The rules of family in the shadows, Professionalism Options

[hyzmarca]

Shadowrunners are people and people have needs that must be met. Among these needs are companionship and the propagation on one's genes. Thus, many shadowrunners have families, or at least try. While quite a few choose to wait until "retirement" to start their families many in the shadows understand that "retirement" from the shadows is a mythological concept that was never actually real. These people, instead, use their downtime to cultivate familial relationships.

Because of the general importance of family as well as the general vulnerability of civilian family members, there is a set of unwritten rules that is generally adhered to by shadow professionals on all sides, government, freelance, corporate, and criminal alike. Because of the global multi-cultural nature of the shadow community, it is impossible to fully codify all of the subtle nuances that exist between the different subsets to shadow warriors but this document attempts to provide a set of general guidelines for shadow warriors with families and shadow warriors who must deal with the families of others.

Rule 1: The Golden Rule.
Never, ever, mess with a fellow shadow warrior's civilian family. It doesn't matter who you are or who you work for, this is the golden rule which must never be broken. It may be tempting to use kidnap an enemy's family members as leverage or hurt them to punish the enemy, but just don't do it. It is unprofessional.

Rule 2: The Rule of Equity.
If one shadow warrior injures a family member of another shadow warrior in any way, the aggrieved warrior and his allies have the obligation to inflict an equal injury upon a member of the perpetrator's family, parent for parent, sibling for sibling, spouse for spouse, child for child.

For example: John Doe Fed-Ex's the severed head of Brad Pitt's wife to him. Brad Pitt and his partner are now obliged to decapitate John Doe's wife and fed-ex her head to him.

Rule 3: The Substitution Rule.
Not every shadow warrior has every possibly family member. If the perpetrator lacks the appropriate familial relation for an equitable retaliation, then the aggrieved shadow warrior is obliged to retaliate against the family of one of his associates, with the closest associates being preferred. This rule exists to ensure that no one willingly works with a family-killer.

Example: John Doe doesn't have a wife, but his dry cleaner does. Because Jon Doe is a loner with no associates closer than his Dry Cleaner, the Dry cleaner receives his wife's severed head in a fed-ex box along with a note clearly stating that this decapitation was retaliated for John Doe's actions.

Rule 4: The Kidnapping Rule.
The kidnapping of a civilian family member is the single most dangerous situation for a shadow warrior. So long as the loved-one is held hostage, the shadow warrior can be forced to do anything. For this reason, the kidnapping of a family member fully nullifies rule 1 in relation to the kidnapper and all of his associates.

Example: Raver and Scorcher and rival Shadowrunners working for opposing interests after the same target. Raver, being both greedy and crazy, kidnap's Scorcher's girlfriend and promises to kill her if Scorcher doesn't give up the job.

Scorcher knows that Winston is Raver's fixer and that he'd know where Raver's safe-house is. Winston is a family man with a lovely wife and a three-month-old. Scorcher, being pissed off, scared, and in desperate need of information, breaks into Winston's home, rapes his wife in front of him, and cuts off the baby's toes with a pair of pruning sheers one-by-one while threatening to do far worse.
This is fully permissible and Winston does not have the professional right to retaliate though he might choose to do so, anyway, such an action would make him lose a great deal of face and give him a bad reputation even if it doesn't invite further retaliation.

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Section 2: Keeping your Civilian Family Safe

While the Golden Rule and associated Rules of Retaliation greatly reduce the prevalence of attacks on civilian family members, family remains a very tempting target for those who lack honor and professionalism. This section is intended to provide Shadow Warriors with tips for keeping their civilian family members safe.

What happens in the shadows should stay in the shadows.
Many people talk about their work days with their families. Shadow Warriors should never do this. The more information your family has the more tempting and vulnerable they are. Shadow Warriors deal with some very powerful and dangerous entities and a single misspoken word at school, the supermarket, or anywhere else could bring the full might of some very powerful and dangerous entities crashing down on their heads. Furthermore, if your family members have information then they become intelligence assets, subject to capture and torture by these entities. Sharing information with your civilian family members puts not only them at risk, but you as well.

Teach them to kill
The inability to defend themselves in battle is the greatest vulnerability faced by civilian family members. As a Shadow Warrior, your profession naturally attracts violence and death. There may be times when the most vulnerable members of your family must choose between killing or being killed. It is your responsibility to be sure that they are both willing and able to choose the former.
Make sure that your family members always carry firearms and know how to use them. Take them to shooting ranges and use VR simulations to drill them until they are skilled marksmen. Use realistic targets to desensitize them from killing. If possible, have them actually kill real living people to be sure that they can do so.Use simulated combat to teach them the importance of cover and live fire exercises to teach them to be cool under stress. Make sure that they know to always kill and always finish off a wounded assailant.

With children, start VR combat training immediately after birth and give them real firearms as soon as they are able to understand the concept of death and know which direction to point the gun. Make sure your children know to carry a gun everywhere and to kill anyone who tries to disarm them.


Use pass-phrases
Knowing how to kill is useless if your loved ones do not know when to kill. Teach your loved ones challenge phrases to issue and response phrases to expect back in the event that you must communicate with them through an agent. Make sure that they know that anyone who fails to give the correct response phrase should be killed without hesitation.

Maintain separate emergency escape plans and safehouses

Your civilian family members should always have escape plans and safehouses that are fully independent from your own. In the event that your emergency plans are compromised they remain safe and, in the event that their plans are compromised, you remain free to rescue them.