Forums of the Megaverse®

Howdy, I am wondering some stuff. I noticed that lots of humans were genetically engineered prior to 2098 to live longer among other details. Then I noticed that the average height of male humans in Rifts is 6'2''. Does that mean that the human survivors live 150+ years and are taller than humans in the late 2010s? If so that might explain why Erin Tarn is still alive and kicking ass despite being 80+ years old.

I also like to think that as the japanese seniors did, volunteering to clean up the high radiation site in order to minimize the risk to younger countrymen, a retiree in failing health who has spent his entire life under the relative safety coalition protection might volunteer to spend his twilight years paying back the coalition by joining the borg troops when his body begins to fail him... Need an artificial heart? Why not go whole hog?

I'd like to think of full conversion borgs as a band of crusty old clint eastwoods gettin one last badass hurrah.

Life spans are covered in Lone Star. IIRC, very civilized places like the CS, NG, Free Quebec, and Lazlo have lifespans into the 80s and 90s (and even longer for upper-class citizens who can get Bio Systems to replace failing organs).

Also, the CS has some cutting edge gene therapy that will extend lifespans greatly, that is currently reserved for the Prosek Family and their close confidants (General Underhill is mentioned as having received it).

Places less civilized have lower life expectancies. Out in the boondocks, as low as 50ish, not accounting for lethal encounters.

I may be off on the numbers, but i know its mentioned in Lone Star.

I was off. 100-130 for CS citizens, 100-140 for Lazlo, 120-150 in the NGR, and up to 200 in the Republic of Japan. Its attributed to nanotech medicine and bio systems. Ranges from 45 to 90 in the sticks, depending access to medical care and exposure to alien weirdness.

One idea I liked, mentioned in Guardians of the Flame series, is that a longer, healthy and useful life can be partially attributed to the presence of magical care, which heals you better than normal healing would. Your body still gets battered, sure, but magical (or psionic) healing not only fixes THAT, but it fixes sub-HP damage like small muscle tears, or abrasions to cartilage. If you can afford semi-regular magical or psionic healing (or are in a line of work which requires them), you're going to have better OVERALL health, because healing magic will fix things that you otherwise need nanomachines for.

That is one of my all time favorite Fantasy series.

Have you read 'Old Man's War' by John Scalzi? Imagine applying that concept to Rifts.

Did these numbers through off any longtime players the way they did me? I have to admit I had life expectancies much lower than this back in the days of RMB.

I've never read this but a friend of mine brought it up a few years ago. I actually thought about applying it to groups within the FWC in Phase World.

You should read it if you get the chance. It definitely has a feel that would fit the PB Megaverse.

So if it's just the healthcare of the various Polities does that mean Humans in Rifts earth are just taller because of better Healthcare? Or is it due to something else?

I think also that most humans being descendants of golden age humans probably have a lot less problems with genetic diseases/issues. A lot of that would have been cleaned up prior to the rifts appearance so even without new CS updates to the process most probably still benefit from it to some extent. Most of the mortality rate on rifts earth is not death by old age but by disease/violence/accident/acts of rifts.
So baring being eaten by some random horrible monster or having random molten balls of lead fall on you from a leyline storm you could live to pretty old ages in good shape.

Perhaps Tarn got some of those weeped magic beans from mystic china to make her more youthful? Seems like the type of thing that Lo Fung the Dragon who she hung out with in Africa might have access to.

Also a good point. A lot of the congenital isues and herditary diseases that kill us nowadays were probably removed from the general populace during the golden age, so average “i didnt catch a fatal external disease or a laser to the face” lifespan is probably still pretty high even in Rifts Earth.

I am not sure on that point.
First off because while places like the US may have been enthusiastic in their use of genetic engineering (which would require retconning Japan, Triax, Australia, China, Canada, Underseas and the rest...) It doesn't tell us much about the rest of the world.

Second off because of the massive influx of off world humans and mutations in the last 300 years it seems pretty unlikely that any features from an abandoned minor genetic engineering program three centuries past are going to still be showing up with otu active measures being made to maintain them.

It's important to remember that Life Expectancy and Lifespan are two different things. The first is a mathematical average of the age at which everyone in a society dies. The Second is the age at which people who reach old age die in. While the later fluctuates HUGELY with social factors(Parts of Victorian England had Life Expectancies in the 20's) the later is a much harder number to budge.

For a society without Modern Medical infrastructure and suffering from potential food scarcity, you're going to have low Life Expectancies as infant and childhood mortality spikes. i.e. A lot of people are going to die before their 5th Birthday, and a lot more will die in the first two decades of life. Also though, a lot of things that are minor inconveniences to us become brutal; Dentistry is one of the main extenders of human life as death from tooth infection and impaction were leading causes of death in ancient peoples.

That being said, there does seem to be a serious genetic component to Lifespan. Besides the obvious(hereditary inclinations towards Strokes for example, or genetic diseases like Parkinson's) the age your grandparents lived to is a good indicator of your potential life-span and this seems to propagate to a fair degree. It's not unreasonable to think that the Golden Age would product examples of high-end genetic engineering that would both eliminate or at least severely curtail certain genetic diseases(Parkinson's, Cystic Fibrosis, Male-Pattern Baldness) and make everyone have the 'life to 120' genes.

Thus I might expect the average semi-rural town with access to some limited magic and a travelling Dentist to be populated by a huge number of Children and 20 somethings, a smaller proportion of 30 and 40-year-olds, and than an assortment of old people between agile 50 year olds and 'Great Grandpa' being spry into his 100th year.

Though this has some interesting implications of course; longer lifespan, especially useful lifespan, means greater population growth(fewer people dying in any given cohort), which means more resources necessary to sustain any given population. There have only been what, 10-12 human generations since the Rifts, which isn't enough to impart serious genetic drift through natural selection, but there might be evolutionary pressure to bring lifespans down.

Agreed, I was always under the impression that the vast majority of humans died in their 20s, the lucky ones making it to their 30s. That's why juicing was so popular, to the plebs it's literally the only way they could possibly make it to their 40s.

That might well be the case for non-citizens, does anyone remember how hard it is for CS residents to gain CS citizenship? I don't think the various burbs outside the mega-cities would be the only places you'd have non-citizens, I expect it's in a lot of the wilderness communities too. I think that's why we hear about Juicers coming from small towns and the line, Sohisohi might be entirely right about humans not living in mega-cities dying pretty early. Unless you have MD weapons or a protector then there are a lot of threats which just wanna eat you up.