From:	Phil Levis <pal@**.BROWN.EDU>
Subject:	Re: A question of Grand Scale (up front answers)
Date:	Sun, 10 May 1998 20:54:06 -0400

On Sun, 10 May 1998, Jessica Grota wrote:

> Ereskanti wrote:
> > For example. Did you and your friends realize that this critter is sentient,
> > and in SR's Universe, Sentient beings, especially those that have a SIN (as
> > long as it defeats the attempts to determine it's legality, it works) have
> > rights and killing such is considered an act of Murder???
>
> Whew. Okay. Well the dragon attacked the PCs first, so I think this
> would be self defense. Plus, at the time that the PCs came upon the
> dragon, it was eating people. I think that justifies killing it with no
> problems. The dragon saw it coming, we just had a damn good (and
> extremely crazy) rigger. No one expected him to try ramming the dragon,
> least of all those of us in the plane.
>
> > Back to your question though ... what exactly did they use to remove the hide
> > also? dikote circular saws? IF the armor value of the hide does not
> > deteriorate, that's stuff HARDENED, and simply hacking at it with a sword or
> > an axe in the hands of a troll is NOT going to work.
>
> The standard way to remove dragon scales! Slip a dikote knife under the
> scales and pry until the flesh underneath gives. I agree, once the
> dragon is dead, the magical armor goes away, much to my dismay.

All right... let's have another reality check here; in the case described,
it certainly sounds as if the group of runners can assume a degree of
legal protection due to the dragon's actions. However, the fact that the
dragon was in the midst of a killing spree does not mean that mutilating
and stealing parts of the body would be legal, in any way, shape, or form.

If this dragon was killing people, one can assume that there were a lot of
witnesses, especially if a vehicle crashed into the bugger's head. I would
think that a good deal of them might notice blood and scales being
collected. Indeed, I doubt that the coroner would miss a patch of scales
that had been torn off.

I doubt that dragons, as a whole or individually, would do much to a group
of people that killed a dragon in the middle of a killing spree. However,
I think that they would take offense at the raiding and mutilation of the
body afterwards... one can liken it to someone killing a trespasser in
'self-defense', then cutting off the perpetrator's ears as some sort of
trophy. Neither the law nor the family of the deceased would look very
kindly upon the matter.

But that's just my take on the matter; I've never liked the 'kill the
thing and get the loot' paradigm, anyways.

Phil