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Thanos007
What do corps do with law breakers? Lets just say trespassing. Nothing big. Just someplace you shouldn't be. No weapons. Nothing illegal other than trespassing.

How about weapons on corp property? Is the local gov't permit (providing you have on) good enough? If you don't have one?

I guess what I'm asking is what happens to run of the mill law breakers? Full blown shadowruners in the middle of a run are shot. If they have the misfortune to be captured they are questioned, tortured, questioned some more then killed. What happens when the crimes are less than that?

Thanos
Necro Tech
I think corporate security or download addresses this. Usually, they just call the star and have the perps hauled away for minor stuff. Of course they confiscate all your stuff first.
shadd4d
It's addressed in Corp Sec and Corp Download as well as SOTA 2063 to a real little extent. Plus remember that on corp (extraterritorial territory) property, tresspassing might be a higher penalty than you think. They probably have legal codes or conduct codes, SOPs, etc on what to do.

Don
Paul
I'll say that because of extraterritorality (Which is what you're discussing here) allows a great deal of discretion and latitude when MegaCorporations set their laws. A few things to think about-
  • Any law they make isn't nessacarily public. Maybe bouncing a check gets you a 9MM enema-but why would they tell the public that? My guess is they'd have a set of laws similar to their host nation-perhaps with an embedded set that was available only to those with the security clearence.
  • Some corporate laws would most definitely not be similar to their host nations-If abortion is a hot button issue in 2063, and say the UCAS is using a Draconian law I could see various corps making streamlined laws, or fluctuating laws. (Especially since they don't have the same sort of legal system to wade thru.)
  • I think they'd down play their laws as much as possible pubicly. "We're just a business, we leave the law making to Congress/The Tribal Council/That Undead guy running the country."

I think the laws would definitely be very open to change, and very reactive.
BitBasher
QUOTE
I think they'd down play their laws as much as possible pubicly. "We're just a business, we leave the law making to Congress/The Tribal Council/That Undead guy running the country."
That's hard to do with if a crime was comitted on megacorp extraterritorial property then it was NOT comitted on UCAS (or CAS, or wherevr) soil. Trespass on megacorp property and you have not comitted a crime according to Lone Star. Think of trespassing in canada then coming back to the US. Not the same jurisdiction.
Odin
QUOTE
What do corps do with law breakers?


Volunteer you for painful disfiguring medical experiments and then cover up your gruesome death. rotfl.gif
Smiley
They confiscate your dikoted AVS ally spirit that you can have sex with.
kevyn668
QUOTE (Smiley)
They confiscate your dikoted AVS ally spirit that you can have sex with.

Those bastards!
Paul
BitBasher I am just not quite understanding what you're saying. Maybe because I have bee up too late I am misisng something really obvious. Could you break it down for me? Sorry. smile.gif
BitBasher
Megacorporations AA or AAA are extraterritorial. Lone Star or the police have zero jurisdiction there, for all normal purposes it's another country. The megacorp has their own laws, courts, judges, prison system, ect.

If a crime is comitted on corp property he still has not comitted any crime in the city the police patrol, he has just comitted a crime in the corp's jurisdiction.
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (BitBasher)
That's hard to do with if a crime was comitted on megacorp extraterritorial property then it was NOT comitted on UCAS (or CAS, or wherevr) soil. Trespass on megacorp property and you have not comitted a crime according to Lone Star. Think of trespassing in canada then coming back to the US. Not the same jurisdiction.

That doesn't mean there aren't aggreements between the corporations, Lone Star being one, in much the same way different countries have extradition agreements and treaties. Lone Star is one of the few sourcebooks I haven't managed to acquire yet, but I don't see any reason why they wouldn't foster -- or more likely, have other megacorps foster with them -- contracts of that nature.

Example #1: Criminals commit a crime on Corp X's property and they make a break for it on the streets. Corp X calls Lone Star and have them pursue them. If caught, Lone Star brings them back to Corp X for trial and punishment.

Example #2: Lone Star is pursuing some criminals and they jump into Corp X's arcology. Corp X's goons arrest them and hand them over to Lone Star for trial and punishment.

