Sixth Edition, Release Announcement Options

[Sendaz]

When they dropped hints about the Crops and UCAs having a bit of a falling out I was curious.

(pg 51)<9-12-80/1341:55> UCAS drops out of BRA

Admittedly that was a surprise given it is such a big part of the setting, but I was really curious how the UCAS was going to make it stick.

[ Spoiler ]

(pg 92)<01-25-81/1200:56>President Colloton Signs Bill to Re-affirm BRA

Aaaaand then we find out they couldn't.

Granted there was a lot of stuff going down, though very little can be laid at the CC's feet to blame, for now.

(pg92) According to insiders, the re-affirmation bill not only restores all of the previous provisions of the BRA, but adds several new conditions that give Corporate Court-rated megacorporations even more leeway to operate in the UCAS without government interference.

Emphasis mine.

Now that's more like we expected.

[Sengir]

And if one argue the historical precedents of West and East Germany and China and Taiwan prove nations may favor status quo over enforcing their stance againt a military peer, it would be an equally fair argument to point at, say, the Red Dawn movies, as pop culture strategy. That is why I think it is not possible to reach an agreement over what is plausible or not. The basis for corporate extraterritoriality is a commonly shared belief - it ultimately makes no sense to try to back one particular case with RL facts, when the basis is not to start with. If corporate extraterritoriality is rooted in movies, then there's no reason for governments' answers to it to be rooted in factual geostrategic analysis.

IMO the more relevant Latin phrase (well, pair of phrases) when discussing the consequences of the UCAS no longer recognizing the BRAs is de facto and its buddy de jure: West Germany, China, and the UCAS do/did very much want to change the status quo, but what are they going to do in order to get the place they legally consider theirs under their factual control? Every single megacorp is a superpower with nuclear arms, Thor shots and (due to their distributed nature) guaranteed second strike capacities.

The basis for corporate extraterritoriality is a commonly shared belief

How about a "consensual hallucination"? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Nath]

We should probably remember that strategic decisions of that level are currently taken by a small group of persons, most of them US-born white males with a limited bagage when it comes to international law, diplomacy or military affairs, based on whom among them can get his ideas circulated faster, with one person at the top that loves big flashing explosion and can only give a limited attention to reading the details. I'm talking about the CGL writing team here, obviously.

By suspending the Business Recognition Accords, the Colloton Administration is possibly making the whole thing a lot more dramatic than it needed to be. Canon-wise, California is baring Aztechnology from operating within its borders. The Pueblo had Mitsuhama Computer Technologies evicted for illegal activities. Switzerland and the CAS have BRA implementations that only grants extraterritorial privileges to corporations inside specific areas that are designated, contingented and attributed by the government. So it is actually possible to stay within the BRA and restrict what corporations can do a lot more than what the UCAS previously did.

The UCAS even seemed to be among the countries that had the most extensive interpretation of corporate extraterritoriality. And still it was that country who took over the Renraku arcology, because of an imminent safety hazard for surrounding area (Colloton oughta know).

If I had to justify it as a writer, I'd probably invent some BRA provisions that make Pueblo-like evictions or Quebec-like extraterritorial zones possible only if the change is notified several months in advance, making such solution unsuitable for the emergency at hand (whatever that was, I don't know, I haven't read the book).

Clearly, from the Corporate Court point of view, having the country that went to farthest into deregulation rolling back would send the wrong message to the rest of the world. But so would starting blowing up city blocks as a reaction.

When France tried to restrict corporate operations in 2038, corporations got them to cave in with shadow ops and economic threats (that was before they set the standard with the BRA though). When Canton refused extraterritoriality to Wuxing after Corporate Court rated it AA, it took three months of "accidental" port blockades, power outages, food shortages and arms sales to the neighbouring countries.

