I realize the good folks over at catalyst are releasing their War supplement soon, and that it will be chock full of an interesting story in the jungles, mercenary career stuff, plenty of fluff on groups and places, and almost certainly a shiny new batch of toys. That's not what this thread is about.

As I was discussing a potential cyber suite with a player, trying to identify the mass market in question, he pointed out that it would be "ideal for the military. Cheap super soldiers to use as cannon fodder. you can always buy more soldiers." In essence, he believed that war in the SR4 world was based around the classic dystopian "we will feed enough meat into the grinder to break it" approach. Hordes of cheap cybered soldiers sacrificed en masse to achieve the heartless goals of the Megas or the government, backed by plenty of cheap yet firepower heavy tech and magic forces.

I disagreed. my take on it would be that the world was in an age of limited war. What conflicts there are are often fought in proxy wars, where small professional forces bleeding and dying in hellholes no ones heard of, for reasons no one knows besides the corps, in conflicts that most people have forgot if they ever realized were happening. High tech advisers mix with no-tech natives in brush wars well outside the public view. Standing militaries are used, by and large, as tools of political threat or expeditionary forces to impose policy against those drastically weaker. While everyone trains to invade or defend against their neighbors, no one really expects it to happen. Analogous to 17th century Europe almost.

Mercenary groups form a happy medium, providing upgraded firepower to whatever banana republic junta needs to supplement its Ak-97 wielding militia without tying in corp interests or foreign powers. Megas probably turn a profit quite handily through several layers removed mercenary franchises. What better way to livefire train your Firewatch team than have it spend a year bushwhacking somewhere in Africa?

Now, as to why I think this is the more likely state of the art rather than the grand cyber horde battle:

1. The bottom line is the bottom line. For the Mega's, what is there to be gained by actually staging a major "take this place and conquer it" war? Sure, there's a potential upswing in contracts for the defense corps, but there is also consumer unrest, depletion of the consumer base, and the flat out destruction of resources. A battle for one urban sprawl could easily leave it completely economically unviable. And then, really, whats the point? As a Mega, there is none unless your on the cusp of world domination.

As for governments, the ones big enough to handle global force projection against equivalent enemies are also the ones big enough to be hamstrung by their own population's need to be sated, and at the same time they can't afford the nuyen to sustain continuous purchasing of soldiers and equipment. Quite a few don't even possess the population or industrial base to truly undertake a major war. So any commitments of force become limited affairs, seeking to achieve a few telling objectives for minimal cost. And do you really think MCT and Renraku are going to let there be a major war that involves japan?

2. Ultra-balkanization. the commitment of forces it take any one entity, Mega or government, to fight another will clearly leave it severely disadvantaged against its rivals. Even if it wins spectacularly, the tried and true SR tradition of 'band together to make sure he doesn't get too big" will come into effect, and the gains likely to be made are small. Simply put the risks and costs almost always outweigh the potential benefits. And of course the risk you take in losing...

Now, it is entirely possible that an intricate network of alliances would be developed to allow constant power games. And that the one spark would blow the whole thing into world war three with polarized sides. Only that is going to shatter the golden rule of "its all about the ". Because there is no way world war three is in the best interests of any mega. Can it happen? yes. Do i think its likely in a hyper-consumerist transhuman profit based society? No.

Comments? Concerns? Suggestions?

That's what runners are for. Deniable (and disposable) assets that may succeed in your "prioxy war" strikes, and if they fail they're dead and not getting paid anyways. Why pay the money to train, equip, and augment specialists when you can hire people who have already paid for their own augmentations, equipment, etc and will do the job for a lot less than a corp wageslave (even a black ops specialist).

Those black ops specialists are only used for the most important missions where failure is not an option, silence must be maintained, etc. We're talking the guys who make experienced runners look like novices.

The Corp Courts, really only have two Rules. Both of which are designed to stop that scenario from going down. They also have enough space born weapon systems that i suspect they could put a pretty immediate stop to anything looked like it might get out of hand.