I see no reason why that wouldn't be the standard operating procedure, especially considering how crippled Lone Star would be if anyone could escape just by running into a nearby building. And vice-versa.

Just because extraterrotorial laws, stupid as they are, give corporations the right to police themselves, that doesn't mean they eschew outside contracts.
tjn
To a certain extent, yes, perhaps they should.

But then again, why would LS spend any resources to apprehend a guy they don't even get to count for their statistics? It's akin to spending money with nothing to show for it. Perhaps in fairly publisied cases where it would be more detrimental to not go after a specific criminal, but as a SOP, I don't see it counting any beans as it were.

Also, who's to say LS wants to foster an eviroment where there's a 99% capture rate? It's quickly going to put them out of a job as the municipality stops seeing the need to pay for them to police a crime free zone. As long as the criminals keep the sheep fearful and paying LS's check, LS doesn't have an interest in apprehending the criminals. Other side of the coin is if the criminal element gets too far out of hand for LS to deal with.

EDIT: Formatting
SirKodiak
QUOTE
If a crime is comitted on corp property he still has not comitted any crime in the city the police patrol, he has just comitted a crime in the corp's jurisdiction.


An excellent point, and the flipside of the fact that the corp can slit your throat and use your body to decorate the exterior of their building as a warning to others, and the police can't do anything about it. This also creates the situation that the police are not going to chase you onto corp controlled property without permission, so you can buy yourself a good 30 seconds worth of sanctuary before corp security comes around to kick you off, and hand you over to the police.

To get to the original question, and how I handle it, which is obviously not the only way to do it:

If you are unarmed and walking around corp controlled land, but haven't done anything besides trespassing (no breaking and entering), then a nice security guard will come up and ask if you need assistance and ask to see some identification. A refusal to show ID is going to result in a trip back to a security room to answer a few questions. Showing ID, coming up in the system as a nonthreatening person (no arrest warrants or criminal record), and having a reasonable story about what you're doing could simply result in being escorted off the property.

When I run a game, there are very few things a shadowrunner could do to end up in a corp prison. I play it that those prisons are primarily for dealing with internal issues, or maybe short term holding. I've had a player get caught snooping around corp territory, but not actually in a building, and their response was to beat him badly, break a few bones, meanwhile interrogating him, dropping him off in a not-so-safe part of town when they were done with him.

One thing to keep in mind is that most people, even people in security or the police (in real life, people in the army too), are at least a little uncomfortable, usually very uncomfortable, with the idea of killing someone. If they can get away with just "teaching someone a lesson", they will. The way to get yourself killed is to either put the security in a kill-or-be-killed situation, or do something outrageous enough that it's worth the corp's time to have someone who can stomach killing you do it.

Someone who has no moral issues killing someone is an unbalanced human being. Now, shadowrunners are a pretty unbalanced group of people, so I accept a certain amount of murder out of my players, but if someone plays the kind of character who will slit the throat of a sleeping security guard instead of just gagging him and tying him up, I make sure he is aware that he's playing a psychotic individual, and that I expect some roleplaying out of him that goes along with that. IE, you don't get to get the advantages as a player of controlling a cold-blooded killer (the convenience factor) without taking on the disadvantages (someone that disturbed is not going to be able to interact with people in a normal manner).

To get back to the point, security guards are much more like normal people, and much less willing to kill someone for a minor infraction. The corp will certainly have groups of people who have no problem blowing up your apartment by tossing a baby strapped with explosives through your window, but they're probably not the people they have dealing with the public, because they'd scare the hell out of them.
Odin
QUOTE
One thing to keep in mind is that most people, even people in security or the police (in real life, people in the army too), are at least a little uncomfortable, usually very uncomfortable, with the idea of killing someone. If they can get away with just "teaching someone a lesson", they will. The way to get yourself killed is to either put the security in a kill-or-be-killed situation, or do something outrageous enough that it's worth the corp's time to have someone who can stomach killing you do it.

well unless you count the german SS, the old iraq regime, the serbian military, the cops in sarejevo in the 70's need I go on? point is any reasonably unstable governmental system that is highly factionalized generally does have a very high number of people on the payroll that regularly dissappear any undesirables who they happen to take into custody. especially considering that most corps force feed their elite security propaganda at every opportunity. I'm not saying that the average security guard would kill joe shadowrunner for trespassing but a fair number of their superiors are willing to do anything to advance up the corporate ladder. ambition and compassion rarely go hand in hand.

