SR does have a tendency to go on (and on) about the angst of people being trapped in poverty / no civil rights, etc., from not having a legal SIN...something that makes no sense as I see it. Considering that after the Crash there were widespread SIN amnesty programs and (my favorite, used by my character), the PCC will give anyone a legal SIN with the purchase of a single preferred stock purchase (Shadows of North America, pp. 88-89), I must conclude that the only people left without SINs are those who don't *want* them.

Your thoughts?

Where did you get the idea that buying PCC stock gives you a SIN?

I'd guess he got it from "Shadows of North America, pp. 88-89". Not having that book handy, and you do, is he right?

To be honest, unless I specifically feel the need to reference someone in my replies, I don't even look at the name of the person posting nine times out of ten. I wouldn't take the gender thing personal.

The first thing I'd do is not disclose my gender.

Its where the Punk in the Cyber comes in.

Janessa is right. The PPC gives out SINs to SINless people who buy their stock. I brought it up once upon a time and remembered that I got shouted down that the SIN that they gave was somehow less SINful. People tend(and want) to overlook this little tidbit, but what can we do?

I'll take a look at it again when I've my library at hand. Odd departure, that; it used to be they only gave SINs to citizens at birth (who were, of course, issued one share of stock). Of course, given the cost of PCC stock and the fact that most SINless people don't have the means or assets to buy it, I wouldn't put it forward as the most readily available method.

Don't forget that when President "D" died, he somehow willed a bunch of SIN's to people who showed up at the right time. Evidently, a SIN can be made anytime, for the right price.

It can even be made for free, just by being arrested. I sometimes get the feeling that even the SR writers have different ideas of what SINs mean.

I don't have SoNA in front of me, but this was uploaded to Wiki on the subject: Pueblo Corporate Council.

Would they care?

Would who care about what?

Just because your name gets added to a database doesnt mean your life changes. You dont goto sleep one day a strung out depraved criminal with no ethics and morals and wake up the next day with a SIN and start going to work. People will still be people which means screw ups and bad decisions which means they lose those or dont even bother to get SIN's. I doubt there would even be room for all the sinless to find jobs. Not to mention what all kind of education you would have to have to hold down a job.

Cannon even tells us there was an amnesty after the last crash. Fake SINs may be expensive, but it's pretty clear that its easy to get a real one. So if there are large numbers of SINless we have to assume that they actively don't want a SIN or simply don't care. I assume a mixture of the two in my game.

Consider that for most residents of a sprawl, particularly Redmond or Puyallup (I've never known how to pronounce that - is it actually "pile up"? ), most residents simply don't travel. You don't own a car, public transport is costly or sporadic, walking will take you through rival gang turf and even if you do make your way into Downtown, you'll be arrested by Lonestar for Looking Suspicious To Others. Remember that the principle of authoritarianism is to ensure that everyone is guilty of something. By 2070, there will be enough laws that anyone can be arrested at any time. So if our SINless sprawl resident can't or doesn't go to areas where they really need a SIN, there isn't so much reason to get one. I imagine the barrens and even other areas to have a suitably black economy where you can buy your soyburgers without a SIN, etc. And the things that people would need a SIN for - buying tickets, online shopping, registering their vehicle, etc. they simply can't afford these activities anyway. If nothing else, I imagine there are SINless poor simply because Daddy Ork can't be bothered to take his latest offspring down town and fill out the forms, register a tissue sample, etc. He probably can't even read the forms anyway so it's just more embarrasment and patronising he doesn't need.

But we can also suppose there might be active disincentives to getting a SIN as well. Shadowrun is dystopian, isn't it? I think we can still assume taxes still exist. Anyone with a SIN presumably has to submit some tax information and other information on an annual basis. Anyone with a SIN will be more easily identified by the cops when picked up. We can even twist good things to dystopian ends and say that shady employers (the only ones for whom most poor will end up working) would prefer to employ those without SINs because they have no rights - can't report them for labour rights abuses, safety violations, tax fraud, minimum wage violations. Earning without a SIN is probably a crime in itself (due to tax avoidance) so your SINless workers aren't going to be shopping you to the law anytime soon.

Finally, though I don't include this in my own game, you could easily attach a social stigma to having a SIN, if you want to. It's easy enough to justify that residents of SINless areas would regard the state as their enemy and see a SIN as submitting to The Man.

