[X] My Assistant

[Edward]

Removal of all corporate rights. An invitation for other corporations to steal from and destroy the offending corporations threw whatever means they find desirable.

Bear in mind that there are very few offenses that result in an omega order and all of them make the other corporations angry. It isn’t pure profit, it is also revenge and discouragement of other potential offenders

It still may not be logical but it since when have people been logical, and OOG it is fun

Corporate war is when the corps ignore the corporate court and all go at each other.

“People don't avoid invading Saeder-Krupp territory because the Corporate Court will send the boys around. They avoid it because Saeder-Krupp will defend itself”

if an omega order was issued against SK then all the megacorps would attack SK at the same time. Even SK dose not have the might to defend itself against that, less counter attack.

Normally when a member of the corporate community dose something bad the court will issue a punishment order. One or more relatively uninvolved corps will be given permission to do a fixed nuyen value of damage to the offender. This usually involves blasting in and stealing research data, there is no rule against accepting a bribe equal to the value of damage required.

An omega order could only result from the most unacceptable of crimes, such as breaching the concords, suspected core wars activity or deliberately inciting corporate war. Every mega corporation is required to do whatever damage they can to the target. The intent is that they will be destroyed. Not crippled, not made to mend there ways. The only purpose they will serve is as an object lesson to others that would defy the powers of the corporate court in such a flagrant manner.



As an aside if you can get Corporate Shadowfiles do so. The rules are out of date and half the mega corps have changed but it is still one of the best books printed, it shows how the corps think and do buisnus. And is an amusing read.

Edward

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Grinder]

You need a GD to fight a GD - and there are some (plent according to DotSW) of which some would gladly help against Lofwyr. :D

[knasser]

[ornot]

That I can definately agree with Knasser! :notworthy:

[Brahm]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[hyzmarca]

Omega Orders aren't about profit, they're about making a point. Lets look at this from am microeconomic POV instead of macroeconomic.

Lets say I'm a small time drug dealer. Jimmy the Tuna rips me off. So, I kill Jimmy the Tuna. I kill his wife. I kill his parents. I kill his children and his pets. I kill is brother, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles. I kill his friends. I kill his college roommate who he hasn't seen in 20 years. I short, I wipe him off the face of the Earth.

Is there any direct profit in this for me? No. Dead men can't pay. However, everyone who thinks about ripping me off in the future will have to look back at Jimmy the Tuna and wonder if the risk is worth the reward. I expect that most would decide that it is not. The amount of money I save by not being ripped off in the future far outweighs the amount spent on this little crusade.

The principal is the same with the Omega Order. It is issued for infractions that are bad for everyone's business.

[knasser]

[hyzmarca]

But even if you do seize all of the assets you still have to kill all of the target corporation's executives in a spectaculary brutal and public manner. If the exectuvies can get away with their lives then other exectives might get uppity.
In Shadowrun, corporate exectuives are almost universally crazy. They put their lives on the line on a regular basis and they amass a great deal of power doing so. The only real deterance to these kinds of people is a guarenteed brutal and inescapable death.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I'm pretty sure that Saeder-Krupp keeps the majority of it's finances in Nuyen. Corp scrip is only issued internally, so corp employees can shop convienantly at corp shops, and only corp shops.


And remember, what happens when you corner a desperate animal? It fights back. What happens when said desperate animal consists of a dragon who is arguably the top dog amongst Greater Dragons (Ghostwalker might be more powerful, he might not, but Lofwyr can call in fire support in the form of Thor Shots if he and Ghostie mixed it up,) incredibly powerful military units, and orbital weapons?


That's right. You have yet another military force erupting from Germany in a dog-eat-dog fight for death or glory. If you call an Omega on Saeder-Krupp, you'd better be prepared for another World War. Because, while it is true that SK's enclaves may not be able to produce their own food, they have plenty of bullets. And as the old saw goes, when you have bullets, you can always get beans.


So yeah. Call in an Omega on Saeder-Krupp. Throw the world into another world war. By the time it's over, even if Lofwyr isen't the victor, the Megacorporate scheme will be crushed, and the nations that survive will rally and ensure that no profit-hungry corporation ever grows powerful again. There will be no more Corporate Court, there will be no more Megacorporations.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[knasser]

[ShadowDragon8685]

You'll have a hard time 'freezing' something that's defended by military units. The Corporate Court is not God. The only way they can execute any directives is by having the members do them. And they can be opposed. An Omega Order is all-out warfare, and the CC may not win.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[hyzmarca]

I get what knasser is saying but it is somewhat oversimplified.

Knassers proposal is that you can't defend intangible things with military force. This isn't exactly true because intangible things are tied to tangible things by their very nature.

Nuyen, in reality, are worthless. It is just a bunch of numbers in a bank account. The plastic in a billion-nuyen certified credstick has more actual value than the funds stored inside. Only tangible things have real value. Fiat money serves as a placeholder for material goods, nothing more and nothing less. It helps facilitate trade. Once upon a time if I wanted your bearskin and you wanted a sharktooth that I did not have then I'd have to go around trading until I got a sharkstooth. This could take a very long time. With fiat money, I can buy for your bearskin and you can use the money to trade for a sharktooth. Still, it is the bearskin and the sharktooth that have the value. The money is just a means to an end.

