[X] My Assistant

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned it yet, but have you watched Black Lagoon? It's an anime series about pirates/smugglers/general criminals in the Pacific, which is often brought up because it's so shadowrunny. Dozens of adventure ideas to be found there.

I mentioned it.... just saying.(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[ Spoiler ]

That was a fun campaign we had based on that, even though it was kind of monty-haul/cookie cutter. The PCs started out with an up-in-the-air reason to take a vacation from Seattle. So they "decided" to take a trip across the pacific and have their vacation in the SEA crime paradise of Roanapur Puket in Thailand. They bought a 20th century destroyer for an arbitrary amount of money (one of the characters came from an old campaign and had something like 2 million (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) on his sheet which he hadn't used.) Him being a cliché cowboy he fixed a rodeo machine on the fore deck, they stocked up on munchies like REAL half cows and stuff like that, and then crossed the pacific.
On the way, they beat back a pirate attack on a merchant ship, but in turn then ransomed the ship off. Actually they needed the pirates to do this, and they were cheated completely because the pirates gave them 1000 rounds of AV ammo as their share. Er.... as if pirates had stuff like that, and they never even thought to test a single round.
They arrived in Thailand, met a local contact (who was actually another PC), and then got to meet Balalaika. They were sufficiently scared of the russian commandos to not start trouble, and I had it so Balalaika needed an outside hand for the Nazi mission. Weell here it breaks down a bit, because obviously a nazi U-boot by that time had been lying there for REALLY long, but with this campaign it was best to not think so much about such things. They messed up the Nazis in a completely different way than in the anime, obviously, and scavenged all their stuff.
There was some intermission, I don't remember exactly, they did some stuff in town or so. Then along came Greenback Jane, and they got their dock shot up by hordes upon hordes of mooks (which they dispatched with some luck, and some on my side, too, because I didn't want Shenhua to die so quickly), after which the police commissioner came along and asked whether they wanted to file charges.
Then I forgot, I'm not sure how it went from there, anyway, it worked pretty well. We used SR3, and we agreed that magic didn't sit well with any of us for a campaign like that, so we just scrapped that entirely. It was a completely non-serious affair, but really, really fun. Unfortunately one of the players moved away, then we only had two players left, and there might have been some other RL reasons to end it. Well, it was a great campaign while it lasted.

[CanRay]

*Looks around blurry-eyed, stumbles around my desk, and looks inside of a bottle* Damn...

Rum is gone.

[Bigity]

Why is the rum gone?

That's the problem with rum, you drink too much and don't remember drinking it. You only feel it.

[DMiller]

Operating costs is an easy number to work up, and can be quite expensive and force the players to find things for the characters to do.

Pick a lifestyle (probably Low) +10% per crew member. So let's say a 15 man crew (not including the PCs), that’s ¥5,000 per month. Not much, but it will add up with the rest.

Now for the Officers (the PCs), probably want at least a Middle lifestyle. So let's say you have 5 PCs at a ¥5,000 base + 50% is ¥7500.

Now for the big expense operating costs: IMHO this should include minor repairs, fuel, and ammo as long as they are using standard ammo for the weapons. Special ammo should cost extra. This cost should be between 1% and 10% of the modified cost of the vehicle(s) in use. If the team is using a modified Frigate that cost ¥2,500,000 with all the weapons and modifications and three cigar boats that cost ¥500,000 each calculate the running costs based on how hard the equipment got worked over the month. If it was an easy month as in not much combat or hard running use closer to the 1% range, if they were in a constant state of "balls to the wall" running and lots of combat use closer to the 10% range. So in the setup above monthly operations should be between ¥40,000 and ¥400,000 every month plus the lifestyle costs. Anything that the team earns above operating costs would then be profit and usable to split, pay for more upgrades (keeping in mind that upgrades will increase the monthly expenses), or anything else the PCs really want.

