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> Questions about Lone Star & security in general
PeanutGallery
post May 9 2006, 05:17 AM
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Prologue - When I was looking up what a security rating AA entails, I came across a sentence that sorta threw me for a loop. If memory serves... I think it's in the New Seattle sourcebook. It basically said that a AA rating zones are areas where the clients(?) could not afford the cost of AAA service.

Huh? Clients can't afford AAA service? So who's paying for the service?, I thought to myself.

Question one: That pretty much sums it up. Who is actually paying for Lone Star service? The cities (e.g., Seattle proper, Everett, Bellevue,...), the residents and local businesses, or some combination of the two?

Question two: Regardless of who pays for the service... Is the service limited to Lone Star CPOs perfoming police duties or do they also provide Lone Star USOs as "in-house" security for buildings that require it?

e.g., You have a mall located inside a rating AA security zone, right? If the property owner wanted to have mall security, would they have to contract to a seperate security co., or would Lone Star USOs be included in the price?

USO = Unarmed Security Officer
CPO = Certified Protection Officer

Edit - The reason for the question is because I'm planning a run where the target is in a multi-tenant office building. The high-rise building is in a AA zone, and I'm wondering if they'll find Lone Star USOs or Security Company X USOs. Now maybe I'm over thinking the statement I read and it might not even matter one way or the other, but I just need to know. For my own sanity I need to know...

In my head
VOICE #1: I'ma little bit crazy
VOICE #9: I'ma little bit rock'n roll
VOICE #3: I'ma little bit paranoid & schitzo
VOICE #1: With a little bit of Motown in my soul

This post has been edited by PeanutGallery: May 9 2006, 05:39 AM
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SL James
post May 9 2006, 07:23 AM
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Ugh. God, I hate that book and brainless tautological statements like that.

The Metroplex pays for Lone Star (and I imagine the districts and individual municipalities also pay more, which is why Bellevue is safe, and the Puyallup Barrens aren't). In the Lone Star book, they are also described as providing, in addition to law enforcement services, corporate security services where they can be hired by corps for supplemental in-house security like any other security corp (e.g., Knight Errant).

There are also a ton of other private security firms, which are also mentioned in the back of that book, who further supplement security through individual contracts (referring to above where a neighborhood can pay for extra LS security, or hire some KE guys, or where someone hires KE or Hard Corps for their own home only).

Unarmed LS cops... Aren't likely. Everyone in the corp (everyone) has to be proficient in firearms, and the question isn't one of armed vs. unarmed response security - it's whether they can use lethal force or not (this is all touched on in the very old, but often times useful Neo-Anarchists Guide to Real Life) under less than last-ditch circumstances.

Of course, once you're on extraterritorial property, all that becomes contingent on the corp or country they're in.
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PeanutGallery
post May 9 2006, 08:00 AM
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The different security rating within one Municipality would be the equivalent of say, the east and west side of a town. Between the ghetto/barrio and a middle class suburb. It all makes sense now!

And the voices in my head have stopped... for now. Dum Dum Dum!!!

That one statement really threw me for a loop. I was thinking to myself, "Why would the city pay less for this part of, say Bellevue, and more for that part of Bellevue?" That's when Voice #10 says, "Well maybe it's the businesses that pay for the service. So if they don't make much money in an area they can't afford the better protection."

Anyways... closure at last.
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Chance359
post May 9 2006, 11:32 AM
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What if the city pays for general protection through out its limits. Each seperate district has the option to pay more and inturn recieve additional protection.
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nezumi
post May 9 2006, 02:07 PM
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Keep in mind also, the city makes money for taxpayers and officially provides services for taxpayers. So the city will intentionally craft the contract so they protect the most sources of revenue (tax payers and businesses) for the least cost to the city. That means better protection downtown where land values are high and the residents pay a lot more in taxes, rather than say Bellevue where the city doesn't make quite so much money and there are fewer people to protect. Since almost nobody with a SIN would voluntarily live in Redmond (or at least wouldn't register himself as living there), there are no taxpayers there, and very few registered businesses, therefore there's no reason to pay for security coverage.

