What about that most desired commodity of all to a magician - KARMA!!???

Running the shadows generates a steady flow of karma. Warding and spellcasting all day at the local spa won't generate any more karma than going to the laundromat.

That's why a Player does it...
...Not a Character.

Then I guess we disagree on the concept of Karma as it pertains to characters in the game. I think it is tangible in the game and that PC magicians in particular are aware of it.

This discussion has been had a number of times. Karma is not simply a metagame concept; it is, at least to some spirits, a tangible and measurable commodity.

~J

Uh, no. They really can't do that. I think you need to re-read certain parts of the book.

Aztechnology cannot "decide" you're extra-territorial. Only the Corporate Court can do that, and very specifically only if you are AA+. i.e, a world-spanning megacorporation.

They can still buy your shoppe without asking for your opinion. And then they can set you on fire, if they want to.

Well it simple Aztechnology declares your shop to be Aztechnology corporate property. They the shoot you for running a non corp business in violation of Aztechnology law and take your stuff. Aztechnology might have a legal claim to the property, for example you're leasing the building for a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Aztechnology. On the other hand they could simply declare your place corporate property and let your next of kin try to win an illegal expropriation claim.

Shadowrun canon now has shopping malls and apartment complexes as extraterritorial corp zones. Basically, shadowrun corporations and probably best described as "organized government virtually ceased to exist during the awakening, extra territorial corporations replaced governments in many instances, though corporations in Shadowrun might talk about profits and shares for many of the bigger corporations this is an anachronism."

Considering people are showing that mages would be more common than doctors, and we have this thing called medical school, somehow a magic college does not seem outlandish to me.
As for awakened bars, I don't think I've read of any that only lets awakened in, its where the awakened and people who want to stare at the awakened go. Also even if it was a pure awakened bar, it might do as well as a Vegetarian restaurant today. Or heck if awakened bars were 10% as common as Gay bars it would be about as successful as Gay bars.(I apologize if there is some other politically correct term I am not hip to at this time.) But last time I heard the stats homosexuals were about 10% of the population, and mages 1% so 10% of 10% would be about 1%.

Well sure if your shop is in Aztechnology territory they can say its in their territory. But if your shop is in downtown Seattle and not in there territory, no they can't. Sure they can kill you and come up with a lame excuse to the press, and payoff your family out of court or whatever. But that is different than them legally declaring your property theirs, taking it and killing you.

Your assuming Rule of Law. In earlier editions extra territoriality was maybe one arcology and a couple corp facilities in any one city. In 4th edition Department Stores are extraterritorial if owned by a Mega. Most folks in the 4th world probably are withing the bounds of at least four different territorial entities per day. So how do you know that that place in Seattle isn't Aztechnology corporate property:

1. The title to the property say it isn't.
2. The title to the property is a piece of paper/digital file kept at the courthouse in Seattle.
3. The people who own the property own it because UCAS law says they do
4. If you get into spitting match with the UCAS people with guns may show up.

On the other hand the UCAS does not have control over it's territory. Corp property isn't the same as embassy property. An embassy is extraterritorial ground that's extent is negotiated with the host government. Corporate extraterritoriality comes about when a corporation acquires or lays claim to a piece of property. If you think a corp has wrongly laid claim to property your recourse is to the corporate court not to the national court. Unless a corporation acts in an excessive manner a national government has no recourse against extraterritorial claims, no national government has enough fire power to take on the corporate court. (Think of corporate ownership being very similar to ownership of property by the Church during the middle ages, it's all over the place and drives national governments nuts). The UCAS might intervene if a corporation attempted to claim all of Seattle but the central government is to weak to concern itself with a potentially valid claim to a storefront. Adjudicating such thinks are what the "self regulating" corporate court system is for.

In the end it all comes down to guys with guns. Aztechnology can't just declare a skyscraper downtown to be theirs as it's owners have contracted with a security force to provide armed resistance if they try. National governments exist mainly as a "neutral" party is useful to the corps. That's why you have Shadowrunners. Rule of law is weak enough in the Shadowrun world that if men with guns do something, unless the authorities catch them in the act, there's almost no follow up to punish the offenders. The system requires the appearance of normalcy, even if civilization ended in the 2030's. The corps have agreed to not openly shoot at each other, so they hire independent contractors to do it.

If a megacorp wants your stuff lone star isn't going to do anything about it, the national military isn't going to do anything about it, the people with guns you hired might, the corporate court might (but that's a whether biased body).

there is a degree of rule of law though. The corporate court is an example of it. The reason Aztechnology can't just grab someone land because they don't like that independent talismonger is because all the other corporations don't want that precedent. If they let it slide this time what stops Aztechnology from grabbing up a lot more land. Ares doesn't want that to happen and neither do any of the other corps. There are a lot of reasons beyond balance of power why the other corps don't want this to fly, including really bad anti corp publicity. Unless they mutually decide to go, hey lets all make a land grab Aztechnology can't just grab someones land because they want it.

But yes, that is why there are shadowruners so the corps can get crap done that wont come back to them. Sure Aztechnology can hire some shadowrunners, modify deeds, or just have them kill you. But that is totally different than Aztechnology just walking around and saying yeah, I'll take that land, oh and that land, oh and that looks nice I'll take it as well.

