UCAS Military Standard Issue? Options

[Ascalaphus]

If infected creatures are aggressive about infecting other hosts, it'll spread pretty quickly.

If NPCs are infected easily, then PCs are also at high risk. You could have Johnson given them a once-time shot of nanite antibodies beforehand, and make them sign a waiver that they understand this is no guarantee. Sure, making runners sign waivers has little meaning, but it reinforces the corporate due diligence feel; "no distribution of nanites without waiver, or the Legal Department will kill me".

What if halfway it turns out the tear gas isn't working well? The military might become uneasy, because sectors they "cleared" aren't really clear.

What if people complain the military is too slow, that people are dying while the military is crawling forward doing due diligence?

(Just some ideas to increase the tension)

If the PCs spoof the military frequencies and matrix signals and such, they may pass for military (given HazMat suits). But maybe then they get mistaken for soldiers and instructed to go to a different sector and clear it? Hilarity ensues.

[Neurosis]

I wouldn't think the corp would want a paper trail at all to their deniable assets, Ascalaphus.

Anyway, I like your scenario brainpiercing.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Anyway, I like your scenario brainpiercing.

Thanks.

I do want to make more fleshing out tomorrow. I also want to underline again how I see the (rank and file) UCAS military in this scenario: They are pros. They get the fucking job done. They are not sharks with fricken laser beams. They are not flashy, and a lot less cool than runners. They cheer when they blow up the enemy, and get sullen when they lose a few of their own. That's it. They have good gear, because it doesn't make sense to sacrifice a man when you can sacrifice some cash - in fact they are probably less willing to sacrifice themselves than the common runner, because they are not desperate at all. And until the going gets very rough, there's usually a better idea than getting into really dangerous situations. Of course when there are no other options, they'll do that, too, because that's just part of the job.

[AppliedCheese]

Armies, even western armies, fighting counter-insurgencies, have one severely noticeable difference (gear and kit aside) for the "runners = great resistance fighters" thing. You work against them, they ARE out for blood. Its not a corporate "cost benefit, well, its just not worth it" thing. You kill PFC Guy, and now everyone from PFC other guy to Colonel Big Guy wants you dead or captured. And they will bring in everything from the forensics guys to massive bribes/rewards to pick you up. And you have to go to ground eventually. In Iraq, and now in Afghanistan, the majority of insurgents killed or captured were gotten at wherever they were bedding down or meeting. More than one got sold out by the hooker he was visitng. Because, hey, the Army doens't care about her being a hooker. They do care about the guy in her having killed a American though. Imagine every time you went to a johnson meet, every time you try to pick up from a fixer, every time you see a patrol, every time you sleep, it might be game over. That's the real price of fighting the Army instead of a corp.

[Critias]

Armies, even western armies, fighting counter-insurgencies, have one severely noticeable difference (gear and kit aside) for the "runners = great resistance fighters" thing. You work against them, they ARE out for blood. Its not a corporate "cost benefit, well, its just not worth it" thing. You kill PFC Guy, and now everyone from PFC other guy to Colonel Big Guy wants you dead or captured. And they will bring in everything from the forensics guys to massive bribes/rewards to pick you up. And you have to go to ground eventually. In Iraq, and now in Afghanistan, the majority of insurgents killed or captured were gotten at wherever they were bedding down or meeting. More than one got sold out by the hooker he was visitng. Because, hey, the Army doens't care about her being a hooker. They do care about the guy in her having killed a American though. Imagine every time you went to a johnson meet, every time you try to pick up from a fixer, every time you see a patrol, every time you sleep, it might be game over. That's the real price of fighting the Army instead of a corp.

What makes you think a corp doesn't do the same thing, at least often enough to foster the same sense of paranoia?

[TheScrivener]

Ehhh.... corps are more about profit margin than tenacious, relentless destructification.

[Critias]

Ehhh.... corps are more about profit margin than tenacious, relentless destructification.

