I stumbled across this quote from the NY Times.
"The cereals sold under the Peace label are owned by Golden Temple, a for-profit company owned by a nonprofit group founded by the late Yogi Bhajan, who made his fortune from Yogi Tea, Kettle Chips and a company that provides security services."
Sounds a lot like the makings of a A or AA corp. How have multi layers of corporate ownership affected your games/runs? Has your group ever found itself working against one arm/company of a megacorp while in the employ of another?
Full Version: Who Owns Who?
First of all, "Who Owns Whom?" 
In answer to your question, hell yes. While deniable assets (a.k.a. shadowrunners) are often more desireable than corporate employees when taking action against another corp, they are absolutely vital when taking action against your own corp. And if you are pulling some kind of inside job, might as well pose as your enemy and see if you can get them in some trouble while you're at it. Many times I have had a Johnson drop clues that they work for a company other than what they do. That way, when the runners pick up on them they think they're brilliantly clever when they're actually falling for his ruse. Plus, when an inside job goes bad it's way more entertaining than a regular job.
Realistically, though, (that's SR-realism, for you kiddies following along at home) while only ten corporations own probably 90% of everything, two branches have to be pretty close to each other on the "corporate family tree" to really have anything to do with each other. Using your example, a run on the Peace corporatoin would affect cereal production and Golden Temple, but the security services that are owned by a guy who owns an group that owns Golden Temple would not be affected in the least. They might as well be seperate corps.
edit: I'm just being a smartass with that 'whom', thing. Ignore that part.
In answer to your question, hell yes. While deniable assets (a.k.a. shadowrunners) are often more desireable than corporate employees when taking action against another corp, they are absolutely vital when taking action against your own corp. And if you are pulling some kind of inside job, might as well pose as your enemy and see if you can get them in some trouble while you're at it. Many times I have had a Johnson drop clues that they work for a company other than what they do. That way, when the runners pick up on them they think they're brilliantly clever when they're actually falling for his ruse. Plus, when an inside job goes bad it's way more entertaining than a regular job.
Realistically, though, (that's SR-realism, for you kiddies following along at home) while only ten corporations own probably 90% of everything, two branches have to be pretty close to each other on the "corporate family tree" to really have anything to do with each other. Using your example, a run on the Peace corporatoin would affect cereal production and Golden Temple, but the security services that are owned by a guy who owns an group that owns Golden Temple would not be affected in the least. They might as well be seperate corps.
edit: I'm just being a smartass with that 'whom', thing. Ignore that part.
Speaking of Who owns What, if the we take off with the everyday tools for shadowrunners project I will probably work on a section for power tools. SO I've been thinking about who might own the brands we're familiar with today. So far I've come up with Ares owning the rights to Craftsman and General Electric, NeoNet owning Black & Decker (through a complex inheritance from Fuchi America) Bosch being a SK brand and Ryobi belonging to Shiawase. This will be purely for flavor I'm sure most people are just going to care about the battery life on their cordless drill or if a Pneumatic nail gun has good AR. (If you want to contribute ideas go to http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...=0&#entry349501 and post them or send them to either me or Redshirt
Don't they have to publish who owns shell corporations?
shell companies are funny. An example;
(without naming any names) someone I know works as a bonus check accountant, got a call from an agent/sales rep saying that a couple of people that worked for him didn't get their checks properly and that they were pissed as all hell and that hey had to have it fixed now.
Well, a little digging showed , first off, that the checks were over 6 months old. Generally, most paychecks are invalid after 6 months to help the company keep their books balanced and not have odd amount spulled out a year later, so of course they didn't clear.
More digging showed though that the two other reps were both under company names, and all of hteir information were the same as the guys that was calling in. They were effectively him, just under different names. They were his own little shell companies. So he'd basically done something stupid himself, and called in complaining like they had screwed up something for people that worked for him, and raised all kinds of hell. Perfectly legal I suppose, but what a jack @ss
(without naming any names) someone I know works as a bonus check accountant, got a call from an agent/sales rep saying that a couple of people that worked for him didn't get their checks properly and that they were pissed as all hell and that hey had to have it fixed now.
Well, a little digging showed , first off, that the checks were over 6 months old. Generally, most paychecks are invalid after 6 months to help the company keep their books balanced and not have odd amount spulled out a year later, so of course they didn't clear.
More digging showed though that the two other reps were both under company names, and all of hteir information were the same as the guys that was calling in. They were effectively him, just under different names. They were his own little shell companies. So he'd basically done something stupid himself, and called in complaining like they had screwed up something for people that worked for him, and raised all kinds of hell. Perfectly legal I suppose, but what a jack @ss
See examples: RJ Renolds, General Electric, Pepsi Cola, and Anhiser Bush.
| QUOTE (Moon-Hawk) |
| First of all, "Who Owns Whom?" In answer to your question, hell yes. While deniable assets (a.k.a. shadowrunners) are often more desireable than corporate employees when taking action against another corp, they are absolutely vital when taking action against your own corp. And if you are pulling some kind of inside job, might as well pose as your enemy and see if you can get them in some trouble while you're at it. Many times I have had a Johnson drop clues that they work for a company other than what they do. That way, when the runners pick up on them they think they're brilliantly clever when they're actually falling for his ruse. Plus, when an inside job goes bad it's way more entertaining than a regular job. Realistically, though, (that's SR-realism, for you kiddies following along at home) while only ten corporations own probably 90% of everything, two branches have to be pretty close to each other on the "corporate family tree" to really have anything to do with each other. Using your example, a run on the Peace corporatoin would affect cereal production and Golden Temple, but the security services that are owned by a guy who owns an group that owns Golden Temple would not be affected in the least. They might as well be seperate corps. edit: I'm just being a smartass with that 'whom', thing. Ignore that part. |
Damn, that's the same way I think.
In the Rhapsody Arc I just completed, the runners are still in the dark as to who was really pulling all the strings. I'm currently working on an "Encore" segment which will basically bring some fun stuff all to light provided they pick up on the clues (which has not been their forte).
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.