Conspiracy of the 6th World, Matrix 2.0 and the control of multimedia. Campaign idea. Options

[TBRMInsanity]

I was watching the movies "Steal this movie" and it's sequel "Steal this movie 2" and a quote from one of the people in the movie made me think:
"The only way that corporations are going to be able to control the internet is if they tear it all down and rebuild it with the control measures in place. The gene is out of the bottle."

I was thinking about the Matrix and both the first and second crash of the Matrix. The first crash is a deliberate attempt to do what is stated above. The mega-corps moved in quickly to establish a very rigid and highly controlled 3D network of computers. But over time their power became more and more decentralised and as a result the mega-corps started to lose their control to groups like the Otaku, pirates, shadowrunner deckers, AI, and rouge political entities like Winternight. A massive reset was needed again (enter crash 2.0).
This time though the mega-corps looked to hide their power as they feel that the failure of Matrix 1.0 was due to the in your face controls used by all the mega-corps. The idea was more like the Matrix from the movie, where if you enslave the true control of the people but leave the illusion of free will intact then you maintain power but quell resistance that will bring down the machine. Small fires will erupt from time to time but they can be easily controlled by directing mass opinion towards the new system. People will fight to keep the control in the hands of the mega-corp. "They will not be able to be unplugged". Enter the anti-technomancer movement. Technomancers (like the Otaku before them) are a threat to mega-corp profits, and control. The mega-corps must turn public opinion against this threat at every cost and they must use every resource at their disposal to destroy (ie kill) this threat.

This gets me to my two campaign ideas:
1. The "Fight the man" campaign:

• Over a series of runs against media and computer corps (like Horizon, MCT, and Neo Net) the SR find out about mega-corp control measures.
• The SR learn about a plot to kill off all Technomancers as propogated by the Corporate Court. There are two parts to the plan, first use media companies like Horizon to build anti-technomancer sediment, second have SR, police, military, lynch mobs, etc do the dirty work of killing said technomancers.
• The SR are hired by a pro-technomancer organization to either stop this plan or at least bring it to public knowledge.

2. The "Put down the rebellion" campaign:

• The SR are hired on several missions by mega-corps like Neo Net and Evo to bring in technomancers (willing or not) so that they can be studied (a company like Neo Net would want to be able to block their abilities while Evo would want to replicate their abilities).
• After a while the mega-corps realize the true impact that technomancers will have to the Matrix 2.0 and decide that a crash 3.0 is not acceptable. The SR are hired to sabatague pro-technomancer organizations and kill promonent technomancers and political figures.
• From this point the GM can either jump to campaign 1 or go for an epic battle between the Mega-Corps and some technomancer underground trying to fight for their survival.

[Synner667]

This time though the mega-corps looked to hide their power as they feel that the failure of Matrix 1.0 was due to the in your face controls used by all the mega-corps. The idea was more like the Matrix from the movie, where if you enslave the true control of the people but leave the illusion of free will intact then you maintain power but quell resistance that will bring down the machine. Small fires will erupt from time to time but they can be easily controlled by directing mass opinion towards the new system. People will fight to keep the control in the hands of the mega-corp. "They will not be able to be unplugged". Enter the anti-technomancer movement. Technomancers (like the Otaku before them) are a threat to mega-corp profits, and control. The mega-corps must turn public opinion against this threat at every cost and they must use every resource at their disposal to destroy (ie kill) this threat.

Except, since the Corporations in Shadowrun are completely crap and don't do this in the the non-Internet world [which would be the most effective way to be in control - and not the 'use and abuse' version that people prefer], why would they do it in the Internet world ??

This gets me to my two campaign ideas:
1. The "Fight the man" campaign:

[*]The SR learn about a plot to kill off all Technomancers as propogated by the Corporate Court. There are two parts to the plan, first use media companies like Horizon to build anti-technomancer sediment, second have SR, police, military, lynch mobs, etc do the dirty work of killing said technomancers.

Using earthmoving equipment, perhaps - since sediment usually refers to earth and other matter that settles at the bottom of liquids??

[TBRMInsanity]

Using earthmoving equipment, perhaps - since sediment usually refers to earth and other matter that settles at the bottom of liquids??

So sue me I can't spell, you don't have to be a jerk about it.

[Tiger Eyes]

• Over a series of runs against media and computer corps (like Horizon, MCT, and Neo Net) the SR find out about mega-corp control measures.
• The SR learn about a plot to kill off all Technomancers as propogated by the Corporate Court. There are two parts to the plan, first use media companies like Horizon to build anti-technomancer sediment, second have SR, police, military, lynch mobs, etc do the dirty work of killing said technomancers.

My only note would be that Horizon is specifically pro-technomancer. They even have an acknowledged TM on their board (Tam Reyes, head of Singularity).

[TBRMInsanity]

My only note would be that Horizon is specifically pro-technomancer. They even have an acknowledged TM on their board (Tam Reyes, head of Singularity).

Specific corporations aside (you will have to forgive me I don't have all the latest products yet and it wouldn't be hard to replace Horizon with Fox Entertainment, or some other media corp) what do people think of the idea of the campaign?

[Backgammon]

Well we're going into theorethical and hypothesis here, so take my comments as opinions, not facts.