Rules Number One- No Major Wars (Which as I understand it translates to Protracted, large scale, more then one battle type wars, this also covers over throwing governments, and would include War on the Matrix) This rule appears to is subject to some level of negotiation, L.A. for example, where in there does seem to be a build up towards something that looks a lot like a land grab.


Rule Number Two- if you get caught pay for it. (Which really just translates to Don't get Caught.)

Now that isn't to say there aren't dangers. The Corp Court effectively hold Hegemony, there are certainly scenarios that could be developed to trigger a struggle for that Hegemony. (It wouldn't be the human race without that being some where in the wings.) All it would really take is someone taking control of couple of the orbital weapon systems and cutting lose. Corps are very good at buffering the slings and arrows of PR, but even the Big A, is scared of its population. Nationalism has been generally over come by factionalism, but if the majority people suddenly get truly worried about survival we could see a resurgence in Governments very quickly, and it only takes one government thinking its got a shot at Hegemony to make the whole thing go up.

But i suspect the Corp Court would surrender Hegemony before it surrendered profits but who knows.

Man, the Sixth World sounds a whole heck of a lot like Menzoberranzan. Like, a whole crazy-heckuvalot.

LOL Not what i was expecting but I personally think House Baenre really was/is less stable then the corp courts. However there is a certain resemblance that i can't really shake.

Edit: the real problem with this is I will now spend at least an hour assigning megacorps drow family names. Curse You!

Shadowrun does somewhat resemble Menzoberranzan. Or Ravnica.

Good OP. I'll give my thoughts later.

Remember, it's not only megacorps, there are also new, fledgeling nations (with financial support from megas) that want to fight for freedom etc.

I agree with the OP mostly. I think the 'norm' would be asymetric warfer, small-scale proxy wars, guerilla insurgents and special operations. Apart from that, you also have the Desert Wars, but those are just for show, training and weaponstesting. However i do think, that these 'low intensity' wars can be quiet protracted. I.e. Yukatan went on for quiet a while. Poland was going for over a year, IIRC. Both also where quiet intense for some time.
However, I think what we are going to see in 'WAR!' will be like an order of magnitude bigger. Aztlan and Amazonia are both local superpowers in their own right, with a fair amount of powerprojection in the region. Aztlan (+Aztechnology) does have a quiet impressive standing army (especialy considdering the breeding program mentioned in Corp Guide) and I guess Amazonia will have s.th. to compete.
Still cybered cannon-fodder just dosn´t make any sense. You can put those ressources (both material and human) to better use. If you have to have cannon-fodder, it will be fairly untrained melitias, probably augmented by combat-drugs. But as described in another thread, you will not see that in official armies of corporations and developed countries. Some warlords and rebell forces - that´s another story. On this notion, imagin what a big workforce of skillwired labour could turn into, with a supply of small arms, combat drugs and the right cracked skillsofts!

It all depends on the objective of the belligerents.

If a mega-corp or a nation-state is doing a land grab, it's going to be a multiple front battle that may or may not ever involve bullets. It will first be a financial, economic, real-estate battle. Failing that it may become a covert matrix battle wherein on party is literally trying to steal the land-rights. Failing that, it may become a series of covert ops, attempting to undermine the profitability of the land in question for the current owner, so that they feel more inclined to sell it to the secret belligerent. Failing that, if it's deemed economically efficient, it may turn into a skirmish between various armies & or mercenary groups.

Everything changes and escalates if one party doesn't actually care about increasing its own profitability, and only wishes to marginalize and damage the profitability of their enemy.

Remember that if you have the technical/matrix advantage you can buy multiple drones for the price of even the cheapest augmented solider. They may be one trick ponies, but they do that one trick really well.