Looking back at SR history, my opinion is that the purpose of the actual BRA ought to be the opposite of what most people would believe. The major corporations already had extraterritorial privileges in a large number of countries before the BRA. Maybe they did not had them everywhere, but who needs an international treaty about "continuous, delimited and permanent facility" when you can set up shop in autoritarian states that will simply order cops and judges to leave "our dear friends" alone?
The one thing that the BRA actually brought is the requirement that extraterritorial privileges be only granted to companies rated AA or AAA by the Corporate Court. It effectively took the authority to decide who should be extraterritorial away from the government, to put it solely into the hands of the Corporate Court members. So basically all the other corporations were either forced to register with the Corporate Court and accept its authority as an arbitrage body, or try to do business without having access to extra security, black ICE, corporate passports... making it all the more easier for the big corps to take them over or take them down.
In this regard, having one country like, say, Amazonia or the UCAS, that refuse to grant anyone extraterritoriality is much less of a threat to the system than having an outside corporation becoming powerful enough to obtain equivalent privileges through corruption and intimidation, without registering with the Corporate Court.

But maybe the point of Cutting Black precisely was to herald a new era of corporate imperialism, where the Corporate Court will cease to enforce its old rule that you don't overthrow governments.

[Kyoto Kid]

...we are getting to a point in RL today that a rule like that could be useful.

[binarywraith]

But maybe the point of Cutting Black precisely was to herald a new era of corporate imperialism, where the Corporate Court will cease to enforce its old rule that you don't overthrow governments.

Could be, but I'm never, ever going to bet against Hardy being creatively bankrupt.

[pbangarth]

Could be, but I'm never, ever going to bet against Hardy being creatively bankrupt.

Interesting phrase ... it can be interpreted two ways: no creativity, or very good at losing money.

[Sengir]

The one thing that the BRA actually brought is the requirement that extraterritorial privileges be only granted to companies rated AA or AAA by the Corporate Court. It effectively took the authority to decide who should be extraterritorial away from the government, to put it solely into the hands of the Corporate Court members. So basically all the other corporations were either forced to register with the Corporate Court and accept its authority as an arbitrage body, or try to do business without having access to extra security, black ICE, corporate passports... making it all the more easier for the big corps to take them over or take them down.
In this regard, having one country like, say, Amazonia or the UCAS, that refuse to grant anyone extraterritoriality is much less of a threat to the system than having an outside corporation becoming powerful enough to obtain equivalent privileges through corruption and intimidation, without registering with the Corporate Court.

Hmm, that's an interesting idea

[Iduno]

Interesting phrase ... it can be interpreted two ways: no creativity, or very good at losing money.

I assume he's still trying to get rid of Dumpshock. Maybe he finally realized we'll still be here as long as Shadowrun is a thing that exists, so he's trying to kill off the line? Actually, with his competence, that would probably make SR better.

[Kyoto Kid]

I assume he's still trying to get rid of Dumpshock. Maybe he finally realized we'll still be here as long as Shadowrun is a thing that exists, so he's trying to kill off the line? Actually, with his competence, that would probably make SR better.

...indeed. Go to the Tabletop forums and if you speak critically of 6E you get attacked (I even received a couple caustic and insulting PMs from one participant whose title is "Catalyst Demo Team") or have your posts removed. The Reddit SR forum mentions that it will not tolerate posts that "Derail threads with CGL hate" (read: direct criticism).

I miss FASA.

[JanessaVR]

And with that, you see why I always donate annually to keep Dumpshock afloat, and encourage others here to do the same.

Do you want to be stuck with official forums, where only propaganda is allowed?

[Kyoto Kid]

And with that, you see why I always donate annually to keep Dumpshock afloat, and encourage others here to do the same.

Do you want to be stuck with official forums, where only propaganda is allowed?

...+1

[Redjack]

I assume he's still trying to get rid of Dumpshock.

I doubt it. A coup was attempted several years ago, but some well executed moves thwarted that and it has been silent since. I'm sure that there is still active loathing, but stick and stones...

[Sengir]

The Reddit SR forum mentions that it will not tolerate posts that "Derail threads with CGL hate" (read: direct criticism).

That sounds like a rule against derailing, not against criticizing CGL. I read the SR reddit occasionally, and they certainly don't pull any punches against CGL there

[Kyoto Kid]

...but why would they specifically point out criticism of CGL? Why not just say don't derail threads and leave it at that?

[fistandantilus4....]

Too common / too easy?

Also, hi. Still alive. Good to see familiar faces.

[Kyoto Kid]

...thank you. Same here.

Been a long time since the 3E days

Fell out of the scene for a while as I wasn't very enamoured with 4E and what they did to all the great intrigue and subplots, and was difficult to find people who still used 3E. Got back into SR a few years ago through a local weekly Missions group where I live which kind of rekindled the old fires.