Even if SK has a billion million fafillion shebolubalu million illion yillion nuyen in the bank this does no good if no one will accept their imaginary electronic numbers as payment for goods and services.


What knasser is missing, however, is that it is possible to force trade with military force or the threat of it. Consider Japan. For centuries Japan was a highly isolationist nation with little contact with the outside world. Then, one day, Mathew Perry shows up with a fleet of warships and suggests that Japan should open up trade with the west and Japan opened up trade with the west. Now, Japan was a tiny isolationist backwater country with practically no power or standing in world affairs at the time but if the guy from Friends can do it I would think an absurdly powerful and ancient dragon would have a decent chance at doing better.

Most of SK's assets will be hard. Very few corporations keep much of their assets liquid. Even with trading frozen they should have enough hard assets to successfully prosecute a major war of aggression. At that point they would be less like a corporation and more like a classical imperial power. But imperialism does work in the short term. Seizing material assets by force usually results in more profit then buying the same assets, too.

Of course, the chances of the CC issuing an Omega Order against SK lies somewhere between Slim and None; and just to the left of Self-Propelled Levitating Asses.


Smaller corporations are less able to cope but it is the ultimate threat of irresistible military might that prevents the As and AAs from just ignoring the CCs rulings and doing their own things. The only difference between AAAs and AAs is the Corporate Court Seat and there are many more AAs than there are AAAs. A trust of AAs could easily rival the CC in economic and military power so it is rather important that they work to maintain their status as the governing body of all extraterritorial megacorps. Government is defined by a monopoly on the use of violence 'gainst the governed.

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Butterblume]

There is no way there will ever be an omega order issued on SK. Apart from being to smart to get in a position like this, Lofwyr can blackmail some of the less powerful corporations on the CC that he will take them down, if they issue such an order.
Even if SK would be put down, which is far from certain (*), Lofwyr can still make his threat real and take some of the AAA with him.

(*) I read about Lofwyr and SK influence and power over the past weeks (for a campaign).


Basically, an omega order is like an (today) UN resolution with more backup... unless issued against an AAA Corp (where it would be like an UN resolution ;) ).

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Ryu]

Consider an competitive environment where all that avoids a final battle is the consent of the participants not to go there (aka megacorp competition).

Now consider a group of the largest players declaring war on one corp.

The coordination of attacks alone is deadly. The CC has to do nothing. Every corp who wants something the target has will strike, as the target can´t retaliate against so many attacks at the same time.

An omega order just removes any constraint. Once freed, the sharks do their work. You don´t want to be target of the week.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Attacking SK, even in a coordinated wave, is suicidal. If I were on the board of directors of a corporation which was trying to do that and the measure passed over my head, I'd be jumping ship and selling all of my shares to Lofwyr for one nuyen. (Not apiece, one nuyen. Total.)

Simply put, it's suicide. Even in the event of the best-case scenario, you smash Saeder-Krupp's faccilities and properties. You incurr massive, distinctly unprofitable losses in doing so, and sieze roundabout nothing, because the German Dragon pursued a policy of Scorched Earth, much like the previous draconic German figure. Then he starts showing up at your board of director meetings and roasting everybody alive.

In short, you've succeeded in erasing yourselves. Don't fool yourselves into thinking it won't happen. He's a fucking Greater Dragon, he's Initiated more times than you can shake a stick at, and his Masking is off the charts. He literally gets to keep throwing dice until he succeeds, and any of your successes he make you re-roll. He could convince you he's you, and you're an imposter.

In short, you're phucked.

[Demonseed Elite]

The real power of an Omega Order is in the threat. There's a lot of assumption here that an Omega Order needs to destroy a megacorporation wholly and that's not really necessary. As has been said here already, the megacorps exist to make money. Even a weakly-enforced Omega Order will cost the target megacorporation billions, or trillions, of nuyen.

Why do they have to destroy everything? Cut the megacorporation off from loans, the kind of big loans that only the ZOG Bank can fulfill (as mentioned in Corporate Shadowfiles). Increase the interest rate of their existing loans. Freeze what intangible assets you can. It doesn't matter much that you can't destroy everything, that megacorporation is going to be bleeding profusely. Their stock will fall through the floor, they will not have the capital or borrowing power to expand, and they will lose competitive edge. Lofwyr could circle the wagons and protect his physical assets with guns and tanks all he wants; as long as he is doing that, he's not making money. And a corporation can't survive without making money.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Butterblume]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Demonseed, you're ignoring the simple fact that if you cut Lofwyr off from financial options to pursue his interests, he will pursue conventional options.

By "conventional options" to pursue his interets, I mean the same options that were pursued by Alexander, Ceaser Augustus, Commodore Perry, Kaiser Wilhelm, and Fuhrer Hitler.

You will turn Saeder-Krupp Heavy Industries into the Fourth Reich!


Are you failing to comprehend this or something? An army, a Megacorporation, a Nation, and a Dragon march on two abstracted things. Bullets and beans. And if you tell them they can't buy beans, they will fall back on the old axiom that if you have bullets, you can always get your beans. And Saeder-Krupp and Lofwyr have a great deal of stock in bullets.