On and off again people discuss the various facets of the setting, the prevelance of Tamanous and organlegging, how big brother the Mega's are. In keeping with my SOP (that the setting in the BBB is the start point, rather than the endpoint for setting discussions) I thought I'd open a topic to discuss just how bad people play it up.
Its only fair that I begin. Fair warning that there are parts that will be patently offensive to our sensibilities. This is not a statement of my beliefs, but how I think dystopian societies will function in some regards.
There is no trust, no honor that you can count on. If you are an ordinary Citizen, a Sinner, money and your parent Corporation are your Gods, roughly in that order. If you are Sinless, by choice or accident, survival is the name of the game, with wealth and power coming in a near distant second. Runners don't trust their fixer, their johnson, their joygirls... they don't even trust eachother beyond the immedeate firefight.
But lets ignore the Macro and focus on the Micro.
The barrens: Home to the Sinless, the unwanted, and of necessity the Shadowrunner. Food and water are scarce, often stolen or unhealthy. Most drinking water is collected from the omnipresent acid rain, filtered if you're lucky, though near the borders of the Barrens enterprising gangs and syndicates have stolen from municipal supplies. Sewage is a joke, most of the barrens smells like an open latrine, though again, some areas are better off than others. Ironically, some Barrens folk actually eat 'better' than their Sinner cousins, if by better you mean 'real meat and vegetables' rather than 'healthy diet'. Of course, the meat is from rats and stray dogs and cats, and the vegetables are grown in hidden gardens and is pretty aenemic... or grown in crude hydroponic greenhouses guarded by heavily armed men and sold to the highest bidder. Fertilizer isn't a problem.
Its a bad state of affairs when the Devil Rats aren't viewed as vermin or menaces but valuable resources, and children are the vermin. Yes, children. Unwanted babies from every metatype (with the rare exceptional troll rounding it out... troll fertility is too low for it to happen often) are either used as resources by the unsavory (Tamanous pays top dollar for healthy newborns... they prefer them still bloody from afterbirth...), or wind up in feral gangs of other street kids. Feral kids are vicious, uncivilized beasts, willing and able to kill, and even eat, an adult by ambush or simply by virtue of their numbers. Older gangs occasionally clear their turf of unwanted ferals, adopting any survivors of the purge into the gang. Not out of virtue, but because children are useful resources. Hard workers, easy to discipline and train, and if you get bored you can always put them into the pits to fight each other, dogs or what ever you like, and bet on the outcome. Eventually such children become full fledged gangsters, if they survive. Of course, to cross over from 'smart pet' to 'gangbanger' requires you get your ass beat in a 'Jumping In', and probably daily after until someone else get's jumped in, when you start doing the jumping. People die during this, all the time, and it never ends. Who gets to beat ass, and who gets to get beaten is a measure of a primative pecking order. Bigger gangs beat up the smaller gangs, Syndicates beat on the gangs.
There are two ladders to climb for a new gangster: He can work to rise in his gang until he leads it, then try to grow the gang's power and influence or he can try to get out and join a Syndic. Unless you are born into one of the power families within a syndicate, coming up through the gangs is the only route in, though once in the sky is the limit to a ruthless, cunning man.
Speaking of men: Women generally fall into three rough catagories. Family, whores and bitches. Family are women you are related to directly, your mother, your sister, your daughter. Not that it matters to many people, more than one pimp has started with his own family and moved on from there. Whores generally encompasses all others, screw women's lib. There are some differences between a whore who is pimped out (or outright owned) and a whore who mostly does other stuff but will accept money over being raped.
That leaves the bitches, which mostly means a woman who won't have sex. This is usually accomplished by being related to someone more powerful than the man speaking, but can also mean a woman who fights back. Entire gangs are formed of women who refuse to be whores, though the ethics of the Barrens means they aren't above earning money from other women, or men, who are whores.