So all of that can give you the SINless that the setting talks about without contradicting the fact that it makes SINs possible to acquire.

HOWEVER, none of this is the interesting part. When we see a situation that doesn't seem optimal, we should always as "who benefits?" Who benefits from their being a large chunk of poor and unregistered in society? Why the government and the corps, of course. I live in the UK and we currently have quite a few immigrant workers. This is most definitely not a criticism against these people (my own familiy moved to England when I was eleven), but the question is why do we have them here now? Governments are always bleating about keeping unemployment low, but in the UK at the moment, where it was actually getting pretty low, and I think back in the early seventies, immigration has been covertly encouraged by the government of the day in order to keep unemployment from sinking too low. The reason is obvious once you see it - it's to keep power in the hands of the employers and not the workers. If unemployment is "too low" then there is nothing with which employees can be threatened because they can be assured of another job. Wages rise, more holidays are demanded, bosses are talked back to, cats and dogs living together (sorry ; ). SINless serve the same purpose in Shadowrun but are even more effective because the government doesn't have to worry about looking bad through lack of social benefits and inclusion. SINless serve a useful purpose for the powers that be in Shadowrun. Employers can use them as off the books workers without rights, the government can exclude them from statistics and look good and the corps have a stick with which to scare the SINers that no-one has to pay for through benefits and aid programs.

Public compasion and protest about the situation? I can see the online forums of 2070 even now: "Hey - if these chummers actually wanted to, they could have all got themselves SINs after the Crash. They chose to opt out of the system cause they don't want to pay taxes like the rest of us or cause their wanted criminals. We don't owe them anything so you can shove your socialist drek back up your hoop where it came from!"

The politicians will be laughing all the way from the fundraiser.

SINs tend to be represented as things some people want, people like squatters. They'd like to live in a house, eat decent food, bathe; but there just isn't room for them for some reason. The System (a blanket term for megacorporations and governments, basically anyone who's running something) doesn't want the expense and inconvenience of dealing with these people, so they deny them what is to the System their very existence. If you don't have a Number, you don't exist.

SINs also tend to be represented as things some people don't want, people like the runners. They don't want to be tracked, catalogued, or numbered; because they places they go and the things they do are illegal. If you don't have a Number you don't exist, and if you don't exist you can't be controlled.

So on the one hand you have the SIN as the stick, like in the Lone Star book, the thing that you punish the runners with if they screw up and get caught. And in other books-- Dunk's Will, SoNA-- you have the SIN as the carrot, the thing people would desperately like to have. Another thing is SINs and citizenship tends to be used interchangeably, which I think is an oversimplification. It seems like buying a share of PCC stock wouldn't so much buy you a SIN as provisional citizenship in the PCC. If you didn't have a SIN one would have to be issued (since you can't be a citizen somewhere if you don't exist), but if you already have a SIN (and presumably a citizenship somewhere else), the PCC stock functions more like a visa.

and makes for one convenient dungeon crawl if one run out of ideas

Only those sealed off levels. The socia housing level are more like Paranoia...

To be completely honest, the writers are often confused by things like SINs. They have been mentioned as far back as first edition without really ever being clearly explained. Even the earliest SR writers fudged SINs here and there, which only makes things more confusing for the more recent writers. I know that when I began researching for the NYC write-up, the whole confusion over SINs came right back to me, since NYC has permits tied to SINs that allow or disallow all sorts of things within the city. It's something I'm still working out in my head.

But knasser's explanation is a good one, and one I've been using also.

TO GET a legal SIN you have to prove you are somehow worthy. You have a skill a trade or you simply bribe them. Most SINless simply lack those means they have no real skill outside manual labor.

Just because their was an Amnesty program after the crash doesn't mean everyone had access to it. The SINless out in the barrens likely didn't hear about it tell it was over. And then you may have some who mistakenly tried to escape their debt by becoming SINless.
You may also have SINless who had someone else claim their identity after the crash.

And mercer the Criminal SIN is not necessary the same as a real SIN. In fact I'm quite sure they are different things. If a SINless gets arrested (and survives somehow). I doubt they can use their new criminal SIN to find legal work.