Renraku was forced to give up the Arcology by the UCAS government, as an example counter to your points.

Doesn't work that way.

As revealed in another thread (are Stuffer Shacks (chain property of some AAA corp) extra-national territory?) it doesn't work that way.

First, the corp needs to have extra-national rights.
Second, the corp enclose and clearly label said land as corp property.
Third, the corp needs to register what land is extra-national.
Fourth, the coverage of extra-national rights extends only as far down as the corp's name is used (I.E. Aztech Industrial is covered, Stuffer Shack is not).

The shadowrunners other corps hire to torch the property and otherwise undertake retaliatory measures to see that Aztechnology doesn't turn a profit off the deal.



Because most of the valuable land has already been taken by the corps? See the resource rush (especially as written in earlier editions). In most states mineral resources are owned separate from the surface. Just because the extent of corporate ownership isn't visible doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.



Depends, today when you buy a house you buy title insurance to insure that the person you bought it from actually owns it. I wonder if, in the Shadowrun World, title insurance doesn't also cover mercs to provide armed resistance against an extra territorial taking.

Okay people let's do the math:
1 of every 100 people is awakened. That is both adepts and mages. Okay out of a population of 100,000 (a small modern city) that would be about 1,000 persons, with maybe 1/3 being full blown mages. If 10,000 magically active per million population that the government knows about. If 3,000 mages per million exist means they are valuable, but not irreplacable. Note population of earth in SR is roughly 5 to 6 billion.

Also, sinless are not taken into condsideration.

Side note:Sinless may face other disincentives to corporatize. Being sinless the corp can send them off to god knows where and do god knows what to them. Also there is a certain level of distrust between sinless and the powers that be.

Your doing the math wrong man. Even if we will go with 1% being awakened (ignoring weather latent people fall into that 1% or make up their own), you can not count just Mages, Aspected Magicians, Mystic Adepts and Adepts. Your ignoring what would be by far the more common part of that 1%, which is people who have: Spell Knack, Spirit knack, Astral Sight, etc. Mages will not make up 1/3 of the total.

Um Renraku lost control of the Arcology in a very public manner. The military had to come in and seize the building. It was discovered that a cult bent on world domination had taken over the building (not a small thing after Chicago). For this mess the corporate court decided not to bomb the UCAS into oblivion from orbit for seizing the building. And that was about it. In the end the fallout from the shutdown crashed the Matrix, for nearly ending what was left of modern civilization Renraku was punished by the loss of a building. Yep Renraku got heavily punished by a firm light slap on the wrist and an admonition not to piss EVERYONE (except maybe the insect spirits) off at them next time.

Enclose, post and register. If I'm remembering right that was also the requirements for claiming land in the Oklahoma land rush (could be a bit rusty, I think enclose only required driving surveyors stakes at the time). That's not exactly a high standard.

Are you sure? The UCAS certainly stepped in and took control of containment and cleanup, but while I don't have my copy of Threats 2 on hand to check, didn't Renraku get the Arcology back?

~J

In a word, no.

The Knacks and other minor Awakenings can safely be ignored when quoting that 1% statistic, simply because they did not exist when the statistic was originally created and it has not yet been adjusted.

I don't think that anyone at Catalyst has made a serious attempt to perform a census on the Awakened since they gained access to the transuniversal time portal.

Perhaps they're too busy doing novacoke off troll hookers while on BTL's.

No. There's a little thing called the Business Recognition Accords. A corporation can't just declare a property their own extraterritorial zone, they still have to get permission from the host government to do so. Walking into a store and setting fire to the owner is not a pursuasive way of getting permission.

Well runners companion mentions both shopping centers and apartment complexes as being extraterritorial. No government in it's right mind would allow a shopping center to be extraterritorial. It would both hurt sales tax revenue AND make law enforcement a complete pain in the ass. It can therefor be presumed that extraterritriality in 4th edition is more pervasive then in prior editions.

Which makes things like lone star make more sense. To have uniform law enforcement between corp and national zones, most everyone contracts with the same corp for it (in a contract that likely allows the pursuit of criminals from other zones).

Interestingly enough, there's discussion about the worrying trend for private companies owning public spaces - shopping malls are private property, as are some hospitals, etc.

What it means is that the owning company can dictate who is allowed on the premises, and conditions for them...
...And governments can't really do much as those spaces are private property.

Private companies generally don't limit allowed people or what they can do, but technically they could if they wanted to.

there's a difference between "there are extraterritorial shopping malls" and "if you set up a shopping mall aztechnology has the right to claim it as their property".

Extraterritoriality is only granted to those corporations self-sufficient enough to handle security responsibilities on their own to begin with. The Shiawase Decision was in fact predicated on the idea that the company could have provided better security than the government was apparently capable of providing; therefore, it's safe to say that the complications are likely considered a wash when you consider that the government no longer has to worry about providing security to a given installation to begin with. Quite simply, it's no longer their problem, and a mega would likely keep a tight lid on crime in their buildings due to the problems inherent with bad publicity.

[edit] Doah!!! Wrong thread!!!