Something that is not part of RAW but you may want to implement is the need to pay for their contacts, mainly to help sink extra cash if they are doing ransoms. Earning ¥2,000,000 on a single payday could need a quick money sink especially if they are able to do that regularly.

Of course all of this in just my opinion and YMMV.

-D

Edit: corrected my math

[Stalag]

Please its all about sky pirates sail powered zepplins ftw!

You watched a lot of Tailspin as a child didn't you?

[Stalag]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned it yet, but have you watched Black Lagoon?

And remember that "Black Lagoon" not "Blue Lagoon" - the only thing Blue Lagoon has going for it is a young Brook Shields going au natural

[Hound]

Whew, man you guys came up with some good ideas, brought up a lot of things I hadn't even thought of!

@Brainpiercing: Honestly, probably going to skip the map thing. As far as stuff like that goes, I'm going to lean more towards ease of play, than realism, especially cause I've got some people who've never been involved with this kind of game before. I'm primarily expecting the PCs to use contacts and the matrix to be finding their prey, I wouldn't think that you would really want to just be driving around hoping you come across a good target, considering that you could find those targets just as easily via the Matrix. Not sure I'll use an actual clock, again I prefer a more fluid style, I lean more towards what is good for storytelling than what is likely to be realistically possible. Definitely going to have some kind of competition though, I've already got some good ideas about that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I like the idea of costing them a lot of money in bribes and such though. That whole thing about them making 2mil or whatever from one ship was something I hadn't really considered. Any information on how exactly a "ship ransom" would be pulled off in the Sixth World? Seems like a situation that could get really hairy really quickly, which is good of course. As for where the PCs got their ship, I'm still kind of deciding that. I'm thinking of having a storyline in which they were a smaller part of a larger, multi-ship crew, which broke apart after the Captain mysteriously disappeared, and they are just one of the pieces that stuck together and began operating independently. This would give them a reason for being together, a reason for having a ship, and sort of a pool of other pirates floating around that could potentially be picked up as crew, after they prove that they're leadership material. So for now I think I'm going to go with having the players be the only crew at first, and then they can recruit as much or as little as they'd like.

@Thorya: Of course! Maybe I'll give bonuses to social tests if they talk in Pirate Speech too. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

@Sunnyside: Another thing I hadn't really considered, the ubiquity of spotter drones and such. Really though, even with that, the ocean is a huge place, you can't cover all of it at once, or at least not very easily. Also, considering the number of important factions, and the fact that they don't generally see eye-to-eye, I don't think it would be possible to have one huge network. So the players would probably have to rely on speed, and having a safe haven to return to would really help. I like the idea of a sub too, though it has less of that Pirate flavor in my opinion. Something I'll be sure to mention to the players.

@Paul: I've actually decided against starting them out with a large crew, but thanks for all the ideas just the same. If they decide to get a big crew, things like costs and trust issues will definitely become important! I do agree also that while pirating can solve a lot of supply issues, it probably can't do everything. For one thing, I would think that cargo shipments are normally fairly homogenous. So like, sure raiding that food boat sounds like a great idea to feed the crew, until you end up with 100 tons of various types of Wonderbread.

@Mardrax: I don't have War! so for the purposes of this game, I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist. >.>

@Ascaphalus: Yeah Brainpiercing7.6mm brought up Black Lagoon already. I have seen it, but it was a while ago, I may have to watch it again while I'm doing this.

@DMiller: Thanks for the idea about the operating costs equation. I may make it a little harsher than that, or not, depending on how much money they seem to be making. Also, I think lifestyle costs could be brought up easily, if we assume they have some kind of independent pirate hideout, or even if they are living completely on their ships. The RAW lifestyle costs assume that the character is living in a city, with significant infrastructure for electricity and water. In the hideout scenario, they would need to pay extra to provide for some kind of generator and water source, if not plenty of other things. A large enough ship could support people, but if it's for an extended period of time, that would probably end up adding to the operating cost of the ship, as it would wear down the ship's equipment faster. I definitely want them to have to pay off contacts, especially for certain things. Like a dockmaster letting them come to shore without checking the usual shit, he's probably going to want a lot of money for that, and part of the reason he wants a lot is because he's going to have to use some of it to pay off other people not to ask questions. Even in a pirate haven, the people in charge would probably be asking for significant fees to let people dock and fence their goods or whatever.