Some corps, and some of the time, yes. But let's not forget "Zero Zones," the pettiness and vindictive nature of middle management everywhere, the importance of reputation to corporate security forces (Lone Star, Knight Errant, et. al. aren't going to just blithely let you get away with killing their doodz any more than the Army would), and the fickle decision making of a certain great dragon who's known to take special interests in any number of his corporation's projects from time to time. The threat of annihilation should be there, any time a shadowrunner cocks up and stops worrying about it.

Not every corporation is going to hunt down every shadowrunner involved over every job, sure. But it could happen, and it should happen enough that they don't get sloppy and cocky about it. There's nothing innately more dangerous about ticking off the Army than anyone else, is all I'm saying. I don't see why an organization as sprawling and massive as the UCAS military would automatically take the death of a random PFC any more personally than any megacorp. It's not like the Army really cares about the individual any more than a business does (or at least not in my reality).

[AppliedCheese]

Well, in an insurgency, his mates are. as is his immediate command. Company level, certainly. Quite possibly up to battalion level. Maybe Brigade, depending. So, anywhere from 100-4000 guys, and the resources associated, have just been turned against you.

As far as the crop thing, the official core book fluff has them as fairly non-vindictive. It rather explicitly mentions this is one of the reasons shadowrunners survive. With the exception of zero zones, and personally affronting a dragon, the average corp has done the calculus, and determined there's little profit in going after your average team of runners. And if you make it bloody easy, of course they'll crush you.

The difference is that with said Army, it doesn't have to be easy. Its that they will pursue the hard case. Because, its what they do. Find and eliminate threats. Whether that threat is a tank battalion over the ridge, or a sniper who's been a menace, or the people who whacked their supply convoy.

Now, i'd say the KE and the Star probably operate very similarly. Only with less firepower, and at the end of the day, they are still maintaining a bottom line. Better local knowledge though.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Hmm. Ultimately, yes, there is a difference between fighting corps and the military, any military, basically. I still think there are a lot of differences between professional armies, constitutional conscript armies, or even forced conscript armies. The value of the fighting man changes, and hence the reaction. It's probably true that fighting the UCAS army will mean that you're pissing off a lot of people, but they still can't hit back with everything they have, at least not on UCAS soil. If the UCAS were to occupy a foreign country... I'm not sure. Still, the individual fighting man is thing of value, and they won't take unnecessary risks. Of course that also means that they are much more likely to shoot back with arty or missiles, rather than flushing a sniper out conventionally.

In a forced conscription army the individual soldier has no value. Killing one won't matter at all, because the others will just keep coming. These you can't stop with select casualties, you have to inflict mass casualties. On the other hand, you are more likely to be attacked by infantry than just bombed or shelled, because those bombs might cost more than the soldiers you're killing.


Another scenario: Aztlan pays runners (who share no allegiance) to destabilize the Yukatan. That's a hard one, because they will have to move about without backup in the populace. Probably doomed to fail.

Another idea: CAS nationalists hire runners to run terror and insurgence ops in the Aztlan half of Austin. (I hope that map I'm taking for reference is still accurate.) That's a different army and law enforcement, and a very different approach is necessary. Life-expectancy... well, I would say it would be quite short, unless you go about it VERY smartly. That might actually be interesting to run, at least for a short while.

[AppliedCheese]

Granted, all assumptions so far have been for the UCAS. Who apparently have no posse comitatas anymore, because troops have been deployed on UCAS soil regularly. Hell, the most famous recent actions have been on UCAS soil.

But generally speaking, yes, the army is going to shit bricks to find you if operate against them. Reference the fate of some gangers in New Orleans who though they would hold their turf against the National Guard.

[Hocus Pocus]

I'm sure somebody has already mention this, but I'm too lazy to read the entire thread

the novel "Just Compensation" by Robert Charrette might give you some loose idea about the UCAS military and what they carried.. Being that the story is set in 2050 it might not.

looking at my receipt, I bought this book on the 3rd of March back in '96. Har