This just hit me - why would you ever have a dissatisfied employee, or one who complains that their wages are too low, or one who shuns the thought of putting in Mandatory Unpaid Overtime, or who ever thinks a bad thought about the corp?


I mean, really; the cost of the "Work Ethic" personafix may be initially high (first you have to find a genuinely motivated employee, then pay beetle-doctors to spike up all the emotions and sensations related to having a good work ethic), but once you have one tailored, all you have to do is just produce them. Sure, some employees might not come with their own cyber to chip it, but you can install that and take it out of their wages (with interest) over a long time; they won't complain. After all, the Work Ethic chip tells them that everything the company does is for their benefit, and everything they do that benefits the company is also for their own benefit. So work work work, and don't complain, because whining brings down productivity, which hurts you in the end. And remember to put on a smile, so we'll all get along - workers who get along work better!

the corps tried that, until they realized there WAS no employee with a real good work ethic. Anyone working hard is simply plotting to take your job, and they certainly CAN'T have that.

See the beetledoctoring part. I'm sure we can take away the scheming part and link the hard work ethic with the "feel warm and fuzzy" sensation from the puppy beetle or something.

We can also encourage the use of corp provided BTLs, low addiction threshold, but modified to maintain low-level addictions rather than staging it up.

"Take a Soma holiday, this weekend."

We can send the wage-slaves on a whole series of interactive vacations and with mesh networking, it would be possible to link the BTLs together so that other people on the chip could interact with you.

"Just like being there, without the jet lag."

Of course, the introduction of psychotropic conditioning as a subsignal to the primary would allow for company loyalty etc.

And behold as willing Extraction runs go out the wayside.


What happens if you try to treat Psychotropic conditioning and Beetle addiction... With different Psych conditioning and new Beetles?

I'm not sure if the rules covered it, but I'm remembering in MM? CC? a section on reprogramming and psychotropic conditioning.

I can see the picture of a druggie with his hot orc action, and a seperate picture of a guy sitting in a chair with a mind frying helmet.

It's been too long since i've pulled an SR3 book off the shelf that wasn't for source material. Does anyone else remember what I'm rambling on about?

CC.

~J

I'm not sure. If there's one thing people really hate it's someone else manipulating their minds. While within the corp the pressure might make it so that employees are willing to submit themselves to constant mood chips, as soon as the outside world found out it would be a scandal.

Also, while for the grunt wageslave masses, it might actually work well, for the real talent, using a mood chip might in fact decrease productivity. The medium to hard-hitters need all their brain, all the time to perform well, and the use of mood chips might damper that.

However, the corps may very well make available the purchase of mood chips to their employees on a voluntary basis. So you might find, in an office environment, a couple of people chipping their "Employee of the Month" chips. However, like I said, management would probably assume that the chip is a crutch for the worker, and pass him/her over for promotion because of that. Which would be very ironic and interesting.

I think some corps may have tried it but think of the potential runs. Break into 'X' corp's BTL lab and replace their code with this completely harmless code.

Next day's 'Seattle Intelligencer'; 'X' corp's Board of Directors slaughtered by blood crazed employees in psychotic frenzy!

Of course corps could try subtler subliminal conditioning, but that too lends itself to sabotage by runners

For the lower level workers, the work ethic is probably much like it was during the early Industrial period: work or starve. If you've got a job with a corp, you're fairly lucky. It might suck, but the choice is to end up on the streets and maybe not find any other work, at least not as well paying as the corp work.

Also, much of the old canon material stated that many corps had the old Company Store thing going on. That is, the workers live in corp housing, was paid in corp scrip rather than nuyen or other hard currency and thus had to do their shopping at corp stores. This system was used to thoroughly trap people in the company by giving them no economic freedom, overcharging them for basic goods and getting them in debt to the corp even for those basics. The Company Store system worked for a long time until it was overthrown, in the US mostly through government regulation, but also with a fair amount of violence.

Middle level people could be in sort of the same boat. A little more freedom, but still not a lot of chance to change jobs. Still, they would probably have the best chance of escaping of anyone. The workers are basically slaves and trapped in the system while higher level researchers and managers are too valuable to let go at all. Lower and mid-level management and such, well they aren't quite valuable enough to worry with too much security or a recovery run to get them back, unless perhaps they are very promising.

Mind alteration would probably be more expensive and troublesome that it would be worth for most workers. As stated, the company store method works. Maybe some of the foreman and others could be so treated, but simply giving them some perks would probably work just as well and not mess up their minds. Mid-level types would be much the same. Given them enough freedom to go out and have a wild Saturday night and buy some of the latest toys and that should satisfy them. Uppers levels? Well, they might need to do some work on someone they actually catch attempting to leave or one that has been rescued from those dastardly Shadowrunners. But here again they would really need their brains functioning unimpeded, so perks, stock options more toys would probably satisfy most of them.