QUOTE
Someone who has no moral issues killing someone is an unbalanced human being. Now, shadowrunners are a pretty unbalanced group of people, so I accept a certain amount of murder out of my players, but if someone plays the kind of character who will slit the throat of a sleeping security guard instead of just gagging him and tying him up, I make sure he is aware that he's playing a psychotic individual, and that I expect some roleplaying out of him that goes along with that. IE, you don't get to get the advantages as a player of controlling a cold-blooded killer (the convenience factor) without taking on the disadvantages (someone that disturbed is not going to be able to interact with people in a normal manner).


I agree with you in part but the funny thing is people are capable of justifying just about anything to themselves especially if they have to struggle to survive growing up. How about I give you an example say for instance joe shadowrunner grew up in a rundown area say barrens or other crappy neighborhood without a SIN. Say growing up he did a fair number of BE's and other petty crimes so he could get by. Now considering he's scum any experience he's had with corp cops is bound to have been negative now say because of that he tends to shoot to kill on a shadowrun anybody (outside those on his team.)who see's his face. Now say for instance he never wears a balaclava .say for instance when asked he has excuses such as it muffles his voice hence hindering communication, obscures the edges of his peripheral vision. Now deep down he knows very well he could wear one and that would be that ,but the truth deep down is he really just likes to shoot people this person is not psychotic, but odds are he will shoot just about everyone he encounters on a run. He isn't perfectly healthy mentally and emotionally but really who can claim to be? What I'm trying to point out is that plenty of people are perfectly capable of murdering and commiting just about any horrendous act and frankly they may be labelled as insane but thats generally just tacked on by people who feel very uncomfortable with the thought that a person can be mostly normal and still capable of extreme unspeakable violence. Although I totally agree that anyone who wraps a baby in C4 to make a bouncing-baby-bomb has a major malfunction going on.
SirKodiak
QUOTE
well unless you count the german SS, the old iraq regime, the serbian military, the cops in sarejevo in the 70's need I go on? point is any reasonably unstable governmental system that is highly factionalized generally does have a very high number of people on the payroll that regularly dissappear any undesirables who they happen to take into custody. especially considering that most corps force feed their elite security propaganda at every opportunity.


Your examples all involve one of two things: either an intense program of psychological influence, so that the enemy is painted as inhuman and evil, or a hierarchical system in which people kill those they are told because they are afraid themselves of retribution against themselves or their families. The first creates a psychosis (loss of contact with reality). The second I mention when I talk about fear being the other motivator.

And note that in your examples, even people who weren't the target of these organizations were often scared of them, because of their brutality. I never said these people didn't exist, just that being able to do those things required an abnormal mental state.

QUOTE
I'm not saying that the average security guard would kill joe shadowrunner for trespassing but a fair number of their superiors are willing to do anything to advance up the corporate ladder. ambition and compassion rarely go hand in hand.


Right, I was talking about the average security guard. The kind of guy you're going to deal with for trespassing, the original subject here. The elite security is less akin to police than it is to military, and if my players get to the point they're dealing with them (such as, say, breaking into the facility in the middle of the night carrying shotguns) then they're going to get shot at.

QUOTE
but the truth deep down is he really just likes to shoot people this person is not psychotic


Someone who really likes to kill people is, in my opinion, psychotic. I understand that this may come the way he grew up, but that doesn't make it not psychotic. Everyone has varying degrees of disconnect with reality (ranging from a slightly inflated self-image to a belief that one is the King of Neptune and beyond), but someone who would rather kill someone than take the simple precaution of wearing a mask is more unbalanced than fits in the normal range. Again, I never said player couldn't play this sort of person, just that they should understand what they're doing.

QUOTE
What I'm trying to point out is that plenty of people are perfectly capable of murdering and commiting just about any horrendous act and frankly they may be labelled as insane but thats generally just tacked on by people who feel very uncomfortable with the thought that a person can be mostly normal and still capable of extreme unspeakable violence.


