Story of Johny Mnemonic in SR, General advice needed Options

[Smirnov]

During the course of the game, our group has got their hands on some nasty bit of paydata (don't ask how, that's some one in a million chance), which costs a 'bit' more than our collective lives. So right now I'm felling myself as probably Johny Mnemonic felt - I have some data which will most certainly kill me, but it's worth a shitload of money. Or probably even f@ckton, even measured by urnbandict standards.
The only question is - what do we do now?

To give some detailes, we got our hands on a novel and quite secret research done by one megacorporation, which would interest at least two (or maybe three) other megacorporations, and as soon as the first mega know that we know what they know, they'll want us killed, then resurrected, then killed again. Then made cyberzombies as a grim reminder to anyone who would be stupid enough to try and repeat our feat.

The safest way would be probably dump the data and pretend it never happened. But the damage is already done (the data _is_ stolen, and corpsec would hardly accept 'we read the data and got os scared that erased it' as a valid defence), so we should probably try to benifit from it at least somehow, at least in a way to ensure our survival.
That's where I'm stuck. I can imagine what happens when the mega knows about the theft (and I'm pretty sure it 'when', not 'if'), but still would appreciate some gruesome details (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) So we have to act quick. But I don't think we can just know on the door of some mega and say 'hi, I'm Joe Nobody, I have some data you would kill for, so, um, if you give me a couple of millions and corp citizenship, it's all yours'. So, again, what can we do and what we probably should do in a situation like this?

[Fatum]

Switch to backup SINs and safehouse. Make sure you buy food and entertainment on discarded SINs for some time. Lay low, the lowest you can.
Preferably, change country discretely, go to somewhere the mega you've wronged has less influence.
Rent an anonymized mailbox, it's cheap. See if you have any kind of contacts in the megas that might be interested, if not, ping your fixer or/and other contacts for those.
Send them a teaser from the anonymized mailbox (only connect to it through proverbial seven proxies). If the info is that hot, they will contact you. Send them portions of the file, making sure they pay for each as agreed.
Run up the well, or down under the ocean, or wherever. Do a plastic surgery, change SINs.
Still die to an assassin.
:3

[Critias]

Right now, the bastards are looking for a team that matches the description of whatever was left on their security footage, so your best bet is to kill all your teammates before lying low. Also, that way the eventual murder by kill-team will go quicker, since they'll only have one target and you won't have to worry about a slow, lingering, death.

...err, all depending on how harsh your GM is, of course. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Xahn Borealis]

This is why I love Shadowrun. A successful mission, got the treasure.... Now make new characters (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[Xahn Borealis]

This is why I love Shadowrun. A successful mission, got the treasure.... Now make new characters (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

EDIT: And this is why I love dumpshock. Double post, in case you didn't get it the first time.

This post has been edited by Xahn Borealis: Jul 22 2011, 11:18 AM

[suoq]

The hard part for me is that this is where contacts come into play, or failing that, character backstory that you can turn into contacts with your GM.

You've mentioned none of them and when you talk about knocking on the door of some mega, I'm not sure you have any contacts in either corporations or (as an example) and organization like the Mafia. I don't know how connected your fixers are. If, like Johnny Mnemonic, you simply don't have any contacts, then I believe your next goal is to try to find some.

[Makki]

you better invested these 3 BP at chargen, to have a loyalty 4 not 1 contact (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[nezumi]

Critias is definitely right.

Also, take advantage of dead man's switches. If you don't report in at a particular time with your password, or at a later time in person, sprites release the data to the news networks and the megacorp can pick up the pieces.

[LurkerOutThere]

There are organizations in the sixth world that specialize in things like this. For example their is a geosynch satelite that this is pretty much their stock in trade. Now getting in touch with them to fence said data might be an adventure in itself and your responsible for keeping yourself alive in the meantime, but it's likely your best bet for making money off the data while not making yourself a target to any additional parties.

[KarmaInferno]

Do they know YOU took it, or do they know SOMEONE took it?

Cos pinning the blame on someone else is always useful.





-k

[squee_nabob]

Your life is more important that the payout. Go to ground, as far away as you can. Time to take a vacation to the Outback. Your fixer can fence it for you (you trust him with your life every time you run).

[HunterHerne]

Your life is more important that the payout. Go to ground, as far away as you can. Time to take a vacation to the Outback. Your fixer can fence it for you (you trust him with your life every time you run).

Just remember that if you go to the outback, stay away from Sydney. Too many mana storms for my liking (the way I've heard, it's a rating 4 background count that produces spell effects at the best of times)

[Rubic]

Just remember that if you go to the outback, stay away from Sydney. Too many mana storms for my liking (the way I've heard, it's a rating 4 background count that produces spell effects at the best of times)

At least with the mana storms it's not personal. You'll always have the same relative chance of buying the farm regardless, and it might be better than what the corp would give you, while making it not as worth the corp's resources.