Homosexuality in the barrens is a dicey proposition. Most people just don't care. Prison bitches have been a fact of life for over 100 years, and even though most barrens rats might never see a day of prison in their lives, the instituion lives on. In many gangs, the senior members have the 'right' to make anyone under their station their bitch. As long as you pitch its manly behavior, though the 'bitch' is generally viewed as weak or effeminate. This isn't a lifelong taint, many barrens rats were used by adults as children at some point, though it is thankfully far from universal.
And certainly, there are areas where the dominant power is a tranny gang or some other 'GBLT' gang, where its safer and easier to adopt the lifestyle.
On the other hand many of the syndicates, particularly the Vory and the Mafia, view homosexuality, in any form, as disgusting. The Vory, in particular, kill homosexuals in their ranks (though, interestingly, they merely exile the bitch... and in this case the taint is permanent, once a bitch you are never a man in their eyes), while the Mafia generally just shuns their 'pansies' socially. In a bit of hypocrasy, the Vory only consider it pedophilia if the victim is male.
Life is short, anyone over thirty is an 'old man', and probably feels it. Interestingly, this fits the orkish lifespan nicely, though since they make up roughly half the population of the barrens its debateable if this is because of, or in spite of the orkish population. If disease doesn't kill you, violence almost certainly will.
Outside the barrens:
While it doesn't take much to 'improve' upon conditions in the barrens, there comes a point where the improvements make the situation worse. Almost every SINner belongs to a corp, typically for life. There are exceptions, for example government workers by law need to be government citizens. Outside of the municipal employees there are a handful of municipal citizens, often the poor and dispossessed of their own sort, running tiny businesses under insane restrictions handed down by the corporate court... think a hotdog stand that has to avoid selling any name brand products (including the hotdogs)... in a world where just about everything is name brand.
The chump earning pocket change by the hour working the Stuffer Shack? He was probably born in a corporate enclave within the city, his parents are probably lower paid employees of the parent corp that owns stuffer shack, and given the rising numbers of automated Shacks in the wireless world, his crappy, dangerous, job is probably the envy of all his peers. He might never see a nuyen in his life, he's paid entirely in scrip, just like everyone he knows. Nuyen is the 'universal dollar', the medium of exchange. On the off chance that an Ares employee shops at a Fuchi store, the Ares Scrip is coverted into Nuyen that is traded between the two corps, probably at a heavy loss for the poor bastard buying. Only municipal employees and the very rich work directly with nuyen on a regular basis. Scrip mostly exists electronically, but a small percentage is printed out annually for various reasons. It is important to note that Scrip is inherently valueless. It is not backed by anything in particular, and its purchasing ability is set entirely arbitrarily by the parent corporation. As a medium of exchange it's value is non-existant without the Corporate Court setting trade treaties between the Mega's, which are followed by the lower teir corps by default.
Outside the barrens everyone is watched, everyone is monitored. So much so that some SINners are actually uncomfortable when NOT being watched. Of course, with so much surviellance there are no where near enough people to monitor it all, never mind the recursion this would cause (who watches the watchers indeed), which is where computers come into play. Computers watch everything, even eachother, looking for anolomious data to report to their human supervisors.
There is no such thing as corruption, only things that will get you in trouble and things that won't. Taking bribes and kickbacks is done openly, as long as it is not against corporate interests. That geek behind the counter at stuffer shack can mark up prices and keep the proceeds as long as the profit margin for the shack itself doesn't suffer. In fact, if he pulls it off, he's likely to get a promotion, after he pays his corporate taxes on the extra income. Unproductive employees aren't fired, they are put into dangerous jobs that are likely to kill them to reduce overhead. Being fired is, for many corporate drones, the worst thing that can happen to you. Think like a catholic who is threatened with excommunication and you're on the right track.
Lonestar: These guys are bad news. They make their money from the corps, though there are exceptions. They don't care much about their city contract, except that by keeping it they keep all their other contractee's happy. Ironically, they can do their best work for the city itself, since they are generally unfettered by laws and regulations designed to preserve corporate interests. Commit a crime on Lonestar turf and you are as good as caught, and they have very very few 'non-combat' personel, making them one of the largest private armies available.
