Depends on which kind or which part of Barrens. In the places near the city where business is made (people from the city buy drugs, sexual services and other illegal or shady goods or services), there'll be a local gang or mafia guarding the place so that the customer don't get killed because it's bad for business.

The place where I live used to be filled with sex-shops, prostitutes and bordellos. It was also one of the safest place in Paris according to the statistics, because the managers didn't want the customers to have any trouble.

There's "Touristville" in the Redmond Barrens that's fairly safe.

It's a Red Light District of the dirtiest, dingiest, most depraved sort.

Exactly. it makes my point. The first world war and a pandemic that killed more people than the war killed. Followed by political upheaval in most of the 'civilized' world. We know of the night clubs/speak easys and stuff because they were illegal, the cheap thrill to get out from under the puritanical mores of the day.

In RL modern Japan today you are supposed to be buttoned up. The nail out of place gets hammered is a common saying. But there are times and places where the people run riot. It is perfectly acceptable to get falling down/throwing up drunk after hours on a Friday night, so long as when day light comes you are presentable.

That sort of repression must lead to some really wild stuff getting bottled up. If they could vent like we do in the west, it might not happen, but in the east? Look at the mania for the 'cute school girl' look.

http://www.marvel.com/catalog/?id=8994
http://www.marvel.com/catalog/?id=8401
http://www.marvel.com/catalog/?id=8559





Two words: The Halloweeners. There is a reason they can get away with the crap they do more often than not.

And, really you don't need much training to use a sword on somebody unless you're going up against a trained swordsman. It doesn't take a genius to know that you hit your enemy with the pointy end and the sharp side.





Numbers still count for something and any corpsec team going into the Barrens in force would be severely outnumbered. There is a reason Lone Star stays ut of those areas.

Mania makes it sound like an acceptable thing. It's full on pedophilia. Train stations have begun posting signs warning girls wearing skirts that sweaty men may attempt to snap photos of their undies with their cell phones. From what I hear Tokyo is cool-as-hell but I've always felt sorry for the women in Japanese culture, especially if they're too timid to stomp on some perv's nuts.

And I have two words for you, "Ancients Massacre". They get away with it for a while and then they get stomped like a roach. If the 'Weeners ever get too uppity and attack something important to someone important then the next squishing will come a lot sooner than later.

Says the man who has obviously never swung a sword around while seriously trying to hurt someone. They are not easy a weapon to use as you think and untrained idiots will most likely fall on their asses when they attack someone who doesn't just cower like a ninny. There is a reason why the ancient world was full of sword schools, after all.

Oh yeah, we all know that all of those gutter scum are perfectly willing to stop a bullet over something that isn't their business, right?
Tell you what. Outside of religious nuts and/or insurgents, how many obviously well-guarded people have to deal with attacks by street urchins. "Not very many" is the correct answer there. You mess with CorpSec or their charge in the Barrens, where you're not even a damn citizen worthy of police protection 95%+ of the time, and see how many randoms will come to your aid when the cybered-up, stone cold, well armed and armored goons whip out the smartlinked bullet hoses and give you the good news.
As for KE and those blokes patrolling the Barrens. You don't pay taxes, who's paying for all that gas and training and manpower and gear and legal fees and insurance and...and...and... The cash has to come from somewhere and the Barrens ain't gonna foot the bill except maybe in the Red Light district and probably not even there as the gangs prefer to keep their own peace and their own business to themselves. I assure you, the "Barrens are too nasty for us widdle policemans" concept has nothing to do with it.

As I said - in the US, maybe. In other countries, people got less uptight. In Germany, for sure. And Germany got hit much harder by the consequences of WW1 than the US - they did have civil war in all but name on some occasions, with the "Freikorps", and later political violence took off. And yet Berlin got rather debauched, not puritan.

Do not forget that even these days, the US is much, much more uptight than the rest of the western world.

