Security Guards.... just a job or a Profession? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[toturi]

Since you are using RL examples, then perhaps allow me to use some myself. Mr Bin Laden is the mastermind of 9/11, he has shown no qualms to use any means to cause massive casualties. Yet even there is no room for negotiation with him, the war on terror is still (surprise!) conventional.

Governments have given in to terrorist demands before (despite the spin they put on it), what makes you think they won't do so again?

[frostPDP]

Well, as good as your point is there are a few things we need to remember about the current conflict.

1: Bin Laden, despite what you might think, has minimal striking power. He's certainly below the nuclear level, or else there would have either been a bomb found or they would have seen an atomic explosion in a city for the first time since Nagasaki.

2: The U.S. Government, despite what so many love to say, doesn't really care what Al-Queda does. If they did, we wouldn't be allied with nations that are likely to be hiding him - Pakistan, Uzbekistan (which I can't spell), Saudi Arabia and Sudan, to name a few. Its no big deal, yanno?

3: The U.S., despite many of its transgressions (Abu Gharib, sending our P.O.W.'s to aforementioned Uzbekistan to be tortured because we won't do it ourselves, Guantanamo Bay...Again I can't spell, I need to start re-learning spelling words A LA 2nd grade... And such joys of our past such as the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII), is not going to use atomic weaponry in an area where it could possibly lead to heavy civilian casualties.

4: We have no idea where the man is. Unless he's in the white house, in which case Bin Laden isn't gonna be killed until the U.S. Government decides to. In which case Bush needs to go to the pokey for treason, yada yada insert conspiracy theorist mouth-flapping here.

5: IF we did know where he was, we would still be in the force-escalation paradigm, and we aren't up to atomic weaponry yet. The reason why tactical nukes would be employed is because, if I recall correctly (if not, it would never be necessary), the Arc is hardened against such weaponry. I recall reading somewhere that it can even take a tactical nuke's impact.

6: You're absolutely right - The proverbial "Megacorp-defeating runner team" would have to be much more of a threat than Bin Laden to attract that A-Bomb attention. That means, as I said, defeating other threats directly and indirectly. If these runners took down the entire 8th Air Force and the good 'ol Big Red 1, or comparable military units in 2060, then you have to either let them go (losing a war = bad for PR. Losing against six terrorists = political suicide) or upstage.

7: Let's face it, the cyberpunkish world of SR is a little less, umm....Attached than our own. The UCAS is a little more ruthless in its dealings. I don't have precice reports on what tactical nukes today and in 2060 are capable of, but if a group of terrorists are somehow roxoring your land armies and intercepting your cruise missiles from the Pullayap Barrens, near Glow City, I would consider that a little less dangerous to "civilian collateral damage" than a bomb going off in Downtown Seattle.

8: One last note, if the imaginary runner team made an alliance with Deus, a completely impossible theory, and said AI launched an invasion from the Arc, you can damn well bet Seattle will be a ghost town. At least, the area surrounding the Arc will be, which is all that will (hopefully) be effected.

So yeah, you have a point that we haven't gone nuclear, but lets keep in mind that it was in NATO's playbook (probably still is) that if the Warsaw Pact and its Red Army decided to move westward, we'd just fire nukes at them. I'm pretty sure its standing US policy that if a Bio/Chem/Nuke is used against us or our allies, we retaliate in tune with atomic (and probably biological and chemical, because we have our stockpiles of those things too. And provide them to others, according to rumor) strikes.

[Edit-Jutsu for #9!] Before someone points out, with my comparison to Cermak, that it was Ares which detonated the nuke, likely without US support - I suspect that if a runner team is throwing the equivalent of Insect Spirit armies at a megacorp's ultra-elite strike teams, they'll consider tactical nukes as well. Especially if our hypothetical Deus-TeamX alliance is threatening a rampage of all of the Western Hemisphere, something out of Terminator.

But yeah, that's a lot to read. And its 5:05 and I'm an insomniac, so don't mind my foolery :) Its all in good fun! :shades: - Lets hope that works.

[hermit]

[toturi]

[hermit]

[Earthwalker]

Getting back to the original post.
I was partly responsible for trying to demonstrate the fact that security guards are in fact human and killing them is much the same as killing joe bloggs on the street.

Of course I am reminded of the scene in Reservoir dogs. A conversation on the lines of...

"You killed anyone ?"
"Yeah 3 cops."
"No real people ?"
"No".

Sorry for the mangling of the scene but people hopefully get what I mean.

I am sure there is a stage for shadowrunners where theres three levels of people. Shadowrunners, real people and then security forces.

You try not to kill other runners, or real people but the security forces become fair game.

The reason I played with the aspect of security guards as real people was to try to change how people thought. After all alot of my players see themselves as good guys, but then kill teenagers that try to break into there house. I aren't too worried as how you see yourself and how you are are different things. After all its the shades of grey in the game that make it fun.

