Heh, so last sunday (the one before this past one) we had a session and in it Aztlan forces were in a stand off with UCAS soldiers because of something they were transporting. Accidentally, I caused the vehicle transporting the object to crash into another vehicle because of messing with the traffic lights, causing a passing vehicle at an intersection to drive into the truck containing the object... Aztechnology forces came to retrieve it via helicopter, Swat showed up when Aztechnology forces arrived and the two got into a standoff and didn't fire shots... Until a block away, I shot down the helicopter with a lucky sniper shot at the rotor...

Yeah. Didn't think that one through.

The two forces started firing at each other like crazy. Was all over the news that night. If you were GM, what would the repurcussions be politically? Not just talking about my runner and his partners but for Seattle as a whole as well...

It wouldn't be war. The SWAT team would get sacked for improper handling of the situation, the city would apologize to AZT, and business would move on.

Was the cargo exposed as something that seriously cannot be allowed, evenby SR standards, I know that is implied by the timeline you laid out but I'm curious as to the exact nature, and are we talking Knight Errant or still usng Lone Star?

Either way they would be on public property (the roads) and subject to local law, in this case the UCAS military. Quite frankly, once it was determined that the shot was from some third party (was it?), my guess is that Horizon/Lone Star/KE would have evidence that the Azzies shot at the other troops first. The Azzies of course would produce evidence to the contrary and leaving the situation in question, with both sides saying it was the other guys fault. Two to three days later, it will be old news.

You're forgetting the Seretech Decision.

Also remember that the UCAS moved in on the arc because it was a danger to the public. Depending on what was in the truck, if the truck was clearly marked as Azzie property, and if the Azzies were in a running gunfight with someone on UCAS territory could all give the troops a reason to act.

SWAT =/= UCAS Army. If it was the Metroplex Guard, fine, but this sounds more like a LS/KE situation. If that's the case, it'll be an issue for the Corporate Court, if it ever gets to that point.

Ok I feel a bit better... ultimately though it was a gun fight between the two organizations in the middle of an intersection loaded with civilians (mostly in vehicles that were part of the crash). The way it went down was Swat (or military) showed up at the same time as the Azzie reinforcements did and everyone just kept eachother at gun point. The tablet was transferred to another vehicle that was in the convoy (3 unmarked trucks, 1 crashed previously, Azzies in the back got out and shot the hell out of the vehicle that rammed them... our fault again). After the tablet was transfered, I noticed the helicopter could see if it deviated from course so shot it down... Azzies thought UCAS/swat shot first and opened fire at them... UCAS/swat returned fire.

Could be 1914 all over again. One crazy-ass gunman starts a war.

Oh... and the boss of the Azzie reinforcements was a blood mage... idk what that says about it politically :-\

Yeah I'm in agreement with others that this is a corporate affair between LS/KE and Aztechnology. As such the Corporate Court would handle the situation. The UCAS be furious as hell because UCAS citizens died (which may be grounds for review of LS/KE contract) but they wouldn't go to war with Azland over it (politically Aztechnology and Azland are two different entities and as such the actions of one are legally not the actions of the other). They may go to the Corporate Court to ask for fines to be placed on Aztechnology for their over reactions (especially if it comes out that the boss was a blood mage). You can beat your salary that LS/KE are going to sue Aztechnology for all damages (real or not) for the losses they suffered, and if they don't get monetary reimbursement, they will take immediate shadow activity against Aztechnology to either discredit them in Seatle, or make them suffer for the situation. Heck even the city of Seatle may sue Aztechnology for the damages suffered to the city itself and make them clean up the mess from the whole incident.

It is an ugly mess politically but it won't lead to war.

Because of the unmarked trucks the Azzies have no legal leg to stand on. The whole situation makes them look bad. Firing upon law enforcement officers in the middle of a crowded intersection? They might have awesome PR but that's going to sting.