I can't find it right now, but I'm almost 100% certain that there is a sourcebook with shadowtalk regarding a specific megacorp that tried this very thing. I also remember that it failed.

I'll have to pull out my old CC to check on things like this tonight. Another intriguing direction for a run could be the flaw from SOTA:64 where residual programming is stuck inside the person. Now the runners need to get information out of the sous-chef without tripping off his assassin personality.

The way I see it, personafix chips could really help some people. Like me.

I would chip some "dedication" and "work ethic" and "not minding the mindless inane dullitry of your life" in a New York Minute.

A worker who can soldier on through the daily drudge with a smile and then go home and take the fucker out would be a lot more productive than one who feels every damn second.

That's not VR work ethic, though. I mean, something that will make me not mind the fact that I'm essentially chained to a desk crunching numbers for 8 and 10 hours a day. At least until I get home.

Consider it willpower in a chip, if you will; the willpower to stave off the mind-crushing boredom and soul-crushing existensilism of it all.

All of wich, he purchased at the Company store, using Company scrip (his "effective pay"™ goes up by 30% if he signs the waiver to allow this), and his Company ID got him a 10% discount.
He had the 'ware he uses to interact with his VR world installed by a Company surgon, at a Company clinic. He doesn't realize that he has Company mood-and-productivity-enchancement software hidden in the firmware of his Company sim module.
He has become more productive since he had the ware installed; but he just thinks it's the cyber making his job easier by improving the man-machine interface, all that data-entry is performed almost subconciously now that he's used to it. Being more productive makes him smile.
Later, he recieves a Company memo, it seems there is an, "Extreamly urgent firmware update" for his cyber. The code is removed, but the conditioning stays.

I wish I could slot a better attention span.

At the end of the day though, aren't most BTLs really just a type of direct neural interface drug, and one with known side effects in SR? I would think that cultured bioware would be the better option, and most likely even better would be genefixing your workforce down the line. Then you don't even need the drugs they are born happy corp slaves.

It'd be cool if everything could be done by drones being actively rigged. That said, we'd need to start expanding off-planet to find enough resources for our army of nearly-von-Neumann drones.

From: Human Resources Management
To: ShadowDragon8685
Subject: Termination

Dear ShadowDragon8685,

We are sorry to hereby inform you that your position with us has been terminated. You will be replaced by a new brand of rigged biodrone. However, as this new technology is still yet imperfect your services will be retained in another manner. Please report to medical bay #57 on Floor #183 Sector 5.

As per your employment agreement we are inacting the Subsection 6892 Paragraph 5 which states that we are allowed to surgically remove your brain for use as material in new projects such as the new Series 7 worker drone. Worry not ShadowDragon8685. You will now be part of a greater whole. For in disecting your brain and using it's componets as part of the new biocontrol chips for the drone. We will theoretically be turning you into a hivemind being.

Tests of course are not conclusive to this fact. Either way, it's best you come along quietly. Security is on its way as we speak to escort you to your new life.

Please have a plesant day.

Freida Briggs
Human Resources Director
Floor 112 Sector 3

THere's a lot of complications when using things on a massive scale. What happens when some people need a stronger dose to get the same effect? Or others get fried out and truely useless? Or what happens when Shadowrunners hack into your system and replace your 'work hard be happy' btl with 'start subversivly working against your employer in 6-12 months'?

And unless you could immediately install this across the board along with all other corps (mega and not) people would freak out as soon as word leaked out. And by people freak out I mean other corps would manipulate public opinion with news of your brain manipulation to eliminate your market share.

Oh my god. Vat-grown Biodrones!!! I love it. Thanks Kesslan.

Seriously. Chipping attention span and work ethic?

The employees would be all over that like (heavily-armored) ambulance chasers on a Doc Wagon HTR.


Seriously, woulden't you? It'd just make the day go by, and no matter how much crap you had to put up with during the day, you come away from work with a smile, ready to sit down, jack in and enjoy your little VR life before you need your full night's four hours rest. (Sleep-reduction bioware ftw!)

I honestly don't see this being widely used in burger-joints or corporate high-rises in the middle (maybe the occasionally researcher who's considered a high-risk for willing extraction).
On the other hand I could see this being the norm under certain, abnormal, conditions.
I remember a run in a critter-themed book that took the 'Runners to an extraterritorial research-prison whose researchers were kept as literal slaves. Under those conditions I could see this being used as "a little extra insurance".