So other than some possible links to blood magic (is this detailed in any of the sourcebooks? i.e. how much power the blood mages have?), what makes Aztechnology so much worse than the corps? I've been working my back through the metaplot and some people have alluded to Amazonia being the "good guys" in the war that just wrapped up but I just haven't gotten that impression. I'm not calling Aztlan white knights or anything I just haven't been able to find something that makes them evil. Well, beyond the whole oppressive corporation exploiting it's citizens while sacrificing humanity for power. I mean Sirrurg deserved a whooping something fierce and Amazonia didn't seem too offended about him fighting on their side.

The Aztlan Sourcebook is a good place to look at the background some. Remember that the nation of Aztlan and the Corp Aztechnology are pretty much hand in hand though the official line is they are still separate entities.

I think it was their stated mission goal to destroy the world and rule what remained that tipped me off.

YMMV, though.

The fact the corp was run by a blood mage/blood spirit gesalt thingy (IIRC) probably has alot to do with it.

But also remember the almost everyone else was just a normal person.

azzies- bad people 90% of the time in my book.

Parts of their Constitution are REDACTED!

No sacrifice too great....

Most Aztlaners are making enormous sacrifices in their quest to save the sixth world.

Aztechnology is what happens when your plan to save the world might have a teensy weensy little flaw.

It's safe to say that Aztechnology is pretty much about 89% pure Evil. About the only big powers in the Sixth World more unambiguously villainous than the Azzies are Sirrug the Destroyer and the Sea Dragon.

Isn't the point of the setting that ALL Megacorps are bad?

I refuse to believe Ares, Horizon, and seader-Krupp are "bad", now does that make then good? not wholly so.

All the corps are evil, in my book. Because this is cyberpunk. And they're megacorps. That's the whole fucking point. (where's that Neo-A spirit with today's youngsters? Buying all that corporate hype.)

Ares may or may not be infested with bugs.
Horizon has a 'Happiness is mandatory' policy and enforces it with mind control.
Seader-Krupp is headed by a Great Dragon.

Don't be confused by how brightly they shine from the background, they are merely black in a world that is blacker than black.

double post

great dragons are in the end, imo, good. (as about as "good" as you get in SR) Ares being infested doesn't mean they like . and at least horizon is happy happy happy.

Meh. Personally, my view on Horizon is that they were being set up to be the lightest shade of gray in the setting, and then someone new came into power on the project, said "what the what the what the fuck is this drek!?" and promptly put out a lot of splatbooks that painted them as being just as evil as the other corps (such as Horizon violating their "no lethal force if we have any other means available" policy all over a mob of unarmed technomancer protestors.)

My way of looking at it is that is that Horizon has been targeted by a massive smear campaign by the other Megas to drag their reputation down into the mud with the rest of them; that shit in Vegas, if it actually happened, was the culmination of a hostile 'Run against them resulting in Horizon losing control and their security being fed false orders, and so forth and so on.

Actually I liked the slow spiral of Horizon. Its a perfect example of why you don't want a mob mentality to rule things. Its like the MiB speech from Tommy Lee Jones about 'people vs an individual person'. Look at some of the IRL nonsense of our USA political scene, what happens when a sufficiently 'loud' group, even if a technical minority, starts having the opportunity to color the discourse.

I consider it 'regression to douchebag'.

If you need a reason to feel like Aztechnology are the "bad guys," you can start with their history. They were originally an amalgamation of the most powerful Mexican Drug cartels called Oro. Then they realized they could play the same game the big boys were playing and started going "legitimate," but not giving up any of their cutthroat ways. They changed their name to Aztechnology along the way to distance themselves from their past (at least in the public eye). They forced Aztlan to nationalize all non-Aztechnolology corporate holdings in Central America and then forced Aztlan to sell those assets to Aztechnology at rock-bottom prices. They then gobbled up all of the central american countries into their empire.

Add to that the blood magic, the purposeful callbacks to the"glory days" of human sacrifice, and the blatant and wonton use of magicks and tech that systematically cause damage to the physical and astral landscape of the world...

Weren't they actively trying to hasten the arrival of the Horrors at one point, too?

I should have been clearer that I meant I didn't see what made Aztechnology more evil than the other megas. Obviously they are all evil, yes Ares too, and some are a little darker than others but none of them are the heroes of this story. I pretty much missed 4th edition so I didn't watch Horizon go from good to evil so much as assumed they were just as evil as everyone else but had done a better job of hiding it. That may or not be accurate it's just how I ended up interpreting things from the perspective of *starting* at 2075 and looking back. Really I'm just trying to figure out if the Azzies are straight up in bed with super-bad-dark-forces-mojo or the blood magic is more similar to bug spirits in Ares or shedim in the White House. I might just be trying to convince my self that they're not that bad because I thought taking down Sirrurg was awesome and just want somebody to root for.

eh, rooting for evo.

i'm rooting for CAT

in the cannon Aztechnology has one of the best PR campaigns and the common folk believes them to be the best guys. Remember the azzies are in charge of food and groceries, which puts them much much closer to the little guy, then for example SK or Ares.
Horizon provides entertainment - nobody would shun them either...

