This topic is something my group and I were getting into. A team of mercenaries is hired to break some ex-Special Forces operatives out of an Aztechnology prison; along the way they have to become begrudging teammates an the leader of the SpecOps and the leader of the mercs butt heads all the time (for all of the reasons you listed above). It's been pretty interesting; if we ever get it back off the ground I'll let you know how it turns out.

Oh, absolutely... all dozen or more of them over twenty years. I have been a player much more often than not, and it's a theme I keep seeing over and over, thus the OP.


Corps don't "wage open war" on one another - they have standing armies to keep each other honest and in case things get "Really Bad". Infantry is cheaper up front, but the upkeep for equivalent firepower of leg infantry is prohibitive, especially since they are very difficult to transport around, meaning you need even MORE of them to cover all your assets. Agreed on the insurgencies (what do you think shadowrunning is, when it comes right down to it?). Boots on the ground for the insurgencies, sure, but even "limited" technical means would wind up looking a LOT like the conflict in Afghanistan today: lots of relatively light infantry with lost of air transport, good air support, drones on call, and the best gear they can carry into the field. The troops USING all those systems are very highly trained - they have to be; That gear is extremely technical and they're on their own once the helo' departs. Those troops are expected to USE all the resources at their disposal and a lot of initiative to get the best possible results. Lots of PGMs (Precision Guided Munitions) and sniper fire going on there, made possible by extremely advanced technology C₃I₂ (Command Control Communications Information and Intelligence) giving them battlefield situational awareness and allowing much more accurate estimation of enemy disposition and intention. But that's being accomplished with a minor fraction of the troops committed to the Iraq campaign, where a much more "conventional" technological war is ongoing. Of interest, the troops there by and large are closer to your "guys with a rifle" than the ones on the other side of Iran. That's not a slight on those boys in any way, just an observation of general training and experience levels, though with the new transition away from an Iraqi focus, that is changing rapidly. What effect that will have on the war effort remains to be seen. (I'm just saying be careful drawing too many "simple" conclusions about technology vs. boots in either example, that's all.)


*sighs sadly*

Oh, no, not this argument AGAIN. (We spent a LONG time on it in the "Military of 2080" thread.) OK, let's put aside game mechanics for just a moment and look at the fluff text regarding the use of Skillwires/Activesofts and Know/Linguasofts.

'Softs do not impart experience, only ability. Where they are described as being in common use is for eliminating costly training for jobs that require little experience and where consistency is more important than adaptability: construction, telemarketing, technical support, low-end sales, food-prep (not COOKING), janitorial, low-end maintenance, and things of that nature. They represent an ability to eliminate extensive classroom/aprentice training and ongoing re-training simply by updating the database. The "chipped" workforce, as it were. The other benefit being that the employee doesn't have any incentive to "take their skills elsewhere" - they have none! And if the needed skills are all knowledge and language based (read: tech support and telemarketing and their ilk) then you don't even need to pay for implantation: just a set of trodes hooked up to a comlink welded to the desk.

It's not the "individual expense" that makes the "chipped" workforce look attractive to a corp, but rather the relatively high turnover and large pool of people needed which makes it feasible to invest in technology as opposed to the meatware (the person). The cost of recruitment, clearance, indoctrination, training and refreshing that training, even if only a couple weeks long, when repeated over and over becomes a significant sum of money.


Yeah, this is what I was afraid was coming when I saw the above statement. To continue:

The military doesn't want unthinking inexperienced meatware slinging a rifle. A drone is superior for that. They need adaptable

One of the real dangers that doesn't come out in the RAW about 'softs is that they are inherently predictable. For an example of why this would be disasterous for soldiers in the field, getting your hands on just a single "doctrine and tactics" 'soft would let the enemy know EXACTLY how the opposition will respond to a given situation every time. That's lethal. On Activesofts, say for driving (not driving an Eagle III fighter), you know how they will try to evade in a given situation and can set up countermeasures with that precisely in mind. Remember, militaries are BIG on standardization, so every 'soft is going to be the same "optimized" package based on some armchair REMF's (If you don't know what that stands for, it's pointless to explain) idea of how things "ought to be". You know, the same kind of thinking that put the original M16 into the field without a chrome lined barrel, using a different kind of powder than Gene Stoner designed it to use, because they "knew how it ought to be".

Almost worse, because 'softs REPLACE their user's knowledges, they CAN NOT learn from their experiences while using the 'softs.

