How much power to coerce... Options

[emo samurai]

does the Corporate Court have? I mean, if, for example, China were to unify and then nationalize all the megacorporate holdings and then say that they wouldn't return them without serious concessions, would the Corporate Court then nuke China? And would there be repercussions for the nuking?

[Fix-it]

nuke? not even close. they'd have bought the entire Party out before the thought even entered thier heads, not to mention it's a bad example.


PRC: "Hey! I've got an idea! let's backstab the people that hold up the entire manufacturing side of our economy"

The corporate court doesn't "Nuke" anyone. they find weak points, and Squeeze.


go read corporate download for more info.

the whole hierarchy of influence in a nutshell is:

Dragons/IEs/Free Spirits
Corps.
National Governments
Local Governments

note that they intermix a lot (Dunkie was president, Buttercup was a corporate board member)

[Kesslan]

Well thats cause their all just a bunch of influence peddlers. Influence being arguably the ultimate power in a given situation. All the more so when folk dont realize your really the one behind it all.

Marvin? Nah. Couldnt be him, he's just some stupid geek and I mean look at the way he dresses! He couldnt begin to be rich enough to pull off a stunt like that!

Definately though nukes would not be involved. The corp Court I dont think has -ever- nuked anyone. I mean even the dreaded 'Omega Order' while it pretty much condones violence is still almost entirely a financial attack on some one's financial assets. Really all it means is 'Ok guys! Go to town, we dont care how dirty you get we'll jsut pretend it never happened.'

Where as normaly the Corporate Court steps in when things start to get a little nasty. Even if it hasnt quite gotten public yet. What's more likely is that the corps would get 'nationalized' on paper only. In reality they'd just have a bunch of shell corps that utimately are really responsible to the parent mega.

[emo samurai]

I remember House of the Sun, where the Hawaiian parliament tries to kick the megacorps out and the corps decide to use the Thor shot. I'm thinking they would definitely nuke the Emperor of China if he tried to hold their considerable assets there hostage.

[Kagetenshi]

Well, first off, there is no China anymore and hasn't been since the late 2010s/early 2020s.

~J

[emo samurai]

And second off?

Fine, okay, so what if the UCAS nationalized all extraterritorial holdings and held them ransom in return for concessions? Would it find itself Thor Shotted?

[Kagetenshi]

Probably not. Detroit, Denver, and Seattle (and other cities major to corps that I don't remember) might find themselves suddenly not part of the UCAS anymore, but the UCAS is weak enough that the corps would likely just let them swing in the breeze for the year or two it took before there was no more UCAS, or at least no more UCAS willing to do something like that.

~J

[emo samurai]

You mean just pick up and leave, taking away all the jobs and shit?

Well, what if there was a military takeover of all the extraterritorial holdings?

[tisoz]

See Aztlan - history of, and Corporate Court - Omega Order when something similar happened.

[MYST1C]

My guess is that the Corporate Court would declare a total embargo on the offending country.

[Backgammon]

The question of what happens if a large country decides to nationalize assets is interesting, since it already happened in Aztlan.

Basically, the first thing the corps do is put their backing behind a party (or parties) opposed to the idea. Unless the revolution is also backed by something powerful (such as a horror great dragon and columbian drug lord descendants or whatever the hell is going on in Aztlan), there are slim chances of getting past the CC backed party.

Assuming the revolution makes it through, and goes ahead and declares nationalization laws, the CC then sends a message. Depending on the strenght (read: backing) of the revolution, they will back down to a certain degree. Just like Aztlan.

Now, it's all neat and well drawn in 3 paragraphs, but in realitythere's a lot of intrigue, tense moments, killing, special operations and spying going on, not to mention extravagent and dramatic movies starring famous actors afterwards to concrete ideas into the public's minds.

[emo samurai]

What if they decide to cut a deal with the Corporate Court? Give the government a 10% interest in all holdings and we'll give them back, we'll just revoke your extraterritorial status? And then cut secret deals with all the corps willing to do it where you steal all the research of the companies that don't want to deal and give it to the companies that do, barring all the uncooperative ones from doing business until they become cooperative?

[Backgammon]

Well, in Aztlan, at first the state said "we're nationalizing everything on our soil". The CC didn't like that. After some.. negociations, the governement agreed not to out right nationalize everything. I don't remember the details, but basically, the governement gave some back to the Corps, while also keeping some.

In short, it's a matter of negociation, just like any other business deal. The CC will pry from the state's hands as much as they think they can, and the state will do the same from the CC. A deal will be reached when it becomes more costly for the CC to extract more from the state than to let it keep it.

[Butterblume]

Didn't Bolivia pull something similar last year with their natural gas reserves?

If memory serves, Bolivia announced their nationalizing of the gas fields while occupying them. Then they set a deadline of 6th months for renegotiations with the corporations that owed them, which every corp did (so we don't know what would have happened if they didn't...).

[emo samurai]

Yeah, but in RL, those oil companies don't have Thor Shots and carrier fleets.

[SL James]

[cetiah]

[Thane36425]

Nationalization is nothing new. The Mexicans did it with US oil companies in the 1920s, which is why we ended up in the Middle East looking for oil. The US didn't take military action then, and if a nation wouldn't retaliate, then Corps probably wouldn't either, not overtly anyway. The only case I can think of where a nation did retaliate was when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal and England and France went to take it back. Lots more going on than just that of course.

Corps would probably have a quiet alliance with each other to focus a lot of runs against that country. That could be from run of the mill runs to attacks and sabotage against shipping on the high seas. I always considered it sort of like that with Aztechnology. No one really likes them at all and there was a lot of work against them.

[Kagetenshi]

Keep in mind that the US in the 1920s was profoundly isolationist. I suspect if it had happened at some other period of US history, the results would have been rather different.

~J

[Kyoto Kid]

[emo samurai]

[ Spoiler ]

And then a huge fucking scourging of the countryside.

[ShadowDragon8685]

The problem I have with Shadowrun is that the corps have the powers to take on the nations, because there are no Superpowers anymore.

I'd honestly like to see SR rewritten with Megacorps facing off against Superpowers, with the shadowrunners caught in the middle. No more Balkanized North America.

Ah well.

[Kyoto Kid]

[Backgammon]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Both of the Tirs and Aztlan are products of the 6th world (Or the 4th, in the case of Na Nog). I mean a real Nation, like the U.K., which is pretty much ground out of the game, or the REAL United States of America, not tha pussycat USA that got basically taken over by the corps before it got dissolved by a horde of Native Americans that came out of nowhere.