do so.

Ah. I didn't have the rule book to hand when I replied.
My response is the same: I ignore that rule because "Pay 5 Karma: Auto-HoG" is beyond stupid, and encourages players to be more careless.

[Rosa]

In ED there was a high level wizard spell that allowed you to return the soul of a deceased person to their body. Provided you had repaired the damage to the body, the person would come back to life.

Also in ED there was several ways to physically enter astral space, given the travel times in astral space that could be near teleportation.

[忍]

I've used a version of TP in games of mine before. You could only TP to where you could see, and the distance was based on force. This didn't break anything or out-class other PCs in usefulness.

[Reaver]

In ED there was a high level wizard spell that allowed you to return the soul of a deceased person to their body. Provided you had repaired the damage to the body, the person would come back to life.

Also in ED there was several ways to physically enter astral space, given the travel times in astral space that could be near teleportation.

While I only have a passing knowledge of ED, a couple things to keep in mind:

Depending on the edition, ED and SR are written by 2 completely different companies, with different visions of the collective history they are supposed to share.

And The mana cycle during the ED period is WAY higher then it currently is in the 6th world.

ED was (originally)  FASA's answer to D&D, as such, it more closely aligns to that fantasy trope then it does to SR...

[Senko]

I know they're effectively seperate these days (although I still wonder why if immortal elves were too powerful why did the dragons go to Drakes who seem to have a higher base power level) but did they used to have the same mechanics? That is did earthdawn have drain, similar stat's and d6 rolling or did it use a different one like d20's.

[Mirikon]

The original drakes were bound to their creators, and only lived a couple hundred years. While they made for good spies and 'liasons', they weren't like Immortal Elves, where the only way you could tell they were different was by having them kick your ass in a mage duel. They were also infertile, however, which posed its own set of problems. The drakes we see today are the second version, created by Doll Maker, Mountainshadow, and friends. They were less powerful than 'true' drakes, but could breed, giving the possibility of a replenishing supply of servants.

As for why drakes? Because the dragons still required servants that didn't die as quickly as some of the Young Races, and the Elves were NOT going to sign up.

[Rosa]

Yes there's drain in ED,  though it's called strain and it happens for example when you cast spells using the raw casting technique, and before the scourge it was the common way of casting spells. In essence it's the shadowrun way of casting spells, though due to the rising pollution of astral space leading up to the scourge spell matrices were invented as a safe way of casting spells.  Shadowrun style conjuring is there as well in the ED magic book.

I know the two games are no longer officially connected,  but fasa clearly intended them to be connected back when they made them both, so it's as close as your gonna get to "evidence" that some of the things thought impossible or at least beyond the reach of current magical theory and capabilities is actually possible. It may very well be a  question of mana levels or simply because astral space still isn't understood completely.

[Senko]

Interesting thank you.

[RowanTheFox]

It's called Astral Walking, and only two people on Earth in SR know how to do it. Good luck getting either of them to teach you.