And we aren't talking about Deltaware implantation; Canon established over a decade ago that the highest you would usually see in the military was Betaware, and that would be mostly for crack troop, people you wouldn't want being 'wired. Deltaware is the stuff of your seriously Black Ops teams that "don't exist, Senator". Most military soldiers would probably receive Alphaware, because (per old fluff that hasn't been reprinted for SR4 yet) successively higher grades of cyberware are significantly more resistant to damage and wear, something the military would take seriously. Ever hear of the term "soldierproof"? I have had people disagree with this whole paragraph, and they are welcome to do so, but that doesn't change what has been published in the past.

Essentially, the military, be they corporate or government, can more economically set drones to do any tasks it would be "safe" to have 'wired (meta)humans doing, with just one or two properly trained specialst riggers riding herd on them all. that includes cleaning, loading, refueling, maintaining and repairing, painting, inventorying, dispensing, diagnosing, fighting fires, building, demolishing, patroling, inspecting and on and on ad nauseum.

You WANT (and will do whatever you have to) in order to have trained, adaptable, experienced troops at the sharp end not just executing your orders, but using the synergy of their training (including learned teamwork) adaptability and experience to achieve your OBJECTIVES for you, including knowing when to call it quits if the mission's objective becomes unattainable. Such troops, even in very small numbers, would be able to out-maneuver and rout vastly larger forces of 'wired troops. Essentially, you put the same money into a tiny but crack unit, equipped with the finest you can give them, and ask them to accomplish a goal, then let them do it.

The other thing that baffles me are some of the comments I keep hearing (you're just echoing a lot of others on these forums):

No, the military (corp or government) will not "over-pay" their soldiers, but even the modern US Military is beginning to see the effects of eight plus years of military pay and benefits (which were never extravagant) fail to keep pace with inflation while engaged in two hot warzones - many families have had to quit the military because they can no longer afford to LIVE on the wages and benefits. (By contrast, in the 1980's, it was feasible to join the military as a means to jump-start a new family due to the relatively higher benefits and wages of the time. I knew several soldiers that did just that.)

No, you don't send a "elite delta-cybered killing machine" in to every simple fight, but "a guy with a rifle" isn't really even what we have in the modern military any more (at least in the Western world). I see no reason to conclude that twenty soldiers with no experience and 'wires will be more effective in ANY situation than a single highly trained and experienced soldier with cutting edge gear and 'ware. In fact, recent conflicts have shown us that six crack soldiers can use their experience and initiative to routinely defeat better than twenty to one odds, as long as you don't expect them to do something like stand guard on a street corner: that's what a drone is for. Remember: the cost to maintain a drone 24/7 is still remarkably less than the agregate human resources costs associated with a live (meta)human.

Proper risk-management is not losing fights you could have won. A MODERN fighter pilot comes in at over $2 Million US just to train, and her jet is between $40 and $220 Million US. Even with maxed out Deltaware and cutting edge kit, the nastiest special forces trooper is going to come in well under 5 Million nuyen ready-to-go. The two aren't even close to comparable. Even a complete team of these soldiers, call them an even dozen, is less than half the price of a high-end fifth-generation figher jet. That's twelve highly trained, very experienced, lethal and adaptable soldiers.

I don't understand why so many people seem to think governments don't have money for a standing army of any quality. Tell that to the CAS. Or ask the UCAS about their nuclear carrier fleet. There's money. Sure, maybe not as much as we're accustomed to these days in absolute terms, but there's a lot less AREA to cover as well, and most conflicts will be short, brutal and very intense over smaller ares. As you pointed out, war is expensive and often unprofitable for the group footing the bill, so you want to minimize scope and duration where you can.

Oh, and let's not forget combat mages: you CAN'T "chip" them for their primary duty, and you're NOT going to risk that kind of asset with expendable grunts. One of those twelve guys (or more) is going to be a mage, pure and simple, and if you don't have one on your side, you're geeked.

This is approaching the close of the 21^st century, and Napoleonic / Stallinistic approaches to warfare have past their time. Miniguns, drones, combat magic and modern air support make the concept of an inexperienced consript army worse than counterproductive. To survive against an opponent willing to go the high road of training and experience and the equipment those things allow you to take full advantage of, you MUST have those abilities yourself. Any portion of your army which can not, is a waste of resources you need SOMEPLACE else.


On this you're dead on the nuyen. I was originally complaining (whining?) about lazy Munchkins looking for an easy excuse for their martial munchkinism. And yes, the majority of people mustering out won't have been "Special Operations", but if you look at most modern Western militaries these days, nearly everybody has some kind of advanced secondary training (air assault, mountain warfare, arctic warfare, mechanized warfare - yes, that's a specialty: try getting out of the back of a Styker/Bradley and into a fighting stance to support the IFV). I am completely kosher with ANY ex-military character going Merc - it makes sense. I just want them to explain better what they're doing running the shadows next to my 3^rd generation 'runner who made her first kill (execution) at age 11 and watcher her 'runner parents die in a rocket borne assasination that almost killed her, and how they relate to that completely dissimilar world.

