Are humans the "default" race ?

[Alleroz]

In the world of shadowrun mana works in waves, bringing or taking away magic, are humans the only race capable of living in a world of low magic ?
Or is it possible that one day humans go away and only elves, trolls, orks or dwarves remain until the next era ?

[Chigen Atomic]

they are more or less the default as they were the ones living before magic came back, minus a few births here and there. currently idk

[Watchman]

Originally posted by SpenReyn:

Most metahumans therefore refer to humans as 'breeders' (a very deragatory term)

That would be the ones who *want* to be insulting for one reason or another, not most of them.

Anyways, the "metagenes" respond to ambient mana levels so yeah, not gonna be getting any more metas (and for that matter paranaturals) during the down cycles. You'd think at least *someone* had thought of asking the more talkative dragons about what happened to the then-extant metas at the end of the previous magic cycles though...
As for the second, pls. One look at Earthdawn sez no.

[Alleroz]

Originally posted by Watchman:

Originally posted by SpenReyn:

Most metahumans therefore refer to humans as 'breeders' (a very deragatory term)

That would be the ones who *want* to be insulting for one reason or another, not most of them.

Anyways, the "metagenes" respond to ambient mana levels so yeah, not gonna be getting any more metas (and for that matter paranaturals) during the down cycles. You'd think at least *someone* had thought of asking the more talkative dragons about what happened to the then-extant metas at the end of the previous magic cycles though...
As for the second, pls. One look at Earthdawn sez no.

What I supposed happened is the previous cycles is that when it was near the end the less metahumans would be born from human parents and the metahumans that try to reproduce would end up with a human child, the only ones left would be immortal elves and vampires.
But let's say that humans store the DNA of the races, could a Dwarf be created before the return of magic ? Do any of the books or novels say something about this ?
And what about the dragons ? Do they go to sleep somewhere, go to another dimension to wait for magic to return, stay stuck in the human form until they are "released" again?
Could metahumanity through a better understanding of magic trap it in this world ? Essentially prolonging the 6º world ?

Are any of these questions answered ?

[Watchman]

Originally posted by Alleroz:

What I supposed happened is the previous cycles is that when it was near the end the less metahumans would be born from human parents and the metahumans that try to reproduce would end up with a human child, the only ones left would be immortal elves and vampires.

Well I was thinking more about the ones who are alive at the time the mana level goes under the threshold...

Also not really sure if vampires, being dual-natured, would do too well in what's effectively a mana void...

But let's say that humans store the DNA of the races, could a Dwarf be created before the return of magic ? Do any of the books or novels say something about this ?

"Spike babies" born some years before the full Awakening are canon, yes. And Elves and Dwarves were the first metas to start appearing - as they need to be born that way (no Goblinization analog with them) this was initially thought to be some kind of mutation, and the numbers involved (Elves are the second most numerous metarace) made a lot of people a bit worried about wtf was going on.

And what about the dragons ? Do they go to sleep somewhere, go to another dimension to wait for magic to return, stay stuck in the human form until they are "released" again?

AFAIK Ghostwalker is the only one to actually have spent the Fifth World in another dimension (the Metaplanes specifically), but nobody's ever bothered explaining where the others hibernated. Probably something analogous to alcheras and similar "emergent" spatial phenomena.

Could metahumanity through a better understanding of magic trap it in this world ? Essentially prolonging the 6º world ?

You'd probably have more luck fiddling with planetary orbits... Large-scale mortal shenanigans can and do have serious side effects, though. Notably the massive localised mana spike created by the Great Ghost Dance (carried out by Native American guerillas who barely knew what they were doing) serves as a kind of "bridge" to the deeper Metaplanes and lets stuff slip through far sooner than the ambient mana level would otherwise allow - the Bugs turning up well ahead of schedule rang a lot of alarm bells among those in the know (ie. the dragons and assorted immortals).
The Horrors are busy at work trying to cross the rest of the dimensional gulf from their end, too...

