| From: | shadowtk@********.demon.co.uk (Paul J. Adam) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Government Reaction |
| Date: | Thu, 25 Jan 1996 01:34:09 GMT |
plotd@********.itribe.net writes:
> On Sun, 21 Jan 1996, Paul J. Adam wrote:
> > My personal opinion is that they're not so much concerned about another
> > corporation getting nuclear weapons (the corporations don't usually
> > openly fight governments: bad for business) as they would worry about
> > the consequences of the fighting that might follow: especially since the
> > Court has decided to strip Maxim of its nuclear capability.
>
> I seriously doubt that they would have known about the Court having told
> Maxim to consolidate the weapons.
Explain Warsaw, then. National governments don't initiate hostilities
against corporations without damned good reason, and you could tell at
a glance by type of wreckage that it wasn't Polish forces attacking
the Maxim plant.
The issue is simply prevention of collateral damage.
> And I personally don't agree that the
> Court would care a hell of a lot about Maxim having nukes any more than
> a lot of the nations would. I see the raid on the facilities to be
> independantly orchestrated of the Court. Ie, the Court is 100% out of
> the loop. However, as the end result was ultimately the same, I elected
> to drop the issue earlier.
The end result to UCAS citizens whose lives are ended or homes destroyed
by this "100% independent action" are the same, however.
> > I can see the UCAS government offering Maxim a polite but firm ultimatum
> > to remove all nuclear weapons from any Maxim facilities located within
> > UCAS territories, on pain of... well, pain. Would that be appropriate?
>
> If it hadn't happened already, I would say "NO!!!!!!" vehemently, but as
> it has, it's time for what I feel qualifies as damage control. Again,
> see below.
>
>
> Ok, a few quick comments on a couple of other responses to this before I
> go ballistic.
>
> Mark mentioned talking to the other corps and wreaking havoc if the Corps
> were doing nothing, as well as mentioning soveriegnity and unilateral
> action against Maxim.
>
> I don't think that the corps would let Maxim be desroyed by any nation,
> because it set's a really bad precedent. Letting any nation totally
> destroy a megacorp would say to the nations of the world that the Corps
> are fair targets, that extraterritoriality is useless and can be
> overridden at whim, etc. REALLY bad precedent. And while the corps may
> hate Maxim with a passion, the precedent would be SO bad that they'd
> fight to save it instead of letting it go up in flames.
Nobody's talking destruction. Look at it from a military point of view:
a conventional combined-arms assault on a Maxim facility resulted in,
as far as can be judged, failure. Best case is that similar assaults on
other facilities will be executed. Worst case is that the responsible
party will use the sort of weapons so recently brandished by Maxim,
with associated collateral effects on the territory around them.
How is the UCAS expecting to attack all Maxim facilities worldwide? But
the UCAS has a clear duty to protect its citizens. There are plentiful
legal precedents for this sort of thing (else I wouldn't have used it).
Ideally, Maxim would simply extract its weapons and facilities: and
no conflict is necessary. Of course that's unlikely.
On the other hand... even extraterritoriality has its limits, and
unless Maxim can find a way to keep all the damage likely to accrue from
assaults on its territories within its boundaries, the area around it will
get hurt. Governments exist, at heart, to protect their citizens. When they
fail in that duty, then collapse is not far off: more pertinently, the
current incumbents of elected office will find themselves reviled and
unemployed.
> As for
> soveriegnity, the nations of the world with only a few exceptions have
> little to no control over the corporations, and the corporations fight to
> keep it that way. The majority of the nations can do NOTHING that the
> corps wouldn't like them too. All the weapons that the national armies
> use are provided by the megacorps. Hell, if a nation tried to frag
> with the corps, they'd just stop delivering food, purifying the water,
> etc. and the same effects of Corp War would hit that nation without the
> collateral damage from combat. It wouldn't happen, and letting Maxim go
> down would set the precedent for this possibility. Think for a minute
> like Ares: If Maxim, who I'm allowing to be destroyed because it's
> currently expedient by a national government instead of by a corporate
> action, gets destroyed, how long will it be before the UCAS gets enough
> guts to attack my HQ in Detroit? Oh shit, maybe letting Maxim get
> destroyed isn't such a good idea after all....
Not the case at all. That's more akin to "if we issue an Omega Order againt
X-Corp, and SmallCo take advantage of it, will SmallCo then decide to take
on the entire Big Eight?" Against the monolithic might of the corporations,
any government is helpless. But against a rogue like Maxim, which is already
under attack by other corporations... bluntly, the UCAS's losses in expelling
Maxim nuclear weapons from within itself will not turn up on any corporate
loss account, the ordnance used by the UCAS will have to be replaced at a
good profit margin, and the salutory lesson is that if you misbehave badly
enough even governments will be allowed to kick you. If Maxim had complied
with the directives of the Court, the UCAS's posturing would have run
into a solid wall of megacorporate opposition.
> And unilateral action by nations has minimal effect. Germany
> nationalized all Maxim assets after Berlin, and they just moved out of
> the nation. Now, the UCAS would have tougher times doing that and would
> also cause more problems for Maxim(who has a much larger presence in the
> UCAS than they did in Germany). And hell, if the UCAS military is having
> such a hard time with the bugs in Chicago, then how the hell can they
> presume to threaten a megacorp who can bring more shit to bear than small
> nations and as much as some good-sized ones? Not bloodly likely, IMO.