In my opinion, except for those few mental disorders which are clearly brain-chemistry problems, the vast majority of insanity is nothing more than the extremes of human behavior. I do not buy into the insanity-as-an-illness school. So, I think we actually agree on that. I'm just saying that having the kind of extreme that lets you kill someone just because it's a little more convenient (than wearing a mask or gagging and tying someone) says something about you. And I'm willing to call that insanity. That doesn't mean that there aren't lots of ways that person is normal.

QUOTE
Although I totally agree that anyone who wraps a baby in C4 to make a bouncing-baby-bomb has a major malfunction going on.


Right, that's pretty far along to the extreme. Killing the unconscious guard is less far along, but still pretty far from normal. It turns out, if you study most normal people (people who haven't been subjected to the exceptions I talk about in my first paragraph of this post), that being willing to kill other people, even in self-defense, is on the fringe of normal. Many American soldiers, in WWII, were, when the moment came, unwilling to fire back at the enemy because they were afraid of killing people. One of the major sources of the emotional relief of being rotated off the front, in addition to not being afraid of dying, was release from the fear of killing someone. Now, people learned to deal with this fear, particularly because being willing to shoot back was a selector for survival. But it still happened.

Anyways, you can certainly play it that the entire moral landscape has shifted by 2060. That's a perfectly reasonable decision for a GM to make. You can also decide you don't care. That's just not how I run. I play things a little more on today's moral landscape, with a smaller shift towards increased willingness to coldly kill. Not enough, though, that your average security guard isn't going to think twice about killing someone. The majority of police officers today have never killed anyone, and the majority have never shot at someone. I don't see the average 2060 security guard as being more ruthless than today's police. If you're creating a situation where he has to shoot you or be killed himself, or let someone else be killed, he'll probably shoot you. But he's not the guy you get to kill an unarmed man and then dump the body.

So, if you're in one of my campaigns, and you take a shortcut across corp land you're unlikely to be taken out by a sniper for your trouble. If you break into a low-security building, the security guards will try to protect the people and property, but they'll mainly try to stall until the corp equivalent of S.W.A.T. shows up, which contains the guys with shotguns who have no issue dispensing high-caliber justice. If you break into the high-security research lab, then you're never going to see the average security guys, the boys will shotguns will already be there. As far as cyber goes, I only really give it to the heavy duty guys, who will have some of the more common combat cyber. They're also going to be trained in terms of tactics, and will have been signed to several year contracts with the company; probably promoted out of the better of the normal security guards, or recruited from Lone Star or the equivalent.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (tjn)
But then again, why would LS spend any resources to apprehend a guy they don't even get to count for their statistics? It's akin to spending money with nothing to show for it. Perhaps in fairly publisied cases where it would be more detrimental to not go after a specific criminal, but as a SOP, I don't see it counting any beans as it were.

The key word in the Doc's post was "contract". The corp pays the Star, and the Star catches people outside the corp's boundaries for it.

~J
Pinel
To add to Paul and Doctor Funkeinstein's posts - it's a safe bet that a number of useful, real-life measures and procedures are in use in the SR setting:

- As Kagetenshi said, extradition doesn't have to be limited because of costs and resources. Cost-recovery scheme whereas Lone Star bills a corporation for the capture / termination costs (or vice-versa) could be quite profitable, and allow corps to maintain fewer "pursuit assets". A perverse GM (I don't know of any myself, mind you) might have Lone Star officers around "popular" corp facilities pay special attention to outgoing traffic in case a lucrative interception contract comes up.

- You can also assume some sort of convict repatriation scheme between nations and corporations. Assuming a prisoner isn't of special interest, a nation or corp might want to ship him off to his home country to serve his sentence there. There wouldn't be much mercy involved in the SR world, mostly politics and practicality: corps in particular would not have any desire to pay for the storage of low-threat prisoners, like drunken perps who beat up an office clerk on corp territory.

- Notwithstanding the above, the stereotypical greed and pragmatism of megacorps would lead them to turn even prisoners into profit centers. From legit medical experiments (human trial runs for phramaceuticals) to forced labor (chain gangs clearing brush and critters from the new airport site), there are many ways low-threat prisoners can turn in more money than they cost to be held. This also offers the advantage of adventuring possibilities for captured runners without the GM resorting to illegal experiments or execution.