Thanks for the ideas folks!

[Tiralee]

Arrrrrr!

We ran a quite fun (and horribly bloody) adventure in the Carrib and that's a good place to start. (Shallow waters, excellent ports, multiple semi-warring countries...)
For experts, the Pacific is fucking HUGE but it's a looooooong way to the nearest gulp-n-go, experienced players required.

1: Buy Cyberpirates - excellent book, deep colour commentry, breaks down the pirating life for yee...
2: Mad skills - people are going to need back-ups of back-ups. Sure, youv'e got a mechanic, but what happens if they're sitting on a stick-n-shock while the engines won't turn over?
3: People skills - contacts out the wazoo. And then some more.
4: Magic! Magicrun jokes aside, LOS = awesome on the big blue.
5: Fun! We were searching for a character's long-lost sister, had to do some legwork for the Gingerbread man, had to then impress the Gingerbread man (He wanted a message delivered. Our usual style of "AV rounds mean you're not able to hide the missile launcher" did not go down well.) with...mixed results. And our final carib run resulted in a multi-million dollar haul and saving the psychologically-scared damsel. (It was a very bad place - when the Troll takes along 2 Assualt cannons "just in case", everyone else did similar)
6: Narrow scrapes, scarcity, scurvy, seasickness! Make it good! Toss in a sea monster, and then have to capture it for an insane corp....you know, improvise:)

-Tir

[CanRay]

Magic also comes in handy when you come across a pod of Stormdolphins. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Bigity]

So does an insulated tuna net.




Hiyo!

[CanRay]

Not a good idea. The mercury levels of dolphins are astronomical!

The only thing worse to eat than dolphins are humans.

[Manunancy]

Some thoughts about teh operting costs :

One thign to keep in mind is that a ship that's efficient and somewhat comfortable to live in probably won't be effective as a pirate ship - having a 'base' ship has an added advantage in keeping the 'pirate' ship loaded with less than legal hardware (and probably pictured on some nice 'wanted' posters) out of law-abiding ports. Say a tramp freighter/liner as a base and some sort of patrol boat as the fighter.
Of course it adds crew and disperse your need for security in two locations which adds it's own wrinkles but it's good thing.And if you score big enough it may even become a profitable sideline by offering a floating cantina/brothel/clinic/workshop to other pirates to burn their money.

Pirate havens exists and can remove the need for that, but those places tends to be expensive to live in. Prices structures will be distorted, with 'luxury' goods snatched from the prizes available for pennies while relatively low value goods that don't go raided and must be brought through backchannels will skyrocket. Raiding the prey's galleys and medic bays can come very handy in that regard.

A point to keep in mind about ransomning ships is that in 2070, the shipping companies have more of a bite than now. If the ransom is too much, ther'es a real chance they decide to mount a raid to get their ship back. If they consider it a sounder investment to put 2 millions for an Ares commando raid rather than 3 in paying pirates, it can hurt.
There are ways around that : stick to the small fry, or put your prize someplace the corporation will think twice to mess with. But the service of keeping out the corps will mean sharing the loot with the local power. To make an analogy, if your steal a ship and store it in a somalian port, odds are nobody will try to get it back. But you'll have to pay a share to the local warlord, unless you want him to get rid of you and keep it all.

[Shortstraw]

You watched a lot of Tailspin as a child didn't you?

Tailspin? All I know is my face has a solar powered (inc solar sails) space zeppelin and is on his way to mars.

[Mardrax]

I haven't read War! (Is it even out yet?) but if all ships can become u-boats after a little welding that does open up a lot of options.