I take it all back guys. I just started skimming through the old Aztlan sourcebook. Yep, those dudes are straight hardcore uncut evil. Actually it's a little unclear who is exactly calling the shots and how much of this evil is calculated decision vs manipulation by dark forces but results matter more than processes in this case.

you know, evil is just a point of view created by cultural background and education.
Imagine an Aztlan guy writing a "UCAS and Ares Sourcebook"...
Radical Islamists don't attack Western civilisation because they're evils being sent from hell. They believe to be doing the right things, they just have a different pov and opinion

Side note, in game experience over the editions, I've generally found I am more likely to do an Aztech run, than an SK one.

..that would be very rational choice.. making a hit againts corp owned,protected by possessive, intelligent, F*** powerful Dragon would be bad career move..

They were the big bad in the Horror arc. Because a few people at the head of Aztechnology were using blood magic, and one of AZT agent was in fact working for the horrors.

Since then, many SR players, GM and even writers like to consider that AZT is the bogeyman, while it's actually just another corporation. Even when part of th board was dealing with horrors, 99% of Aztechnology and AZT resources were focused on making profits, not "just" being evil.

Oh my friend, I think I'm going to love you.

(Bolding mine, natch)

Canon-wise, those were the Masaya cartel from Nicaragua, the David cartel from Panama and the Cali cartel from Colombia (Aztlan SB, page 51). In Shadowrun history, the Norte del Valle cartel never ascended to prominence in Colombia, and those three cartels somehow reigned over Mexico underworld, either preventing the rise of Mexican cartels or taking control of them. By 2070, the David cartel remains as the major criminal organization in Aztlan.

ORO was the name of the corporation the leader of the Cali, David and Masaya cartels put on a corporation they bought in Mexico to launder money in 2007, which was renamed Aztechnology in 2022. It stood for Ortega, Ramos and Oriz: Juan Ortega, head of the Cali cartel, Julio Ramos, head of the David cartel, and Diego Ortiz, head of the Masaya cartel.

I mean I'm more likely to TAKE a run from Aztech than SK.

What GMs need to know most is that Aztechnology is presented as one of the 2 most ruthless Megacorps, along with MCT. What that means is that they are far more likely to do things like use deadly force, in meat and Matrix space. It addition, it means that runners captured on their property tend to vanish. (Can happen with any Mega, these are just higher percentages) Don't get caught.

Like all Megas except S&K, Aztechnology is run by factions. In the 50's and 60's the 2 big factions were the Cartel and the Blood Mages. The Blood Mages led by Smoking Mirror were supposedly deposed. But likely blood magic and magicians will keep making upswings in the power structure of Aztechnlogy. Most shadowrunners never see any of the blood magic though, just a few rare "lucky" ones. And the public is completely fooled, as Aztechnology is still number 2 at the PR game. (Used to be first before Horizon)

There are various other players behind the scenes, most of them profit motivated. Dunk had a seat on their board at one point, and passed that seat on in his Will, which means Aztechnology is likely not 100 percent evil in it's power structure. But they are in general ruthless bastards and runners don't like running against them for that reason. Even if all the blood magicians were rooted out, their Cartel roots still show.

aside from blood magic, i think the thing that really separates aztechnology from the rest of the megas is the fact that they are actually a country even without extraterritorial status. ares may be the ucas's economic heart and soul, but there's at least a little bit of government still there and a whole lot of military. the japanacorps may call the shots in nippon, but since there's three of them and a lot of nationalist pride to go around that probably mean they're at least mildly less dickish to their own. aztechnology is central america, it is the government (propaganda aside) and it just doesn't give a fuck. you could jerk the AAA rating from the other megas and there's something like a government to step in where they operate, but what really changes in azatlan if the corporate court kicks azatechnology off? aztechnology is a full-out human-run fascist horror show, and that really catapults it up on the bastardry scoreboard. i mean, even sader-krupp at least has the excuse of being run by a dragon, so the boss is literally inhuman and his functionaries are scared shitless enough of him to do fucked up things. aztechnology has no such excuse; especially given their origins, they are the banality of evil writ large in the setting. also blood magic.

I actually run Aztlan as one of the few nations in the Sixth World that functions as a modern-day welfare state - safety net structures, universal healthcare and education, etc. Because Aztech can afford to do that shit, and the ancient Aztec empire did actually provide some of those things. Of course, some days you're chosen by random lottery to be sacrificed to the gods on top of a pyramid, but hey, at least you're living in Aztlan! (The land of opportunity! Emigrate today!)

I've thought about the PCs having to deal with illegal Anglo Day Laborers going to Aztlan in order to get a fair wage.

I want to drop this here.

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/345...ina-d5nr9oz.jpg

Because this is the wholesome image that Aztechnology projects. I'd love to share that view with Shadowrun players more often, because it's easy to forget that they have a reputation as *goodguys*, despite us knowing better.

