| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <paul@********.demon.co.uk> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Killing in Shadowrun... |
| Date: | Sat, 25 May 1996 23:46:19 +0100 |
<topcat@******.net> writes
>>So how does he buy lunch?
>
>With cash (see above). Or someone buys it for him. Once he's back home,
>all's well and he can eat whatever he wants when he wants. He could also
>pack sandwiches or whatever else he felt like, because he's only going to be
>out there for maybe a day or two.
Being an unperson *everywhere* you go could get grating for a
professional.
>>No IDs on file mean no credit rating means no credit. Going to be tricky
>>passing yourself off in public like that.
>
>He has cash and he only has to be in public for maybe a day or two, during
>which time he will be as non-public as possible.
Day or two? That quick? Okay, for hunting a bozo team, but you just do
not ship a team of soldiers into a hostile urban area and out again that
fast, not without everyone for streets around knowing what was going on.
Are police able to do this?
Okay, you can do it with uniformed snatch squads, but we're talking
undercover and deniable here. A very different beast.
>>"Unknown manufacture"? Come on, reality check. One minute you're saying
>>these guys have absolute cutting-edge technology. Now it's all
>>untraceable and unidentifiable. If it's untraceable, it's no better than
>>what you can get on the street.
>
>Just because it's cutting edge and built by the corp doesn't mean it's got
>Ares branded on it at every nook and cranny. There's a definite benefit to
>having anonymous-looking ware in your employees. Why would you ever want to
>brand them (especially those with milspec ware) so as to be obvious?
So, they have gear that is not distinctively corporate - in other words,
not noticeably better than could be found on the street. Ditto their
weapons. There go two advantages right away.
>>Secondly, you're assuming he's dead. Ten boxes != dead.
>
>You assumed you could get a hold of him. Which wouldn't happen unless the
>GM wanted a mistake to happen. Besides, death is just a cranial area bomb away.
You put a cranial area bomb in my head, and I am not going to be a
particularly happy or motivated person. Period. Sort of destroys the
idea that "you are the best, you are the elite" that you were trying to
inculate. And what if someone works out how to trip those bombs? There
go your team, just like a scene from Scanners.
>>Thirdly, there are a lot fewer of these guys than there are
>>shadowrunners. They're going to be busy, doing dangerous work, and the
>>odds *will* catch up with them. I never said it would be *easy*: but you
>>cannot assume that this corporate team can operate for month after month
>>without ever losing a member.
>
>This is where I disagree with you the most. There aren't near as many
>shadowrunners as there are corp personnel. A lot of shadowrunners out there
>are absolutely worthless. Some are damned good. Guards will be, at the
>worst, average, while at their best they'll be the equal of any runner out
>there. Plus, I'm not out there killing every shadowrunner in the city. I'm
>just taking out a team or less. So I can have them outnumbered severely and
>still not make a scene.
Take a look at the "corporate security guard" archetype and compare it
to a shadowrunner archetype. And you are still having to send teams out
frequently.
I mean, you must have a big problem with successful shadowruns to
justify all this expenditure, right? So they are noticeably better than
your guards, else they wouldn't get in at all. If they weren't seriously
good, they wouldn't be succeeding against your security in the first
place.
Ups the ante a little, doesn't it? And this must be happening a lot, or
the cost of training and equipping your strike force, and maintaining
the intelligence force necessary (in every city you have a presence,
remember - this is a *global* corporation) would get it shut down.
>>Corps also have backbiting, penny-pinching, internal feuds... If the
>>corporations are so smart, how come runners are ever able to get away
>>with anything? Mistakes happen. Corps aren't people: they're
>>agglomerations, and you only need one person of many to make a mistake.
>
>Shadowrunners don't have these? In my game they do, everyone does. That's
>the way of the world. No eutopias for any one side, everyone's got
>problems. Cyberpunk.
Yes, but you don't seem to apply this to the corporations, and that's
one of my gripes.
>>Fly something like a Viggen or Gripen and you don't need an airfield,
>>you need a five hundred yards of highway. You don't go near an airport,
>>you don't go near a plane at all while you're in skin-paint range of ATC
>>radar, you stay low and quiet with your IFF in Mode III civil and behave
>>yourself. Five hundred miles over the Atlantic, you pick up your target.