@Mardrax: I don't have War! so for the purposes of this game, I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist. >.>

Yes, it's been out for quite some time. Don't let not having it stop you though. There's bunches of people pretending it never happened who do have it. There's multiple occasions of silliness within it, including every ship having Ballast Tanks (one of the vehicle mods from Arsenal) but clearly not being undersea-capable otherwise. There's even a whole thread dedicated to this.

That said, extensive tinkering can make any ship undersea capable. Ballast Tanks and Life Support 2 would be a solid bases to start from. Might want to oblige some extra armor as well to withstand water pressure. Be creative.

Then again, submarines can't have a crow's nest!

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Whew, man you guys came up with some good ideas, brought up a lot of things I hadn't even thought of!

@Brainpiercing: Honestly, probably going to skip the map thing. As far as stuff like that goes, I'm going to lean more towards ease of play, than realism, especially cause I've got some people who've never been involved with this kind of game before. I'm primarily expecting the PCs to use contacts and the matrix to be finding their prey, I wouldn't think that you would really want to just be driving around hoping you come across a good target, considering that you could find those targets just as easily via the Matrix. Not sure I'll use an actual clock, again I prefer a more fluid style, I lean more towards what is good for storytelling than what is likely to be realistically possible. Definitely going to have some kind of competition though, I've already got some good ideas about that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I like the idea of costing them a lot of money in bribes and such though. That whole thing about them making 2mil or whatever from one ship was something I hadn't really considered. Any information on how exactly a "ship ransom" would be pulled off in the Sixth World? Seems like a situation that could get really hairy really quickly, which is good of course. As for where the PCs got their ship, I'm still kind of deciding that. I'm thinking of having a storyline in which they were a smaller part of a larger, multi-ship crew, which broke apart after the Captain mysteriously disappeared, and they are just one of the pieces that stuck together and began operating independently. This would give them a reason for being together, a reason for having a ship, and sort of a pool of other pirates floating around that could potentially be picked up as crew, after they prove that they're leadership material. So for now I think I'm going to go with having the players be the only crew at first, and then they can recruit as much or as little as they'd like.

The reason I would go with a map isn't realism, it's to allow strategic gameplay, and hence increase the immersion. It's for atmosphere, for drama. It's so that your players can FEEL like pirates when standing around the map plotting their next move. Realistic would be using a big AR display ... yeah, I can see the problems with that. A projector, maybe?

@Sunnyside: Another thing I hadn't really considered, the ubiquity of spotter drones and such. Really though, even with that, the ocean is a huge place, you can't cover all of it at once, or at least not very easily. Also, considering the number of important factions, and the fact that they don't generally see eye-to-eye, I don't think it would be possible to have one huge network. So the players would probably have to rely on speed, and having a safe haven to return to would really help. I like the idea of a sub too, though it has less of that Pirate flavor in my opinion. Something I'll be sure to mention to the players.

Balkanization of security forces is a key concept of SR, without it, the entire game falls apart. Generally, it has to be assumed that the various security forces don't talk to each other, much, because they are all competitors.
The problem with spotter drones are the numerous means of providing early warning - say, a convoy of cargo ships has an escort boat with a screen of drones. That in itself isn't hard to penetrate, but it will give warning to the ships who will try to hightail it.
So basically, successfully raiding the convoy will mean drawing off the security, or creating a suitable smoke-screen. Appear harmless long enough. Take over the drones. Whatever.
This is another reason to have a fairly large tactical map, so that you can actually say "ok, we'll send the diversion in from the east to draw off the first batch of drones. When those have been taken out, the escort ship will hopefully respond, and also move to the east, at that point our zodiacs can hit that freighter to the west, board it, and immediately have it turn away from the convoy.

Boarding a 6th world container ship might be a hazard in its own right - I would expect a full complement of rail drones, the odd LMG turret and any kind of passive defenses - electricity on all the ladders, barbed wired around the railing, etc. Nothing that a group of runners can't handle, but...

