| From: | Robert Watkins <robertdw@*******.com.au> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Corp Revenge |
| Date: | Wed, 22 May 96 19:04:10 +1030 |
If you follow TopCat's view of the world, running teams have long-term
associations with their employers. Okay, that means the corps view them
as assets. Okay, so if another corp wipes them out, they've (rather
pointlessly) destroyed one of your assets. That means, FOR EXACTLY THE
SAME REASONING, the first corp will strike back. The second corp strikes
back again. So on and so forth, all the while destroying assets. The Corp
Council looks down at this, and issues an Omega Order. Very bad. So,
obviously, the smart corps won't even START such a thing. (Oh, stealing
assets isn't the same thing as destroying them).
If the runners do NOT have long-term associations, then you gain
absolutely zip by wiping them out. You haven't hurt the corp which sent
them, you haven't scared off other people (hey, TopCat, you _said_ that
there would be others out there), you haven't recouped your losses. All
you've done is let off a little steam. No point. And if you start doing
this regularly, then yeah, you might drive the price up of a team to go
against you. So instead of sending in an expensive and incompetent team
('cause only the idiots would take the job), you send in an expensive and
competent corp team, which do a better job. Oh, and to maximise the
effectiveness, instead of just nibbling at the edges of the other corp's
research, you go straight in and get all of the material, wiping it
behind you. Yep, that was a good choic on the part of the other corp,
wasn't it? So again, smart corps don't go down that way.
For the last time, as far as I'm concerned... the corporations have quite
deliberatly encouraged the growth of the shadow community. If they
hadn't, then it wouldn't have come around in the first place. Start with
THAT line of reasoning, and you can clearly see that corps would NOT go
around eliminating runners all the time. On the other hand, the runners
wouldn't go around doing mass murder or destroying corporate assets on
the side, because that would break the rules. Which, BTW, is an EXCELLENt
argument for using non-lethal means of penetrating a corporate facility.
--
Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au
Real Programmers never work 9 to 5. If any real programmers
are around at 9 am, it's because they were up all night.