Who needs PR when 60% of what people buy from stuffer shacks comes from you? A lot of the stereotyped Azzy arrogance is justified by their sheer market presence. I would not be surprised if some of the other more media savvy megas (I'm looking at you Horizon) use this to their advantage.

Uh i hate to bring up geography and stuff like that but the UCAS and Aztlan don't touch. ya'll got the entire Confederacy between them.

Hey, Snowy, you gotta capitolize your colloquialisms when it's the first word after a period. Yer gonna make the Southerners mad at ya for making 'em loon undedumacated!

Resists the urge to copy over the lyrics to Trace Atkins' "Hold my beer"

God I hate country.

I was thinking about this last night and I'm thinking LS/KE would also get in hot water. Why was SWAT sent to a traffic accident? Was there major (ie LMG or larger) fired before the cops arrived?

Oh that was such the wrong thing to post around her. but she dioes have a point that there is a land mass between the Azzie's and the UCASians that is full of gun toting truck driving types with little love for either nation.

I'm reviewing Malbur's time line and it makes sense:
1. Azzie Truck is rammed by his crew (probably remotely piloted).
2. Azzie Protection Crew hops out and attacks ramming vehicle (endangering civs).
3. Lone star/KE/Metroplex Guard show up cause some loons in heavy armor an weapons are shooting up vehicles (note this would result in an HTR or similar type group), Azzie reinforcements show up as well.
4. Azzie's say this is out stuff were leaving. Lone star/KE/Metroplex Guard---says um no your staying, lay down your arms and surrender.
5. Azzie Chopper shows up. Azzie's transfer tablet to chopper and chopper takes off. Lone star/KE/Metroplex Guard--don't fire as they are just moving Azzie Property and quite frankly their boss and the Azzie boss are probably yelling at each other to back down (Lone star/KE/Metroplex Guard-is paralyzed by command being indecisive).
6.Malbur or one of his teammates shoots down the chopper.
7. Azzies start shooting, Lone star/KE/Metroplex Guard starts shooting...

More importantly did the runners make off with the goods or was getting it smashed up sufficient?

I miss living in Texas.




-k

Close but I wasn't especially clear... here's how it actually went:

1. 3 Azzie armored trucks leave airport transporting stone tablet in middle truck. All trucks have 5 guards in them.
2. Rear Azzie truck is rammed (mind control spell on driver) causing it to stop.
3. Guards jump out of back and open fire on the vehicle killing the driver. As other two vehicles continue driving
4. KE (i thought it was UCAS military, sorry for that mistake) sends forces to the scene as guys in heavy armor and weapons start firing at vehicles.
MEANWHILE: Second vehicle (one with the tablet) is rammed by vehicle as traffic lights were switched. Both vehicles stop (first vehicle outside the crash in the intersection).
5. Azzie chopper sent from their HQ with reinforcements to secure the area. Both Azzie chopper and KE forces show up at the same time. Nobody is shooting yet.
6. Tablet transfered from crashed vehicle to first vehicle and takes off, we start process to intercept it. Everyone else including helicopter stays at intersection in standoff
7. I shoot down helicopter with sniper rifle, Azzies start shooting thinking they are under attack. KE returns fire.
8. We hijack the last truck, kill everyone inside and grab the tablet before disappearing.

Ok that is a bit more clear and I can see the escalation now.

Yeah... but as a shadowrunner... Job security!

Said it before, will say it again. If was a Horizon PR guy I would be jumping all over this, especially with that timeline. I would be hiring runners to get an "independantly verified" feed of the azzies opening up on civilian vehicles, there would be interviews with terrified bystanders, discussions with sociology experts blaming this on Azzy arrogance and corruption. Timed over a week or two so the story has time to build up in the public eye of course, don't want to look like we are knee-jerking against the bastards....