I'm not slamming at you, just trying to explain my own point of view and back those views up with examples and facts. Even the standing armies of the real world are having a hard time coming to grips with the full extent of the changes modern information technology and related spin-offs have had on the war-fighting environment, but it is plain that the era of the poorly trained rifleman is a thing of the past. (And before somebody -not talking about you here, Method- says "Marines are all dumb riflemen", check that entire line of thinking at the door and do a little research on just how intensely and broadly trained the Marine Rifleman is, compared to anybody else. The basic "rifleman" is about as trained as one of the special divisions in the US Army. If you think the training for amphibious assault is chickendrek, I recommend a little research on that subject, too.)

Your response shows genuine thought and sound logic, but it's a little too caught up (in the skillwires and knowsoft departments) with the Crunchy Bits^TM and loses sight of some genuine operational realities that make the general deployment questionable at best. That's why I wanted to take the time to address it fully instead of in a quick off-the-cuff manner. That's my opinion, at any rate.

Why, oh why, couldn't I have had THAT at my table?! It's EXACTLY the kind of background thought that make an ex-military character believable and pleasurable to have along for the 'run.

You know, Stahlseele, you're a lot deeper than you pretend, and it's really starting to show. I think I like it.

Karenshara: I am always impressed with your voluminous yet clearly thoughtful posts, but I just don't have time to reply to every point you've made, although I disagree on a number of them. I'll just say this: if its an issue at a table where you GM then you need decide how it works and go with it.

I would just caution you to remember that if corporations think it's cost effective to maintain highly-skilled, well-equipped experts and sophisticated drones for no other reason than to deter other corps, than every corporate warehouse and outhouse could (by the same logic) be guarded in similar fashion and your runners with no military experience are in for a world of hurt. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Two thoughts I have: Has anyone ever met a vietnam vet (other than a close friend) who admitted that he was a forklift operator in Da Nang? Or a 1st cav vet who admitted to actually being a supply clerk who never left An Khe?

Second: Most militaries suck. You don't necessarily see this on a day to day basis, or even when one sucky military fights another sucky military (Think Iran and Iraq). You see it when an average sucky military runs into a not so sucky military. The Israeli Defense Forces are not the best military in he world (though they are up there and punch above their weight) but they looked like the best military in the world when they fight Arab armies, which have pretty much been the example in the encyclopedia of "a military that sucks" for the last few centuries.

I see no reason why corporations, in which the "god of the bottom line" pretty much deified and worshiped, would pay out the kind of money to have have seriously effective military. It makes no money, it's a cost center. And a huge one. An obvious cost-cutting target for the executive on his way up to make the month, make the quarter, make the year. "What have you done for me, lately"?

So yeah, you might have lots of ex-military types guarding warehouses, but think a lot more like the the ex-sergeant from the illustrious army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo than a Delta operator.

My point exactly, but Karenshara sees things differently.

My ex-father in law was a Korean War veteran with 17 confirmed kills. I've personally seen him calmly walk out into the street wearing nothing but his jeans and a loaded .38 ready to shoot the guy who had been burglarising houses in the street and was seen peering in our backyard. He used to tell me "Fuck it, I've already killed 17 guys, what the fuck is one more? I'm 68 and I don't care if I go to jail."

He used to suffer from nightmares from time to time and occasionally talk in his sleep. He was also a reformed alcoholic.

I don't consider myself an expert on the military at all - just interested.

- J.

On the other hand, if would have to look at teh char of the corp, the azi's well they own a nation, they need a strong military, Knight well he has a militarized police force so there reason for being is well, law enforcment and combat, ofcourse a number of merc corps, now if you look at the AAA's well at least one is owned lock stock and barrel by a dragon, I'm fairly sure he has a desently trained military force, Becouse ya know there are times when revenge is sweet but Boots on the ground even when just on a training feild make a much better point,


But thats me, I feel you have to look at the corps them selfs, the personalitys and there forcus.

And ofcourse a number of Corp's feild desert war units soooo it might be a giant game but those guys are getting constant training,

shush! secret! *winks* ^^

Just remember that if you're setting the precedent that every member of a corp/national military is Johnny Badass who's a paragon of cold professionalism, steely nerves under fire, middling-to-high combat abilities, solid physical and mental stats (since they're all so bright and dedicated and well trained), that the corps are willing to load them up with reasonable cyber/bioware because, after all, they'll still cost less than a nuclear sub or a fighter jet...and on, and on, and on, and keep with the trend of making "realistic" Shadowrun militaries based on one's own experiences in the top-grade, professional, modern militaries of today...