[HunterHerne]

At least with the mana storms it's not personal. You'll always have the same relative chance of buying the farm regardless, and it might be better than what the corp would give you, while making it not as worth the corp's resources.

Good point. But, the Mana Storms surround the city. Within, the corps have just as much power as outside. So, unless you are planning to hide in a hole in the ground, it's stil not much help.

[Xahn Borealis]

There are organizations in the sixth world that specialize in things like this. For example their is a geosynch satelite that this is pretty much their stock in trade. Now getting in touch with them to fence said data might be an adventure in itself and your responsible for keeping yourself alive in the meantime, but it's likely your best bet for making money off the data while not making yourself a target to any additional parties.

It that the Asgard Data Haven?

[Neurosis]

Switch to backup SINs and safehouse. Make sure you buy food and entertainment on discarded SINs for some time. Lay low, the lowest you can.
Preferably, change country discretely, go to somewhere the mega you've wronged has less influence.
Rent an anonymized mailbox, it's cheap. See if you have any kind of contacts in the megas that might be interested, if not, ping your fixer or/and other contacts for those.
Send them a teaser from the anonymized mailbox (only connect to it through proverbial seven proxies). If the info is that hot, they will contact you. Send them portions of the file, making sure they pay for each as agreed.
Run up the well, or down under the ocean, or wherever. Do a plastic surgery, change SINs.
Still die to an assassin.
:3

This man speaks truth. Especially the part I've bolded.

[KarmaInferno]

Alternate plan: Go get a meth-addicted dolphin to hack your brains.

No, I have no idea how that could help. It just needed to be said.




-k

[Critias]

Honestly, the right answer really comes down to just how paranoid/realistic/difficult a campaign your GM envisions. I've seen games where the proper response is to set up a Matrix auction for the goods and get rich, while just accepting that you'll then have to lay low for a bit (and go have adventures elsewhere). I've seen games where you'll mercilessly be hunted down and killed if you make a single slip-up while handling this sensitive data. I've seen games where the secret information turns out to be something beneficial to metahumanity, and the GM wants you to turn neo-A and just let FastJack or someone spread it all over the interwebs because information wants to be free. I've seen games where the GM wants to use the pressure of impending corporate retaliation to get you to latch onto another corp for protection (in exchange for the information), turning into company men in the process. And I think we've all seen games where, almost no matter what you do, the eventual response is gonna be an epic firefight that the PCs have a reasonable chance of winning, because action is fun.

*shrugs* Honestly your best bet might just be to talk to your GM, or at least to talk to your fellow players and make a guess where your story might be going based upon previous experiences. Any advice we give you might be counterproductive, and just have you acting like paranoid superspies in an action game, or action movie superjocks in a paranoid spy game, otherwise.

[Neurosis]

I don't honestly think UPLOAD IT TO EVERYONE is a bad solution, by the way.

If EVERYONE has it than no one has reason to come kill you because

A) You sold it to their competitors and
B) More importantly, they can't be sure you don't have a copy unless they search deep, deep inside your ruptured torso.

It worked for Sly and Falcon in Shadowplay, one of my favorite SR novels, to say nothing of Jonny Mnemonic.

I'd have it sent simultaneously to every interested mega. That way, all of them have a reason to owe you a favor (until they realize you haven't really helped any of them) and none of them have reason to believe you helped their competitors.

Of course, doing this safely and anonymously...is probably going to be a heck of a Shadowrun. I hope you have a good hacker. : )

[CanadianWolverin...]

So...

This was found on another run for a Mr. J, it was a specific target in a Mr. J's contract, or this was a in-house job aka initiated by a PC(s) on the team?

That has some impact on what steps you take next to profit enough to survive a bit longer in the shadows.

[Smirnov]

Wow, that's some feedback, and I was away for some busy weekend! And thanks to whoever fixed the topic - I noticed the typo too late to correct it.

To answer some questions and to give a bit of background, the whole mess was PC-created, specifically by my insatiable power-hunger. We were solving a nasty set-up which could possibly get us jailed for murder we were paid to do, but did not commit (yeah, I know how it sounds (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ), and I decided that while we're deep in shit and corporate files, we can just as well take some data with us. It just happened to be big, real big.

For the moment, nobody knows that something was stolen. But I guess in time they will know that someone stole their precious. And then they'll start looking. Luckily, they don't know where to look or whom to look for - we got rid of the subsidiary corp, which was actively looking for us, and it will take some time before the big brother gets back on our track.

