How would you bring down the corps?, A thought exercise Options

[Marwynn]

Corps are bad. You want to stop them. Curtail their influence, reverse the impact of their greed on Earth, or you just wanna get even with them for what they've done to you. Whatever.

You are, obviously, one person in the Sixth World. What do you do?

Do you enlist people to your cause? Do you build a network of like-minded and bloody handed individuals? Do you go at it alone?

[Draco18s]

Corps are bad. You want to stop them. Curtail their influence, reverse the impact of their greed on Earth, or you just wanna get even with them for what they've done to you. Whatever.

You are, obviously, one person in the Sixth World. What do you do?

Do you enlist people to your cause? Do you build a network of like-minded and bloody handed individuals? Do you go at it alone?

Go back in time 65 years and blow shit up. ;p

[Fortinbras]

You cannot fight the System. The System always wins. The corps are just a series of people who are following the path of least resistance. In this case the path of least resistance is evil. If you blow them all up, tomorrow they will just be replaced by a number of equally well meaning people who will fall into the power vacuum.

The only way to beat the System is to remove yourself from the equation. Move to Alaska or some other remote part of the world and live the life you choose there.

[Draco18s]

The only way to beat the System is to remove yourself from the equation. Move to Alaska or some other remote part of the world and live the life you choose there.

I tried that. They built a bridge I didn't want, so I could drive a car I down own across it in order to get to the airport I don't need.
</bridge to nowhere, Alaska>

[SpellBinder]

How would I bring down the corps?

Easy. I wouldn't. The first part of Fortinbras' post pretty much covers the why, though I'd add that the replacements can possibly be even worse than those you just took out. Best to deal with the evil you know than a potentially worse evil that can come to replace it.

[Speed Wraith]

You don't. You'd have to bring down civilization itself. Easiest way to do that I can think of is to go Fight Club on them and figure out a way to cause crash 3.0 in such a way that it irrevocably destroys everyone's SINs and credit histories.

Otherwise, you're going to have to go out and actively encourage bug spirits and actively aid them in consuming all of metahumanity. Of course, most of the hive-based ones are going to end up forming corporations of a sort anyway.

[Stahlseele]

Easy, i would use the story i would have used to do the SR3/SR4 Matrix 1.0/Matrix 2.0 Transition.
Get the Heir of MicroDeck(Pseudo-Otaku/Technomancer) to make some trips into the systems of no less than 3, better 5/7/9(to your liking) of the Big 10 corporations.
Have him wreak some major havoc in there, leave traces in 2/4/6/8 of the 3/5/7/9(to your liking) pointing to the other 2/4/6/8/10(to your liking) and then leave traces pointing at the 3rd/5th/7th/9th and then finally at the 3rd/5th/7th/9th leave traces pointing at the tenth and THERE leave traces pointing at MicroDeck.
Stock up on Weapon and Matrix Offense/Defense-Corporation Stock. Move somewhere out of the line of fire and watch the fireworks fly in an more or less all out corp war.

Bit of a Xanathos Gambit, i will admit. And it needs a magnificent bastard to pull off effectively too . .
Yes, this was when MS killed the old SRO and decided to do their shooter nonsense, why do you ask?

[Jareth Valar]

As Stahlseele mentioned, but this alone might not work. The all out war would have to threaten to destabilize things to the point that the governments (and the destruction of the Gemeinschaft Bank (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif) ) force the revocation of extra-territorial status and reinstate government regulations and laws. This, coupled with a powerful public (non corporate of course) speaker to nudge the pissed off masses in the desired direction, this MIGHT, and I stress might bring corps back to the power they currently have.

[Thanee]

Blow up the earth. That should take care of them.

