The Battle of Manhattan, Boardroom Backstabs book 3 Options

[SirFozzie]

And hoo boy is this one over the the top.

We have

[ Spoiler ]

The runners extract three Wuxing executives from a sub-orbital.. while it is in the air

and then..

[ Spoiler ]

Taking out a ship with 250 angry mercs on it.

and if that's not enough...

[ Spoiler ]

Manhattan turns into a war zone like that of Aztlan vs Amazonia. Where NYPD, Inc is overwhelmed, basically, the officers they send to break up skirmishes get ambushed, and then the folks that get sent into break up the ambush get ambushed. The players have to side with either Wuxing/Triads or a AA corp that's being targeted.

.

In short, basically, if your players survive all this, they are action movie/heist heroes. We're talking about Cruise/Schwarzenegger/Stallone level action heroes.. and probably deserve a hell of a lot more nuyen then that which is being offered. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Jaid]

In short, basically, if your players survive all this, they are action movie/heist heroes. We're talking about Cruise/Schwarzenegger/Stallone level action heroes.. and probably deserve a hell of a lot more nuyen then that which is being offered. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

no problem, just add ghostwalker in and they'll get another 3 grand each. add ghostwalker plus as many clones as there are PCs, and they get 6 grand each!

[Sendaz]

plus you can always pick up a few cars along the way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Plus there are places in Manhattan you can still get a real slice of pizza, not the soy remake. That itself is a prize on its own.

[SirFozzie]

Actually, now that I think of it, if your runners are Pito-style public runners, the real reward at the end of all of this is selling the movie rights to Horizon: "For Six Million Nuyen and a "Consulting Expert" tag in the credits, I'll help you make the next "Neil the Ork Barbarian: Manhattan Meltdown" movie true to life!

[Ryu]

1.) On a willing extraction, preferably with prior communication being possible, if you have access to Physical Mask and Extended Masking. Maybe. IMO the answer should be no.

2.) "They all lived till the yellow submarine." Filled to capacity with explosives. Should really be possible depending on the ship and available ressources. Most players should question if their characters are really willing to commit mass murder at that point. My current character had a ship with a three-figures-number of ghouls sunk by finding a party willing and able to do so.

3.) Whatever side the military will be on. Choice C) NYPD. If that is not possible and you can´t leave town either, side with Wuxing and go for fast surgical strikes. No kidding about the "run" part of Shadowrun.

[SirFozzie]

!) It's an unwilling extraction, read: Kidnapping. But don't worry, your Johnson has a plan..

2) The 250 angry mercs? You're there to sink a boat loaded with exotic telesma meant for making the new Wuxing HQ in Manhaten as feng shui positive as possible. There's nothing in the briefing about 250 angry mercs

3) Yeah, the Military don't come in until several hours have passed (and Manhattan yells about it afterwards, yelling about how the UCAS violated Manhattan's Corporate Sovereignty). NYPD, Inc basically decides "Both sides are going to shoot lots and lots at us if we try to break this up, let's let them shoot it out and then break it up afterwards".

And the end result?

[ Spoiler ]

The AA Corp cries to the Corporate Court, but Wuxing either takes over the AA Corp directly as a result of the decapitation strike (and thus as the owners of the AA Corp, drops all the charges against the new corporate overlords), or if they manage to hold out, Wuxing lawyers manage to tie it up in enough Bullshit, counter-arguments, red tape, and requests for continuations to manage their goals several months later.)

Wuxing manages to take over the AA corp and their spot on the Manhattan Council ). They don't go into how much spin they had to use or how much of a PR Hit they took in you know, causing open warfare in one of the biggest UCAS Cities.

[Tiralee]

Sorry, but when I read this, I thought it was a Muppet's reference.

Bonus Karma if you can add Muppets into the run:)


-Tir:)

[Ryu]

1) I certainly hope Mrs Johnson does start with a general "kidnap someone on a suborbital", not spilling any details. The group will walk out, no need to try and kill them for "knowing too much".

2) Some pre-warning about the mercs would be nice, but using explosives is kind of Plan A, so one might luck out.

3) At least the military gets involved within hours. SRs police force is as militarized as the real one, people ambushing their response teams are serious stuff. From your description I´d guess Wuxing would pay a very high price on the corp court. You do not disrupt the status quo in an area with so many shared ressources to take over assets by force. All corps who were impacted in Manhattan would sue, not only the base AA.

[SirFozzie]

Sorry, but when I read this, I thought it was a Muppet's reference.

Bonus Karma if you can add Muppets into the run:)


-Tir:)

"While you're in the New York City Archives, rumor has it holds the original of the document transferring the Walt Disney company the rights to the Muppets.. We would pay... handsomely if somehow a previously unknown clause was inserted to the documents transferring them to a previously unknown holding company."

I'll take my Bonus Karma in the form of a soykaf, please.

EDIT: Two seconds after I posted, I started thinking of the Muppet Show lyrics, and then...

After I posted, my brain started to kick in, and I came up with this bit of insanity...