(Also, I want to hire that artist, because that work is *gorgeous*.)

((Edit to take you to the artist's Deviantart page, because they deserve the recognition. Thank you, TinyEye Reverse Lookup for finding her for me!))

And two weeks later that girl is strapped, naked and sobbing, to the top of an altar while masked priests carve out her heart and use it to fuel the ritual magic that ensures the powerful harvests that make AZT the foodstuff juggernaut it is.


Let's not forget that. And let's load a clip of ExEx for every aztlaner sonofabitch we find.

A full clip per azzie? wow, you really like suppression fire, huh?

You've been reading too much anti-corporate terrorist propaganda, friend.

Maxim 37, my friend. Maxim 37.

(Though I was more commenting on the fact that where you find one Azzie SOB, you tend to find enough to be worth shooting off an entire magazine.)

I prefer to be polite, be efficient, and have a plan to kill everyone I meet.

Granted, sometimes that plan DOES involve a full clip of ex ex...

Being polite and efficient isn't necessarily mutually exclusive with "There is no overkill, there is 'open fire' and 'I need to reload'."

Well, okay, it tends to be mutually exclusive with the "efficient" part, but you can be perfectly polite whilst hosing an alleyway with ExEx.

with suppressive fire, you can shoot for an entire round if you only have 1 IP

that's pretty efficient compared to firing full bursts at individual targets with 3 actions, is it not? not to mention you're getting excellent money efficiency on the fact that you don't need to buy recoil compensation for your weapon!

super-duper efficient way of hosing down an entire alleyway with lead.

Here is some nightmare fuel for you folks...

Thank you CanRay, my Aztechnology free nightmares were just not doing it for me.

He's got a datajack and a cyberarm. While CyberTrejo is scary, it could be worse.

He could be MysticAdeptTrejo.

Actually, the idea that all megacorps are by their nature evil has been toned down a lot in the fourth edition. Aztechnology's particular vile nature has been steadily downplayed (what with the blood mages allegedly losing influence, and whatnot). Horizon has been presented as a goody-two-shoes corp, Evo that started out as kinda less jerky due to the confrontation they were having with hardliner Japanacorps slided further down that path, and the Japanacorps themselves drifted from their traditionalist discriminatory attitudes.

I don't like that process because it makes the setting blank, removing what makes it special. Same as countries moving from unbelievable but significantly different and dystopian towards being more uniform, business-as-usual and shades of gray.

I choose to believe you are being sincere in which case I say, Thank you I try so very hard.


I like the megacorps being evil not as James Bond movie villains bent on holding the world hostage but in more human ways. They are about amassing wealth and power at the expense of *almost* everyone and everything. You can turn them into silver age comic book villains and have a grand old Pink Mohawk time tearing them down but it requires suspension of disbelief beyond the amount required to play a game where you're a grizzly bear sized cyborg with horns getting into shoot outs with fireball throwing wizards. So yes on any given occasion one or more of them might be playing around with satanic black magic but to single out a handful of them as good and a handful as evil in the longterm ruins the fun. It shouldn't be that easy to figure out who the enemies are. So Aztechnology sliding down a few notches on Forbes Top 500 Evil Forces and Horizon / Ares taking major strides towards the top of the rankings makes the setting more interesting. Old school runners screaming and yelling about how Aztechnology and Renraku are the worst of the worst and the new generation shrugging it off as so-last-decade. Ares gets away with being considered one of the "good guys" but they make most of their money from guns. Without sparking a debate it's pretty easy to call that blood money. Horizon makes most of their money by manipulating the populace through media control. Aztechnology makes most of their money from food and consumer goods. Ares sat out a failed (... or successful) coup attempt while trying to sell themselves as All American, Aztechnology showed metahumanity that even Great Dragons bleed. The Azzies didn't do it to save the world, they did it to win a war they might have started and Ares didn't sit on their asses because they hate America they did it because they didn't want to lose out on military contracts with the victor.

Longwinded. I like the shades of grey. If all my players assume every run for EVO is to deliver candy to poor starving children and every run for the Azzies is to open a gate to hell it takes a lot of the dystopia out.

They sacrifice single digit numbers of people out of their nine digit number population. So no, the chances for her are astonishingly low.

Corps Evil?

Most likely, as just a personal observation..

But remember the whole timeline can be viewed as one tragedy after another and we, the player charaters sometimes remember to mention how unfortunate we are......

Astral abuse, Matrix abuse, by Corps plus the game government's approval of thoes actions. Sure its bad. Or maybe just to many changes to fast. Either way now is now in the game world.

soooo...

To call a thing Evil then rely on said thing because it's evil would make the reliant evil too. Not more powerful in the long run but more reliant on the Evil concept thus weaker......

It's more Cthulhu-esque summoning of eldritch abominations. Other corps don't give a shit about humans, but actively pursuing the end of humanity to reign over the ashes is a bit extreme even for them.