Bye
Thanee

[Halinn]

Either by bringing about the end of the world (horrors, shedim, massed nukes, zerg rush. Your choice), or by coordinating it so that in the case I manage to take all of the big 10 (and probably most of in not all AAs as well) down, the power vacuum will have to be filled with a large quantity of lesser players. If done quickly enough, this should hopefully give the various governments enough breathing room to roll back all extraterritoriality, which will severely diminish corporate influence.
Under the assumption that the world won't end, and the option for extraterritoriality remains, the status quo will remain largely the same, as fully independent corporations can apply much more pressure against the world.

[CanRay]

Well, you'd have to remove the Cyberpunk from Shadowrun to do it... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[ShadowDragon8685]

Corps are bad. You want to stop them. Curtail their influence, reverse the impact of their greed on Earth, or you just wanna get even with them for what they've done to you. Whatever.

You are, obviously, one person in the Sixth World. What do you do?

Do you enlist people to your cause? Do you build a network of like-minded and bloody handed individuals? Do you go at it alone?

Step 1: Stop playing Shadowrun and start playing Exalted (2nd ed, no 2.5 or EX3) in the Sixth World.
Step 2: Exalt as a Night Caste Solar. (Alternatively a Day Caste Abyssal will work; probably also some flavor of Infernal, but I'm partial to Solars.)
Step 3: Get myself a good Paranoia Combo. A 2/7 Filter is mandatory, as are Shaping defenses.
Step 4: Roam the world as an invincible golden murderhobo, vanishing into the sprawls so perfectly that no amount of RFID chips, spirits, sprites or Dragons can track me. Gain massive amounts of XP and nuyen.
Step 5: Begin assassinating major powers. Start with the Emperor of Japan and the CEO of all the Japanacorps, then take a sharp right through Lofwyr's brain to show the world that the Great Dragons are no longer the invincible creatures they were believed to be.
Step 6: Vanish for more murderhobo antics, gain more XP, start using social charms to disrupt and collapse the natural order of things.
Step 7: Set up a new world order with me on top. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Critias]

To genuinely bring down the corps? Pretty much nothing, realistically. It's like one person wanting to "bring down" every real-life superpower, destroy every major nation, curtail the influence of every member of the UN and every major corporation all at once, etc, etc.

To really make a go of it in the Sixth World? ? To try to sting them a little bit, to get them out of any one neighborhood, to make your disdain known? Read a few manifestos and how-to books on guerrilla warfare and insurgencies, and go to town. Assassination campaigns, fundraising from like-minded individuals willing to risk a megacorp's wrath, hit-and-run fighting, blending into the local populace, hardening your heart against the inevitable civilian retaliations, and trying to make it a few months before the commandos come and get you.

That's about it. There are a handful of groups already trying this sort of thing, though. The most recent publication to deal with them heavily would be Loose Alliances, off the top of my head. Neo-Anarchists, that sort of thing. But, well, it's been clear from day one that none of them are actually working. They're doing their thing, but none can make real progress; it's just the nature of the setting and the odds stacked against them.

[Manunancy]

Wiht most government being fairly thoroughly bought, you'll need to take them down too. which means you're going to leave the ground to organized crime types, gangs and other warlords in a somalia-style mess which would make a Lagos resident feel right at home. Not sure it's much of an improvement.

[CanRay]

"First, we must destroy civilization... All of it."

[FuelDrop]

"First, we must destroy civilization... All of it."

Why stop there? Let's wipe out all life and start again!

[CanRay]

Why stop there? Let's wipe out all life and start again!

I've been known to suggest that it's time for the Cockroaches to have their shot a time or two.

[FuelDrop]

I've been known to suggest that it's time for the Cockroaches to have their shot a time or two.

Meh, if the roaches survive then we've obviously not been thorough enough!

[Marwynn]

Well, re-re-re-reading Shadowrun history, the Shiawase decision came about after a botched attack at a private nuclear facility to power Shiawase's needs. A government agency sued that they were lax in their security, Shiawase points out that their hands were tied, and thus extraterritoriality for corporations was born.

It smacks of a shadowrun to me.