So I would say it all depends on the runners and the guards as to how they feel about them.

[toturi]

[hermit]

[toturi]

The original question was how many contacts can a Face have if he really wants? But I'll oblige you. By the standard rules, create a normal Face (if that is what you want) and start making contacts. With sufficient, karma and time, you can have as many contact as you want and care to maintain, which any normal Face would do. Never said you had to start with them. Simple, duh.

The 20 mil :nuyen: you put into the killborg translates into the karma and training you put into your stealth guy. And let me tell you it is far simpler to get money than to get karma and time.

No, those cells operate independently and are funded minimally from the top. That is what makes them so difficult to hunt down. Tracing the money trail is useless if each cell funds itself. And if each cell funds itself, then for all intents and purposes, they are an independent entity(which sometimes leads to cross purposes within the "larger" organisation). The only thing in common is that they take political or religious (ideological) direction from a common source. The franchising of terror is creating terrorist organisations not much larger than a single cell. That way, there is little risk of infiltration, little risk of intelligence leak, and once the deed is done, there is no one to arrest! The terrorist organisations in SR are based on conventional terrorist organisations. Well and good, but nowadays RL terror groups look more like runner teams.

Back on topic, a runner team with a rep for violence, can, by the book, intimidate individuals and if the individual in question is the boss, why can't the runner team cow the company or corp? There is no real way a beginning runner team can cow a corp, unless the company is very small. But that certain critical mass is reached, why not? Did you think Mr Bin Laden just woke up one day and decided to terrorise the western world as as char-gen NPC?

[Penta]

[Kagetenshi]

[Sheffield]

First off, I think it's a ridiculous starting point to say that "Security guards have a dangerous job and are aware of the risks and therefore it is morally acceptable to kill them if they refuse to immediately capitulate and hand over the master keys." If this is the mindset you assign a character and the way you choose to play them, fine, but this reasoning just doesn't hold up. It's basically saying that the high-risk employee should have known better than to have had a family or to expect anything other than death at the hands of a runner. Your character causes the risk and then claims that the guard should have anticipated that risk, as though there were no agency behind it. I can see this as a justification a character might use after a shootout, but to present it as a RL moral case is ridiculous. Even taking the runner's role in a guard's death out of the equation, it's like saying that other high-risk workers (firefighters, crab fishermen) are less valuable as people than desk jockeys and that their families should expect their deaths and accept them as matter of course.

This is not to say chars ought to pack gel rounds or ought to bring a stun glove to a gun fight. Just that players shouldn't be let off the hook so easily after a Heat-style bloodbath. Heat is a great example of the repercussions of a single killing. The whole plot of that movie spirals out of the fact that Waingro got trigger-happy and shot the first guard. Players should be free to use lethal force, but neither they nor the media and law enforcement of 2060-whatever year you play, should just write off the dead guard as something less than a dead person.

Second, this idea of runner violence "cowing" corps is also ridiculous. If runners are this powerful, it undermines the challenge of the game because it means the runners outclass their opposition. It makes every run a cakewalk and smacks of overpowered twinkery. Moreover, in order to have a reputation, you've got to be known and recognized. As far as I'm concerned, the failure of the latter achievements outweigh the success of the former. If you're known and recognized, you're a failure as a runner. In fact, I think they give 6 points for that flaw. On the other hand, if you're causing enough single-handed mayhem that all security guards in Seattle are terrified of an unknown "Security Guard Killer," you aren't going to remain unknown for long.

[Kagetenshi]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[Sheffield]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

It does nothing to ensure loyalty to the corp if the corp announces on corp trid every night that they are unable to keep the rabble off their property and that personnel are getting killed on a daily basis (or every time it happens, anyway) because the corp couldn't protect them.

[hyzmarca]

[Sheffield]

Now we're conflating law enforcement personnel with soldiers?

Guards are fundamentally employees, not a standing army. They, like the majority of SR Seattle, happen to work for the corps. It takes a pretty twisted worldview to make that mean marked for, and deserving no expectation, but death.

[scoundrel]

How many people have actually played characters who would drop Joe Guard and not Jimmy Wageslave if both of them presented a threat?

I can honestly say that I haven't.

[Kagetenshi]

[Sheffield]

I frequently play characters that would drop neither (at least permanently).

I guess what I'm saying is that making the argument that guards have it coming and should present neither moral nor legal worries for a runner simplifies the game to the level of Grand Theft Auto, where the bodies vanish after a few moments and the stars vanish without lasting effect. But the strength of a game like this is that it allows for greater degrees of complexity and varied consequences.

The "guards have it coming" line justifies every player character being a hardened sociopath and irons out a lot of interesting plot and character wrinkles.

[scoundrel]

[Sheffield]

[Kagetenshi]

I think it's a perfectly sensible moral stance. That doesn't mean that all of my characters will agree.

~J

[Lantzer]