...well, that's the bar you're setting in game, not just for your own high expectations of other people's PCs, but for every NPC soldier out there that the GM is throwing at you.

Which, depending on which fluff you like and which you're willing to casually disregard, flies in the face of the canon setting, where corps worship the bottom line, where corporate security (often compared to, and overlapping with, corporate military) is going to be to-bit schmucks that Shadowrunners eat for breakfast, where "half-trained guy with a gun" is established as the golden standard of generic NPC antagonist, etc, etc, etc.

If you want to insist that the militaries of the Sixth World are top-notch realistic forces full of professional, dedicated, intelligent, capable, cybered-up soldiers, that's fine. But how do you reconcile that with the rest of the game world, and how/why do all those guys suddenly turn craptastic when they get a new job somewhere -- even in the same corporation -- and run into a Shadowrunner?

Your average security guard/rent-a-cop won't. Their only job is to make it to the Panic Button^tm and have the FRT deal with the runners.

Now these FRT aren't top-notch either (and make good background material while we're at it). But chances are they are going to outgun and outnumber the runners and the spectrum of violence they operate in is somewhat on the high-end.

Kilko: I think you're missing his point. He's saying that under those conditions there would be no "average security guard/rent-a-cop". Or am I missing your point?

You're a corp. You worship the bottom line.

Why would you invest millions of nuyen into each and every soldier that comes your way, in order to test their aptitudes and weed out the bad ones, train them, equip them, cyber/bio them up, encourage them to be adaptable and think on their feet, give them top notch weapons and gear, and write all those expenses off as "Oh well, it's still less than a fighter jet," when these militaries are hardly ever used (outside the infotainment meat grinder of Desert Wars), and everyone admits that 90% of what these soldiers could do, drones could do just as well or better?

And then, after prioritizing for one branch (a stagnant branch, that never sees any action) of your company to get all that money and equipment in order to churn out independent, motivated, professional, soldiers...why would you then turn around and have "rent-a-cops" guarding the facilities that all of society knows are targets for Shadowrunners on a regular basis, where your multi-billion dollar prototypes and supergenius researchers and priceless company data is stored?

Do all the super-awesome killing machine uber-veterans magically revert to 2's for every stat when they retire from active duty and get a lateral transfer over to corporate security? Why does your corporation put such a priority on training multi-million-nuyen supersoldiers (that hardly ever see action), and so little priority on the guards that secure the facilities where your company makes that money?

Why isn't there the same level of dedication and commitment to brutal efficiency over on the corporate security branch? Why isn't every facility either guarded by these supersoldiers, or top-notch security drones? Why get these bottom of the barrel "rent a cop" types, for the actually important work?

By raising the bar for the sake of "realism" for one corner of the Shadowrun world, you need to re-asses that same level of "realism" everywhere, don't you?

I think you misunderstood me. I was going to bring up the point that not every ex-military type has to come from a national army there are various merc groups and paramilitary organizations. Hell, even some gangs are described as patamilitary, such as the Ancients.

What I was saying is it was my personal preference to have my ex-military types to be former mercanaries because I feel it is more believable. In my mind a merc is more likely to go to the shadows than an exarmy type as they are motivated by something other than national pride or they would join a national army.

In repect to the corporates bottom-line: risk management.

Its a highly popular topic within the banking industry nowadays...

Secondly in my SR world corporates don't use their cybered-up super soldiers unless they have to or for trademark operations. Otherwise, they'll resort to disposable/deniable assets (aka shadowrunners).

FRT's are mostly equipped with medium/heavy security armor incl helmets with some modifications, an FN-HAR's, 2 LMG's (1 per 4 man fireteam) and perhaps a grenadier. That in combination with limited tactics and brute violence should usually do the trick (and perhaps a security mage covering the astral).

Back on topic:
Conscript -> Enlisted/professional soldier -> Mercenary -> Shadows is definately the most logical carreer path. But each and every one of us should make their own judgement calls in relation to this topic.

So in your world (as in most of them), large organizations don't use a lot of cybered up, super-professional, well trained, fighting machines. I agree.

Why, then, would they enlist them, screen them, pay them, train them, equip them, and modify them in any number, the way one of today's professional, first-world, respectable, militaries would? If you don't use them for anything, why spend, spend, spend (in both time and money) to train them and indoctrinate them to the same standard as today's US military?