Its mentioned you have SINless because their legal SIN was accidentally flagged as fake.

I personally explain away the inconsistencies as "legacy applications." I do enough software work to know that any "unique identifier" tends to be seen at least three different ways:

1. As envisioned by the designer
2. As implemented by the programmers
3. As used by the bureaucracy
4. As used by 3rd party systems (if applicable)

To complicate things, the SINs were implemented by different nations, corps, etc.

Here's an example. Joe Bob was a soldier in the U.S. military, of Pueblo descent (1/16th and not something he'd bragged about) who lived in Miami but also has a house he inherited from his grandfather in Vermont. Following the formation of the NAN and U/CAS split, Joe Bob had a CAS SIN from his home in Miami, a UCAS SIN from the second home in Vermont, and acquired a PCC SIN from his family ties. Later he wound up with a Carib League SIN.

His UCAS, PCC and CL SINs probably both reference his CAS SIN, as they know about his military experience. The CAS, UCAS and CL probably don't know about his PCC SIN if he kept quiet about it. The PCC and CAS SIN more than likely know that a CL SIN exists, given they have his residence listed in Miami. The CAS probably knows about the UCAS SIN thanks to transferred U.S. IRS tax data, but the PCC and CL may not.

The UCAS book about NYC and permits would be that 4th item, where NYC isn't an SIN-issuing authority but is leveraging the SIN databases for their own purposes that don't entirely mesh up with the intents or implementations of the authorities.

Joe Bob may be extreme but it's just the kind of thing that happens with governments.

Also possible as already mentioned that public transport (or lack thereof) and gang turf etc restricted the movement of sinless. They might not have been able to get to where the new sins were being handed out. Depends how motivated people were I guess.

If your SINless and arrested your convicted automatically for any crime you committed and whatever else Lonestar likes to tack on. They want to tack on a few murders that happened at roughly the same time on opposite sides of the city its done. You have no rights you don't exist. only a good friend, a healthy bribe and perhaps a sympathetic officer can save you. SINless are KNOWN TO disappear forever when arrested by the Corporate Authorities such as LoneStar and Knight Errant.

So really trying to get your SIN by being arrested is a very BAD idea as you may simply be locked up as prisoner X. You don't exist so no none can come looking for you.
Prisoner A: "How long have you been in here?"
Prisoner B: "10 years"
Prisoner A: "What you do?"
Prisoner B: "I threw up on an officers shoes"
Prisoner A: "SINless?"
Prisoner B: "Yep"

Being arrested and SINless is exactly like being arrested in a police state your at their mercy. Maybe the officer will be one of the good ones maybe not.

...I tend to agree with Knasser's take on the issue as well.

In looking at how some things in RL are heading already, what he says makes absolute sense.

4th ed is the first to actually try to give SINs, fake or legit, some kind of meaning. Without one (as Jack Kain mentions above) you are up drek creek if the Star or other law enforcement service gets you. If a Corp gets you it could be worse than just hard time and there I would less expect to find a sympathetic ear.

In the past I don't think I ever had a character who possessed a fake SIN (as they were prohibitively expensive, especially after chargen) outside of a temporary one we may have been given by a J or procured through our fixers for a particular mission. Of course all transactions were performed by credstick and whether it was certified or tied to an identity didn't seem to matter unless you went on a shopping spree in an upscale mall or something. In this sense a runner was truly "in the shadows" (something I have debated about in another thread).

Apparently now with the whole wireless thing, it appears that a character, no matter what type they are, needs to have multiple fake SINs and some matrix savvy just to get through routine everyday life. That or live in and never leave the Barrens.

DWS!

'No rights' is not quite correct.

This exact discussion came up about a month ago; which is not a bad thing but its the main reason my energy level is low to getting into it again. So I'll just say that when it came up before, the discussion of the SINless not having rights centered around the fact that once they're arrested, they're no longer SINless. If a corporation wants to capture SINless and use them as slave labor or organleg them, it doesn't give them SINs, it just uses them for slave labor and then organlegs them.

