Considering that today's (transhumanist) science is actively looking for ways to prolong human life and perhaps to even achieve a kind of immortality in the long run, it seems logical to suppose that with the passing of decades (turbulent as they are), and the aid of supernatural entities and magic, scientific longevity projects have made serious progress in the world of Shadowrun.
My question is:
What degree of immortality has metahumanity achieved in the Shadowrun canon?
How long can the average, advanced citizen (not subject to various extreme risks) expect to live? Is there cheap gene therapy, nanotech cleanup, magical revitalization and so on available for the middle-class masses, be they any subspecies?
If not, what are the major factors that explain, again in the canon, why longevity has not made progress in a world where the adventurous rich can become actual superheroes thanks to bioware, cyberware, and whateverelseware?
I'd primarily be interested in the current canon (SR5 & Anarchy), but if the topic was addressed (only) in earlier editions (and then retconned), that will do as well. 🙂
Best Answer
In SR4 and the canon up to then, there were several ways to become /almost/ immortal:
So, instead of dying or becoming an item, there are actual ways to prolong your life:
All these but Cyborg were in the SR4 Augmentation book, the exception (cyborg) was in the Arsenal. The Cyborg was a novelty of SR4, the others have persisted since at least the SR3 era.
For SR5 of these the following have reappeared:
More implicit in earlier editions and explicit in 5th edition is a Spirit Pact that offers immunity to aging via a little backdoor:
Spirits have immunity to aging Core Rules, p397, and with a Formula Pact Street Grimoire, p.137 one ties the own existance to that of the spirit. Should it be destroyed... both beings cease existing. But until then, the pactee is safe from aging, as long as the spirit pact lasts.
Side Note: In all editions I could find, there is no 'natural age limit' for elves given, yet it is implied that they will die with "several hundred years" while dwarves are given with a guesstimate of "90 to over a hundred" as average expected lifespan. Note that no individual of these species has yet died of old age in SR5!
Less bound to a specific version of Shadowrun is the possibility of full body replacement, which brings the essence down to close to 1 by bying cyberlimbs for all the body parts (torso, 2 legs, 2 arms, skull). As this is eating quite some essence (SR4 & SR5: 6,25 for the whole set), Alphaware to reduce essence costs some is needed, making this quite costly, but as it is 6 surgeries, it can be stretched out somewhat. This bypassing of the above mentioned life prolonging/immortality tricks however has no rule effects on aging. On the other hand, a full body cybernetic replacement could be seen as life prolonging (depending on GM) as there is less body to age and some organs could be replaced or need to work less and thus don't run out that fast. This is however GM-decision-land.
On a totaly different notion: SR has a hand full of truely immortal elfs born in or before the first wave of UGE, so before 2011. Among them is Harlequin. They are rare, this trait is not somehow genetic... and they havn't been used as NPCs since 3rd Edition came around. Only exception is Harlequin, who still sometimes appears in shadowtalk. All NPCs though. And they are not made but have had this quirk from birth.
Elder Dragons (think the named brigade like Lofwyr, Hestaby, Lung, Ryu) are probably even more immortal. The confirmed 3 kills took either another Dragon (Nachtmeister), Extreme military force and falling into the SOX (Feuerschwinge) and whatever Dreck they pulled to geek Dunkelzahn and get the Dunkelzahn Rift open. But they are not Metahumans and not even remotely playable.