Step 1: Be Joker-type grade-A insane.
Step 2: Be an unpredictable, unstoppable engine of destruction and chaos.
Step 3: Rinse and repeat across every major city.

Eh, even old art couldn't manage one Triple A. Still he gave it a good run.

I think you may have misunderstood my point. I don't think it needs to be changed, or even explained. Destroying the corps would destroy the setting.

Extraterritorial corps are intrinsic to the setting, and were I running a shadowrunner campaign they would definitely be there. They don't need an explanation. It Just Is.

It's cyberpunk, it's a trope, it's there. That's all the explanation necessary. It Just Is.

Haven't been reading my writing, have you?

Not yet I'm afraid. It's on my to-do list.

If you want to bring a firm down, you have to figure out a way to leverage the hell out of their balance sheet. Then, you need to do a run that causes an event that causes the leverage to come due faster than expected. Firms can hedge against normal markets, but when markets react irrationally to events, those hedges fail. You need a fat tail event.

I suggest reading the book When Genius Failed to better understand what I'm talking about.

If you want to see some current, real world examples of crazy leverage, start checking out how mortgage REITs are paying out double digit dividends on mortgage back security assets. It will either make you think the world is crazy or you'll start diverting all your cash to REITs for the next couple of years.

Of course, would you think the current batch of megacorps are too big too fail? If so, who bails them out in Shadowrun when they do fail?

Continuum is pretty darn good!

IIRC, the whole thing about "Too big to fall" is that if a corporation will cause more hardship if it falls than bailing it out will impose on the taxpayers, then we have a duty to bail them out.



The problem with that is that, for a corp to be too big to fall, it still needs to be small enough to be subservient to, and in a position to be aided by, a government. The Extraterritorial Megas are sovereign nations unto themselves, that doesn't really apply.


The closest I can think of is how the United States floated indefinite, interest-free loans to rebuild Europe after we got done bombing the ever-loving shit out of it, with a payback structure of "Eh, whenever you have some extra money in the bank."



Who would float those loans, though? Z-OG? Another Mega? National governments?

Take that as the ambiguity of "you".

If I ask "What year would you time travel to?" and the response is "Time travel is impossible" then I really don't know what else I can do. If you don't believe corps can be destroyed within the shadowrun universe, then fine but don't you think that's beside the point?

If it's a question of the practically impossible, can't you still theorize?

I don't think so (or rather it depends on what you consider "destroying the corps").

Some countries in the present setting do have limits on extraterritoriality. In the CAS extraterritoriality of premises needs to be registered with the ERLA and can be revoked by that agency IIRC. The PCC subjects extraterritorial corps to a licensing process and regular audits. Switzerland restricts extraterritoriality to predefined Special Business Zones. So did pre-crash Quebec.

I guess it depends if you consider the Corporate Court system consisting of a limited number of AAA corps central to the game. I think you could still have a recognizably shadowrunny setting without the CC, where the biggest corps are "only" AA level and where corporate extraterritoriality isn't a given just because you put a sign on your factory fence but rather subject to negotiations and the individual corps' relations with the local government. I'd contend that would actually provide even more opportunities/plot hooks for runs.

While a solid plan, the fact is, others will see it coming and take moves to ensnare you into a trap so that you do a lot of the work and they can figure out a way to swoop in and just waltz off with the results.

Similar, but alternative thought: Focus on building that company into an insurance company. Setup contracts that allow for all sorts of obscure loopholes. Hire runners to exploit those loopholes. Deny reimbursements because the loopholes remove your company's indemnity. Perfect model for this is our existing health insurance industry. For all of Sarah Palin's "death panels" talk, the fact is that death panels are very real in private health insurers. Use the contracts to drop a patient who is about to become super-expensive. You've already made the money off of them and now that they're in dire straights financially due to medical issues, it becomes difficult for them to find a lawyer to fight for their coverage.

You do like to whine don't you? Once again flawed analogy, if you had asked what area would I time travel to, the implication would be that time travel is possible. Here let me quote your original post.



From jump you closed the scenario and the only implications to the question is that I'm one six world person.



The problem is if in a scenario the outcome desired is impossible I have to open end the scenario, once we've opened up the scenario enough it's not as much a thought exercise as dream scenario building, which is useful in some cases. But the point remains, your example was one person. If we're not doing with one person though, my answer: Found a new religion capable of challenging the corps on an ideological level. But then there's the problem of how do i feed, clothe, and perhaps most importantly, arm my followers. Because unlike the British on the Indian Subcontinent the corps are more then willing to kill us to end us.

Easy there buddy. I don't even see how that's whining.

In any case, the limit to one person was so that people didn't suggest magical shifts in CEOs and whatnot. It is this: you are a person of the sixth world, you don't like the corp's over-reaching influence in everyone's life. You may not believe governments were better, but you want to bring the corporations down from where they are now.

You are just one person, possible Emerged or Awakened, most likely not.

One person can establish a religion. The rest of the post does go on to say:




I'm not asking for a series of events that can lead to the regression of the corps' influence in the Sixth World. I guess it's my fault for not making this any plainer.

No more from me about this.

That's almost poetic.

The problem is how do you conceal it for long?

I doubt a corp would 'fail' or dissolve before another crop snapped it up. The name on the doors would change, one corp would get smaller/go away and another would get bigger. No change really.

How do you make every major worldwide business in the world fail at the same time? You don't. At least, if something happens that does, the last think you care about is corps.

Which brings us back to the old line so popular in Shadowrun: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

What if you introduce a feeding frenzy? There have been hints that Ares is weakening; Knight's and Vogel's ploys have eroded much of the loyalty within the company. There have been setbacks in Ares Arms and in Ares Heavy Industries.

Now, the Big 10 would gobble up as much of Ares' assets as they could. But they'll fight each other for it too.

It doesn't have to happen all at once either.

So I become faster and smarter than they are. I make moves ahead of their moves to ensnare them in traps so I swoop in and waltz off with their results. I do businessy things that are better than their businessy things. The details of that are for people who are more interested in business things. I'm content to treat business things like casting spells or coding IC, I just roll my dice and do the thing.
Again, if it were possible.


Every AAA has an insurance branch and I would be no different. You've got to diversify, my brother!

Congrats, in attempting to fight the enemy, you've become them! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You can call your company, "Horizon 2" or the more subtle, "Horizons". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I think you might just want to go Adept, non-combat skill buffs are dirt-cheap and things like Analytical Mind could help you play your game of multi-dimensional chess (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Crash 3.0.

With a healthy dose of deliberate planning to bring around anarchy on a global scale with meatspace assets instead of purely digital disruption.

Yes, and if suddenly you can't use any legit services (money, stores, your gridlinked car, your ISP, etc), are you more worried about Aztechnology coming down a few pegs in relation to other corps or whether or not it's safe to eat devil rat?

I mean, runners might care and might be better suited to ...well, survive the transition, but the average wage slave?

I also thought it pretty poor how the crashes are both kind of glossed over. Can you imagine the sheer chaos of all computers suddenly not working in our world? Alot of people would die, from starvation, dehydration, sickness, etc. Not to mention violent deaths from predatory folks.

I remember a world before computers and I don't think that happened.

The problem is, that was the world before computers.

Shit, farmers can't pick up crops anymore without computers. Modern tractors and combines use them, even laser guidance autopilot systems to efficiently pick up cotton, etc.

Logistics companies sure are going to have issues getting this food to that place and that food to this place, etc.

If you think people wouldn't starve until it was all figured out, you're fooling yourself.

Perhaps Crash 3.0 combined with another VITAS-like event. But when you're in those scenarios, you're basically invoking Deux ex Machina.