[X] My Assistant

[sunnyside]

"As an officer in charge of putting an end to gang violence, I find myself in a difficult moral position. ... I like the status quo, Carl. I like having all you bastards doing my job for me - blowing each other's guts all over the sidewalk. ... Now, if it's brought to my attention that one tribe gets an unfair advantage over another, that truly troubles me..."

Yup. In my opinion LSes major priority is to keep getting their contract renewed while keeping their costs down.

Shadowrunners are an asset to corps. So long as the runners "play by the rules" the corps(that are "winning") prefir that they're operating. So Lonestar has no big reason to go after them. They waste resources, without increasing the odds of a contract renewal.

Same if runners are mixing it up with othersi n the criminal worlds. Also no biggie. Just make sure the spin doctors let the people know only "bad" people got hurt.

And the same if the runners are doing stuff in low rating neighborhoods.

But boost a regular citizens car? That's a black mark. Kill somebody? Especially a regular citizen? That's and even biger mark that might even get in the news.


@Cthulhudreams Lone Star is its own corp. Ares owns one of their competitors, Knight Errant. The star does not have any cameras outside their jurisdiction, nor do they have any in the low rated areas.

They have pathetic access to financial records thanks to offshore banks.

For SINless characters Star likely has little or no biometric data. They are not going out and fingerprinting everyone in the barrens.

Also everything costs. Everybackground check requires interfacing with a number of system, and requires their own resources. As does face matching, not that your players should have the same face when on the job in the first place.

And mages are expensive. I don't know that LS actually has a mage swat. Though I suppose they could assemble one. Even so using bound spirits consumes resources. The runners will have had to have earned them.

Finally in SR4 it takes more effort to avoid the star but it's not that hard especially if they don't consier you a high threat to civilians(or them)

[Cantankerous]

Something from earlier. I just realized that I only addressed half the question.

For me Lone Star is first and foremost a corp...and only the police as a PART of that.

Let's say you are living in a C zone in Auburn and your girl friend gets murdered one night in her home. The Star will definitely investigate this crime. They'll do a competent, if perhaps routine job of it and after a time, assign x number of man hours to it and then, solved or unsolved it will get filed.

You however want justice (at the least), so you pay a little extra for more assignable man hours, greater access for YOUR investigators to the Lone Star resources that DO exist but that they just can't use for everyone because they have only so much time total to assign to any case. Yep, you pay a bit extra and a better coroner does the autopsy. A bit more here and they assign some Matrix assistance that they wouldn't have or maybe even, for a really sizable fee, some magical assistance.

And so forth.

Mind you, this is NOT corruption. This is a business and and it acts like a business. That is all.

***...and then he looks at the post just ahead of him and sees that someone else already said that. Errrr, oopps.***



Isshia

This post has been edited by Cantankerous: Apr 18 2008, 07:12 PM

[CanRay]

Desk Sergeant: "Before you go any further, pal, I gotta tell ya it's cash up front. A thousand bucks a day for a full investigation, another thou' if the assailant is caught. Do you understand?"
Harry Canyon: "Yeah. Hey, here's a dollar. Thanks for nothin'."
Desk Sergeant: "Think you can do better?... Punk."
- Heavy Metal

[sunnyside]

Well they aren't that obvious about it. I'm sure they'd say they're "doing all they can" in regards to an investigation. Of course LS also advertises their contract work, and, you know, there isn't anything keeping you from hiring some of them and then having them help on the case.....


My guess is they assure you they're giving the case their utmost attention and then sit you down near the pamphlets with rates.


Oh and don't forget LS hires their own Shadow elements (I seem to recal they actually had a group or so on retainer). Having someo criminal getting them bad press that they can't touch due to legal reasons really isn't acceptable.

Also sometimes you need some probably cause, like gunshots being fired in front of a building...

[DireRadiant]

All of the Above.

Having one single universal LS response is soooooo real....

[CanRay]

Wasn't indiciating Lone Star was that bad or obvert. Just giving it as an example of Police in Cyberpunk, which that skit in Heavy Metal certainly was!

Now, if we were in New York, and talking about NYPD, Inc. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Ice Hammer]

Along with all the suggestions listed above to add serious consequences for the runner who killed a LS cop, there are still many things that LS could do to try to acquire information leading to the capture of the perps. Realistically (and my personal favorite), if LS suspected that it was a shadowrunner, they would be putting the pressure on the runner community to produce information on those that killed their guy, if not the individuals themselves. Raids on hide outs, a heavier LS presence at your standard runner hangouts, undercover stings, etc. The runners may think they got away from LS, but in the end, it might not be the cops they have to worry about. It may just be their fellow shadowrunners, who their stupidity has just made their work that much harder.