Corporations depend on being able to move raw material to factories and
finished goods to markets. They also need somewhere relatively peaceful to
store their goods and some way to sell them. It's a lot easier to shatter a
process like that, than it is to clear a city of insect spirits room by room.
Also, how many markets and nations can Maxim abandon? And while Maxim might
have sizeable armed might, and the UCAS be tied down in Chicago, Maxim is
currently under external attack itself. Are they going to airlift troops
out of Warsaw to beef up their UCAS facilities?
A corporation with the tacit support of the Corporate Court is almost
untouchable. A corporation acting alone takes its chances.
> No, I think that the nations would be warned to stay the hell out of
> corporate buisness and let the corps deal with thier own.
You severely misunderstand the oath that soldiers take when they enlist
(my second one is rather fresh in my memory). No nation will stand aside
while its citizens are killed 'by accident' in a war between unaccountable
parties. The corporations *had* a chance to deal with their own. They blew
it when Polish civilians began dying in Moscow.
One wonders exactly what national militaries are for, if not to defend the
lives and properties of the citizenry.
> And Benjamin Schlitt said that the governments might hire shadowrunners
> and mercenaries to do the damage, because they are disposable,
> untracable, skilled, and don't endanger the national troops as much.
> Personally, this is what I would expect except in the rare cases of the
> Tirs and similar nations, who would do thier own dirty work. It may, in
> fact, be a way to justify some of the force brought to bear when the
> nukes are destroyed.
See the note itself. The fate of the nuclear weapons is outside the hands of
the UCAS: they are, after all, Maxim property. The concern is to protect
the citizenry from the fall-out (figurative or actual) of corporate attacks
upon those weapons. Destroying Maxim would never be on the UCAS agenda,
and would probably be beyond its powers (even barring intervention by the
Court). However, just as the Court would (and has) draw a line against national
incursions into corporate jurisdictions, the UCAS could not realistically
ignore the risks posed by Maxim's actions and their consequences.
> Now, I'll try to keep the venom and bile from melting a hole in the
> computer monitor, but no guarantees. You have been warned.
>
> I am _EXTREMELY_ pissed off. I told people that I was going out of town
> and that the Maxim plot was on autopilot until I got back. I gave Erik a
> newscast to post for me about the Warsaw destruction to hold everyone
> over until I got back and had a chance to get stuff going(and I've not
> even got started yet, dammit!) with details. And while I was gone, a
> very important discussion regarding the plot was begun and acted on just
> after I arrived here and before I had a chance to respond like I am now.
> As far as I'm concerned, this qualifies as using another person's
> character without permission, and according to the FAQ is considered a
> big, HUGE no-no.
I don't actually figure this changes the plot in any way, for one simple
reason.
What has the UCAS actually done? Not said, not threatened, but done?
They've sent a message. They're either staging an alert, or recycling
library footage. What else have they done? One is reminded of Libyan
'ultimatums' in 1986, in fact, where after Eldorado Canyon they threatened
dire devastation against the US.
There is no realistic way any government can sit back and ignore a situation
like this. Something *has* to be done. This is something. What will *actually*
happen? Who knows?
Now, the follow-up? Here's where the discussion gets going. Does the UCAS
accept 'guarantees' from Z-O that the situation is in hand? Unlikely IMO
but possible. Does it take armed action against Maxim? Not for days, and again
highly unlikely. The entire aim of the note was to forestall another
Warsaw in UCAS territory. Shadow operations, yes. Maxim withdrawals, yes.
Whether the note will achieve its aims or not...
> What I'm pissed off about the most isn't that the ultimatum was posted
> but rather that it was posted without allowing me ample time to respond.
> Normally I would have, but it's kinda hard to get to a fucking computer
> when you're 1500 miles away from home attending to a family crisis for
> three days. Hell, I would have brought up the very same points I already
> have above as problems with the ideas, but if the consensus was that it
> was still a good idea, I would have worked it in somehow. But now I have
> no fucking choice, and that's really yanking my chain right now.
...which is why I wrote it as loosely as I did, for the simple reason that
it could be a blowhard message to be completely ignored: or a genuine threat.
With the timescales involved in the letter there's time to decide.
> (Takes a couple of really deep breaths, grabs dinner, meditates to lower
> his blood pressure, and returns later)
>
> Just a final note. I'm not angry about the ultimatum as an idea. I'm
> angry that I wasn't given the opportunity to comment before it went out.
> As I mentioned above, I have serious problems with the world and power of
> the federal government as presented in the ultimatum and what it would
> mean for the SR world.
You're assuming they have the power to make good their threats, then?
I picked 28 days as the deadline since the issue should be sufficiently
decided by then for a political fudge: "a solution has been found"
et cetera, if they lack the means to enforce their will. Consider, for
instance, Libyan promises to sink any ship crossing "The Line Of Death"
in the 1980s, and how that one ended for them when they pressed the issue.
> It's time for damage control, but I'll do that in a separate post. I'm
> sorry if I pissed anyone else off, now that I've calmed down and mellowed
> out a little.
I'm sorry to have caused you so much irritation... again, I tried to word
the note in a manner that could be a "we can and will do this", or a
"if you don't do what we say we'll scream and scream and scream until
we're sick!" for just that reason. It would, for many reasons, have to be
issued promptly. OTOH its significance and bearing are entirely debatable.
If your view of the nation-corp balance is correct, it would be completely
routine and completely ignored by all parties, with perhaps only a token
message saying "your views are noted" from the Court.
--
Paul J. Adam
