Revenge and the Shadows Options

[Spike]

Lets say Ares, big bad gun corporation that they are, get's hit by a bunch of Shadowrunners working for Fuchi (or whomever) who steal a prototype wizbang, which then will show up on the market under Fuchi's brand name.

Some traditions of play have the shadowrunners ducking and hiding for all they are worth until the heat blows over and Ares forgets about them, or at least forgets for the moment. Some Traditions also hold that Ares is gonna launch retalitory runs agains Fuchi in some sort of low intensity Shadow War. I mention this because these themes crop up again and again in fiction about the setting.

Revenge generates no profits, only losses.

Lets say our intrepid Runners have just busted out of an Ares facility with the prototype in tow. Sure Ares is gonna send goon squads after the prototype. They'll keep trying to recover it from the runners all the way up to the point where the runners hand it over to the Johnson. After that? They focus on the Johnson, then on the Fuchi facility where it's being reverse engineered... all the way until they realize that getting it back is costing more, and less likely to net them profit. That is how corporations think. They aren't going to risk assets ( goons) in a firefight with runners who don't have anything.

Sure: Sgt Goon, the leader of the Goonsquad might want to test his boys against some candyass Runners. Sure, Executive Meatpuppet, in charge of R&D, is upset that his toy got lost. But more likely than not, each of them values his job more than he values the hollow thrill of kicking at rats. Meatpuppet is probably more interested in damage control than revenge anyway. I mean, he just lost the billion nuyen widget after all.

Likewise, Ares isn't going to put Fuchi on a 'hit list'. Sure, they'll keep it in mind for next time, but revenge? Hurting Fuchi doesn't help the bottom line. Not by itself. No, they'll only hurt Fuchi if they can make some money from the deal. Steal a prototype project from THEM, or blow up the factory that produces the new Wizbang so their wizbang hits the market first.

There is only one measure of success in business, the almighty bottom line.