Currently retooling my old 3E Europe campaign arc to 5E mechanics (still set in the early 2060s) and having to house rule some stuff to give it more the feel of the "old days".

Feels good to be "home" again (though there seems to be this "echo" as of late and the Missions forum seems to have collected a fairly thick layer of dust). Things over on the Tabletop forums began to get a wee bit testy for my tastes, particularly regarding 6E discussions, so I pretty much bailed from there.

[Moirdryd]

Since the 3e days?... Well it's been 12 days since the last session with a modified for 3e version of Mercurial and 2 days until the next... so it hasn't been that long (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Kyoto Kid]

...for myself it's been about a decade, 2009 - 2010 when I last ran a 3E campaign.

[Moirdryd]

I feel that is something that should be remedied

[Kyoto Kid]

...yeah, but where I am most lost interest in 3E after 4E was released.

Admittedly one of the downsides of 3E was decking as it was a extremely convoluted and usually resulted in a food and beer run for the rest of players (I actually created Excel Spreadsheets to streamline the process as much as possible). Another was the Magic loss rule from wounds when it came to Adepts as they tended to go headlong into a fight. If it occurred, they lost abilities until they initiated again. Meanwhile spell slingers usually stood back (often in cover) and cast spells as well as had other means to compensate for it. I ended up house ruling that it didn't' apply to adepts (unless of course it was from implants or essence drain such as from a vampire or critter with the power).

Going back to 3E would also mean having to lug 18 kilos or so of books around again whereas my 5E library is all on PDFs. Carrying around a notebook computer is a lot easier on the old aching arthritic shoulders (hoped by now they'd have come out with Enhanced Articulation and Bone Density bioware, one of the good side effects was no more Rheumatoid or Osteo- Arthritis).

[JanessaVR]

4e is the definitive edition for me, and I also have it all available as a digital library. Mine's also in a neatly labeled folder on my Amazon Cloud Drive (along with the rest of my gaming collection in their own folders), so that I can pull it down to any device whenever I need something.

[Kyoto Kid]

...several things in 4E turned me off.

The main one (as I mentioned previously) was the inclusion of a "luck attribute" which to me gave it more a "video game" or MMORPG feel. In previous editions you got one chance to pull your hoop out of the jaws of certain death, and it was costly. Now you not only could get "extra lives" but buy those points of burnt Edge back to do it again, and again. Yeah, in older editions you could use Karma Pool in somewhat a similar way like to avoid an "oops" or buy extra dice (at a progressively increasing cost) but you really had to think before doing that as once spent, it was spent. A Hand of God required spending all your good Karma and Karma Pool (woe to that spell slinger who had a pile of hard earned karma banked up for raising his/her MA and attaining that next initiation grade).

The Hard Skill Caps. No longer could you be "the best pilot [or whatever] anyone ever saw" just only as good as someone else.

The initiation process which required also increasing your MA before receiving any benefits, this particularly crocked Adepts who depended on power points for improvement. True, there was the alternate rule to buy a PP at 20 Karma without initiating (up to your MA), but when the suggested Karma award for a run was something like 6 - 7 that was still a pretty big expense and you still had to initiate to get Adept Centring.

The changes to decking. Now anyone could hack, (even spell slingers as there was no longer that negative modifier for the awakened going into the virtual world) as all you needed was a commlink a Hot SIM module, a few programmes (all which were relatively cheap compared to a full blown cyberdeck older editions) and a little sill in computers and hacking.

The fact that spell casting had become grossly overpowered.

[JanessaVR]

4th's not perfect, but coming from OWoD, it's very intuitive. And we have extensive house rules for it as well.

[Kyoto Kid]

...yeah played Changeling the Lost. Pretty weird and the mechanics are strange. Had an autumn Fey who fed off dreams and nightmares, probably one of the darkest characters I ever had.

Even Wednesday, my Black Magic Mystic Adept with Seducer as her mentor spirit wasn't that sinister.

[JanessaVR]

My group was all Vampire: The Masquerade, except for me, who preferred Mage: The Ascension. But we all noticed that the 4e mechanics were a dead ringer for OWoD, which is one of the reasons we got into SR4.