@Paul: I've actually decided against starting them out with a large crew, but thanks for all the ideas just the same. If they decide to get a big crew, things like costs and trust issues will definitely become important! I do agree also that while pirating can solve a lot of supply issues, it probably can't do everything. For one thing, I would think that cargo shipments are normally fairly homogenous. So like, sure raiding that food boat sounds like a great idea to feed the crew, until you end up with 100 tons of various types of Wonderbread.

Actually in the modern world of shipping only few goods are transported in huge bulk amounts, like fuel or unprocessed ores, grain, and the like. Most goods are in containers. The container ships are the ones worth raiding.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yes, it's been out for quite some time. Don't let not having it stop you though. There's bunches of people pretending it never happened who do have it. There's multiple occasions of silliness within it, including every ship having Ballast Tanks (one of the vehicle mods from Arsenal) but clearly not being undersea-capable otherwise. There's even a whole thread dedicated to this.

That said, extensive tinkering can make any ship undersea capable. Ballast Tanks and Life Support 2 would be a solid bases to start from. Might want to oblige some extra armor as well to withstand water pressure. Be creative.

Then again, submarines can't have a crow's nest!

However, the trend for ships to have Ballast Tanks has been going on for a while now. They use them (IRL) to trim the ship when needed. I see this trend continuing into the future. Though, admittedly, a Rating 2 Ballast Tank is excessive for that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Hound]

So, bad news, just met with the new group yesterday and we decided against running a pirate campaign. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) One of the more experienced players that I had been counting on to kind of guide the newbies dropped out at the last second (like he literally texted me 5 minutes before we were supposed to meet up saying he wouldn't be able to play.) So, considering that that leaves me with 3 brand new runners and one with only moderate experience, the group decided a more "traditional" run might be better for now. We're going to play the first campaign in Seattle, but they promised to consider the pirate idea next time. lol (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) Thanks for all the help, sorry I won't have awesome Pirate stories to share, but you guys did give me a lot of things to think about for when I do eventually run this campaign.

[Manunancy]

Actually in the modern world of shipping only few goods are transported in huge bulk amounts, like fuel or unprocessed ores, grain, and the like. Most goods are in containers. The container ships are the ones worth raiding.

the problem with a container ship is that it's a huge pile of floating money and it's likely the efforts to get it back will tend to be swift and weel-funded. If you have a 2-thousand containers ship missing, that can mean billions in goods. that's more than an enough to go for the throat with military-grade action.

And even if you're only going after some of the containers (you'll need to cargo manifest and loading plan), there's the basic problem of physically accessing the container. When they're stacked ten-high, reaching the one in the middle isn't exactly easy...

[Ascalaphus]

the problem with a container ship is that it's a huge pile of floating money and it's likely the efforts to get it back will tend to be swift and weel-funded. If you have a 2-thousand containers ship missing, that can mean billions in goods. that's more than an enough to go for the throat with military-grade action.

Plant explosives with dead-man's triggers, tell the corporation that they can ransom stuff back for reasonable rates, but that any attempt at forceful recapture means you'll sink the ship.

Probably the first time you have to demonstrate that you're serious about it and can really do it, but next time the corporations know they have to think about what you're saying rather than just storm in.

Make very sure you have a getaway plan in case you need to blow up the captured ship.

And even if you're only going after some of the containers (you'll need to cargo manifest and loading plan), there's the basic problem of physically accessing the container. When they're stacked ten-high, reaching the one in the middle isn't exactly easy...

Go through the other containers. It's only physical matter, not an impenetrable barrier...

Let's face it: a good pirate crew needs a hacker to select targets and provide overwatch during the attempt to capture a ship.

[kzt]

You can't GET INTO the containers without a large crane. Like the ones that container ports have. The containers are positioned to prevent people being able to get into them and they are stacked high and deep and are very heavy.

