My tint on the world of Shadowrun is much like this. Groups like Lone Star just don't have the cash for nice toys and are mired in paperwork. Only areas that can afford folks like KE have any real security. In my worlds, there just isn't enough tax money to pay for worthwhile public law enforcement to even cover C zones well. And as long as the Punknaught stays in a Z zone, doesn't hit a corp building or interfere with organized crime, nobody (who can do anything about it) cares.

One difference is that its not aerial drones doing the monitoring. Its the people in the buffer zones themselves. Free eyes and ears. Drones are targets for pranksters and require operational costs (maint, fuel, operators). And the Star ain't exactly rolling in cash.

The more interesting question is:What is the response when it wanders out? If its just taking the freeway from Z1 to Z2, does Lone Star chase it in to Z2? That all depends on the needs of the plot I guess.

As cool as a 500lb cease and desist order is, I don't see Lone Star dropping it. That's MetroPlex guard level.

Five stars if I have my lingo correct.

IIRC, KE and LS regularly compete for the Seattle contract. Obviously there must be a pretty good amount of profit in it.

As to "MetroPlex guard level", it wasn't the government that set off a nuke in downtown Chicago....

In the world of SR, with terrorist organizations that have several times killed tens of thousands of citizens in single events, the phrase "disproportional response" isn't often used when referring to the actions of security services against known dangerous criminals or suspected terrorists/magical threats.

The security services have no more interest in "arresting" this kind of threat than Melvin Purvis or Frank Hamer had in arresting John Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde.

It's been suggested that Knight Errant only hassles Lone Star over the city contract to keep them from expanding their corporate sector business, though there's quite a bit of profit in the Seattle contract, provided you don't waste it on bombs and missiles. Or on training, equipment, and publicity except where you really need it.

But feel free to run Lone Star as if it's some elite military unit like Ares Firewatch, doing pro bono work in the Barrens, rather than the profit-driven, inefficient, underequipped, understaffed, monstrous bureaucracy it's portrayed as.

That is the Star to a "T". Actually, that is almost every private security firm in the world to a "T". Military don't have to worry about profit, which is why they have all kinds of crazy toys and the willingness to use them whenever they want to. Ergo, I'm in the military IRL because I like to "Blow Shit Up".