threads like these keeps reminding me of a webpage i ones read where workers at a burger franchise was equiped with radio headsets that a computer used to direct the specific actions taken for any job in the place.

i just cant seem to dig that page up tho (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Actually, Skillwires are only needed for Active skills, not for Knowledge or Language skills.

Where does it say that? I thought skill wires go up to r5 because knowledge softs and language softs go up to r5 as well. I could be wrong, but then how the hell to you use knowledge or language softs?

DNI is all thats required.

While this is true, but I think its worth mentioning that skillwires can also train you to be a pretty damn good fighter pilot. a FIGHTER PILOT. This takes YEARS to teach people in normal circumstances.

However, yup, creative thought is impossible by definition.

Skillwires allow you to fly a plane. It takes much more than flying ability to make a 'fighter pilot'.

Yeah, your right, you need some more stuff, like a 'fighter tactics' knowsoft and a gunnery skillsoft as well. Heck they can probably jam in another R4 active skillsoft if it's R6 wires.

Start with an Ork and your virtually assured of reasonable G-tolerance, not that you need that because you pilot the vehicle remotely via a simrig

If one of your characters had

Gunnery 4
Pilot: Aircraft 4
Knowledge: Tactics: Aircombat 5
Knowledge: Tactics: Air to Ground combat 5
Knowledge: Tactics: AA evasion 5

You'd say, 'okay he's probably not a bad fighter pilot' - but I can literally buy all that stuff.

Incidently, I'm seriously debating banning knowsofts from my game.

Knowsofts don't bother me nearly as much as Skillwires. I rarely allow Skillwires in my games, and strangely enough, few players actually make extensive use of knowsofts. Linguasofts see a fair amount of use though.

Yeah, I agree, skillwires are game breaking busted. I think the only logical fix is to make sure that each activesoft has to be individually tailored, but even then it feels totally unfair. I don't like anything that can let a character act without bringing his own skills to bare, with an exception for drones.

My current face to face team doesn't have any skillwires due to some 'gentle suggestions' in character generation, plus I use frank's rules for char gen which removes some of the incentives to use the things so I'm debating deleting them both entirely.

The thing is, Activesofts won't allow for any originality. They do the same manouvers at the same situations every time.

There's no learning curve, and, if faced with a situation they don't know how to deal with, you're screwed.

Sure, you can chip Karate v4.2, but when faced with "Man That Fights Like Wolf", you're SOL, there's not Katas for that.

By the by, be really interesting to see what Wolf and Raven are doing in 2070...

Whereas a basic fighter pilot (one of the elite, just from the selection competition) will have at *least*
Gunnery (Aircraft weapons) 4(6)
Pilot: Aircraft (Fast Jet) 4(6)
Awareness (Air combat) 4(6)
K: Tactics - Air combat (Dogfighting) 5(7)
K: Tactics - Air to Ground combat (bombs) 5(7)
K: Tactics - AA evasion (passive countermeasures) 5(7)

And have 2 DP more, the potential for getting to 6((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) , the potential for reflex recorders and other additional 'ware and can burn Edge (I reckon fighter Pilots are Shadowrunner-class opposition and should have Edge). My books are on loan so I can't check: how much is Skillwires 4, 3 datajacks and all those 'softs? The skillsoft route might be appropriate if you've got a fast rate of production of airframes, but those fast-movers, all they do is train...

There used to be a rule that you couldn't *learn* anything off an ActiveSoft; has SR4 excised that?

Skillwires *are* great for producing Grunts and for having a versatile "workforce" but not for specialist jobs.

I still don't see why Corps would put skill wires in anyone, that wasn't already fully invested in the corporation for 10 or more years.

SR4 hasn't done away with colleges, and schools... Why would we hire a hobo, and outfit him with SOTA equipment and have him do our stuff, when we can hire Graduate from Seattle University who will be paying off student loans for the next 20 years (That's what makes a wageslave), and have all the necessary skills and knowledges at no cost from us other than his paycheck?

We just give him the knowsoft (Corporate Handbook), and then loan him the linguasofts if he has to deal with clients in other languages or regions.

I'd only put skillwires in someone who I knew was loyal to the corp, had been there for a long period of time, and I didn't want to wait for him to finish extra courses to get the necessary training, likely VP's and Heads of Operations. Putting them in every data monkey on the job is a bad investment.

Right. Sorry. I meant 'softs in general.

Actually, R&D Scientists are more wageslave than Data Entry Specialists are.

One thing that people tend to overlook is that in the Sixth World specific performance is a valid remedy to the breach of a labor contract.

Right now, it isn't in the majority of the world because of the jurisprudence that has risen since the outlawing of slavery. No one can be legally forced to so work. If you sign a contract to do a job and then decide not to do it, there is fuck-all your employer can do about it unless the contract had penalty clauses. Generally, the worst that could happen is that you'd have to compensate the employer for lost time while he searched for another person to do the job and that compensation is limited by reasonableness. In the Sixth World, this isn't so.