- While "community service" would take on a whole new meaning when breaching corp laws, hefty fines (taken in kind) and post-op release could be even more profitable: "You're free to go now, Mister... Smith, whatever. Take it easy - you'll need time to adjust to life with only one kidney, and this court will fine you much more on your next... visit".
Thanos007
I really like the turn this thread has taken. Especially the last couple of posts. What do Corps do with all the low level threats? Do the have judges? Do they even have jails aside from small temporary holding cells? Good stuff.

Thanos
Paul
Given the almost certainly insaenly high number of MegaCorporate Employees who must be LAwyers of some sort, I'd venture that finding a Judge wouldn't be too hard.

The intresting part for PC's would be this. Anyone qualified to be a judge has almost certainly come of age in this new world. Likely to have either been born in a Corporate Enclave, almost certainly raised there-and definitely loyal. A person who not only likes working for Example Corp, but purchases Example Corps products, eats Examples Corps food, Watches Example Corps TV, utilizes Example Corps facilities (Bed, Bath and Bad Examples, American Example, etc...)and the like. Their retirement is based off of the success of Example Corps success.

In a nutshell they see their Corporate Ties as the new Nationalism. Now how will this guy see your player character? Maybe not so good right?

QUOTE ("Pinel")
A perverse GM (I don't know of any myself, mind you) might have Lone Star officers around "popular" corp facilities pay special attention to outgoing traffic in case a lucrative interception contract comes up.


Almost certainly something not only Lone Star may occassionally easily keep personal abreast of (Patrol cars come with an onboard computer. Generating a persons of intrest list wouldn't be hard.) but so would other Megas. Bet every Corporation maintains surveillance assetts. Even if its as simple as tapping the local street cameras to occasionally view footage with a smart frame.


QUOTE
There wouldn't be much mercy involved in the SR world, mostly politics and practicality: corps in particular would not have any desire to pay for the storage of low-threat prisoners, like drunken perps who beat up an office clerk on corp territory.


Which could also be a useful PR tool when needed. "Example Corp-we crack the whip on drunks who beat women!"

It could also be a really neat way to mess with employees. "We'd love to give you that raise, but see we have this footage of you blanking the janitor with this Example Slugger and a fudge bar, so maybe this year we'll take a pass at the raise."

"But I work hard...."

"Say does Bob in accounting know what you're doing..."

"Say that raise can wait a few years. I mean I just got one..."

QUOTE ("Kagetenshi")
The key word in the Doc's post was "contract". The corp pays the Star, and the Star catches people outside the corp's boundaries for it


Yeah-most Megacorporations have offices in major cities. These cities are likely to have security contracts of some sort-it makes sense that most Megas would have some sort of agreement worked out in advance with whomever they could. "Leave nothing to chance."

Lowfyr doesn't end up owning 80% of the world by taking chances. (Its a completely inflated number, really. Just to save someone the time...)



Pinel
The response and infrastructure are likely to vary by megacorp - "Manfred Dockhorn, Aztechnology High Inquisitor (Eastern Seaboard)" sounds about right. I see corps laying out laws and punishment as a natural extension of employees' codes of conduct and disciplinary boards. Jail time for minor stuff doesn't make much sense (much less execution): you're incurring extra costs and losing the perpetrator's work input, so first levels of punishment would include measures like demotion (sorry - "reassignment to Zulu-Natal"), probation, clawing back of seniority and loss of privileges.

The process could be administered by panels of actual judges from a separate disciplinary department (trained in-house, since each megacorp has its own legal refinements and variations) or be an added responsibility of the Internal Affairs division. The second option lends itself better to SR secrecy and corporate oppression, IMO. But either way the procedural tree would be very complex and could rival the judiciary options available in national court systems. How about getting runners involved in multiple runs for a senior corp exec fighting off disciplinary panels with successive appeals and counter-complaints ?

You would also see tremendous power struggles centering on high-profile cases, and very few one-judge panels: as devoted as they are to their corporate nation (fully agree with Paul on that one), how could corporate arbiters be really impartial in a world of rival factions ? They will all delight in sending runners to max security for a century or so, but how would they play it when it's VP#1 trying to mess with VP#2 ? Zero-zones and such would be a sort of loophole, the corporate equivalent of invoking the National Security clause. Elite guards there would probably be given "judge and jury" status to legalize any lethal response against employees or outsiders.