[CanRay]

So, in essence (Essence cost 0.1), don't kill cops, m'kay, it would be bad. for. business.

And we can't have things being bad for business, now, can we?

[Cthulhudreams]

I'm not entirely sure where you got the bit about controlling the financial system of the world. Isn't that controlled by a bunch of different people with a bunch of different agendas?
Nor am I sure how their astral teams are impossible to hide from. Can't you just find a nice dark hole and hide there? If you're not magically active doesn't that make it kinda hard to pick up your astral sig?

The corporate court owns the world banking system and Ares is one of the largest shareholders of the court. I suppose theoretically you could run your own bank without reference to corporate regulation, but thats easy to deal with. The court just refuses to deal with banks that refuse to co-operate, by refusing their currency, refusing their certified credit and refusing electronic transactions. Then offshore banking works, just that you cannot actually ever spend the money, because no-one who works legitimately *can* deal with you. (Incidentally, thats the system we are using today and it's pretty effective and folding up banks).

Rapid response is a basic service. The corps will probably care less about investigations as thats an expensive waste of money.

As for the 'paying for investigation stuff' Megacorps are multi trillion dollar enterprises with global footprints. They are going to have global contracts at massive discounts from list rates and KE/LS is going to queue up to service them. And it's extremely cheap to have a couple of mages on 'standby' in a rolling hot centre system based out of low cost countries like mexico and china. Pull mages out of the slum, pay them reasonable well, they'll love you. Great. So KS or LS will have a response team within seconds at a corp facility irrespective of location.

Astral teams are impossible to hide from due to the rapid response time. Sure if you can dig an underground bunker and cover it with earth and then get back from crime site and sit there, but thats not whats going to happen.

Whats going to happen is that an alarm is going to go off as you exit the building, an astral response team with 3 force 6 spirits appear, the astral response team are going to see the people running out of the building, and are going to tell the spirits to kill them if they are not wearing a <corporation> uniform, while flying after you without materializing.

There is no easy ways to shake off the mages if you are mundane. An astrally projecting team might be able fight them off, but without that capibility you are in extreme trouble. And they can keep summoning spirits to materialize and spork you in the face. They will only summon force 3 spirits (which the drain is quite manageable for), but it will become progressively more and more difficult to fight them off - eventually your time will run out. And hey, if you do make it to your astral bunker, the mages can just then report where you are hiding.

[kzt]

I don't think Lone Star ever arrests cops killers. They mostly get "shot resisting arrest" and rarely they get away. We are talking Melvin Purvis and Frank Hamer style manunts and captures. Complete with the occasional 30s style oops that doesn't really bother anyone. "It was only after the FBI mistakenly gunned down a local resident and two innocent Civilian Conservation Corps workers (as they were about to drive away in a car)...."

[masterofm]

I always looked at escalating response when dealing with LS. The problem is if they can't handle the heat, or decide to have a crappy response to situations guess what? Their contract gets canceled, and the neighborhood goes over to Lone Eagle (even if it costs 10% more it's probably worth it.) Most likely if an officer gets dusted they will try and track the perps down and try to outnumber then 3 or 4 to 1 as a ratio. They will first try and subdue them, but if they think there is any cause to fire they will not hesitate to do so. If that fails they will send in the Swat and a few drones to probably try and pin the runners (depending on how hard the party brings the hammer.) Mobs of people with guns sure to help in crushing someones dodge pool to nothing. If the party causes enough damage Lone Star will probably be given orders to let them rabbit to save a bigger public incident. If the party just wastes the entire swat team, the drones, and many of the officers trying to seal off the area, then at that point when LS brings in the special forces the team is pretty much toast.

Sorry SR teams might be deniable assets, but guess what? Deniable assets are totally expendable, which is why a Johnson hires them as deniable assets. SR teams don't get special treatment because someone hires them under the table. In fact a SR team has it rough, since they have no one but themselves to rely on. A Johnson will probably try to screw you if it means that he can get the data, pin it all on the team, and keep the money. Not always, but it happens... but I mean look at the first story in the SR4 BBB for gods sakes (a Johnson literally tries to kill the whole team.)

Now if the party manages to get outside of the contracted area (depending on how much people pay) they may or may not go after the party. LS will not enter LE territory, and probably try to pass the buck. If LE decides not to go after the team then it's not Lone Stars fault its Lone Eagles. If the party holes themselves in a stuffer shack (or at least runs through one) Lone Star will have to obtain permission from the branches district manager to enter the establishment, which might take some time. These things can buy the party time, or possibly shake off a pursuit.

I just feel if there is too much at stake for a corp they are not just going to whistle non-chaulantly and walk away from the kind of incident.