OK first off, I have played shadow run for a couple years now, but have read very little of the fiction.

In a place like UCAS, does the government still issue licenses to be things like doctors, lawyers, etc? If they do, do big corps care, or do they license on their own. Because of extrataratoriatality, would a big corp hire a doctor if they liked him even if he had been striped of a license by the local government?

Also, if big corps have extraterritoriality, what prohibits them from selling their products freely out of their extra jurisdictional offices? I want that Aries 24F cyberware. Aries wants to sell as much as they can. Why can’t I set up an appointment to stroll in and pick it up? Like Native American casinos, one of the great advantages of sovereignty is being able to conduct any kind of transactions there you like despite the laws of neighboring areas. Why don’t the corps sell the products they want to sell to customers who want to buy them in a way that seems perfectly legal (particularly in a world like Shadowrun where corps are known to frequently break laws for cash)?

Don't try to rationalize megacorporate extraterritorality (is that a word?). It's just insanely stupid and something that really needs to be written out of the game at some point. I don't even know why they bother keeping governments around.

My 2 -

1. Corps could do that but would take a huge public relations hit.

2. The Star, or whatever, can sit right outside the place of business and arrest anyone walking out of there. Due process? Guilty until proven innocent is more like it.

Even casinos have to have repeat customers to stay in business and 1 and 2 would combine to prevent that from happening.

On corp territory you are right, besides some limited international type law things.. (generally respecting the rights of foreign people ... (at least those that come there oficaly)) Corp land is its own country.


If they want to say it is perfectly legal to installed 24F wired refelx 27 into people...

You are free to go there and get it installed.

Now the problems....

In order to keep customs from being an abolute bitch, the CC has passed into law, Corps will generally respect the import/export laws of neighoring corps / countries....

If you go to Ares property and get a 24f installed... they are happy to take your money and install it... however, they are even happier to tell UCAS (or whomever the surronding territory is) that they belive somebody with resitrct/forbbidden wares is about to enter in UCAS terriroty, would they like them to pick them up as a curtusey.


Now to be fair, the paperwork (if not the actual people) would stress several times, that while Ares has no restriction on installing said equipment, they will work with other forgein entities to respect their import/export wishes.

So they WILL tell you (even if not directly but buried in paperwork), that they are going to be rerporting the the holder of your SIN, that you are gettin said ware, and it had better be authorized... (or they will likely cooperate with said holder of SIN, or lord help you if they are told its a fake....)


Now 'softer' cimes are a totally differnt story...

I could very easily see some corps opening up gambling parlor, puppet parlors, or the like that nothing 'illegal' leaves the place, but what goes on IN the place might not be legal outside.

These it goes on how far the push it...

If they flaunt it, push it too much (don't give the right people kick backs), sure UCAS might not be able to do squat about what goes on IN the buidling... but they certainly can say we don't like whats going on IN the building.... entry from that building into UCASE territory is forbidden... All UCAS SINS recorded as going into that building will be flagged criminal, etc....


Much the way right now... people have been knwo to go to other parts of the world to engage in certain activities....

Directly there is nothing the forgein goverment can do....

However, many have instead things making it illegal to do action (even if it was legal were it was done...)

Sure go to Aztech... sacrifice a small kid on an altar to your blood demon... Pay the fee, and Aztech is happy....

Doesn't mean if UCAS finds outs their laws can still procescute you.... (they have it now in real life.... go overseas to engage in illegal sex... and the US will prosecute you even if the the act was commited outside of US territory and the other participant wasn't US)....

Shadowrun != Cyberpunk. Shadowrun = it's own genre.

Shadowrun would be infinitely more interesting if the Shiawase Decision was simply to allow corporations to police their own properties, but still have to answer to the country they're in as far as laws and prosecution goes. Hell, it'd even make more sense as to why runners get away so often! Sure, the corporations would try like hell to kill you while you're still on their property, but the moment you "escape" (including from their black ops teams who may or may not try to hunt you down off the security of their property), it's highly unlikely they'll turn to real law enforcement as they'd have to explain exactly why the runners broke in in the first place.

Not only that, but it gives even more room in the game for potential threats (true law enforcement, anti-terrorism organizations, etc.) and runs, which is a Good Thing. All while being way more believable and interesting than things currently are, without having to give up on the "corporates are scary and evil" mentality.

You can have your cake and eat it, too.

Given that a Supreme Court decision could conceivably overrule Shiawase v. NRC...

Hmm, how much to convince 5 of 9 Justices to overturn that decision...?

Depends, how high is your budget?

that would only overturn extraterritoriality in one country, anyway.

extraterritoriality is definitely... confused, in SR. they seem to want to have it both ways--to have corps run everything, but to also have a large, non-corp-owned middle class that most of the players can relate to.

In my game corps have licenses too, with different rules. Some licenses works cross-country/cross-corp, some don't

And in my game the corps, although powerful does not completely replace nations or make them obsolete in effect - militairy power still rests with nations, although ecconomic power rests with corps, and political powers are divided. A nation stands a chance against a corp, but not against the Corporations.

For instance, UCAS don't need to take crap from Aztech (like having larged armed units of Aztech or Aztlan move across their territory without a deal), but they are nothing compared to the corporate court.