And have to agree with MK, skillwires + combat drugs + whatever arms (doesn't matter as long as you have the skillsofts) would be another cheap solution if those are existing resources. Just need to make sure you point them the right way as combat drugs aren't typically known for increasing intelligence. Still there is a bit of a cost with that also.

Another option for most countries is just to hire someone to do their fighting for them, like Ares.... They have to have an "army" that can give any 2 other megas or countries a run for it's money for some reason right?

The biggest question that would dictate how they would go about it, would probably relate to what they are fighting for. Resources, rep, land, people, entertainment, or something different? If all you want to do is take over a country that seems like it would be much easier and cheaper to buy who you can buy, and knock off who you cannot *shrug*. Remember unlike today's world, having people disappear seems to be a fairly common occurrence (just goes back to that saying of don't get caught).

This is actually a question i am interested in. I'm very unsure about how much Ares has in the Merc side, (I'm not talking about Desert Wars, which is reality television/training program, but isn't that big numerically) The last time they deployed force on a large scale was Chicago, and i doubt that numerically that it was anything like 30k troops. The clearly have plenty of Firewatch teams, and their magical Emergency response forces, but I don't think that gonna be any where near the 200k troops that AZ is said to have sitting on their northern border.

Does anyone have more information on this topic?

As I look at it, the cheap troops (guys with just guns and combat drugs) will get slaughtered by any group of well trained and equipped forces. I kinda posted something about that in the paratrooper thread.

From that post

"Even now, warlord armies are no match for a small well trained and equipped force. The problem with warlord forces is that they really are just a guy with a gun and maybe a few clips of ammo. The amount of training is minimal at best (a couple of shots at the range), support equipment (body armor, radios, comm gear, camo, weapon accesories, logistical support) and medical gear is vitually non existent. The professional soldiers on the other hand have the best gear and training that money can buy. Also, they now if they do get hurt, they will be medivaced and taken care of.

In SR, the fact of the matter is you do have vehicles that are essentially jet packs (forget the name--AFB, but it is in arsenal) . Combine that with spririts, magic, and deltagrad cyber-a small strike force of 10 (2 Mages, 2 Hackers, and 6 gun bunnies, and rigger support offsite) men (I use that term loosely) could do alot of damage.

For example, these ten men would first eliminate enemy mages, comms, and senior officers, probably via stealthy means--sniper rifles, drone attacks, spirit assaults, etc. Then (if the force doesn't scatter at that point) go to the lesser officers. Wash rinse repeat."

I was not aware that Yucatan ended. The Nature/Toxic spirit war is still going on there, no? With sides helping maintain a balance or trying to make one side or the other gain an upper hand, right?

I believe AZT bugged out. I'll have to look at 6WA again.

Ok I exaggerated a bit , but the Seattle book says that they have an equivalent military force compared the USCA (no clue if the other books support that or not). Now where those resources actually are and how fast they could deploy is an another story. However am thinking they are probably some of the best trained and equipted out of all the corps and nations.

I wouldn't be surprised if quite a lot of those Ares troops are actually on loan to the UCAS, and vice versa. Those two seem to be quite the bedmates when it comes to the military. They just don't like to advertise it as much as Aztechnology.

You mean this 'jetpack': "This flying personal mobility vehicle (FPMV) is considered by many to be a rich man’s toy,"? Maybe if they absolutely couldn't just walk in, then gliders or something. See the Paratrooper thread.

Be it jetpack or PMV or glider or t-bird or flying car or just hydraulic jacks on your milspec armor, well-equipped troops have some mobility options your average warlord's grunt won't have, which can make a huge difference in jungle/urban warfare.

By the time you've got the resources to spend on sticking low-end cyber suites into people for combat, the unskilled-wired-drugged masses thing stops making as much sense, even at only 4-6k nuyen + surgery costs and drugs per body (rating 2-3 Skillwires). It's not all that expensive to hire mercenaries as actual advisors and start putting companies of troops through, essentially, Basic Training. Once your troops have got that, their survival will probably be raised up a lot more than slamming them full of a similar nuyen value of skillwires and kamikazi would accomplish. Keep in mind that combat isn't all about your Automatics skill... dodge, the athletics group, perception, camoflage, and real basics like how to follow directions are pretty important too.

'ware that I think you'd see in a basic combat suite includes:
-Lowlight, thermal, smartlink, protective covers, and flare compensation eyemods.
-Damper earmods.
-Wired reflexes 1
-Biomonitor (optionally linked to an autoinjector loaded with a trauma patch)

This basic setup gets you good target acquisition, protects the primary combat senses from disruption, has a built-in force multiplier (wired reflexes) without a chemical dependency issue and would allow a slightly more wired sergeant equivalent to keep track of his squad's condition on the fly with the biomonitors, while making a medic's job a little easier when someone (or multiple someones) gets injured. Augmentation has a similar suite with Plastic bone lacing added in... that makes sense to me as well (broken bones are pretty debilitating). Rating 1 dermal plating or sheathing would also makes sense, either alongside of the bone lacing or in lieu of it (a sort of "flak jacket" for your skin, which would turn stray frags, flechettes, or spalling into scratches rather than deep lacerations that could cause blood loss, sever tendons/muscles, or get infected).

This package isn't particularly expensive (especially if you leave off the lacing/plating/sheathing option), and will provide a noticeable bump in the combat effectiveness of a trooper. The moment you start getting into slightly more technically inclined parts of the world (say, the UCAS army), you can add a few more components (a couple more senses, image/audio links and recorders, datajack (keeping commlinks external is probably for the better), orientation system) and easily turn the trooper into a node in a tactical network, providing a massive increase in combat effectiveness while still maintaining relatively low nuyen and essence costs.

While I could understand the allure of individual soldiers wanting to get chromed up, and I could even get behind large enough institutions (major nations, militarily powerful corps) offering "incentive programs" and significant discounts for some of the nicer chromed goodies...

...looking at just the bottom line, what's the benefit of having those cybereyes installed (almost 4,000, plus the cost of surgery), versus just getting the same goodies installed into some glasses, goggles, or even integrated right into a soldier's helmet (for 750 plus the base cost, though at the expense of the protective cover)? Likewise, the biomonitor? It's a cool 1,000 for the implanted version, over three times the price of the regular one. Does the benefit of a soldier never losing his gear outweigh the financial costs of implanting them, the Essence hit, the inability for one soldier to share his gear with another, and the fact that the corp/military/nation can't (as easily, or cheaply) keep the gear when that soldier's no longer enlisted?

Now, since Lone Star seems to think a pretty similar suite is affordable and practical enough to slap it into every SWAT trooper they get -- and one would assume the FRT guys, as well -- I can certainly understand a megacorp still offering such a cyberware suite, implanting it often enough to get the discount, and being expert enough at it their doctors are even-handed when it comes time to implant, etc, etc...so I'm not meaning to nitpick and say it's a bad basic suite for a line infantryman. I just think it wouldn't exactly be standard issue, or anything. When it's so much cheaper, and every bit as effective, to just give someone a helmet with a faceplate or something.

But I want my Freman to win.... Stupid technological superiority.

Think it is safe to say that building sized worms + nukes + storm cover + fanatics with sonic guns are > all.

The name "Valley Forge" rings a bell.




-k

Ha. And that was it really, knowledge of surrounding and how to use it. I assume it's the same reason no corp has bought the badlands of Seattle and sent in strike teams. Somewhere in there are gangers who can do to a building what the VC did to a jungle.

Thank you all for your excellent feedback, especially in the areas of likely soldier development.

As for the Seattle badlands, I would say its simply because there's nothing of value to claim. I sincerely doubt a bunch of gangers, however intimately familiar with the terrain, could really keep a corp out if it really wanted in. The Chechnyans in Grozny would be the closest modern comparison, and frankly their successes were more the product of gross Russian incompetence. And once the Russians really started playing, the situation went the other way fast (which you don't hear of often because the Chechnyans absolutely outclassed the Russians in PR), and only ended thanks to international pressure. Grozny II a few years later was a definitive Russian victory.

Two points, and I don't just mean to be disagreeing for disagreement's sake, here...

1) Remember that "ganger" in Shadowrun runs a broad, broad, spectrum. In some fiction, major, named, gangs are presented as a half dozen comical thugs with baseball bats and boards with nails in them. In other fiction -- and canon publications -- you'll read about Torgo's Spikes regularly ambushing Tir Border Patrol units and wiping them out just for fun, or about how the Ancients can get you pallets at a time of Ares Alphas they're so well equipped. While it's true that no gang has yet been presented as being able to slug it out, toe to toe, with a mega (nor SHOULD they be able to, of course!), in many instances they've been described as very capable paramilitary organizations, with tons of firepower and combat experience. Some of 'em surely aren't pushovers.

2) Even if they can't keep the corp out of their terrain, how well can the corp hold it, and for how long? A dedicated guerrilla resistance, perpetrated by a core group of people who've been inflicting violence upon others for most of their lives, in a crowded urban center where the population will support them, and with the possibility of weapons (and "advisers") being supplied to them by the economic rivals of Whatever That Invaded Corp Is? I could see the body count and property loss just not being worth the hassle, basically.

I somehow doubt the gangers are going to have the level of organization the VCs had, and they certainly will not have a whole country and its allies behind them

As an in-universe example, once the corps had decided that they wanted to retake Berlin, they did.

Why not? Gangs at their highest level are well organised criminal business enterprises. A successful gang is going to have lots of loyal footsoldiers organised - thanks to instant comms and technology - at a level the VCs couldn't even dream of.

And whilst no country may be backing them, a rival corporation who wants a given corp's "urban reclamation" project to fail can easily supply obscene amounts of arms and firepower.

Yes, the gang would lose eventually - but at what impact on the bottom line? The only worlds most successful terrorists - successful in getting their victims to change their policies - did so because their victims were business and the attacks were hurting their bottom line. You don't have to be capable of winning to - just capable of making it cost more than the bean-counters are willing to authorise.

I tend to concur that the ongoing invasion would be more hassle than its worth for the corp in question. Largely due to the factors mentioned.

However, if the crops does decide to go a crashin...the initial entry to the territory is obviously going to go in favor of the corp. And holding the territory will too. Because they WILL win the population. These are the guys who market to the world's consumers, who build the American Dream on Credit!, and more or less are intimately familiar with influencing people. And to top it off, they can offer renovation (which they'd do anyhow if they bought the place), security that doesn't involve thuggery (officially, and they'd already bring in), and a shot at that wageslave middle class lifestyle that the 90% of the barrens not in a gang wish they had.

Granted, the gangers could and would make it nasty, but a dedicated counterinsurgency campaign would probably bring the place to workable security in a year or two, with dwindling levels of violence for the next decade or so.

I

I believe so, yes. Look at "Black Hawk Down" for a moment... many soldiers chose to leave their night vision behind during what was supposed to be a short mission. Some chose to leave some of their armor plates behind. There will always be some point where people take off their helmet, or their goggles, or whatever for comfort, for a perceived combat advantage, or because they don't think they're in a risky environment until some yahoos storm their theoretically safe base and that helmet or vest with biomonitor is sitting on top of their bunk, while the soldier is in line for chow. 3,000 nuyen per soldier to remove any excuse or situation shy of serious trauma to not have a biomonitor linkup or thermal vision seems a small price to pay.

I'm not talking about having eyes installed, by the way, just the eyemods... and I'd be willing to say that a helmet or goggles, built right, would provide the same benefit as protective covers.

No, I agree: implants are almost always worse (for the reasons mentioned) when the identical gear is available as an accessory. That still leaves plenty of things that can't be duplicated without implants.