Some of the worst fascist regimes in history were ruled by men beloved by their subjects, but that doesn't happen automatically. People don't sit around wishing for horrible, fascist regimes to befall them (although they do often wish to lead them). The people in charge have to put some effort into appearing beneficient. People have to believe Lone Star is looking out for them, because Lone Star is hired by the municipal governments. If Lone Star isn't doing their job, they will be replaced. (Which is why I said Aztlan would be a better model, since both law enforcement and the government is controlled by one megacorporate entity.)

Actually, by 'the moment the cuffs are slapped on' your existance will be pretty much on record in a number of databases, courtesy of any acompanying drones, and newshounds, miscellaneous cameras, etc., so it would be quite unwise for them to not give you a SIN in that case.

I don't think it's anywhere near as automatic a thing for Lone Star to just 'disappear' people they don't like as you seem to believe.

Which ultimately boils down to a matter of interpreting the context and the rules since no canon decision exists either way.

-Siege

Woo Knasser... I love blokes that make sense. It gets me all hot... you know.... down there. In this world honey all that matters is the money. Its true. SINner or SINless you pretty much are just a meat resource to the powers that be. Sure, its in the corps best interests to have SINless masses doing all the drek work and I am sure that the Star and KE love being able to corn hole a SINless drunk every once in a while, but thats neither here nor there on this argument. If I remember correctly the question was, why would anyone who doesn't have a SIN want one and if they did why can't they just get one?

The Corporate rules of the PCC are radically different from the CAS, UCAS or the Tyr and what they let their contractors do also varies. Governments in the traditional sense tend to be a little less draconian (a little nod to the big D may he RIP) than your run of the mill Mega but can still care very little for people who don't work as a cog in their little machine. If you don't make them money, by working for them and/or paying taxes you are as good as dog drek and they are not going to waste a single resource on you, much less imprison you for too long. Colmo! Do they want to feed you for years. HELL NO! They will either dust you off or dump you within the borders of a non-secure corporate asset, depending on what you did. Or the corp might just send you off to work off your "time" in a special work or (shudder) research facility. Usually it means you are trucked off to a slum where they keep rejects cordoned off from decent Yen fearing folks. Outside of how they treat their SINless they all have different requirements for getting a SIN and keeping it in good standing.

A cattle brand is all a SIN really is. It means that you are a valuable enough resource that you merit the protection of a barbed wire fence. Now, do street people look down on those with a SIN? I would think that the average squatter would consider the poor bastard with a SIN to have sold his soul to the corporate devil, but thats usually because the poor idiot likes to justify his poverty and misfortune with the nobility of freedom. Cute. I know this is a world where people have to buy dignity and I live in that world. In real life the poor bastard squatting in a bombed out building would beat his mother for the opportunity to live and work as a wage slave. But they usually are too ill educated to do so or have managed to tie their DNA to enough dumb drek to make them a "unreasonable credit and security risk".

Say you do get a SIN. Now what? You go and try to find a job. You are homeless, have no past work history to speak of, no references, no Net addy, you look like two kinds of Drek mixed in a dive bar spittoon and you can barely read. Last I heard the new deal is dead and so are your hopes of prosperity chummer. All you did is get yourself on someones radar as a possible criminal since you are below the poverty level and in a "danger zone crime demographic". The cycle of poverty has existed since people decided to own crap.

The right of felons to vote depends on which state you're talking about, even for federal elections. In DC I knew a bunch of cats that couldn't vote because they'd gone down on felonies a long time ago (one of my best friends still can't vote because of the King riots). In Massachussetts, prisoners can vote, and even have their own Political Action Committee (not being from there, I can't really comment on how effective that PAC is; I can't imagine their endorsement carries a lot of weight, or that they're able to raise a whole lot of money). In Ohio, you can't vote while you're in prison for a felony, but once you get out, you can (maybe you need to get off parole first, I don't know). So if you're the pigs in Ohio, and you want to strip someone of their vote, you need to send them down for life. Or else take advantage of the fact that our state constitution still grants the government the right to deprive someone of their vote on the basis of them being an "idiot." But hey, let's not get me started on voter fraud in Ohio. Where I'm actually going with this is, there's ways of stripping people of rights in today's society, and I don't see it getting any better by 2070. There might be ways to strip people of SINs, too. Not that the Star will do it to everyone they pull over for speeding, but if you do something real bad, and they find out but can't pin it on you, you might have a law enforcement agency actively lobbying for your status as an actual person to be revoked.