| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <plotd@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Operation |
| Date: | Sat, 29 Aug 1998 01:21:46 +0100 |
<Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK> writes
>100000@***.freenet.tlh.fl.us>, David Foster <fixer@*******.TLH.FL.US>
>writes
>> That's today. In 62 years, when guns are carried by 50% (at
>>least) of the population,
>
>And this is a mistake that is frequently made. Guns are carried (or
>owned) by more than that amount already, at least according to 1996 FBI
>statistics they are.
More to the point... you're carrying a (presumably unlicenced) firearm
into a police station? Right...
You might get a weapon into your local cop-shop. You might kill a few
people there. But getting out alive afterwards... now _there's_ a feat.
And even if you do, they got a good, good look at you, and there's _big_
money for the first person to turn you in.
Word gets around. People learn not to shoot at police stations.
For a major station, a few yards of "entrance corridor" between the door
to the street (where the weapon scanner is) and the main body of the
station, with ninety-degree bends at each, is a real help to the
occupants, especially if the Lexan door at the entrance to the main
station occasionally sticks (like when someone with a Big Gun is in the
corridor).
By the time the door unsticks and you come out, a couple of SWAT
troopers have the whole lobby covered with interlocking fields of fire.
You come in to tell the desk cop you found this machinegun in a
dumpster, everyone relaxes. You come out shooting, you're taking
effective fire at once, limiting your ability to massacre innocents let
alone cops behind Lexan.
Plus you can play non-lethal games, like the ever-popular CS gas. Even
with cybereyes that are fairly resistant, most people need to breathe,
and inhaling CS is _very unpleasant_. Even if you're wearing a
respirator, CS is opaque to both visual and most near-IR systems. Better
bring ultrasound... which makes hitting a police station even more
expensive. Where's the payoff?
There are a _lot_ of discreet measures that can be taken to maintain
security. They won't stop a determined adversary, but few things will.
>In the end, regardless of how much Lone Star might favour the AAA rated
>sectors, they are there to protect and serve. The people vote for the
>government (city government in this case). If either are seen to be
>failing the people - guess what? They change their vote... Why do you
>think politics is all about image now - stuff that into the media frenzy
>of Shadowrun, and it's a whole new ball game.
According to FASA's Seattle Sourcebook, Redmond and Puyallup contain a
third of Seattle's eligible voters (nearly a million _citizens_ between
them, before you consider SINless). They might be slums, but no
politician can ignore them. They vote, they want to live without being
burgled, robbed, raped or killed, whoever gets the Metroplex police
contract has to keep them from becoming _too_ discontented.
>On magic... You might play a magic rich game where every Lone Star and
>Police Department precinct has strong magical support, but this is not
>supported in FASA canon, so you'll excuse me if I ignore that
>particular comment.
I won't.
One percent of the population is magically active: one tenth of those
are "full magicians" rather than adepts or unrecognised.
After the UCAS military skims off what it can, and the corporate
recruiters grab every magician they can, and the simsense studios do
their recruiting... how many magicians want to be cops?
Given the endless demands on magical talent, having them waste time
summoning watchers to guard evidence lockers (when those watchers could
be doing something more useful, we've got cameras in the evidence
lockers for Chrissakes!) seems vaguely silly.
>To arbitrarily announce that the outside of a precinct house would
>withstand an assault cannon, shows a strangely naive view of building
>construction.
What _is_ an assault cannon? A bulky but man-portable weapon today will
shoot a lethal projectile through two inches of rolled hardened nickel-
molybdenum steel armour, or two feet of concrete, or so much armoured
glass that transparency is no longer an option.
How much more effective will the weapons 62 years hence be? And while
"armour" may be better, can you afford to make an entire building out of
it?
Show me any municipal building in your home town today that could
withstand - for instance - .50BMG SLAP fire. Yet that's an enhancement
to a weapon and a cartridge already eighty years old.
As Pete says, the wilder reaches of the Barrens will be policed in a
manner resembling Northern Ireland's "bandit country", but most of
Seattle's police stations will be very like those of today.
>The main problem with increased security comes down to one simple
>factor. Time. The tighter the security the longer it takes to get in
>and out. Anyone who has fought to either get or keep a contract will be
>familiar with time. Lone Star have a contract to honour, within that
>contract (IIRC) is a response time average. With tightened security
>they cannot guarantee response times. Villains run amok, and the police
>are still working their way through the checkpoints, barricades and
>security - just to make sure they are who they say they are.
Too true. Murphy #74 - "Make it too hard for the enemy to get in, and
you won't be able to get out."
When the alert comes in, the SWAT team want to run from the ready room
to their vehicles and get underway. Not submit to individual retinal and
cellular identification to allow them into the vehicle garage. They
don't have time for that crap, people are dying while we wait for the
scanner to compare patterns and flash "Access Enabled".
If "the system" gets in their way, then a motivated, capable and honest
SWAT team will circumvent it so they can do their jobs properly, sure
that they can protect their station, their gear, their truck from any
intruders.
Real life example. British warships, especially capital ships, in the
early years of the century had an elaborate system of shutters and
doors, so that a hit on a gun turret couldn't flash down to the
magazine, explode the stored ammunition there, and so destroy the ship.
But that system was so onerous and slow in use, that it crippled the
rate of fire of the warship's guns: so just about every ship in the
Grand Fleet found ways to disable it, because rapid accurate fire was
the _raison d'etre_ of the battleships and battlecruisers.
The Germans had an apparently less effective system, but it didn't
interfere with normal operation much, it was just part of normal turret
drill. And so they didn't cripple it, and so in action - when crews of
teenaged boys were desperately trying to fire as many rounds at the
enemy as possible - they still had flash protection for their magazines.
At Jutland, in 1916, three British capital ships exploded from almost
trivial hits because their flash protection was terribly deficient. High
Seas Fleet capital ships, by comparison, survived terrible poundings,
including turret hits that destroyed comparable British ships.
>All, of course, in my dismally failed humble opinion.
>
>Humble? How can I be humble? I'm far too perfect to need it. <g>
The concept of "Pete Sims" and "humble" in the same sentence is still
boggling my mind :)
--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...
Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