>>Lock it up and fire at thirty miles. They'll never know what hit it,
>>just that it went down.
>
>They'll know that there was lock, they'll know where from.
Airliners don't have RHAWS gear. Remember Iran Air 655? First warning
they were under attack was SM-2 shrapnel coming through the fuselage.
>You'll be
>dead/caught.
Fire an AMRAAM and the target has less than five seconds of warning,
even if they have RHAWS. "Mayday, mayday, missile inboun"<STATIC>
Very informative. Nobody saw it on radar. All anyone knows is that an
airliner went down.
Now, how does anyone work out who did it? Lift from somewhere remote -
highway works perfectly well, if you have some buddies in Transport
Department coveralls with cones and flares to block traffic for a short
while, or just a private field - and you're covered.
> You want to be dead/caught with the lives of passengers on
>your hands? The corp has insurance, they don't pay a cent. You nailed the
>plane. You get to pay everything you have before insurance starts to kick
>in. IFF and visual are also two different things. Plus, scanning
>technology has improved beyond the simple "The beeper says he's a civilian"
>level. Might work in 1996, but not in 2057.
Measures improve, so do countermeasures. We're talking civilian air
traffic control radar here, not military IADS, and operating five
hundred miles off the coast where *nobody* is looking.
>>Got it. Read it. Know a fair bit about explosives myself. NAGRL
>>specifically points out that - for instance - hermetic sealing works. It
>>also points out that C-13 cannot be detected by any known chem-sniffer.
>
>Now here's an interesting tidbit on that info. It came from a shadowsource
>who said (and I quote) that C-13 wasn't detectable, as far as he knew, by
>any chemsniffer on the open market. That part of the NAGRL also is for
>2051. Six years before 2057 (current game time). I would feel extremely
>confident that it would be detectable by now.
And so you use C-16 instead, which is new and ahead of the sniffer
curve... you hope. Measure, countermeasure.
>>And one vital point is that it's better to go around the security than
>>through it. You keep assuming that I'm going to attack in an obvious and
>>direct way, rather than find a chink. There are *always* chinks if you
>>look.
>
>There's only so many ways in. Limit those to the minimum feasible and cover
>them well. SOP.
If only, if only, if only. This is an open society, remember?
>>Have we eliminated terrorism
>>today? Nope. Will we be able to do so in 2057? An act every twelve hours
>>in the UCAS alone, according to NAGNA.
>
>Shadowrunning is more often than not an act of terrorism, I agree with you
>(and the NAGNA) that it probably does occur at least once every 12 hours.
>Terrorism by blowing up a building or shooting a crowd is one thing and
>realitvely simple. Now, have the terrorists try and hit Fort Knox. Dead in
>an instant. Have them hit the FBI headquarters at Langley. Dead in an
>instant. Have them hit a military base. Dead in an instant. They won't
>get past that kind of security. Megacorps have that kind of security available.
Who said Langley, Knox, Fort Bragg? I'm talking about a few hundred
civilian dead at a time. You could get that many or more at a sports
event or rock concert with four 82mm Vasileks loaded with HE. Twenty
bombs in ten seconds, you're underway before the first one hits, nobody
knows who the hell you were: Tuzla market all over again.
Soft targets, every time: basic rule of terrorism.
>>If the corporation with all its powers can't find someone, a bounty-
>>hunter is going to have an interesting time, though his/her intel and
>>contacts will probably be better.
>
>I am saying that a corp can find them relatively easily. And every bit of
>info they have will go toward helping the bounty hunter. I still can't
>believe that you actually think that a bounty hunter will have better intel
>and contacts than a corp, though. Corps own the world, sahdows included.
TopCat, when did I say that? *Your* point was that if the corporation
was having trouble, the bountyhunter would do the job instead.
And the corporations do *not* own the shadows, otherwise they couldn't
exist. Some parts of town, an overt corporate presence spells a healthy
body that the doc at the chopshop will pay double for, not to mention
expensive clothes, a portable 'phone, jewelry... *wealth*.
My shadows are a *bad* place at the bottom.
>>Show a warrant for the guy being bounty-hunted, who produces an ID that
>>proves he is not that man and an alibi. This shades over into an
>>extradition hearing. If you can legally forcibly abduct based on
>>allegation, then the corporations may find the reciprocity
>>uncomfortable.