And, if you do spend all that time and money, why don't you use them (and why do you have a bunch of retards with nothing but a heavy pistol and a radio actually doing the terribly important work of guarding your terribly important facilities)?

That's my point. It doesn't make any sense for corps and nations to train every mook they hire to a top-notch level, and then not use them. So if you want to bump up the training and discipline and all that of your militaries to this "realistic" level (and demand acting a certain way from PCs), you then need to have the same level of discipline, training, and professionalism going on with corporate security.

Which is where it falls apart, because we know that's not the case (or most Shadowrun games would be an awful lot shorter).

They do use them, the highly trained, highly cybered individuals are the special forces, the red samurai, the tir ghosts, etc. The grunts might be the most visible, but the elite don't really want to be seen doing what they do.

When I went through basic training (for non combatants, though), there was a guy in my unit that was going through it for the second time.
He was pretty resigned, and ignored the staff as much as he could. He also could pick locks, which made him the coolest guy in our unit.

Right. So your average soldier doesn't get that level of training, indoctrination, and outfitting, because he hasn't shown the same level of ability and dedication, doesn't display the same mindset, or what-have-you. The ones that get the extras are the ones that deserve them -- not every mook off the street that enlists.

Not everyone in the military is a lifer, nor do they all act like lifers when they get out. That's certainly not the case today, and if anything it will be the case even moreso in the future. That's what I've been saying all along.

And if every mook off the street that enlists does get all that training, discipline, cyberware, bioware, etc (which some people seem to want), you then need to be prepared to alter your gameworld accordingly for the ripples that will cause.

I'm a big fan of K.I.S.S so I tend to break things down. People sometimes miss the point if you use to many words.

Only a couple of things to add.

First, military personnel vary widely on a person to person basis, so Infantry Guy 1 might fit that stereotype, but Infantry Guy 2 next to him lacks some self-discipline, drinks a lot, is substandard on the firing range, and will never be in a leadership capacity. Which one might end up in the shadows? Hard to say, but they both have "real life" skills outside of their military training that are probably more important, like creativity or critical thinking.

Second, RE: Special Forces. If they have Special Forces training, they are trained to act outside most of the "working against them" list above. Chain of command, orderly process, logisitical staff, clearly defined and separate responsibilities? One of the things that makes them special is that they train and act outside of those parameters. Look into the training for Delta Force, Intelligence Support Activity, Green Berets, or Navy SEALS, etc.

Now, if they want to fall back on a military backgroudn to explain how they got into the shadows... they had better come up with some special qualities or experiences for that character, it's not enough to say that "they were in the military, so they started working for the shadows."

Ah, now I see where we seem to be getting hung up!

I am talking about people claiming to be from first-line militaries. I like the one-liner about the Bannana Republic dergeant defending a warehouse, incidentally. *grin*

So somebody who claims to have been field promoted from First Sergeant to First Lieutenant for combat heroism in the CAS military and served five years in their Black Ops teams is what I had in mind, much more so than a gun-toting thug from a third-world street gang with pretentions of being a militia and aspirations of calling itself an army. Those people would probably be pretty at-home in the shadows on the streets or joining a gang where their pretentions might legitimately get them something.

The fact that every time they get statted UCAS soldiers are just slightly above security guards (but with rifles!) serves as the standard for me. I don't know about anyone else, but it seems like a fairly good starting point as they have stats that runners can start with. And IIRC the UCAS soldiers are still pretty high up there compared to most armies.


So like most PMC mercs IRL.


Except for the championships and specifically agreed-upon matches it's a less-lethal meatgrinder.

And then they still fuck up every national army's shit when they step up.


Wait. Explain that one to me. How is being a professional mercenary (employed by MET2000 for this purpose) a rung below a thief/criminal-for-hire?


You mean a wannabe liar PC?


Which ones? The guys in "Killer Elite" who are ex-SF/whatever badasses or the ones in other books and articles who were given shiny new gear they couldn't use, had no functional understanding of how to operate with the SF and intel teams they were assigned to, and who were basically has-been contractors who didn't know what the fuck was going on?

In a modern good army, infantry guy number 2 gets to find another line of work. Most all units would rather be short one guy than have a weak link that would kill them in combat.

Well shit. Players use the ex-SF guy as their background story because honestly, who wants to play a character who washed out of some two-bit 3rd world army? Everyone wants their character to be the best they can be. For combat characters, they typically want to be the biggest badass possible. I know it's cliche, and maybe overused, but the ex-SF operator archetype fits the bill. But so what, let the player have fun. It's not like it really hurts you anyways.