| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <paul@********.demon.co.uk> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Killing in Shadowrun... |
| Date: | Sun, 26 May 1996 01:17:26 +0100 |
>Shiawase case that led to extraterritoriality in the first place, Aztlan
>almost got butchered because they actually went through with it (but did so
>way before the right measures were put in place).
Troops on the ground is nine-tenths of the law. Make it clear at the
time that you did this because Fuchi had contracted to supply
electricity, and defaulted on the contract, and the civil unrest thus
caused required the UCAS to act in self-defence. Translation: they
pushed us. See what happened to them. Push us and see what happens you
you. Or keep selling and keep making money. Want to sell us some power?
>Renraku is actually a
>MAJOR force in the food production markets (check CFS). Who owns most farms
>today in the US? Corporations. They own TONS of farmland. The few piddly
>privately-owned farms don't produce anywhere near the volume of the
>corp-owned farms.
And you use your army - which outsizes the corporate forces nicely - to
seize food shipments in the name of national security. You want to drive
on UCAS roads? Pay a food tax of 90% of your cargo. Legal, effective,
unpopular but so what? Or let the food rot at the farm, in which case
summary nationalisation.
Meanwhile the corporations no longer have access to the UCAS market.
They are spending fortunes on emergency additional security where they
used to be raking in profits. Exactly what was the advantage here again?
And just announce that the megacorps have huge food stockpiles inside
those perimeters. By Day Three the guards will be out of ammo and the
corporate sites looted empty, because nobody likes starvation.
Expensive. Now, where was the return that justified this?
>I know quite a few people on both sides of the farming
>circle, from corp owners to farm families (you get to know these people
>living in Illinois and especially in the capital thereof). The big get
>bigger every year and the small get smaller. That's just the natural way of
>things. The corps grow their food where the family farmers grew theirs til
>they got bought out.
And the UCAS offers preferential rates to smallholdings to "support
rural agriculture". Corporate-owned farms are subject to tariffs and
controls to keep the small independents going. The government takes care
of food supplies. In extremis, you import from overseas.
>The corps own the world in 2057, it'd take far less time for the corps to
>rain enough Thor-shots to bury the UCAS in ash than it would for the UCAS to
>arm their nuclear arsenal: which they don't really have anymore, nukes were
>banned worldwide and destroyed back in the early part of the 21st century.
>I'm sure they kept a couple of keepsakes, but if they were to use them, then
>every country in the world as well as every corp in the world would come
>down on them like the hand of an angry god. So I don't think the UCAS would
>have much, if anything to do with attacking any corp.
Why not? You push them into a situation where they are helpless, and the
corporations are basically crapping all over them. Corporate citizens
don't vote. UCAS citizens do. There are votes in standing up to the
corps, so politicians will do so. Yes, you can buy politicos easily. An
eight-way split, assuming only the Big Eight play, and you have deadlock
unless you attack all corporations together, which you *never* do: you
pick on the unreasonable behavior of *one* corp, contrast it to the
enlightened and fair behaviour of its competitors, and go from there.
The other corporations grab the offered market share, and are careful
not to be caught making the same mistake without full Court backing.
The corporations have turned off the 'phones, the lights, and the food.
The nation is in total chaos already. Either restore the status quo, or
Zurich Orbital gets a faceful of missiles. What, in that scenario, does
the UCAS have to lose? In a very few days it ceases to exist as a nation
anyway.
And in this scenario, why would "every country in the world" come down
on them? A lot of countries would stand aside and say "not our problem".
Others would applaud: the corporations will be making a lot of enemies
in this scenario. Apart from Aztlan, why would any nation complain about
the UCAS wiping out some of the corporate military assets that could be
turned on them next?
"There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy."
Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