I think Somalia showed that you need a a whole lot of people willing to die to make numbers count when it's untrained men with subpar weapons against trained soldiers with state of the art gear and support.

I somehow don't see the typical resident of the Barrens willing to die to keep CorpSec out - not if it's easier to lie low, let them smash whatever they want, and then go in and take what's left for yourself. And that goes double for Shadowrunners, who have much more to lose than a ganger - why would a criminal for hire risk his/her life fighting CorpSec for nothing? Some may, but the vast majority will most likely go into hiding - or go after whoever was as stupid to provoke a CorpSec response to teach them not to repeat that mistake.

They are starting to have 'women only' train cars because of women getting felt up by pervs. But the culture keeps the 'cute image' of women because most ethnic japanese girls do not have the big western curves. We have to go with what we got when competing with long legs and stuff. Cute works. The problem is it drifts towards peadophilia but only on some levels.
Remember the song line:
"Anime babes make me think the wrong thing."

The thought is wrong but the image continues.

No argument there. The Brits stuck the Protestants on the Mayflower so they could have a bit of fun without some black and white-garbed chap tut-tutting at them.

That's interesting. I never realized the ideal of the "Fat Bottom Girl" is what lead to the kawaii movement.

They don't need to risk their lives to make CorpSec avoid the barrens; IEDs have shown that you can make life a little bit of hell for any attempt to regularly patrol in a hostile habitation. With all the whizzbang tech in 2070 I expect that at least a few angry barrens residents have set up selective virtual minefields tagged to attack anything with a LoneStar or Knight Errant logo. LS and KE are going to be very casualty-averse when dealing with the Barrens as well; they'll be costs that have to be weighed against a redeeming profit from something they will achieve inside the Barrens, otherwise they won't wish to risk venturing inside.

The slow war between freedom and order will be mostly passive-aggressive, with neither side really committed to total domination but, equally, unable to tolerate the presence of the other.

And continue to refuse to admit they need one another to survive, at that.

Order needs chaos to scare the sheeple into allowing for more and more security after all.

That's why security companies put up the Z-Zones that the Barrens are. "See! The barbarians are at the gates! We're your only defence! More funding more funding more funding!"

Sure, the Germans were debauched, but then with the Nationalist Socialists they went back to the wholesome imagry. Yeah I know there was evil rot and corruption behind it but the image they wanted was putre, friendly happy arayans frolicing in the alps.

The soviets in the mid 50's were discribed as being 'mid-victorian' in morality

Thanks Hyzmarca, but not what I meant. I'm staying as FAR away from Marvel as possible, save for picking up the Dark Tower series for my girlfriend.

The Rifters books by Peter Watts have some examples of near future post-cyberpunk sexual interactions. "Regular" people meet in clubs, talk, judge each other, etc as normal, but then have sex through VR. Real life intercourse isn't considered a "normal" thing to do, although it happens. Men and women also save images of people they like the look of if they want to just simulate in VR.

One of the "good" characters is a sexual sadist who runs torture/mutilation sims when in the mood, but leads a normal life otherwise.

Physical sex (and rape) happens out in the "barrens" of the setting, where people don't have access to that kind of technology.

Sure. Authorial proclamation that you can have an anti-corp band of crazy terrorists who every cop and security guard will shoot on sight operating for decades in the center of the heaviest security zone without being exterminated.

It really helps your survival when you are a plot device.

There is an pretty old truism that "no organized body of troops is ever outnumbered by a mob."

The only reason Lone Star stays out is that there's no reason big enough to go in. If there was such a reason, the Barrens have nothing to keep an organised corp force out, much less the military. Between expendable drones and spirits, air support, the best armor, weapons and communications one can buy, a willingness to sacrifice troops to reach an objective that is much stronger than our current western doctrine, and the lack of any scruples when it comes to SINless civilian casualties on the Corp side, the Barrens stand no chance even if they were unified and had a better morale than gutterpunks, criminal scum and squatters usually do.