If you destroy a $500 million dollar ship and cargo people will pay millions to see you dead. Millions in bounty will bring out the heavy hitters.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

You can't GET INTO the containers without a large crane. Like the ones that container ports have. The containers are positioned to prevent people being able to get into them and they are stacked high and deep and are very heavy.

If you destroy a $500 million dollar ship and cargo people will pay millions to see you dead. Millions in bounty will bring out the heavy hitters.

Ships are ALWAYS worth that much.

The world of SR does make a few things more difficult:
- You can't hide it. (But that's already the case now. A huge cargo ship can't be hidden, the companies always know where it is.)
- Hostages are only semi-effective as a deterrent
- killing some pirates won't raise any eyebrows anywhere
- there are nasty things like drones and flying tanks that could hunt you down

However, on the other hand, you have a lot of things in favour over the rag-tag bunch of africans pirating these ships nowadays:
- As a runner, you are 300% more awesome
- you can get detailed info about what ships are worth-while, you have a clear information advantage
- you have lots of technological toys to aid you (but so has the other side)
- did I mention you are 300% more awesome?
- in an assymmetric conflict you are the strongest weapon - if you play it smart. That's your bargaining chip. The point is not to use it.
- mounting an extensive operation is also really expensive - if they can buy the ship back for 2 million, but their op costs 5 (and it very quickly will), then where is the gain?
- as long as you keep it business, you can get away with lots of things. You're not a terrorist, you're a businessman asking a reasonable price.
- ships are insured, probably also against piracy
- they might be thinking that it was just a bunch of somalis again, but when they come they find out you are... oh wait, what? 300% moar awesome.

Seriously, the world of SR has a TON of these issues where you really have to... well, bend the realism for certain scenarios to work. As a GM it's easy to find a reason (or at least, it's easy to ask for one on a message board) as to why not every ship will be instantly repo'd by an HTR-team. For instance those might be busy doing other important work. Basically I would always just say "It's too expensive."

Look at why piracy is so easy right now: Companies have products, they produce these at a certain cost. Now they want to do this as cheaply as possible, so they want to produce in the place with the lowest wages possible, and so they want shipping to be as cheap as possible, too. So they don't pay for security, because governments are supposed to pay for that. Private cops or paramilitaries that are more than show are quite expensive. A few thugs won't be effective (in the world of SR). Also you don't want unreliable people near your cargo.

And even so, IF the HTR comes, they are fighting you on YOUR turf. Which is the classical difference to normally. And if you're only dealing with bounty-hunters then that's a serious, but actually fairly even challenge. Do you want to live forever?

[Ascalaphus]

You can't GET INTO the containers without a large crane. Like the ones that container ports have. The containers are positioned to prevent people being able to get into them and they are stacked high and deep and are very heavy.

You can go through walls, you can go through containers. It's just an engineering problem.

If you destroy a $500 million dollar ship and cargo people will pay millions to see you dead. Millions in bounty will bring out the heavy hitters.

Give the company a choice: pay a million in bounty, or kill the pirate and lose 500million in cargo.

[kzt]

Look at why piracy is so easy right now: Companies have products, they produce these at a certain cost. Now they want to do this as cheaply as possible, so they want to produce in the place with the lowest wages possible, and so they want shipping to be as cheap as possible, too. So they don't pay for security, because governments are supposed to pay for that. Private cops or paramilitaries that are more than show are quite expensive.

No, the reason why piracy works is that a whole lot of people won't do the things that they know will work due to their bizarre worldview. For example, the classical answer as to what to do with a captured pirate it to kill him out of hand. But no, the EU will allow the poor dears to claim asylum, so most of the major European power won't even capture them. The US want to spend a few million per pirate to haul then across the world, give them a huge trial and lock them up forever. Do you really think Ares or SK is going to refuse to capture pirates so they don't claim asylum? And if captured the question is long will the pirates last before they become shark chow, not what the prison sentence is.