I completely forgot about a very important point in my last post - the jail system itself. With most jails privatized long ago (see Target: Wastelands for an extreme example), megacorps own & manage a bunch of penal facilities in and on behalf of countries. This could allow corps to use these jails to store their own offenders (probably in a separate wing for, ahem, accounting purposes - "CorpoRat City" ?), although each megacorp would have at least one extra-territorial facility for problem cases. Perhaps this latter facility would be part of a scientific containment area. "Yes Mr. Bigshot, it's your turn to bring the chimera its food. Here's your armored jacket - do you regret defrauding your division R&D budget yet ?".
tjn
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Jul 25 2004, 07:58 AM)
The key word in the Doc's post was "contract". The corp pays the Star, and the Star catches people outside the corp's boundaries for it.

~J

Hrm, maybe it's just the way my game has worked out.

LS doesn't go after a lot of runners because runners understand it's stupid to kill cops in the middle of a chase. Rather they go for nonlethal shots and blow the frag out of LS's stuff. And that looks really bad on LS's expense accounts.

One chase, utilizing the escalation map in New Seattle, resulted in over two million nuyen worth of damages to LS assets, without any LS officers dying. The team eventually managed to get away and had to go to ground for a good while, thus leaving LS without the culprits and a surplus of throughly junked helicopters and squad cars.

Granted it's an extreme example, but I can't see a corp shelling out if LS doesn't produce, and I also can't see LS wanting to repeat such an incident where they're forced to eat that sort of major loss of both nuyen and prestige. It only has to happen one time to make LS nervous of a repeat performance.

Perhaps run-of-the-mill tresspassers would work under that system, but going after runners is a very expensive endevor.
Pinel
Good point - Lone Star's reaction would depend on what kind of contract it has with the specific corp and what corporate assets are available locally to pursue high-threat criminals. A contract could mention a cap on asset damage and personel casualties (what was the name of the sci-fi movie that used the concept ?) - once it's reached, Lone Star pulls back and the corp has automatic permission to send HTR people into the national jurisdiction if it wants to. In the 2060s it should be quite easy to have a big meter at Lone Star HQ showing costs incurred as fuel is burned, bullets are fired and cruisers smash into walls. Some corps might encourage that setup - allocate X thousand nuyen to soften up the runners without damaging corporate assets, then take over and finish the job.

On the other hand, some high-security facilities could sign a "no expense limit" contract with local law enforcement (to make sure interlopers are caught at all costs) but those would be rare. The corporation would probably prefer ending the chase themselves in most cases, to give them more leeway on how to deal with the runners.

BitBasher
BTW, IIRC Lone Star sourcebooks hints on the idea of contracts such as this, but referrs to them as "short term extradition contracts" and usually in the sense that LS has arrested you for somehting unrelated while a mega wants you bad enough to pay big cash for you to be turned over. It's implied in the wording that these contracts are not maintained over time, but one off deals.

It's not a bad idea though, more revenue for the Star. Therein lies the legal wrangle though that the star cannot legally cannot actually arrest someone "innocent" on metroplex soil. The Star is paid to uphold Metroplex laws and arresting someone that has comitted no crime would breach their contract. That should IMHO be handled by another government agency, for example the FBI, CIA, or NSA, who has far, far more leeway in those actions.
SirKodiak
QUOTE
Do the have judges? Do they even have jails aside from small temporary holding cells?


There'll be the equivalent of judges, though probably not called judges. And while there might be hearings to deal with issues, it wouldn't be a trial like we have today. The corp is going to have no interest in such things as innocent until proven guilty or trial be a jury of your peers.

If you're part of the corp and commit some sort of infraction, they clearly won't lock you up for more than the time it takes to sort things out, as others have said, due to the lost work from you. Punishment would probably be things more along the lines of docked pay and disciplinary action. Truly heinous crimes would probably result in a quiet execution (selling company secrets), expulsion, or 're-education'.