To the theme of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ9yAV8uQ7g

It's the Muppet Shadowrun with our Very Special Guest Runner, Slamm-O! (YAY!!!)

It's time to plan the run now
It's time to meet the Johnson
It's time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Shadowrun tonight.

It's time to check your guns now
It's time to load your ammo
It's time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Shadowrun tonight.

Why do we always run against Renraku
I guess we'll never know
It's like a kind of torture
These Red Samurai really have to go!

And now let's get the run started
Why don't you get the run started
It's time to get things started
On the most sensational inspirational celebrational Muppetational
This is what we call the Muppet Shadowrun!

[Silverback]

Applause, applause, applause!!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[Beta]

That is ...... brilliant! (or possibly just deranged in the same direction that I am)

[SirFozzie]

That is ...... brilliant! (or possibly just deranged in the same direction that I am)

I cannot speak of your derangement and if it's the same direction as mine, but thank yew for the compliment.

Up next, Dr Bunsen Honeydew of Muppet Delta Labs (a subsidiary of Ares), where the future is being made last week (bleeding edge, doncha know) attempts to retrofit a regulator to Animal's Adrenal Gland.

"Just imagine the scientific possibilities Beaker!"

"MEE MEE MEEP MEEEEEEP"

"No, I'm sure this has been properly scientifically tested... after all, what could go wrong...."

(Animal's eyes fly open comically, as the sound of a motor is heard)

"MEEP! MEE MEE MEEP!"

"Oh dear. It seems like the regulator has become permanently stuck in the on position"

"AN-I-MAL! AN-I-MAL! ANIMAL! ANIMAL! ANIMAL! ANIMAL!

(Animal starts charging around the Muppet Labs, destroying everything, until smoke fills the room and sounds of explosions are heard. When the smoke clears, Honeydew and Beaker appear singed, dishelved, and Beaker's hair is on fire..)

(Beaker starts running around trying to extinguish his hair) MEEP! MEE MEE MEEEE!

And of course, the stinger from Dr Honeydew "Oh well, time to go back Project D, the Dikoting ™ of Stuffer Snacks for freshness....)

[binarywraith]

Call me crazy, but isn't avoiding open corporate warfare like this exactly why the CC exists?

[Sendaz]

Call me crazy, but isn't avoiding open corporate warfare like this exactly why the CC exists?

It is supposed to be, but they do not act fast so everyone gets a few licks in before they start clamping down on things.

[Nath]

The Corporate Court is not the United Nations Organization. It is not supposed to be a forum to discuss members' issues ahead and maybe avoid wars. It issues rulings and enacts punishments. The rules of the Corporate Court as they were presented in Corporate Shadowfiles involved punishing the megacorporation who violated them.
And it was made pretty clear that any destruction of properties or killing of personnel that can be proven (such as when it is made ou in the open by forces wearing your logo) must be paid along with lost profit, which negate the loss for the targeted corporation.

It was also stated that there are terapulses of data whose sole point is to forbid "any actions definable as corp war". Which then depends on the own definition of corporate war - the same book does defines it as matching one of the following criterion: action against assets uninvolved in the dispute, destruction of core program code and hardware, destruction of strategic assets (like headquarters and satellite networks) and military action. But it also suggest other definition such as "when the Corporate Court considers ongoing covert action as unnaceptable".

One may wonder why Nigel Findley took the time to write about something and then about why it was impossible in the setting.

Anyway, the authors casually ignore anything in the setting that would prevent them from writing the story they want to write. Rule of cool beats internal consistency.

[binarywraith]

Yeah, the whole point of the CC as I got it from Corporate Shadowfiles is that they operate as a gentlemen's agreement, with the force of an Omega Order declaring open season on any corp that dares to cross them too far.

[Nath]

I wouldn't describe it as a "gentlemen's agreement", whose definition is something informal and self-applied. The Corporate Court is not that. Getting thirteen high-level executives elected according to a weighted-vote system sent into space on a four-hour notice for closed-door emergency meeting certainly isn't informal. And hiring shadowrunners and mercenaries as deniable assets to violate the court rules stretches a bit the self-application part.

Operation Reciprocity against Aztlan and Aztechnology was specifically wrote into the setting to establish the Corporate Court had been tried and tested in the past and that it had teeth. Authors usually avoid writing in events that would upset the status quo, so they're not likely to provide much more example of this in the course of the timeline. Besides, it's hard to show a dissuasive effect at work since its purposes is to prevent things from happening (though the 2059 Renraku-Fuchi crisis in Blood in the Boardroom comes as a good example).
But sometimes the authors just hand-wave the fact the event they wrote in should have upset the status quo, and simply pretend it does not. By weakening the link between causes and consequences, it suggest there are no actual rules.

Corporate Shadowfiles was written with the idea that shadowrunning was a necessity for the megacorporation. The prime megacorporation were supposed to have very small military forces, some of them not even admitting it publicly, and only rarely if ever use them (on that topic, you can also read the part about LSSS military forces in Lone Star, also written by Nigel Findley).
Of course, the idea may sound strange to us now that we've had Blackwater and the likes IRL. But the very idea that every action must be covert is also an issue for authors who want to picture events going on. So you put soldiers with Wuxing uniform in the street instead of a proxy forces so that the audience gets to understand what's happening.