I have to agree with Doc, UCAS doesn't even share a common board with AZ. Further AZ is much more concerned about keeping open one of it biggest markets. Whoever screwed the pooch on the drop would apologize and be transferred to the moral equivalent of Siberia (Or framed up). Whatever VP in A was in-charge gets a Stern talking to/opportunity to apologize depending on if they screwed up before. But short of AZ whole sale invading all of Denver, no way is that war gonna happen. If it did you can bet the court would handle it. If you had said AZ with PCC or CAS, i could buy that, their just looking for a reason, but even that probably wouldn't amount to anything more then a couple quick battles a couple months of skirmishing. Anything beyond that would bring court sanction.

Gahh Double post 4tL

since when do you have to have a common border to have a war with someone? Look at USA vs. Iraq... of USA vs Soviet Union (cold war)... Technically no fight broke out there, but there was potential that both groups could invade the other through a variety of means....

In the RL example, we're also receiving permission to overfly other countries, as well as set up supply lines and airbases through them to make the strikes. The U.S. has had a constant presence in Kuwait, and it's the chief logistics point for anything military going into Iraq, just as Pakistan and Uzbekistan are logistics points for Afghanistan.

Who's UCAS going to get permission from?

They could go around it... Sure it might be a tad bit more difficult but they could always send a force through the gulf of mexico and vice versa. Can the carribean league control the entire sea way there?

A carrier group isn't going to be able to provide the manpower required to move into Aztlan.

There is no motivation for it. UCAS doesn't want the biggest producer of consumer goods not selling to them, and AZ doesn't have anything to gain and way to much to lose for it to happen. Such a war would certainly break rule no.1 of the CC and that is good enough reason alone for it to not happen. As to the boarder issue there is no way CAS is gonna stand for any kind of mass AZ Naval movements along the East Coast, and I doubt they would really like UCAS movement ether, No way its gonna let ether side move ground troops though. Air wise pretty much the same. Tir and the NAN isn't going to stand for to much monkey business up Seattle way. No way will they allow major AZ military presence there. Also don't count the Carib league out. While i doubt they could stop AZ or UCAS main naval forces, they could certainly interdict supply lines, making it to dangerous to really committee forces for large scale action.

All good reasons for this not to go the convetional warfare route. Instead I see it mainly as a reason for the various megas, especially the all american ones like Ares and Horizon to step up their covert acts against Aztechnology, it even opens the door for some interesting "black" level cooperation between certain parties that don't have directly competing market interests andpublicly it gives every mega a pretty good stick to beat Aztlan and Aztechnology with in the arena of public opinion.

It'll end up like any incidents that happens in real life between two separate (armed) organizations. The lawyers will be involved, negotiations, press conferences, and the media specials. There'll be use of gun/helmet/dashboard cams, timelines of events, the third gunmen conspiracy, and eventually stuff like restitutions/reparations, if any. This kind of incident really wouldn't escalate, maybe some little saber rattling tied to an attempt at a trade concession or something. Especially with an intense third party review of the incident through processing of witnesses, video/audio feeds, physical evidence, it'll show that neither side shot at the copter, because it definitely WAS a third party. Did your shot with the rifle use a different caliber than the ones used by either sides? Well, that would be interesting...
Plus, for both sides, this kind of incident just would not add up to the cost of large scale actions.

Even if the whole incident occurred in Texas I still don't think it would lead to War between Azland and the CAS. Azland =/= Aztechnology (at least politically, functionally is another matter). There has never been a war between a nation and a corp in the SR timeline and I don't think it is possible. Azland and Quebec did the closest thing to it by exiling non-domestic corps from their territories. While a corp has the same resources as a country, they don't have the territory that a country has to invade, and they have little interest in taking territory from a country and running it. Its bad for business.

It'll just be an international incident. Those happen from time to time. Aztechnology will lose some "points", and it'll hurt them during the upcoming renegotiation of the Treaty of Denver, which they really don't need.

But countries only go to war when at least one of them actually wants the war.

