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Message no. 1
From: Helge Diernaes <ecocide@***.econ.cbs.dk>
Subject: Killing in Shadowrun - wow, big discussion
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 18:30:04 +0200 (METDST)
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I may be a bit late on this thread, and my point already made, but anyway
I make the hopefully interesting contribution:


On Mon, 20 May 1996, Sascha Pabst wrote:

> At 0:06 Uhr 20.5.1996, TopCat wrote:
> >Cost is minimal, shadow-assets are deniable, and
> >the shareholders know that it got taken care of, and quietly.
> If it's done quietly, how should the shareholders know?
> And if announced: Why use deniable assets, ie. Shadowrunners?
> No, you still do not convince me...

As far as I can see, the expectation is that cooperations react in the
same way with regard to intrusions and/or thefts or provocations.

That would reflect the same business philosophy of the 2050ties, which I
do not think will be identical for all ranges of business, especially
since the 2050ties does not seem to have less product conformity than
today, and service & image are important for sales.

So there will be hardcore daemonic firms whose buttomline is allimportant,
there will be those with environmental issues, there will be those who
promote human values, etc. But all naturally have to make positive net
earnings in order to function and exist as an organisation :)
This doesn't mean, however, that all firms will react in the same way to
criminal intrusion.

The hardcores will use deadly force and go to great lengths of persuit in
order to scare off future attacks. The Danish firm LEGO does this today
in a different way, even though it is not economically ideal to do this,
in order to scare off copycats.
The human values people will be kinder and probably let the runners get
more away with stuff, especially if the runners was nice on their raid.
The green values people will utilise different approaches, depending on
their militarism and radicalism.

> >Corps aren't
> >stupid and won't throw away anything. They will min/max a situation and
> >come out with the best solution for the price.

Again, it depends. The Azzies would hit them hardcore, and as another,
later mail, mentionend, send cromed-to-the-max grunts after them. I'm not
inclined to agree with this latter post's conclusion, about these grunts
casual dissaperance. Grunts worth half a million cyber are not idiots.
They have qualified themselves for that much investement because they are
smart. Some are maybe even former runners. Two of them will use
their contacts, go wearing runners clothes, equipped with some cool sniper
rifles, one of them is maybe a hardcore mage. The runners are dead if they
stay. They can be as cool as they like, in these powergames, if the runners
shoot first, they win, if the opposition does, they do.
Requires a cruel GM though :)

> Which still doesn't explain why they should send a team after the runners.
> They wont get back their lost goodies. They wont frighten away other
> runners. They will have to pay for the revenge. It would sure be more
> productive to hire Runner themselves and get back the info/personel
> to regain their losses. From whoever has it then.

Hrm, Sascha, aren't you implicitly expecting runners to be rational? In my
games and the ones I've played in, there has been lots of arsehole PC's
and NPC's. Several SR books also shows runners who are plain psycopaths
and/or sadistic.
It is not hard to hire these kind of runners for assasination attempts
against the target runners, nor if the corp is known to react in an
extreme way to intrusion. As long as they keep their contracts and do not
kill of runners working for them, the message to the world is perfectly clear.

Last, the owner structure of the corps plays a major role; I do not think
Loffwyr could care less if he had to spend one mill to kill off some
PC's, even though he in "Never trust an elf" proclaims that he does not
countenance (sp?) waste. How much does that corp make anyway? What is one
mill to him, as compared to SK's image as hardcore badasses?
In a corp where the decision power is less centralised, the concensus
might well be that the persuit effort is not cost effective.

What the hell was my point? Ah, yes, that corps differ as humans differ,
as runners differ in regard to preferences and reaction patterns.

- ---
Sincerely,

Silhouette

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Message no. 2
From: Ubiquitous <weberm@*******.net>
Subject: Re: Killing in Shadowrun - wow, big discussion
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 18:03:26 -0400 (EDT)
At 06:30 PM 5/21/96 +0200, you wrote:

>The hardcores will use deadly force and go to great lengths of pursuit in
>order to scare off future attacks. The Danish firm LEGO does this today
>in a different way, even though it is not economically ideal to do this,
>in order to scare off copycats.

What does LEGO do? Just curious.

You know, I had a nasty but humorous thought; the Disney corporation with
Aztecnology's method of dealing with 'runners.

The runners wouldn't know what hit them, unless, of course, they got a
glimpse of the assassin in a Mickey Mouse costume . *grin*

--
"I remember my first sexual encounter because I kept the recipe."
- Jeff Dahmer
Message no. 3
From: TopCat <topcat@******.net>
Subject: Re: Killing in Shadowrun - wow, big discussion
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 01:41:16 -0500
>What the hell was my point? Ah, yes, that corps differ as humans differ,
>as runners differ in regard to preferences and reaction patterns.
>- ---
>Sincerely,
>Silhouette

Dunno why I never replied to this til now, but here goes...