Lonestar rarely goes into the barrens however. They have a standing bid with the city to clear the barrens (paid by the hectacre 'reclaimed'). When they DO go in, however, everyone notices. They ride in armored columns with heavy weapons and generally kill every living thing they see between the gates and their target location. Of course, this is only fair as when the Star pays a visit, every group of thugs tends to migrate to the area to see if they can steal any bit of hardware they can. When the Star goes to the barrens it's open warfare.
Lonestar and corporate guards come in two groups: Affable freindly faces and hardened killers. When the guards are meant as a public face, they tend to be affable types, though perhaps one in five is really a upgraded killer with a charming disposition. Hardened killers are paramilitary assassins more often than not.
Street Docs:
These guys are generally the bottom barrel of the medical establishment. Few are highly skilled, and those that are tend to have other problems, such as operating while drunk/stoned, molesting patients or other unsavory predilictions. They are scum, and untrustworthy. Die on the table and you won't get a funeral, though maybe some ghoul will toast your misfortune over his next meal.
Most street docs are slightly better off with drug cooking or cyber surgery, rarely both. Its always best to have someone watch your back when you go in, however... you never know if the Doc in question is looking for spare parts. For obvious reasons most Docs prefer to set up shop in the Barrens, and due to the needed resources (generators, for example) most Docs pay for good bodyguards and other security measures.
Fixers:
Fixers are primarily 'guys who know guys', above all else they are middle men and facilitators. In some ways they are 'Faces', in that most shadowrunner teams couldn't afford to carry a full time social monkey. If a Fixer offers you a Job, he got it from someone else, and he's keeping a good chunk of the payout. If the fixer hooks you up with a Johnson, he got a finders fee from the J, you probably aren't the only team, and he'll probably charge you a finder's fee for hooking you up with a J. If you fence goods to him, he'll turn around and resell them to the intereted parties for a good markup, if you buy guns from him he'll buy the guns at a discount from a gunrunner for you.
In other words: He'll do just about anything a normal contact will do, only you pay for the priviledge of this one stop shop.
The Fixer can, and will, sell you out if the money is good. Rare indeed is the fixer who values your friendship over the goodwill and money his other contacts bring. If you want your fixer to keep your secrets, don't share them with him... its that simple. A great number of fixers are paranoid for a reason.
Aztechnology and the Megacorporations:
The big factor here is that Aztechnology, often demonized in the setting literature, is no worse than any other megacorp. None. They are more open and obvious about it, certainly. The only thing keeping Ares from committing blood sacrifices on a regular basis is they aren't set up to make any money from it. Halberstom's expirements on children and metahuman brains? Doesn't even rate a scandal if it were public knowledge. No. One. Cares. If Lofwyr told Saeder-Krupp's board of directors that he required their first born daughters as a meal in return for a 50% increase in profits, he'd likely get it. Certainly, they'd at a minimum give him SOMEONE's daughters. Sons too, they don't care.
In fact, caring just means you are a victim waiting to happen. Caring means you think it can, and will, happen to you.
Religions:
Even the old, established ones are more like cults nowadays. The rise of magic, particularly magic shapped by religous beliefs has breathed new life into the old stale churches... sort of. Most corporate citizens are agnostic at best, or worship the Corp as some sort of ur-being at worst. Those that remain in the busoms of the church are fanatics, and none are above using mind controlling spells to convert the unwary. A preist that can use Mob Mind during his sermons is going to go farther than one who can't. To further muddle the situation, the biggest church, the Catholic Church, has managed, barely, to keep up with the times. They are considered a private corporation, legally, and issue SINs to the faithful, and standing churches are now Corporate Territory, a new twist on old themes. Sure, a Catholic Sin won't get you a job in most places, but it still grants legitimacy.
Shadowrunners:
SOTA is not quite the bleeding edge. Shadowrunners come in two flavors: ex-SINners and barrens Rats. If you have a legitimate SIN you are not, by some standards, a Shadowrunner. Its a petty distinction, the Runners may think they are better than the street thugs, but in reality its all about perception and reputation. Runners tend to have better gear, but thats only because they spend more time 'working'.