That is totally true and Azland is already at war with Amazonia. They are in no position to fight a naval war with the UCAS or have either the PCC or CAS start a war on their northern boarder.

Yeah, because no one is able or willing to step in to the Stuffer and consumer electronics market.


Sorry, but you got control of the price of Oil and you have the world by the short hairs.

You have control of the Big Gulp and soyachip market and got a nice cash cow, but every other major corporation would be more than glad to line up to take your market share if you made yourself persona no grata to a major national market.

Pretty much my point, if you will reread. Aztechnology is arrogant because their huge market presence in consumer goods gives them an effectively limitless amount of cash. This sort of bad pr is exactly the sort of thing you use to get people to stop buying Azzy products and buy yur new super-multi-vita-bar! Now with more real flavor!

Most of the world doesn't realize the Azzies own Stuffer Shack.

Which is why you have someone low in your own PR branch kick some info Janey blogger's way, get her running some harder hitting stuff, build her rep a little among the hard news fans, then drop a couple of juicy but not credibility ruining stories going about her on another blogger's celebrity gossip rag, get so Moe Beergut sees it, wonders who the chick with the cute smile and small but perky chest is, follows a link to her site.... I'm not saying this will change market share by more than a few points, but enough companies running variations of this scheme and suddenly the Azzies aren't sitting quite so cozy. and that is enough to get the sharks really circling. Perception is Reality, Heresay is as good as Truth.








And no, I do NOT work for Horizon.

People have been doing this about Wal-mart for a decade now.
Their empire is pretty nigh unshakable right now.

Even with stories of unfair labor practices, buying clothes from sweatshops.. etc.

People don't see video of Walmart employees spraying lead from heavy weapons though. You're thinking too small, t isn't one thing, it is everything about this that needs to be hammered, not by one voice, but every little bit having it's own voice, it's own face covering the story so everyone has a face and a voice they identify with. That is how you do it, hell, you can even engineer the debut of new bloggers "suddenly aware of the world around them" by manipulating P2.0 subscriptions, horizon and some of the asian megas are damn good at manufacturing real or digital idoru.

Well... it might not be an all out War, but it definitely should be good for business. A little competition never hurt anyone right?

Hold my beer
this won't take long
I want it back
an' I said gall darn!

at the risk of showing my age, yeah they did. I'm not sure about the current history but back to 1st ed as the US was falling apart Texas left the CAS to go to war with Aztlan, when the Azzies were at Austin they begged for help and returned to the fold.

The point several have put forward on this is that they went to war with Aztlan and not Aztechnology. I am of the opinion that the distinction is basically meaningless. But in the end the judge of this will be Corp Court, and it might care about that distinction. However I would put forward that the rebels are directly at war against Aztechnology. (The majority of the troops fighting them according to canon are Corp troops), however unless they win i guess its not technically a country vs a corp.

AZ gets away with most everything b/c they are the big bad. There may very well be more dangerous groups out there, but AZ is the go to guys for evil in all major game fronts except the matrix.

yeah but as several people have said theirs virtually no difference between Aztlan and Aztechnology.

Which is why when Aztlan was all.. all your Properties are belong to US... the Corporate Court issued and Omega Order on Aztechnology.

Malbur,

I'm a little confused, you have said that it was Aztlan troops on a few occasions and in other posts, said it was Azzie forces. Which is it?

If it is Azzie forces, then likely it will be settled in the Corporate Court (if the Azzies and Ares don't settle it before hand).

If it is Aztlan forces, then Aztlan will likely be under the gun. Why did it have military forces in UCAS? Did it have permission? They fired on, and killed, UCAS civilians, and then later fired on KE troops. A diplomatic incident, with Aztlan in the wrong.

Unless your GM wants to have a war start up

Hey, sorry about the confusion there. They were aztechnology security forces... basically it was a fight between Knight Errant (Ares) and Aztechnology... basically tuning up to be a good job environment for us