Well said. :)

-------------------------------------
"I was thinking of the immortal words
of Socrates, who said: I drank what?"
-- Real Genius
-------------------------------------
TopCat at the bottom...
Message no. 4
From: "Sascha Pabst" <Sascha.Pabst@**********.Uni-Oldenburg.DE>
Subject: Re: Killing in Shadowrun - wow, big discussion
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 18:23:41 +0200
At 0:03 Uhr 23.05.96, Ubiquitous wrote:
>You know, I had a nasty but humorous thought; the Disney corporation with
>Aztecnology's method of dealing with 'runners.
>
>The runners wouldn't know what hit them, unless, of course, they got a
>glimpse of the assassin in a Mickey Mouse costume . *grin*
I know I read somewhere about the guards in Disney World to be real tough
under their silly costumes, with armor and weapons and all.
I don't know, though, if that was a CP or SR related text...

Sascha

--
+---___---------+----------------------------------------+--------------------+
| / / _______ | Jhary-a-Conel aka Sascha Pabst |The one who does not|
| / /_/ ____/ |Sascha.Pabst@**********.Uni-Oldenburg.de| learn from history |
| \___ __/ | | is bound to live |
|==== \_/ ======| *Wearing hats is just a way of life* | through it again. |
|LOGOUT FASCISM!| - Me | |
+------------- http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/~jhary -----------------+
Message no. 5
From: mbroadwa@*******.glenayre.com (Mike Broadwater)
Subject: Re: Killing in Shadowrun - wow, big discussion
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 12:04:48 -0500
>At 0:03 Uhr 23.05.96, Ubiquitous wrote:
>>You know, I had a nasty but humorous thought; the Disney corporation with
>>Aztecnology's method of dealing with 'runners.
>>
>>The runners wouldn't know what hit them, unless, of course, they got a
>>glimpse of the assassin in a Mickey Mouse costume . *grin*
>I know I read somewhere about the guards in Disney World to be real tough
>under their silly costumes, with armor and weapons and all.
>I don't know, though, if that was a CP or SR related text...
>
> Sascha
It was in CFS, and it was Disney Land, but it would probably hold true for
Disney World (and EuroDisney, if it still exsists:)
Message no. 6
From: Helge Diernaes <ecocide@***.econ.cbs.dk>
Subject: Re: Killing in Shadowrun - wow, big discussion
Date: Sun, 26 May 1996 11:29:42 +0200 (METDST)
On Wed, 22 May 1996, Ubiquitous wrote:

> At 06:30 PM 5/21/96 +0200, you wrote:
>
> >The hardcores will use deadly force and go to great lengths of pursuit in
> >order to scare off future attacks. The Danish firm LEGO does this today
> >in a different way, even though it is not economically ideal to do this,
> >in order to scare off copycats.
>
> What does LEGO do? Just curious.

The firm is in the Toy business. Basically, it makes small plastic
bricks which can be attached to each other in a variety of ways, and
since there is quite a lot of different bricks, it is possible to build
virtually any kind of likeness to buildings, ships, planes, etc., not to
mention the possibility of creating (for the child) totally new objects.

The lure is simply that this stongly appeals to the child's imagination
and creativity. The concept is quite golden, which accounts for the
numbers of copycats, especially in the far east.

> You know, I had a nasty but humorous thought; the Disney corporation with
> Aztecnology's method of dealing with 'runners.

Yikes! Like making a Classic with a subconsious indoctrination of
rage/hate against the copycats. Imagine a 10 year old with her parents
butcher knife,

> The runners wouldn't know what hit them, unless, of course, they got a
> glimpse of the assassin in a Mickey Mouse costume . *grin*

Couldn't the assassin wear a mimic polycarbon suit with a recording
feature? So s/he could shift between Mickey, Donald and mr. Invisible.
Ofcourse, the skirts would seem a bit false, not to mention the ears of
mickey and the beak of Donald :)

--
Regards,

Silhouette
Message no. 7
From: Ubiquitous <weberm@*******.net>
Subject: Re: Killing in Shadowrun - wow, big discussion
Date: Sun, 26 May 1996 13:46:45 -0400 (EDT)
At 11:29 AM 5/26/96 +0200, Helge wrote:
>On Wed, 22 May 1996, Ubiquitous wrote:

>> What does LEGO do? Just curious.
>
>The firm is in the Toy business. Basically, it makes small plastic
>bricks which can be attached to each other in a variety of ways, and
>since there is quite a lot of different bricks, it is possible to build
>virtually any kind of likeness to buildings, ships, planes, etc., not to
>mention the possibility of creating (for the child) totally new objects.

OK, what ruthless corporation activities does LEGO perform?

>> The runners wouldn't know what hit them, unless, of course, they got a
>> glimpse of the assassin in a Mickey Mouse costume . *grin*
>
>Couldn't the assassin wear a mimic polycarbon suit with a recording
>feature? So s/he could shift between Mickey, Donald and mr. Invisible.
>Of course, the skirts would seem a bit false, not to mention the ears of
>mickey and the beak of Donald :)

I was thinking of the corporate storm trooper armor molded with mouse ears
on the helmet and Mickey's smiling visage painted on helmet face plate.

--
"I remember my first sexual encounter because I kept the recipe."
- Jeff Dahmer

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