In the Sixth World, if you signed a labor contract with an extraterritorial corporation then that corporation quite literally owns you, though they would use softer semantics. If you have a labor contract and you want to leave then you must get the corporation to release you from the contract.

If you are an easily-replaceable data-entry specialist then this should be no problem. You give your notice and that's that. The corporation hasn't invested much into you and they don't expect to get anything out of you that they can't get from anyone else. If you are a top-tier research scientist who is making your corporation billions, on the other hand, there is simply no way in hell. You'd almost certainly be required to compensate them for losses they will suffer due to your departure, which would be the projected future value of your work, which would be billions. And your contract almost certainly has a clause which requires you to give their reasonable employment offers preferential treatment, within reason, essentially allowing them to unilaterally renew your contract so long as they don't go totally batshit insane and offer you a pittance.

If you do decide to violate your employment contract and run away from extraterritorial property then the police will be after you and you will never again be able to rear your head or use your SIN in a reputable establishment lest you be arrested and put to trial before a Contract Court which will extradite you back to your corporation which will punish you for your transgression and increase security around you so that such escape is not possible again. The only way you can be sure that you're safe is to make a deal with another extraterritorial corporation to illegally hide you in exchange for your labor. If you go through with this then you are basically the prisoner of another big corporation, but your cage now might be significantly more gilded than your current one and the atmosphere may better suit your style.
Of course, if you do this, then your currently employer will hire shadowrunners to kill you or just do it themselves because the only thing worse than losing the value of your labor is losing it to a competitor. Make no mistake, if your death is more profitable to them than your continued existence, which is the case of researchers who won't play ball and who are switching teams, they then will kill you.

The nature of corporate employment is such that the expendable people on the bottom rungs have substantially more freedom than those who are making a comfortable living in the middle. Those who have talent but no authority or who have authority but no but no real power are the most vulnerable. Even those who are at the very top are more limited in what they can do than those who are at the very bottom because of the cutthroat nature of the megacorporate power system. Even CEOs can get geeked if their immediate inferiors seem them as liabilities and high level executives who jump ship tend to be the targets of reprisals.

There is, in fact, a reason why voluntary extractions happen. Data Entry Specialists don't spend good money to have themselves kidnapped by shadowrunners. Researchers and executives do.

Well said. I meant that wage slaves are basically slaves to their wages. I mean yes they can quit. They totally have the freedom to stop working for a corp, and eventually live on the street and starve to death.

Personally I think why you would kill a top tier defecting researcher, is for what he knows at that very moment. He was probably working on something that they don't want their competitors to know or gain an edge on. That man or woman can take their work with them, and that is what corporations don't want. They loose billions and the other crop gains billions. Also the reason why a researcher hires someone to kidnap them is so that if they ever get extracted back to their company they can just say that they were forced to work for them. Less death for the researcher, which is certainly a plus.

I agree with what you said except for:

Actually, R&D Scientists are more wageslave than Data Entry Specialists are.

No, R&D Scientists are slaves to the corp whereas the Data Entry Specialist can be easily replaced and is, hence, a slave to his wages. Wageslave.

Agree with everything else though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I must admit that to me "wageslave" has always simply been a nickname for "corp employee"...

Me too. I never really needed to read any more into it than that, as every corporation, and indeed every division within every corporation will treat their employees differently. I don't think there's a general overall trend by the big corporations to crush the souls of the people that work for them, but there is certainly areas within that structure that do that very thing.

"while i may be living hand to mouth day by day, at least i still have my freedom. unlike those employees of the corps, that have sold their freedom for a stable paycheck. slaves to their wage, thats what they are!"

and this i think is a theme that one can possibly trace back to the 80's. with foreign interests buying up us corp again and again, one could possibly see it as usa giving up its mythical freedom...

Still happening in Canada, Chummer.

It seems such a waste of time;
If that's what it's all about,
Moma if that's moving up,
then I'm moving out!

that may be, but im not sure canada has the same kind of mythological attachment to "freedom"...

*Sighs* There aren't many Canadian patriots left, that is true... I feel alone in that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

And now back to Wageslaves and away from the Whiny Canuck.

Surely all the talk of workers, wageslaves, etc depends on the job involved ??

With the computing power available, and pseudo intelligent programming, why would there be many admin/desk based jobs at all ??

There are already indentured staff - poorly paid immigrants hoping to make abetter life, forced to work for virtually no money and unable to leave because they don't speak the language or are illegals or their families are threatened with violence.

[A recent article I was reading talked about the near-indentured servitude of IT staff in the US, hired for IT work and access to the working visa, then treated badly in the knowledge they can't complain and will be deported if they quit]

Some companies already use convicted prisoners as very cheap manual labour.

I remember reading an old Chill RPG story about a chap who broke into a company, only to find all the data entry staff were zombies.