In the same way, the way that piracy was eliminated in the 1800s was that pirate bases were destroyed by navies of those ships that had been attacked. That appears to be "totally unacceptable". We know exactly where the pirates operate out of. In the 18th century the answer would have been to shell the town, then use marines to burn the rubble down. In 2011 it's to send in charity workers to find out their grievances, then act all surprised when the charity workers get robbed, raped and murdered and then sadly proclaim how we can't do anything about this. I suspect that the SR answer is a lot closer to the 18th century solution than to the 2011 solution.

Hostis humani generis baby.

[KarmaInferno]

Give the company a choice: pay a million in bounty, or kill the pirate and lose 500million in cargo.

Or Call Max Hardberger and his merry crew!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)




-k

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

No, the reason why piracy works is that a whole lot of people won't do the things that they know will work due to their bizarre worldview. For example, the classical answer as to what to do with a captured pirate it to kill him out of hand. But no, the EU will allow the poor dears to claim asylum, so most of the major European power won't even capture them. The US want to spend a few million per pirate to haul then across the world, give them a huge trial and lock them up forever. Do you really think Ares or SK is going to refuse to capture pirates so they don't claim asylum? And if captured the question is long will the pirates last before they become shark chow, not what the prison sentence is.

Umm.... so what? That differs in no way from what normal runners can expect to happen to them.

In the same way, the way that piracy was eliminated in the 1800s was that pirate bases were destroyed by navies of those ships that had been attacked. That appears to be "totally unacceptable". We know exactly where the pirates operate out of. In the 18th century the answer would have been to shell the town, then use marines to burn the rubble down. In 2011 it's to send in charity workers to find out their grievances, then act all surprised when the charity workers get robbed, raped and murdered and then sadly proclaim how we can't do anything about this. I suspect that the SR answer is a lot closer to the 18th century solution than to the 2011 solution.

Hostis humani generis baby.

You're probably just trolling, but... seriously? You want to kill millions to catch a few hundred pirates? What, because they are poor? So you wouldn't want to shell a north-american town because you got mugged there, or someone stole your truck full of goods, but because these are just nameless (read=unknown) towns in africa it's ok? That's the dimensions you would be looking at today. And let's just look at the ramifications: Say you used one of these now-obsolete old battleships from the first half of the 20th century and pounded a coastal town to ruins. (Because arty is cheaper than bombs.) Now you have maybe a few thousand dead (99% civilians), but you still have double or triple or even ten times that number homeless, starving, and really looking for a way to get back at you. And the pirates probably already moved to the next town. So now you get all kinds of rabble - islamists, other pirates, whatever, recruiting those angry and desperate people. And there are so many weapons around that it'll be really easy to pick up an AK or RPG and go after the next ship. So you shell the next town, rinse, repeat. And so what you're saying is that the only way to stop piracy is genocide?

Sure the current way is clunky, which is why the economic powers are ineffectually trying to get these people prosecuted and convicted in their home countries - which of course won't work until you actually RAISE those entire countries up to a level approaching our own. And that will never work if you just pour money into them. But that's a difficult topic. In the end, we're just going to have to deal with the fact that we have to pay for the inequality of the world in general with more security measures on the side of the wealthy. And that's all good, for now - that's jobs created and money being spent.

Of course the SR answer is harsher than today. Buf SR is a world of abundant information, and you could never erase all of it. The corps still need customers, because the competitor is right behind that corner, and it's probably not the humanist NGO people who will successfully turn this into a PR-desaster - it's another corp. So... possibly thor-shotting a few towns on the african coast won't create a huge stink, but if news gets around it'll still not be good rep. Also... how many corps can do this? The only economic way of dishing out that much destruction is thor shots, everything else will QUICKLY cost a lot more than the value of the goods lost. And if they invade, they'll have an all-out war on their hands. So the established principles of the game still hold true: You do criminal business, that's ok for a while. If you exaggerate, someone will send a more or less surgical response after you.

And in the end, as I said, the entire world of SR probably wouldn't work - it's not nearly bad enough.