>
>First, you're assuming a lot here.
>A) an officer wanders in while the bounty hunter is about to shoot you.
Gonna happen sometimes.
>B) the officer won't know of the bounty hunter (they are well known to the
>police)
So? Still doesn't make you judge, jury and executioner.
>C) the officer will take the felon's word over the bounty hunters
Cops are there to protect people's rights, in theory at least, and the
cop loses nothing by...
>D) the shadowrunner's ID checks (it'll be subjected to a nice, slow search)
And if that ID was set up for you by another corporation, and comes back
nice and solid... You play every edge you can get, and this is one of
them.
>The bounty hunter would probably be intelligent, and at least enough so that
>he'd know to wait a minute while that cop wandered away. The bounty hunter
>probably would not face off with the runner in a visible manner. One minute
>he's walking down the street, the next he's passed out with a dart-load of
>gamma-scopolamine in his system (or a stunbolt echoing through his brain)
>and being restrained (magemask and riot cuffs), hauled into the back of a
>truck, and driven away. Then the runner gets a trial courtesy of the corp.
>If it isn't the right guy, he gets a dose of laes and ends up in an alley
>outside a bar, missing his wallet, credsticks, and memories.
Jesus H. Christ, you give your corporations *way* too much leeway.
Reverse it. Could the government get away with this? Could runners do
it? There are too many opposing factions involved to blithely say "this
power can do what it wants".
What if you're immunised against gamma-scopolomine, or wearing
conductive form-fit, and you survive that attack? Or you break your
DocWagon Platinum contract, and your abductor has to explain to a HTR
team what he's doing with you.
And what if "the wrong guy" is a corporate citizen whose corporation
resents your treatment of its people? That dose of laes wiped out some
promising information, and they are angry. Payback time.
This *can* happen. But not routinely: the consequences of a mistake are
too great.
>>Triple redundancy costs *how* much?
>
>A little bit of thought. Like 1 second through a tactics skillwire of any
>decent level. Then the bit of time it takes to brief everyone.
And I have the same skillwire, give it the problem, look at the
solution. Then I use that to plan an attack.
>>TopCat, we have *real* problems over here with people called the
>>Provisional IRA, and they still get through the best efforts of the
>>police, the Army, MI5, Gardai on secondment... Corporations are *not*
>>omniscient.
>
>That is one isolated instance and England is out of it's league. This next
>little bit here is MNSO so take it as you will. England has no business in
>Ireland. What they are doing I would consider a terrorist act in and of
>itself. The Irish certainly do (or a good number of them anyway).
Sure, a 70% minority of them in Ulster. The provinces with a majority of
nationalists became free, six stayed British by democratic choice. They
remain British by democratic choice. A nationalist minority can't
achieve its aims by negotiation or electoral means, so they resort to
violence.
Please, I have friends getting shot at over there, so don't blather
garbage about a situation of which you know so little. England has,
rightly or wrongly, been in Ireland since 1155: North America was
"Vinland" and known only to a few Vikings at that point. If we have no
business there, then the white man has no place on the American
continents.
>As I
>explained before, England and Ireland are homogenous in the extreme compared
>to the US today.
Ever been here? Like I said, try a whistlestop tour. A week in Exmouth,
a week in Portsmouth, a week in Haringey, a week in Leicester.
Homogenous? Please.
>In 2057, that isn't any different. There's a solid
>culture in each country with several subcultures, but that's it. In the US
>there's literally hundreds of cultures and subcultrures. Things here are so
>much different from things there that I can't even begin to explain the
>entirety of it. In one of my other posts I go into a great deal of detail
>in why England fails to hurt the IRA noticeably. They are fighting more
>than one terrorist group (and definitely more than a shadowrunner team of 5
>or so). They are fighting a country. England also did not create the Irish
>like corps created shadowrunners. The two examples are not comparable. If
>the IRA tried to hit Buckingham Palace, they'd get wiped out to a man before
>anything detrimental happened, correct?
If they used Mark 11s they could do it easily. They hit Downing Street,
remember?
The US has no real experience of terrorism.
>>If you go in and blindly attack the enemy where he's strongest, you get
>>killed, and there I have no problem at all. But remember, a common
>>background in my campaign at least is a variation of "former company
>>security". These are the people who got the training, had the
>>experience, knew how things were done and still ended up in the shadows.