If it came to war, UCAS would probably lose again Aztech-backed Aztlan, unless they could ally with the NAN, Pueblo, and one or two Megas (Ares at least). But all of them would probably lose alot of money over this so it won't happen unless tings get too far.

"IIRC, credentials for lawyers and doctors are issued by thier peer review bodies, not governments."

I disagree... My licence is issued me by the Illinois Department of professional Regulation.

That's why I said credentials. I know that the only way to revoke a lawyer's ability to practice law is to have him disbarred, which goes through the state Bar, not the courts. I'm not aware of any court procceding that could remove a doctor's ability to practice, but I do know that a state AMA board action can do so. If there's any licenses that are on top of those, I don't know about them.

Just because the corp could allow pretty much anything it wants to happen inside its' jurisdiction, most will want to have at least pretty good relations with the neighbors. For P.R. purposes, of course, but also sometimes even a mega could have a need that only the local city bureaucracy can handle. "Sorry about that sewage backup, Mr. Suit"

Real world extraterritorial entities also have little things like extradition laws and status of forces agreements. The S.O.F. agreements work like this.

Remember that kid who got in trouble for spraying graffiti all over Singapore? He tried to fight the judgment of the local law on it. The Status of Forces agreement between the U.S. and Singapore left the American boy standing there getting his whacks with a cane. And, IMO, damn right they should have. Should have given him more just for making an international incident about it.

Trust me. A Navy man knows about laws in foreign lands and how to not get screwed over by them. And never buy a drink for a strange woman in Turkey. It only leads to bankruptcy.

If you walk from city streets, onto an Ares-owned megamall, and buy a 24F weapon, then walk out into city streets... yes, Lone Star has a motive to arrest you: they are corporate, and they're paid by the city government, as private contractors, to enforce the law! Ares gets your money in the mall, then Ares gets to keep its sweet contract with the city.

Shadowrunners tend to run into Lone Star when LS is defending corp assets, but presumably in cities which use LS as police, LS also busts pickpockets, drunk drivers, and people whose loud music is keeping the neighbors up at night. Ya know, the ordinary background stuff. Busting people with unlicensed weapons is a reasonable extension. If they *only* busted people stealing from the corps, they'd lose their contracts with municipal governments (the city would hire some other competing corporate security force, on the next annual budget cycle).

Hm. That's a possible plot hook. Say Lonestar has received 100K each year from Metroville for the last ten years to "keep the peace and deter crime", and GlopCorp wants Metroville to hire GlopSecurity instead for only a low, low price of 90K per year. By government inertia, Metroville will just keep the contact with LS, but if a crime wave proves that LS is failing to uphold their end of the contract, then maybe the city council will face a petition drive and need to show the voters that they're Doing Something... so a crime wave that rallies the voters is now in GlopCorp's interest. "Make the middle class voters feel unprotected by Lone Star" is a rather broad job for Mr. Johnson to offer the PCs. And as soon as GlopSecurity has the contract, the crime wave stops immediately.

I'm thinking from a purely business standard point it would be almost impossible to actually change providers for those big 'law enforcement' contracts. Well, you techanically could, but if you look at IT outsourcing or whatever, the new companies plan is to hire everyone employed by the old company and not much really changes aside from the business cards.

And that takes an unbelievably huge effort. Remember, lone star isn't just responsible for the actual cops. It also owns

All the survelliance gear
The intelligence databases that allow you to issue the car owner with a fine when you go through a speed camera
All the actual equipment used by the cops
All the IT infrastructure stringing a huge network together with zillions of users
The police stations the cops are using
and the cops are all probably citizens.

And all the IP on a huge set of policies and procedures it has developed, as well as knowing who the usual suspects are.

And they totally won't just hand all that over because you don't think they are doing a particularly good job.

Instead you're just going end up with the US Navy IT outsourcing deal when the navy just ends up paying for *massive* cost overruns on the part of the contractors.

And the hiring everyone who used to do the job (standard IT outsourcing practise, then get rid of it later) isn't going to work, because this is shadowrun, where lateral recruitment takes a team of ninjas to bust the guy you are trying to recruit and his family out of Servitude.

So the way I see it is once you have signed up with knight errant, you are infact stuck with knight errant pretty much no matter what happens.

Getting a medical degree does not allow you to practice mediicne. The abiilty to practice medicine is controlled by the governing body of wherever you happen to be. Having a medical degree is generally a prerequisite for that licensing authority to even talk to you, but whether they decide to issue you a test or demand that you take special courses or whatever is completely up to them.

So being licensed to practice medicien on Ares corporate territory is something you'd have to do, but they might well simply allow people to transfer licenses from UCAS or CFS licensing bodies with a rubber stamp if they trusted those regions' licensing bodies.

This sort of situation makes fake licenses pretty plausible in the modern age, and even more plausible in the Shadowrun future. You can go to some tertiary location and announce that you're licensed to practice medicine in some other tertiary location and then jump through a few hoops to get your license "transferred" and suddenly bang you have a real license to practice medicine in like Paraguay or something. Now go to a corporation and they'll give yu a transfer test and if you pass it you'll have a real and globally accepted license to practice medicine.

-Frank

...momentary derail. On the Dumpshock Forums page the title for this thread this keeps showing up as Strange question about lice... grinbig: