The questions is "Are DocWagon and CrashCart authorized to open fire on Lone Star/KE?"

None of these are reasons to GO TO WAR with LS. LS can and will shoot back. And LS has lots more lethal hardware than DW. And LS is the legitimate police force of Seattle, they can and will get military help as you are not only shooting at LS, you are shooting at the Seattle Police.

Literally, it's like the Marines in the US embassy in Moscow getting in a shootout with the MVD over their arresting a guy with a string of 15 year old Moldavian whores.

So no, it's insane. And if someone from DW did, DW would claim that their vehicle was hijacked and everyone on board was killed. And at least part of that assertion would be completely true.

I think the matter is best summarized by the old maxim:

Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

If DocWagon already has you, LS/KE isn't going to open fire to take you. If LS/KE has you pinned down, DW isn't going to open fire to get you out.

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Of course, there's the other 10%. If you just shot the President, LS/KE isn't going to be stopped by DW. If you didn't do anything spectacular and you have a Super Platinum Contract, then DW will pull out all the stops.

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In most cases, the police doesn't want a war with the EMS, and vice versa. It takes a very special situation or person to get them shooting.

Remember LS/KE work for the city and get funding from the UCAS government. Doc Wagon may simply come, request LS/KE stop firing so they pick you up. On your ride to the hospital the LS/KE are already filling out paperwork to extradite you. Now if you are rich enough odds law enforcement may simply ask for restitution and the whole incident will be forgotten so you can leave without police escort. Doc Wagon doesn't need bad press or have to deal with angry governments and other corporations. And a cancelling of contracts by governments and other major corps would hurt their bottom line more than keeping a contract for some criminal Shadowrunner.

This is what I was aiming at saying, thank you.

I suggest you read the old Missions book (not to be confused with the new Missions series), which includes an adventure as a HTR team:
LS grants DocWagon teams safe conduct to extract wounded customers, in the same way modern armies are supposed to let medical personnel through. DocWagon however also maintains official procedures to turn over criminals in their care. Another interesting thing is that SOP is to use LTL weapons, even the vehicle guns are loaded with gel rounds. Only if HUGE amounts of shit hit the fan lethal ammo is OK, and everybody injured by this will be taken care of by DocWagon for no cost (great PR and stifles lawsuits).

So yes, DW will get out any client with serious injuries. But at least in circumstances where they cannot deny that person X is in their custody, DocWagon does extradite. Taking off from the hospital probably is not an option either, DocWagon did not get rich by letting customers skip out on the tab

I knew a guy in Dallas who got a gun shot scarring... yes, he willingly had a guy shoot him in the arm so he could have the scar. He thought he'd just go to the hospital, get it fixed and walk away.
Trouble is, whenever you check into a hospital with a GSW, they legally have to report you to the police, no bones about it.
Dude got 180 days for his cool new scar.

I assume in the Sixth world it's something similar. LS will let DW treat you and stabilize you but will keep a tab on you.
On the other hand, in the Sixth world, much like in Springfield, the cop is going to have to ask you for a bribe.

Most importantly the grittiness of the law and the EMTs is dependent on how dark your Shadowrun is.


p.s. I know patty got a healthy amount of flak from the last couple of posts, but major props for popping a civil thread with interesting insightful responses. Apologies for any bad press, chummer

For shooting himself in the arm?

Idiocy is a crime, if not, it should be

Probably for filing a false police report.

Illegal Discharge of a Firearm or Rechless Endangerment, I'd guess.

I still think that idiocy is way cooler for arresting someone...

Sure, but "idiocy" is a far too simple term for the legal guys

You got a point there.
That's why legislation should be writen by computer coders.

I dunno, there's some pretty nasty code out there.. just imagine the penal code written in LISP..

Or this.

Illegal discharge of a firearm, possibly discharge of a firearm in city limits, and possibly attempted suicide (Which is the only crime you can be tried for if you fail!).

Both companies are necessarily licensed to use violence in the pursuit of their respective businesses, especially on soil of a non-corp country. On corp soil, legislation should vary according to what -if any- role either company serves on their soil. Law here should fluctuate between "yes." and "they're not allowed in here to begin with."

Protection of medical personel and wounded combatants is fairly well managed in the Geneva convention, though I'm not quite sure how much of that still holds in SR. As long as it holds though, I don't see any nation necessitaing another nation's medical personel to defend themselves or their patients. Should they do so though, DW should be by full rights to shoot back.
Again though, that's an IMHO.
If you're paying enough to be entitled to the HTR teams though, I can't see DW liking the prospect of you and all your friends stopping their paycheck due to not living up to expectations or plain not being useful.
The same applies to their process of extradition, really. Turn people over too easy and they're losing a lot of high paying customers.

Personally I see the members of a DW team as liking the idea that they get to not get killed if they don't start shooting at heavily armed police.

And if said Heavily Armed Police are shooting at them to begin with?

To quote a friend of mine that got kicked out of the Canadian Armed Forces: "If they're shooting at me, I'm not starting an International Incident. It's already been started. I'll just be the one ending it by returning fire and not missing."

This was back in the days of Peacekeeping, BTW... Not "The Sandbox" where Canucks are allowed to shoot at people shooting at them. Thank goodness!

Well, there are some inescrutable codes, sure. But coders are familiar with logic and imperative-no-room-for-other-interpretation languages. That was supposed to be my point



Well, your friend got a point. But I don't think he should have been kicked out because he said that.

There was this politician in Brazil, forget his name right now, who liked to say 'I'll give a cow to avoid a fight. But if I end up in a fight, I'll give a herd to keep myself in it'. I think this is a good way of life

Are DocWagon and CrashCart authorized to open fire on Lone Star/KE?"

This isn't that hard. Do they ever fire on their own customers? No.

Are LS/KE customers? Many are.

What do they do if their customers are shooting at each other? Wait for an opportunity to collect them as they drop.

How can they tell who's a customer? They can. You're wearing their bracelet. They arrive. They know what's going on.

GM call. You never know what DocWagon will do other than to try to get you if they can. -If they can.-

Mesh

Did that sort it out for you? Throw Stick'n Shock into the mix. Will they fire on LS/KE now? maybe. Hope you're bribing your GM well.

He was found "Mentally unfit for service as a peacekeeper." or some such mush-mouthed nonsense. This was when the only Out-Of-Country service Canada did was as "Blue Helmets" for the UN. They weren't even allowed to load their rifles without permission from on high. *Shakes Head*

Funny part? He was an artilleryman.

I know some folks that are in, or have been, in "The Sandbox" and am happy to say that they have loaded rifles and are able to fire back now. Sometimes, they can even fire without being fired upon.

I can also confirm that the up-armoured Leopard-IIs work great against IEDs. And that the last thing that went through the guy's head who detonated said IED was a piece of the clay wall he was hiding behind.

OK, let's look at it from an opposite angle: Would Doc Wagon *WANT* to shoot at Law Enforcement when they're their own customers? No. That is why there is "Less Than Lethal" ammunition types, and the wonderful thing called "Suppressive Fire". Shoot the hell out of the scenery, and only the most gung-ho, drugged out SOB will want to do anything but keep his head down and search for a new pair of undergarments.

Doc Wagon racking up the kills, even for people that aren't their customers, is bad publicity. Even non-pirate news stations would pick up on "Doc Wagon uses SINless as Target Practice, news at 11!".

So, if they were fired upon, how would they retaliate? With kind words, love and a carebear stare?

What about… attempted murder? Attempted kidnapping? Etc. Maybe you meant, 'a crime you can only be tried for if you fail'.

Essentially... Yes. I'm not sure what the official orders were (He was taken away before that part was read), but I'm pretty sure it would be something along the lines of "Take cover, secure the area, and call for instructions from command."

This was a Peacekeeping mission, so the idea was to not antagonize the locals by having a bunch of "invaders" come and kill them. No matter HOW justified they were.

Forget the lawyers, the Politicos and the Bureaucrats should be the first against the wall... And I used to be a Bureaucrat!


OK, I mistyped. I'm a bit tired at the moment.

Well, no, i'd still say you're right. You dont get charged w/ murder if you fail to kill someone, you get charged with attempted murder, or manslaughter perhaps.

You don't get charged with manslaughter if you fail to murder someone. You get charged with attempted murder. Manslaughter can by definition not be attempted. Beside murder though, there are very few crimes for which intent alone can get you convicted.
As me and a law school friend of mine remarked on the subject once:
"Do you know why I pulled you over?"
"No officer. I didn't do anything wrong."
"Oh really? How about that red light you intended to run for a second?"

The thing to keep in mind is that a non-extraterritorial area in Seattle is not a lawless land or military theater, and DocWagon units are armed paramedics, not medically equiped paramilitary forces.

If they are willing (and legally not responsible !) to let you be shot at an die just on the bad side of the fence, on that extraterritorial ground if the parent corporation said "No, you d'ont enter", while your buddy who stumbled two meter farther can be picked up, why do you hope they would fight the cops to save your ass ? LS (or KE after the elections) are mandated to act as the police force, and in the suggested situation are not a private security but a legitimate law enforcement agency acting with the authority given to them by the civil government - the same gouvernment that allowed DocWagon to operate in the area.

What they will do is more likely to contact LS/KE, warn that they have customers to pick up at a position, ask if there is a police intervention in the area and if so probably contact the officer responsible on-site to coordinate with them and prevent misunderstandings. If a legitimate authority deny them acces to an area in it's juridiction - be it an extraterritorial corporation or a government - then they probably won't go.

I think I should rephrase the question to ..

Do Lone Star/KE have the legal authority to stop DW/Crashcart from saving a suspect which they are chasing.

So say, the runners are being chased or surrounded by LoneStar/KE.. More than one runners got injured and let's assume that they have the platinum bracelet..

DW/CC will come screeching to save their assess..

Now the question is do Lone Star/KE have the legal authority to fire on DW/CC as they attempt to save the runners?

Remember DW/CC are medical organizations and I believe the geneva conventions have some pretty strict rules on firing on medics. Also, let us not forget that many of the Lone Star/KE personnel are DW/CC clients themselves..

So the first shot will never be fired by DW/CC ... But will LS/KE fire the first shot on DW/CC and do they have the legal authority to do so to fire upon medical organizations/corporations?

No they will not shoot at DW, they just tell them that they can't come in and do pick up right now and the DW waits until they arre given permission to enter the area.

You surely mean "medical personel, who are subjects of a different nation."

Whereupon the Law Officers are responsible for any further injuries/death that the subject in question sustains due to the denial of medical service they legally contracted Doc Wagon for.

OK, I guess I should clarify further. When I'm referring to things like this, I'm talking about things happening in SEATTLE itself. The city, not any extraterritorial location.

If a prisoner with a Doc Wagon Contract has a condition go off while incarcerated in a Lone Star Prison, Lone Star can say, "Sorry, that's our territory, no entry allowed.". *BUT*, if it happens in a public street, that's a different matter altogether.

Also remember the public opinion game that happens as well. If Lone Star is shown to be denying medical services for some poor Dwarf who is badly shot up, and it gets on the "Whatever O'Clock News", it's going to look bad on the company and hamper things at contract renewal time. Especially when they know they can get said grungy Shadowrunner from Doc Wagon with just some paperwork once he's patched up, whereupon they can spin it showing that they're promoting the Corporate Accords and showing (Meta)Humanitarian Ideals.

And, with the proliferation of cameras, video recorders, drones, etc.... Big Brother is watching, but Little Brother has his hands on the remote control as well.

I think it keeps coming back to three variables.

#1 Has LS/KE captured you yet?
#2 How much have you paid?
#3 How many cops have you killed?

If LS/KE have captured you, meaning physical custody, then you're toast.
If you haven't paid enough for DW to risk it (As I recall Gold or Platinum+ only) then you're toast.
If you've killed enough cops for the higher-ups to consider it a public insult not to get you, you're toast.
If LS/KE haven't put their hands on you yet, even if you're in a firefight, then DW will come to recover you. They'll walk into the firefight, grab you, and transport you to the hospital (PS, you're financially liable for all damage and deaths on DW's side of the rescue.

Once DW has their hands on you, it simply doesn't make sense for LS/KE to continue for a couple reasons. First, you're obviously a somebody and they may want to reappraise trying to get you depending on who you are, who you know, and who you work for. Not that you're off the hook, they're just going to take the time to double-check who you are because if you're super platinum you're obviously somebody. Company men, for example, will almost never be worth going after. Second, once DW has you, it's not like you're getting away, you're trapped in a chopper going to a hospital we're you're going to be stuck for a couple days. Even if they can't get an extraction through DW, it's not that hard to have officers waiting for you or to cordon off a hospital if you're real nasty. Third, LS/KE probably sees money in leveraging your situation. Maybe you have the money to make them look the other way, maybe your employer does, maybe your friends do. Regardless, LS/KE can probably turn a buck if they "let" you slip out of the DW hospital.

Quite simply, once DW has you you're pretty stuck and there's no reason for LS/KE to risk pissing off DW when they can probably make more money by sitting back and investigating you. And unless you've been slaughtering cops on the weekends, the higher-ups at LS/KE are going to be more interested in getting money/favors/info out of you and yours than avenging a bunch of dead wageslave cops. Assuming you can keep the damage to a minimum, avoid LS/KE catching you, have paid enough to DW, and you have enough creds/info/connects to interest LS/KE, you can probably work out a deal.

The direct answer, though, is no. DocWagon, Crashcart, and any other medical rescue team won't fire on the cops unless the cops specifically target and fire upon them. They'll rush into the middle of the firefight to get you (if you've paid enough) but they will not fire unless LS/KE personnel specifically begin targeting them (DW employees won't retaliate to accidental "friendly fire").

If either side starts firing, the other side will surrender (if seriously out-gunned), or shoot back. The police also usually out-guns the EMS. That said, both sides are unlikely to start firing.

Will DW walk into a Runner-LS brawl to snatch you? No, because that would be complicity in Resisting Arrest. Nasty international incident.

Would LS allow DW to pick up these Runners they're fighting, on condition that they WILL be extradited after emergency treatment? Usually. It's the Good Publicity thing to do.

If you've already been picked up by DW before LS gets there, then LS can only file for extradition, but their case isn't as strong. Possession is nine-tenths of the law after all.

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So you're in the hospital, and LS wants you extradited. Will it happen? That's politics; if you have pull or money, and LS doesn't care, then you'll probably get out. If LS really cares and you don't have pull, they'll get you. If you have pull and LS really cares, it gets messy and the outcome is uncertain.

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Moral of the story: it can be worth it to get picked up by DW, at least your chances of slipping off will be better than without them.

Doesn't really matter, because the Geneva Conventions and other laws of war only apply - you guessed it - to warfare. Same reason why police may use tear gas without violating the Geneva Protocols

@Patty: Why should DW personnel even start firing at LS? The two companies have cooperation contracts with each other, so the medics can simply swoop in, tell the officer on site "hey guys, we need to pick up one of our clients" and drag the victim out. Meanwhile the officer will use his commlink to generate a 1312 form requesting the rendition of the person(s) picked up in location X at 08:15. DW will do with little more than a casual check of the paperwork, and surrender the client as soon as he's in stable condition again.

Of course if the cops call DocWagon and ask "we are looking for this guy, is he in one of your clinics?", or want to check all clients' fingerprints, the answer probably is some automated blurp about client confidentiality. Old story for runners - if your corporate benefactors can act innocent, everything is fine. If not, you're nothing but a loose end they want to get rid of.

I don't buy the argument that DW will lose customers or reputation if they 'fail' to harbor your fugitive, etc., either. Their job is to keep you alive, and that's the end of it.

Unless you have the Black Card American Express Super Duper Account.
Then, they'll open fire on a dragon to get you out.and then they'll make you dissapear. As long as your credit balance is positive.

Right, naturally. But that one's not even listed in the book.

Shooting LEOs: 20k
Obstruction of Justice: 75k
ID forgery and delta-grade new biometrics: 100k

There's some things money can't buy. Well, ordinary money. That's why more and more people value the reassurance of having a Black Card American Express Super Duper Account. DOn't leave your corporate-sponsored housing enclave without it!

If you feel like going more Snow Crash-y though, you could have that sort of thing, where the UCAS basically waives it's jurisdiction over Maximum Contract beneficiaries (for a fee).

It would be justified in a lot of legalese, around the notion that "Avoiding delays in medical care to this person is obviously more important than bureaucracy, and therefore DW will be guaranteed first shot at jurisdiction".

I could see it now:

Platinum Membership has been activated!
We see that you are currently wanted by Lone Star. Do you authorize the 100,000 GunzBlazzin™ fee for your retreival? (Y/N)

If you say yes, LoneStar gets their 25k cut, and lets DW pick you up.

SR needs more Snow Crash and less Minority Report (imho).

GunzBlazin, nice.

Mesh

Agreed. Neal Stephenson has a great flair for making bureaucratic dystopia f'ing hilarious. I loved the beginning bit in The Diamond Age with the Confucian court and the skull-gun street tough. Cross that, I loved the entirety of The Diamond Age.

To clarify rules of engagement for peacekeepers. I was a "Blue Helmet" with UNPREDEP in FYROM in 1995. I was a generator mechanic and every time I left our main base to service/repair one of the generators powering our border outposts I was issued exactly one 30-round banana clip for my M-16. My E-5 got one clip for his sidearm. The clips were sealed in a plastic bag with perforation at the business end. When we returned to base we turned in our clip of ammo and they pressed down on the top bullet to make sure it was still full. I'm sure you can see the problem with that technique. At the end of the deployment the bullet inventory was short because it turned out that most of the clips were missing bullets but were refilled with the spent shell casing to pass the "inspection."

Our rules of engagement were that we could fire if fired upon. That was about it. The border outposts would log smugglers but we weren't authorized to do anything about it.

We joked that one clip was enough to start something but not to finish it. On the other hand, there was absolutely *nothing* dangerous going on in Macedonia in 1995. The biggest danger was that a pack of feral dogs would try to jump into the Humvee you were sleeping in the back of.*

*True story of the closest I came to firing a shot in anger during that deployment.

/end thread derailment

They don't pull out of corporations extraterritoriality unless authorized, but then again when in Seattle they are still bound by that city's and UCAS laws and the duly appointed enforcers of that law. The HTR is for pulling you out of a situation with go gangers, mafia, etc. It is not a get out of jail free card. What they will do is come and get your body once you are no longer a threat and try to save you medically if you are in a gun battle with Lonestar/KE. That said is because of extraterritoriality when you commit an act on corporate grounds you are not bound by the laws of the surrounding country or city.

As for losing client I hardly think there is an issue. The big boys tend to play within the law or at least not turn the landscape into a warzone. They want the HTR team when KE or lonestar can't come get them or when those two corporations are not able to evacuate the wounded.

IMO

1 - What proportion of DW's revenues comes from Runner's contracts? Most of their contracts can't be runners and most runners can't afford platinum so the proportion can't be that high.

2 - How many runners have successfully sued DW for breach of contract? Considering they are using fake SIN, I'd expect the number to be close to zero.

3 - Do you think it's a given that DW is allowed to operate an ambulance service on foreign government territories? That it's an unalienable right? No. The government can cancel contracts and remove licenses. If they the reasons are legitimate ('The employees of that corporation are shooting on my law enforcement personnel!!!'') the Corporate Court will not oppose the decision and may even punish the guilty corp some more for creating a climate that disrupts business. Then a rival corp will come in snatch DW's contract with UCAS and the CC's blessing.

Sooooo...

How likely do you think it is that DW's will risk its entire business in a given country to protect a contract worth at most 100k a year from a custumer who is unable to sue?

As far as I'm concerned, the DW team will be scanning the radio and if they realize that you are the local law enforcement's target, they won't even show up. Not happy? What are you gonna do about it?

They'll fight the Mafia, gangs, ghouls, a minor corp etc. but not the LAW.

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I also read several posters imply that DW has leverage on LS/KE because they are their healthcare providers. Any proof of that? It doesn't make much sense. Why pay DW's premium when they already have fast response teams? They can either use their clouts with the city to make sure their men get the best care available in Public hospitals for free or else any number of quality private hospitals that are cheaper than DW because they don't have to maintain HTRTs.

I'd be a bit surprised if LS used DW but it would make no sense whatsoever for Knight Errant. They belong to Ares and that corp owns plenty of medical service providers. If anything they'd dare DW to do something stupid so they can bust them out of the territory and put their own companies in place.

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I always felt DW as it stood was a big gimmick. How did they get their AA status (extra territoriality) based on that service alone?

Based on all the fluff written in the 4 corporate books we've had, they should either belong to someone bigger or else not be extra-territorial. Sure, an AA Doc Wagon is convenient for Shadowrunners, but the business world ain't supposed to bend over backward to appeal to the runner market, you know...

Ya know, i've been wondering where this AA rank was coming from myself. I also understood AA and AAA to basically have their fingers in ALOT of different pies, so to speak.

AAA means a lot of fingers in the pie.

AA means you can specialize, but are international to a great degree. And who is to say that Doc Wagon doesn't have subsidiaries that support it, and have ownership of other companies?

One thing that I mentioned to my group is that Doc Wagon has started releasing a line of Cybernetics that they've developed on their own. No different from the other lines, really, but if you're a Doc Wagon customer already, you get a discount, and know that you're getting good quality stuff that didn't come out of some third-world hell hole like Africa or China or the UCAS.

A corporations have been recognized by the Corporate Court and falls under their juridiction.

AA Corporation have been granted extra territoriality.

AAA Corporations have delegates that sit on the Corporate Court and own Shares of Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaftsbank (Equivalent of a central bank for countries but for the corp world). We know that their are currently exactly 10 AAA rated companies. You are typcially referred as a 'megacorporation' once you rate AA.

AA is a big deal. The largest one (like Proteus and Manadyne) are actually almost as big as the smaller AAA (like Horizon) but don't quite have the political clout to force their way on the court. The smaller AA still have a wide specter of activities within their speciality.

Doc Wagon is probably the only corp I know that is mentioned as an AA in an offhand fashion and for whom the fluff never provided any evidence that they were more than a one trick pony; namely a network of hospitals with a FTR and HTRT service. That's damn thin compared to every other AA ever detailed. Even Lone Star (one of the smaller AA) is described as touching base on every potential aspect of law enforcement and security (Beside police work, They run prisons, have R&D divisions that license new invention useful in the field, offer personal protection (bodyguard) etc.).

We can assume that Doc Wagon also touch bases on research, biotech, cloning, etc. But that's all it is; assumptions. The writers came up with DW as a gimmick to fetch runners out of tight spot and never bothered to flesh out the company significantly. It's AA, they say, just don't think too hard about it.