[SirFozzie]

It is a mercenary unit in the service of Wuxing that attacks the AA corp. It's the same one that had members on the ship you attacked. So if you side with Wuxing in the final battle, things can get.. awkward.

And here's the thing about Corporate Court. Yes, their mission statement is to "prevent intra-corporate warfare". Their true mission is to "Keep things so the biggest megacorps stay the biggest megacorps" so when push comes to shove, like in this situation, there's enough of "Do I want to set a precedent where next time MY corp wants to take over a smaller corp and things get public, WE get in the firing line?".

Yes, Wuxing did things a hell of a lot more publicly then any other corp would want to try, but that feelin is why that Wuxing barely skates by.

I'm sure there's some consequences to Wuxing (Higher rates for loans for a while, being made to pay out all claims big or small for those innocents caught in the crossfire, etcetera). But probably the prize is still worth it.

[Ixal]

Also don't forget that from time to time people (and megacorps) test how far they can go (Just look at what Russia currently does). So I do not see that this ignores the lore altogether. Wuxing tried to push some boundaries and it will likely get punished by the CC for it in some way or the other.

[Nath]

And here's the thing about Corporate Court. Yes, their mission statement is to "prevent intra-corporate warfare". Their true mission is to "Keep things so the biggest megacorps stay the biggest megacorps" so when push comes to shove, like in this situation, there's enough of "Do I want to set a precedent where next time MY corp wants to take over a smaller corp and things get public, WE get in the firing line?".

The true mission for each of the justices to keep things so the one megacorporation that put them there stay one of the biggest megacorps. Status quo will often be the easy way to achieve it. But there are like twelve justices who actually don't care if Wuxing stays one of the biggest megacorps or not. Otherwise, Fuchi Industrial Electronics and Cross Applied Technologies would never have fallen, and Yamatetsu, Wuxing and Horizon would never have been promoted.

But when it comes to the use of force, all of the prime megacorporations actually have a common interest. First, brute force is cheap (hell, it's so cheap that even governments have access to it). And so do all. Any second orthird-tier corporation can easily afford enough gunpower and dynamite to destroy a corporate building. And the biggest megacorporations are those with the most assets to protect. There are better investment to be made than a full military battalion in each and every facility. The prime megacorporations have more money, more influence, more consumer trust and better technology than the other corporations, but there is a limited amount they can spend in a battle before it becomes counter-productive for their own bottom-line (somewhere around the six-figure cost of firing a cruise missile on a downtown block...). To allow brute force as a primary mean for corporate competition is actually leveling off the field in favor of the smaller players. It's way easier for a corporation to assemble an assault force that may take on Red Samurais than it would be to influence the result of government bid in Japan or to produce competitive data storage electronics.

Also, the megacorporate system is based on a sense of security, at the expense of liberty. Private security forces, drones, isolated arcologies, immunity from local laws and regulations, employment contract, health-enhancing technology... The megacorporations gets to rule the world through promises of security. To openly appear as the ones who brings insecurity and threaten people safety would undermine the entire system.

[carmachu]

When and where is this being released?

[Voran]

Something of a necro, but Manhattan related as it was triggered by reading through the module.

Anyone able to point me to the older resources that had info on the various NYC passes? I seem to recall stuff about certain ones going for certain values, certain striped ones having better VIP access/etc. But for the life of me I can't find it in my stuff. I've looked in Manhattan Rotten Apple 4e and its not there, and its not listed in the 5e Manhattan update for the We-Are-Sorta-The-Borg nanobrainvirus book. I've got too much back issue stuff, it makes it hard to track things down.

[Sendaz]

Neo Anarchist guide to North America pg 115

When you first get to New York, you'll find Manhattan has a thing for passes. The three basic types are Resident, Work, or Temporary. Resident passes are white; solid white for full-time residents, white with a green stripe for part-time residents. Work passes are blue and also come in two types: a white stripe indicate you live and work in Manhattan, and a red stripe means that you live, but don’t work in the city. temporary passes are red and issued on a monthly basis. Occasionally, you might see a black pass. Those are for permanent guests.

Shadows of North America pg 173 adds special black cards that represent convicted criminals and ex-cons.
So you can get around, but every checkpoint knows what you are.... nice.

[Voran]

Actually I was wrong, I missed the heading/section in the borg-headvirus book about Manhattan, it was just lower in the section than I had thought. Think they also mentioned the 'criminal card' was being revoked for 2075. Side note, as a GM if I were running the Manhattan Battle, I'd replace/add an opportunity to remain on the side of Wuxing/Triad in the middle game and instead of do the silly "jump into a plane, do a Bane afterwards" side, you do the opposite, and instead of the "sink a ship" add a "find out the johnson that hired for the 'jump into the plane' mission. Storywise, it still ends up with the boat blowing up, but the PCs nabbing the PE Halfer and then things continue as normal.