The city's contract likely covers protection for all public buildings (libraries, gov't buildings and the like). It won't cover a mall unless the mall is owned by the city. However, unless the mall has extraterritoriality, the Star can still arrest people they happen to find there. The mall will have to make its own deal with a security company (Lone Star still being a likely candidate) for constant in-house security.
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SL James
post May 9 2006, 02:56 PM
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But Downtown also has a higher propensity to be full of property tax "holes" where extraterritorial corps are located. In that case, it's not about the tax generated (because it's probably less than elsewhere and approaching negative net tax revenue) but to simply maintain the perception of safety to companies which can and will move if their suc... customers and shee... employees don't feel safe.
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Daddy's Litt...
post May 9 2006, 04:15 PM
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I think it is where the police can go quickly. I guess like they have more stations in AAA that AA so they can respond faster in AAA because they are closer to the scene or have more patrols.
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ShadowDragon8685
post May 9 2006, 04:28 PM
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Megacorps have to be paying the city something. Otherwise the city would tell them to sod off, pack their asses with (rock) salt and piss up a rope when they came up with the following brilliant scheme:

"How about we pay you a nice chunk for this plot of land in the middle of your lovely downtown bisuness center? What do we plan to do with it? Well, we're going to start by staking our extraterritory signs all over it, stop paying taxes on the bisuness and work we do there, we're going to construct an enormous city-within-a-city that rises an obscene distance into the sky, and make ourselves filth rich off your taxpayer's Nuyen while we laugh at you for being unable to do what you want to do - that is, making ourselves filthy rich."


Would you give them the land to make an archology? I'd give them the (wrong) time of day and tell them to sod off.
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stevebugge
post May 9 2006, 04:29 PM
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QUOTE (SL James)
But Downtown also has a higher propensity to be full of property tax "holes" where extraterritorial corps are located. In that case, it's not about the tax generated (because it's probably less than elsewhere and approaching negative net tax revenue) but to simply maintain the perception of safety to companies which can and will move if their suc... customers and shee... employees don't feel safe.

Just because the Corps are extraterritorial doesn't mean that they don't have to contribute something to the City Coffers. Sure they wouldn't be under the laws of the city but they may still have to make some sort of payment though the arrangement would be more like a treaty where thay pay the city for access to the public utilities, the power grid, roads etc around their extraterritorial property. Of course the Megacorp has the ability to play cities off each other for better deals, but it's doubtful that they ever get off completely free.
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SL James
post May 9 2006, 07:45 PM
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QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685)
Megacorps have to be paying the city something. Otherwise the city would tell them to sod off, pack their asses with (rock) salt and piss up a rope when they came up with the following brilliant scheme:

As opposed to all of those RL corps who move into a city after being promised enough tax breaks that they effectively pay no or negative taxes for 10-20 years, and just when it gets time for them to actually contribute to the government, pack up for some other sucker city that offered them more incentives in the hope of economic development that will never come.

Nah, that would never happen in SR.
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Kanada Ten
post May 9 2006, 08:51 PM
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Most of the revenue comes from employees who live outside megacorp property and tourism from megacorp employees who don't. Then you have construction businesses and local subcontractors of all types.

I agree that the megacorps never directly have to pay to the city. However, you know Lone Star is offering discounts for services in areas they already patrol - and companies that have a percentage of off campus employees will pay a little extra to secure those workers (whether to Lone Star or private, the increased security rating could be an effect of both).
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last_of_the_grea...
post May 10 2006, 02:36 AM
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Here's a thought.

The city probably pays for the whole kit and kaboodle...AVERAGED. Perhaps averaged at A, then Lone Star probably crunches some numbers and comes up with "We will give AAA security here but Z security there." They can lower the risk of injury to their officers, have reward posts, lower their insurance rates and generally get more money for less work while the city shrugs and goes, "okay, sounds good to us."
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Voran
post May 10 2006, 07:55 AM
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The UCAS city streets of the Seattle sprawl are more of less covered by the Lonestar contract. I'd say anything not extraterritorial in that area is within LS jurisdiction unless contracted out to another agency, KE, for example. Whether or not LS actually participates is another question. High profile places with taxpayers, sure, sinless stuff no way :)

I'd say organized crime as well as megacorps can also influence LS response in a given zone. Depending on the arrangement (OC or megas paying LS via bribes to actual frontline reponders or dispatchers,etc) , response can be faster or slower. If a zone is paying for KE support, LS might be even slower about repsonding to crimes taht spill over into the UCAS streets, sorta a not so subtle "See, that's what you get when you contract with KE".
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