>>Don't you think they would have a good idea of what the best way to hit
>>a corporate site would be?
>
>Sure they would. For whenever they worked for the corp. Things change over
>the course of a year (and if they know a secguard went rogue, then it'd
>change over the course of a day). If it's been several years, things would
>have changed a lot. Remember how the guards used to wear armor vests and
>carry light pistols back then? They wear milspec armor and carry assault
>rifles now. Security system used to be decker-ran from the Matrix? Now
>it's rigged and strictly internal. Fences never used to be electrified.
>There were only two mages there. They only keep about a dozen guards going
>at a time. Etc. Things can and will change. Immutable security is bad
>security.
How many guards do you have? Lots and lots and lots.
How many go rogue in any given period? Enough that they turn up as a
shadowrunner archetype.
How much does it cost to radically overhaul your security and change all
your procedures? A not insignificant amount, plus the efficiency lost
because you're pulling people out for retraining.
>>Every corp does *not* kill runners, in the sense of hunting them down
>>days or months later. Some don't see it as worthwhile. Some don't have
>>the resources.
>
>Yes, every megacorp does nail runners after the run. Maybe not all the
>time, but it would be safe to say that every single megacorp has done it at
>least a dozen times in it's history.
Okay, out of how many runners and how many runs?
>>And the message you wish to send, and the message that reaches the
>>streets, may not - often will not - coincide.
>
>Why not? You put the message there. You own the shadows and they'll know
>what is meant by an action.
You do *not* own the shadows. There are *eight* megacorporations. Do
they *all* own the shadows? What about local independents? Do they all
co-operate to help each other? Or do each other in? I really cannot buy
this vision of cosy corporate co-operation you keep coming out with.
>>But it destroys the deterrent value of assassinating people for running
>>against you. "You mean that SmallCo was an Aztechnology subsidiary? No,
>>we checked and it's independent!" Yep, really makes the point. Either
>>you let runners get away with hitting you, or you reveal that this
>>"small independent" is actually in your pocket.
>
>Who says word on the street came from Aztechnology? It could very well have
>come from SmallCo and should come from them.
"Yup, right, this nickel-and-dime outfit just found the muscle to hunt
down and kill a runner team. Yesterday they had a contract with Jolly
Roger for security, today they can kill runners overnight. Of course
they're fully independent. I believe that."
>>And that assumes that the target of the run was the building or person
>>the runners attacked. What about those cases where the runners are
>>acting as a distraction, or as one part of a chain of dominoes, and they
>>have no idea that your corporation will be harmed or is even involved?
>>Yep, real deterrent effect there.
>
>What they don't know can and will be able to hurt them. Whether it goes
>public, shadow, corporate, or not known to anyone will be answered by the
>people making the decisions based on current circumstances.
You're spending money for no return. This is not the way to succeed in
business. Using assets to kill runners exposes them to risk, and costs
you money, and you do *not* do that without a concrete return.
>>If runners are, as your game seems to suggest, basically desperate
>>people who would leave the shadows if they could, then do they really
>>have the luxury of saying "boy, that sounds dangerous, I don't want to
>>run against *them*?" If it was an effective tactic, *all* corporations
>>would do it, and shadowrunners would die out en masse. That runners
>>still exist suggest that it is not a wholly effective tactic.
>
>Lots of samurai, magicians, riggers, and deckers work for corps. They make
>tons of money a lot safer than they would shadowrunning (samurai less so
>than the others). Oftentimes it's even legal for them to do what they do.
So why run the shadows, since you can be richer and safer elsewhere?
>As I said before, shadowrunners are a special breed that can live a life of
>a crime on the fringes of society. They will only do so if they (feel like
>they) have to. Maybe they feel they need excitement. Maybe they just can't
>do anything else. Maybe it is a way for them to get into the light and
>coast through the rest of their lives. Some of them will end up on a corp
>payroll, eventually.
No, they won't, because the corporations kill them. You've detailed many
times how corporations *always* hunt runners who cross them, and said at
length how the runners have no reasonable hope of escape from their
pursuers.
How does anyone survive more than three or four shadowruns? Every time
you do any sort of shadowrun, you cross someone and they launch their
military strike force to kill you. You can only play Russian roulette so
many times before your brains end up on the wall.
"There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy."
Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
