| From: | Stephen Delear <shadow@***.com> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Killing in Shadowrun... |
| Date: | Mon, 27 May 1996 02:34:47 -0500 (CDT) |
> Embargos raise prices, yes. The right embargos (food, medical supplies)
> cause serious problems. Those which cause problems will be effective.
> Those which do not, won't. Full-scale trade embargos are crippling in the
> extreme. Corps can pull that sort of power down.
Not when they're produced in country of wait the corps are going to
starve there own employes. Oh I'm sure that'll have the desired effect.
>
> >Food? Most of the grain states are still in the UCAS.
>
> And owned by megacorps. Megacorps didn't build little islands off the
> coasts when they went extraterritorial, they walled off their currently
> owned pieces of formerly-UCAS land. Whenever they pick up new pieces, guess
> what? It becomes extraterritorial under the megacorp banner, too.
>
> >And let's see... summary nationalisation, anyone? Knocking down all
> >corporate satellites above the UCAS? Armed cordons around all "foreign"
> >factories, interdicting all goods? Corporate freighters sinking at sea?
>
> The UCAS doesn't have the power to handle that scale of operation, they
> could barely handle Chicago and Washington D.C. at the same time, let alone
> corporate scale assets.
I hate to brake it to you but Chicago requires far more assests then a
corporate attack would. To seal off a city that completly requires a
hell of a lot of manpower and if you actually read bug city you'll find
that only a small fraction of UCAS's forces are tied up there (can't make
any comment on DC though I havn't read the book).
> The corps would rain thor-shots on them before they
> even fired their first shot. Shortly thereafter would come near-total
> surrender to the corps. Which is why the UCAS would never do anything this
> stupid.
And I'm sure the Japanesse expected a quick surrender as well,
unfortunatly the american people don't take well to sneak attacks and a
Thor-shot attack would mean that UCAS would have to retaliate with
everything it had.
> My hypothetical answers to the hypothetical question of the UCAS
> invading a corp are correct, but would never happen because the UCAS isn't
> stupid enough to try it.
The Corps rule the world I'm not disputing that. However it's much
easier to buy a politician then to try to controll teritory by force of
arms.
>
> >This all adds up to a massive, damaging and unprofitable pissing match
> >in which the UCAS' goal is simply survival and the corporations intend
> >to make a profit. War, for a corporation, is a no-win game. They win by
> >not fighting, and not pushing nations into situations where a nation
> >loses less by war than by negotiation.
>
> They win by a single show of unsurmountable force and never have to do it
> again, there is no war. Just a few buttons pushed, a couple million spent,
> and the surrender of a nation to corporate power. Ever read Hardwired?
> Remember what the corps did there? Now call them thor-shots instead of meteors.
So you think the people of UCAS would surrender or that the other nations
of the world wouldn't fight back once the corps became a national
security issue (how much Thor-shot do they have any way).
>
> -------------------------------------
> "I was thinking of the immortal words
> of Socrates, who said: I drank what?"
> -- Real Genius
> -------------------------------------
> TopCat at the bottom...
>
>
Stephen