[Luke]

This has changed a great deal between editions of the game. The questions basically come down to "how much of the Earthdawn fluff is canon for Shadowrun?" and that answer has changed greatly over time.

Assuming it is ALL included, and Immortal Elves are real, here are some answers:

Humans are default. Other variants require some amount of Magic, Mana, Karma, whatever to create. This used to be reflected (in both games) by Humans having a little more Karma, and the other Metas having a little more special powers.

That said, the genes that cause Metas to express lie dormant in humans, even during the down cycles.

Some Immortal Elves, like Dragons, persist even through the down cycles. The Dragons go dormant to varying degrees, while the Elves lose their magic to varying degrees.

Some particularly magical areas, specific cities, some dragon's lairs, MAY slide into other metaplanes and not really be physically present until the magic level is high enough. Things are REALLY VAGUE in this regard.

Through industry, humans CAN, actually, make a change in the magic cycles. The evil empire of the Earthdawn setting was doing just this, by constructing giant magical batteries which sucked magic out of the astral and altered the magic levels of the world.

There has been some suggestion that the Azzies are trying to do something similar in the SR setting. But, like everything else, the facts of this have changed wildly between different writers and different game editions.

It is implied that extensive use of cyberware, polution, and other aura-corruption type activities also have an impact on the astral fabric / mana levels.

Since the SR Returns games feature a certain few key characters, I'd assume they are treating all of the above as if it is part of the canon.

[Watchman]

Harlequin, Ehran and the other IEs are certainly still canon. The last I recall reading of the first he was in fact starting some ♥♥♥♥ with Ghostwalker over some kind of ancient grudge or whatever, haven't paid enough attention lately to what kind of Crisis of the Month(tm) that's been causing...

And while Tir Tairngire had a regime change some time back after everyone (including Ehran) got tired of the Princes being stuck-up jackasses those guys are still around - Lugh Surehand, despite having gone somewhat underground, was of some importance during the Dawn of the Artifacts metaplot arc IIRC - and Tir Na Nog's still there being irrelevant.

[Zadok]

Originally posted by Watchman:

Anyways, the "metagenes" respond to ambient mana levels so yeah, not gonna be getting any more metas (and for that matter paranaturals) during the down cycles.

So actually there is always roughly the same amount of metahumans. It's just that metahumans *are* humans. Their more specific qualities remain hidden in a low magic world, so they'd appear just like everybody else.

[Watchman]

Well no the implication is the current crop of metas, metavariants, parazoologicals etc. are just the tip of the iceberg that's emerged under the current ambient mana levels, which are still very much rising. Halley's comet caused a mana spike that prompted the emergence of a lot more - SURGE, assorted paracritters, IIRC Drakes started getting more common, at least one stable metavariant (the "Hindu deity" lookalike Nartaki) etc. - and if memory serves Earthdawn had at least two more distinctly not very human-looking humanoid species that have yet to turn up...
Some SURGE expressions certainly seem to echo those guys tho.

Speaking of numbers though, the writers (FASA or otherwise) couldn't do elementary demographic maths to save their lives because the numerous implications of roughly a *third* of the global population being metas - ie. on the average *literally one in every family* - are consistently ignored...
Then again these are the same people who Ass Pulled tens of millions of Native Americans out of thin air to populate the NAN states so yeah. (ATM the US and Canada have something like... 8 million self-identified NA and mixed-race people...)

[🕉☪Hive☸☯ ∩ (◣_◢) ∩]

Obsidimen, T'skrang, Windlings, Leafers, Ulkmen, Jubrug, Jackelmen... I think that's all the Name-Giver races from earthdawn (that aren't currently in SR). It's been a long time, but if I'm remembering right, Ulkmen were half Horror, so I doubt they'll be around until the Horrors break through. Leafers, T'skrang, and Windlings are entirely possible at this stage of the Sixth World, but I don't think they're canon yet. Correct me if I'm wrong on anything since I haven't had a group to play pnp in years lol And are the novels considered canon?