Here is the thing: Runners don't have any real advantages. Usually the target of the Run is going to at least suspect they are a target. The Corps have more people, better gear, and stupid levels of paranoid surviellence. Anything worth keeping secret is never available wirelessly, and 'HRT' teams (lonestar or native) will always have access to magical overwatch and one or more on-team hackers, with rigger backup running drones from a secure station. Each member of the team is likely to be nearly 'runner' competent in his speciality, though he may have less cyberware or other expensive mods... and there will be several teams responding to any given alarm. Most of the time (99%) they will NOT be concerned with loss of life (the runners or bystanders mostly, but with the right mental conditioning even their own team/lives are expendable assets). On the other hand, they generally give up once the goods have been handed off or grown stale.
On the rare occasion that a Shadowrunner is captured, its deliberate, and it will suck. Occasionally they'll be guinea pigs, but more typically they'll be given an offer they can't refuse and then used for ever shit job that requires expendable meat assets to accomplish. Sure, medical and ammo expenses are covered... sort of.
Prison:
Lonestar, among others, contracts out prison management services to the state. That is, the government pays them money for every prisoner they house. Other than ensuring that all the prisoners are in fact alive and in prison, that's as far as the government is allowed to concern itself. There is decent money for Lonestar in this, and like all corporate interests, they like to keep the money flowing in, and not out.
Prison design is a reflection of this. Most Lonestar prisons are essentially big, fenced or walled pits with rudimentary facilities and a few sub-buildings for special cases. The guards are issued mostly 'less than lethal' weapons, but are also encouraged to use them at will to maintain 'order'. Getting caught killing another prisoner is the worst thing that can happen, and long, illegally long, personality altering SIM sessions in 'Solitary Confinement' is a typical punishment. Gender Segregation is accomplished with a simple, effective, fence, and guards are allowed to take advantage of most prisoners in any way they want... exceptions exist for prisoners who come from, and are likely to return to, positions of power outside. Gangs are endemic inside, and a thriving 'criminal' business community exists, with the guards willing participants.
Food is unprocessed soy-krill gruel troughed in twice a day, housing is open bay barracks, kept survivably warm in winter. Medical is entirly up to the whim of the guards (provided that no one dies of neglect on a day to day basis), there is no parole or early release, but by counterpoint, neither can the star extend your sentence. All released prisoners have a RFID implanted barcode tattoo of their new, criminal, SIN on the back of their right hand, and their records are stored in well backed up secure servers, slightly tougher than ordinary SIN servers.
Becoming SINless:
Actually destroying the files on a SINner is pretty difficult, requiring a high end Shadowrun to accomplish or a man on the inside. Fixers specialize in knowing 'men inside' in most cases, but in general its simply easier to erase the 'common identifiers' on the open nets. With a little work the newly SINless is essentially a Non-person for any casual data-search short of pulling the files from the actual server. Criminal SINs are slightly harder to wipe, as they are regularly re-posted to the network, and 'Smart virus' bots are regularly destroyed. Not only that, but the Star will always check their own offline servers directly for anyone processed for a crime (not a traffic stop, say, but if they are actually planning to charge them), which means short of a run to wipe the Star servers (and the backups), a criminal SIN will always be found out at that time. Of course, if Ares Security (or Knight Errant) issued the Criminal SIN, then Lonestar wouldn't know about it and vice versa.
Well, this is long enough, and reasonably detailed enough. In short its pretty harsh out in Spikes Shadows. Not so harsh that Runners can't make a good living at it, mind you. remember, the major employers of Shadowrunners are those hyperparanoid Corporatations, so depite the existance of enough tools to make the average Runner's life miserably short, they rarely, if ever, employ all of them simply because if they did so, they wouldn't be able to hire runners against THEIR rivals. The Star generally restricts itself to hiring runners for work in teh barrens (more cost effective than military style ops), or on very rare occasions when they have a high risk run against a rival trying to undermine their business... Lonestar would rather use their loyal corpies unless they plan on catching the perps, making it a very high risk job for independents...