So why not a reverse-Shiawase decision? What could be large enough to sway public or private opinion against corp extraterritoriality? What do you offer impotent governments as an excuse or an incentive to start whittling away at corp rights?

[LurkerOutThere]

Some of the thought process is even if governments want to start whittling away at this point the corps would just say "Nah, we're cool" and that'd be that. By and large we're past the point of the governments being able to take things in mass from the corps. Sure certain governments like UCAS are big enough that they'd be more trouble to tangle with then their worth, but as a whole the governments still exist because it's a better deal for the corps then if they don't.

Basically the bell can't be unrung, and further even if you could unring it the system is so prevalent that for the vast majority of (corporate) citizens they don't want to go back.

In order to see a real sea change moment you'd need almost a utopia government, a digital democracy set up with enough space to mostly self sustaining and a strong enough bargaining chip to keep the corps from smothering it in it's crib, then with time it could start to weaken the perceptions, but yea until then forget it.

[Umidori]

Really, what you'd have to do is convince the right people and organizations that the corporations are a danger to them. You'd need a popular revolution, probably, because the various national governments aren't strong enough to really do anything, even as a coalition. Even then it'd be a very slow and painful process, with lots of lives ruined or lost for very little relative change until the entire thing toppled to the ground, and then you'd have a mighty painful time rebuilding everything.

You'd also have to turn the corps against one another, because as cutthroat and competitive as they are, they would probably join together in the common interest of self preservation if they weren't already highly inclined to gut each other no matter the cost.

~Umi

[Marwynn]

Would it be possible to weaken one of the Big Ten and focus everyone's attention on bringing them down. Keep the corps busy amongst themselves as they fight to devour chunks of it.

Ares at the moment fits the bill. Their new "Excalibur" battle rifle apparently lost them some market share. It's not enough to undo Ares' influence, but suppose there's massive public outcry about the Bugs?

Suppose that there are some Bugged-up executives as well? (Purposefully "invested" by yourself). That will provides enough of a pretext to start hacking the corp apart. Governments will express outrage, politicians will fire up the masses, corps will howl and distance themselves from Ares while they start to maneuver to gobble it up. One corp takes the lead, say MCT.

Then, engineer a tragedy. Say MCT is really being bloody about all its hostile takeovers, and there's a particularly nasty one where MCT claims there was a bug nest at an arcology. It's a massacre, but in the aftermath some of MCT's soldiers' bodies were retrieved: it looks like they were invested with Bugs of their own. Suddenly, the corps' sham is too much to bear. Public anger and disgust turn against the corps as a whole. Ares and MCT citizens flee their parent corps.

It's Corp War II with the corps fighting it out as the governments eke some power back. It won't end them once and for all, that's not the point. Just curb their influence.

Imagine the chaos in Seattle (or any Knight Errant "protected" city) when some KE higher-ups are revealed as bug hosts. Greed, fear, and opportunism can change the world.

(Just to be clear, I'm not against the corps in the game. I like their level of evil in Shadowrun. This is just for fun, to see if an approach is plausible and possible.)

[Umidori]

To be honest, I think the fastest way the corps would fall would be if the Dragons wanted the corps to fall. Not likely, but hey.

~Umi

[StealthSigma]

Initiate a world war featuring corps on one side and governments on the other. Simply revoking extraterritoriality by one government is insufficient to reverse the power because the corps have utilized it to build up their own paramilitary forces. So if you revoke it you need to force necessary to enforce it. If one government remove extraterritoriality you can be assured there will be a retaliatory strike by the corps because once one nation sets the precedent, other will be inclined to follow. I doubt any single nation is capable of directly taking on all 10 megas plus whatever AAs wanted to join in and emerge victorious.

[LurkerOutThere]

To be honest, I think the fastest way the corps would fall would be if the Dragons wanted the corps to fall. Not likely, but hey.

~Umi

I hope not. If the lizards pitch that fight they should get roasted. If not, at that point we could change the name to Magicrun, or Earthrun 2070 edition.