We have a bit of corp background, even some Tir background, but I'm not sure if it will be enough and won't prompt the usual action: 'get the data - pay in bullets'.

And I still think that dumping or just freeing the data would be a bad idea. As I said, I'm pretty sure that the corp will know they were robbed. It's a question of when, not if. And right now we have no way to protect ourselves from them. If they will want to kill us, we're dead. That's how it works in my understanding. So selling (or giving away) the info is not only the chance to profit from it, but it's also a way to get some kind of protection. The big corp will want to get revenge even if we just free the information - doing otherwise is bad for business and reputation. 'You can steal from usm but you can't get away with it".
Uploading the data to the Shadows may be a good idea by the way. As I understand, Denver Nexus shelters quite a number of high profile runners. Also there are quite resorceful runners like Kane, who can offer a tad of protection.

It worked for Sly and Falcon in Shadowplay, one of my favorite SR novels, to say nothing of Jonny Mnemonic.

You do remember, than Mnemonic was killed in the end? And not just that, he was killed offscreen, in one paragraph of Mary Sue-girl memories. I don't want that fate! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

*shrugs* Honestly your best bet might just be to talk to your GM, or at least to talk to your fellow players and make a guess where your story might be going based upon previous experiences. Any advice we give you might be counterproductive, and just have you acting like paranoid superspies in an action game, or action movie superjocks in a paranoid spy game, otherwise.

GM reads the thread (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
And also I'm a bit (well, not a bit, to be honest) responsible for the situation, so I think it would be right if I help work out a solution. And besides I'm just curious what the chances are.
After all, SR isn't a typical cyberpunk, I'm not sure if it's a cyberpunk at all. Take for example shadow community - would it be possible in 'hard' CP for competing parties to sit and chat and trade info and contacts? Shadowrunners would be each others gravest enemies.


And back to the selling topic.
Let's asume that selling the data is the only way possible. We have a customer, who would love to have the data.
We have(will) changed our SINs, wiped all the loose ends we can get to, changed our havens and so on. We are as anonymous as we can possibly get and as far from offended party as possible.
What should we do to get our money and not get killed doing it? I know it's pretty much depends on the situation, but what would general precautions be? Relying only on blank mailboxes and clean accounts doesn't seem riht to me. It would be too easy to track us down, and unfortunately we don't have a wiz hacker with us.

Btw, going to Asgard is a great idea. Why haven't I thought of it myself?

Still die to an assassin.
:3

D'oh! %)



Editing: typos and some style.

[Mardrax]

And I still think that dumping or just freeing the data would be a bad idea. As I said, I'm pretty sure that the corp will know they were robbed. It's a question of when, not if. And right now we have no way to protect ourselves from them. If they will want to kill us, we're dead. That's how it works in my understanding. So selling (or giving away) the info is not only the chance to profit from it, but it's also a way to get some kind of protection. The big corp will want to get revenge even if we just free the information - doing otherwise is bad for business and reputation. 'You can steal from usm but you can't get away with it".

Corps shouldn't care too much about you once the data is out in the open. In fact, they shouldn't care too much about you, period.
Killing you won't help their bottom line one bit. In fact, it'll just hurt it.

Keep sitting on that data though, and killing you is worth as much as keeping the data secret is.

[Smirnov]

You think revenge is out of the question? Never thought about it that way. And there's always setting an example to all that may think to follow suit.
How is it going to hurt corp to kill offenders? We publish the data, then we are found dead/missing in various parts of the country. Whats the damage to them?

[suoq]

We have(will) changed our SINs, wiped all the loose ends we can get to, changed our havens and so on. We are as anonymous as we can possibly get and as far from offended party as possible.

I consider it appropriate, depending on what actually happened , to make "Wanted/Records on file" notes about the characters, especially if the members of the team tends to be static.

From a game perspective:
Getting away with it ends tension.
Outright killing the team ends tension. Besides, your brain and it's contents are worth more than your lives. What did you steal, how much do you know about it, who did you sell it to? etc. You and your ware's memory storage have value.
Causing the team to spend much of it's profits protecting itself is delicious.
Corporations who buy secrets from you are NOT loyal to you.

[Smirnov]

Yeah, unfortunately it's not 'coded harddrive in the pocket', we already know the information, so we are still valid targets even if we profit from the data.

Causing the team to spend much of it's profits protecting itself is delicious.

I think that's the catch. You can make bajillion of money from the deal, but most of it will be spent to protect yourself from retribution.
Still, what are these expenses? I don't really like the idea of, say, hiring a security corp to save our hides, as it kills a lot of fun. And there's also 'you can't trust the corp' motion.