Firstly, the idea that "The Megacorps" can decide to cause a total and fatal meltdown of the global information system is beyond unreasonable. "The Megacorps" does not exist. They do not speak with a single voice - not even the Corporate Court. "The Megacorps" is thousands of individuals, making individual profit-making decisions. Crashing the internet and causing economic devastation is certainly not anyone's goal. Every mega lost billions in both crashes. Millions of smaller corps ceased to exist. The idea of causing a meltdown wwith the promise that the world would be born anew, better, is a unimaginable risk. RISK. What if the plan fails? Do you realise how risk-averse corporations are? Status-quo is the name of the game.

The information piracy that plagues the 6th world does not threathen the Megacorps. It is merely the cost of having a hyper-effective information dispensation tool. The Matrix is far more profitable as an efficient tool than as an inefficient but controlled tool. Sure, the corps will always seek to fight profit-loss from data theft, sabotage, etc. But no one would ever fling the Matrix into a more secure direction. I mean, witness the birth of the Wireless Matrix. It's like 100 times less secure than the wired Matrix was for crying out loud. But that's the model that was adopted. Why? More efficient. In the hyper balkanized world of the 6th world, no one has any ambition to rule the entire world (digital or physical). People just want to rule their immediate surroundings.

Finally, the Technomancers troubles of Emergence pretty much sense as written. The corps would want to gather information at first. Who are these people that bend the Matrix to their will? Are they all powerful? The answer, of course, was revealed to be that no, they are not all-powerful. They're just kinda walking hackers - people abnormally skilled with the Matrix. Matrix security is, in fact, mostly based on the fact that most people are not competant enough to hack. Now you suddenly have a increase of people that could hack your system, raw technical skill-wise. But hacking requires intent as well. Law abiding Joe, even if he can hack your system, won't necessarely do it. So yeah, Technos make corporations nervous, but that's about it in the end. There is certainly no need to kill every single last one of them. Can you imagine the costs associated with the detective work and selective (highly illegal) hits required to kill so many people? Plus, of course and possibly foremost, the fact that new Technomancers are now born every day. Even if, at a given moment, you killed every single one of them, tomorrow there'd be a whole new bunch. Any CEO can quickly spot a losing battle.

So in short - sure, "the megacorps caused both Crashes and are planning a third one, plus they want to kill every Technomancer" is certainly a conspiracy theory, but it's on the same level as people who believe in the Dulce underground base UFO theories. It's for the hardcore crackpots of the 6th world. I'd certainly feel... dirty as a player if it became apparent that my GMs storyline ended up saying, for a fact, that this was true.

[TBRMInsanity]

@Backgammon

I respect your opinion. I think your right there are plenty of plot holes in the story. I suppose this story would have been better in SR1-3 as you pointed out the Matrix 1.0 was more controlled and there is sufficient evidence that at least some mega-corps profited greatly from the crash (Ares and the nanosecond buyout). I think I need to go back to the drawing board and tweak the idea. Maybe more of a Neo Net plan to data mine the Matrix 2.0 (since they were the biggest player in setting up the Matrix 2.0). I should probably drop or merge only small parts of the technomancer plot into a bigger conspiracy plot.

[deek]

These plots have me thinking of my current campaign. The players are corporate "ninjas". They are SINners and work for Horizon, but moonlight as runners for the company. Their first run has them taking a tour of a regional soda bottling facility. 100% legit. They are supposed to be there, but during the tour, they find a way to sneak into a warehouse where the competition has their product. A simple sabotage run, where the product still goes out on the streets...but Horizon is quick to time their media blitz to make it so much worse.

Not to mention the distribution contract is up in the public school system and Horizon just happens to have a new soda hitting the market...

So, I am certainly liking your ideas here. Media controlling the public opinion capitalizing on the objectives set out by shadowrunning teams. I think there is a lot of fun to be had in these kinds of campaigns!

[Synner667]

So sue me I can't spell, you don't have to be a jerk about it.

And don't be a pratt because you can't spell and you think that swearing at someone makes up for it. Grow up.

Both your campaigns basically rely on the corporations, governments and organisations manipulating the media for their own ends.
This is the world we live in today - corporations/governments/organisation deciding which bits of news we get, news that gets regurgitated all over the world because journalists don't have the time or resources to actually do their job, news that gets slanted to get specific views across.

So just look to the stories, trends, views, organisations of today and that should give you more than enough material.

If you can find it, have a look at Talsorian's Cybergeneration which has nanoplague empowered technomancers being hunted by a corporate government [and see how technomancer characters could be done sooo much better].

[martindv]

I always found it funny when people complained about the first Matrix. Of course it's unwieldy and inefficient and hard to use. What did you expect was going to happen after the Internet was replaced by something created by a consortium of for-profit corporations?

'Oh, it's not realistic' they'd whine.

That's the point, stupid. It's what entities that exist to make money would design if they got to rebuild this system that IRL frustrates the Hell out of numerous corporations specifically because they CAN'T control it. The SR Matrix 1.0 is the Internet if Hollywood and the BSA designed it.

Which, naturally, is why Matrix 2.0 as a return to the free-for-all Wild Web is hilarious and stupid. But intelligence left the writing long, long ago.

[Heath Robinson]

>>> Who has the most to gain from people being in Sim 24/7? Who invented PABing? Shiawase. Who had the most widespread infrastructure on the planet at the time? Three guesses, and the first two don't count.

Who has the expertise, resources, and patience to pull off a long distance human hack that ended with the world order being recreated? Who has been in this kind of business longest? Who has the most complex and efficient internal security organisation ever devised? Why did the Banded act just like people that MIFD had gotten to? <<<
- Just Another Wageslave, -4 karma