If you're an outsider, things would be less friendly. They'll still have little interest in locking you up, because punishment and rehabilitation aren't things they care about. You'll probably get some sort of warning, varying from verbal to physical. If you create enough trouble, they'll just kill you.

The way to think of megacorps is like a hive of bees or an ant hill. Both or capable of acts of intelligence beyond the capability of any one member. Now, when your members are as smart as human beings, that makes megacorps into a dangerous entity indeed. An entity without morality whose only goals are power and money.
Kagetenshi
I think Lone Star as an organization would come down hard on people who destroyed LS property in that scale. Anyone who is anyone in the organization is going to treat them worse than copkillers.

~J
Skeptical Clown
I don't think corporations need judges. The process of a trial is just one of those inconveniences of society that a corp doesn't need to deal with. Civil disputes in corporate enclaves would just be handled by going to supervisors; criminals will just be dealt with however the corp wants to handle them. Punishment isn't handed out by judges or juries, but by managerial disciplinarians.
MooCow
QUOTE
I don't think corporations need judges. The process of a trial is just one of those inconveniences of society that a corp doesn't need to deal with. Civil disputes in corporate enclaves would just be handled by going to supervisors; criminals will just be dealt with however the corp wants to handle them. Punishment isn't handed out by judges or juries, but by managerial disciplinarians.


I would tend to disagree here. Where ever you have laws, you need judges. Keep in mind, these are not just rules, as modern companies have. They are /laws/, which are different from rules. What happens if my wife/child/dog, who does not work for the company, violates corporate law? Who handles it? You need someone whose whole job revolves around determining which laws apply and what the applicable punishment is. Whether they like it or not, by building Arcologies the corporations have taken on the role of government.

FlakJacket
Plus, whilst the judges are all firmly on your side it's always a good idea to keep up the facade of justice so that you look nice to all the little people- your employees and the general public as well.
Odin
QUOTE
Plus, whilst the judges are all firmly on your side it's always a good idea to keep up the facade of justice so that you look nice to all the little people- your employees and the general public as well.


besides theirs lots of money to be made putting the more sensationalistic trials/smearjobs/frameups on the trid people love to see people on trial and by publicizing the trial it shows just how fair and vigilant the corps are of the publics well being.
Skeptical Clown
QUOTE (MooCow)
I would tend to disagree here. Where ever you have laws, you need judges. Keep in mind, these are not just rules, as modern companies have. They are /laws/, which are different from rules. What happens if my wife/child/dog, who does not work for the company, violates corporate law? Who handles it? You need someone whose whole job revolves around determining which laws apply and what the applicable punishment is. Whether they like it or not, by building Arcologies the corporations have taken on the role of government.

One big difference between the corporation and the government: The corp feels no obligation toward its employees. The employees are not just citizens of the corp, they're employees too. They WILL do what they are told, because they're not just going to get in trouble if they disobey, they're going to lose their job. Further, unlike citizens of a nation, employees have no rights. Corps don't need to provide due process. That's just a waste of time. The worst punishment for a citizen isn't getting locked up; it's getting fired. Because they don't just lose their job; they lose their home, and most likely their assets (since corps will pay in corp script whenever possible.) There will be managers and disciplinarians who obviously are charged with making the decisions, but they don't really resemble a judge, because they're not dispensing justice.
Kagetenshi
Nitpick: scrip, not script.

~J
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Skeptical Clown)
QUOTE (MooCow @ Jul 26 2004, 12:51 AM)
I would tend to disagree here.  Where ever you have laws, you need judges.  Keep in mind, these are not just rules, as modern companies have.  They are /laws/, which are different from rules.  What happens if my wife/child/dog, who does not work for the company, violates corporate law?  Who handles it?  You need someone whose whole job revolves around determining which laws apply and what the applicable punishment is.  Whether they like it or not, by building Arcologies the corporations have taken on the role of government.

One big difference between the corporation and the government: The corp feels no obligation toward its employees. The employees are not just citizens of the corp, they're employees too. They WILL do what they are told, because they're not just going to get in trouble if they disobey, they're going to lose their job. Further, unlike citizens of a nation, employees have no rights. Corps don't need to provide due process. That's just a waste of time. The worst punishment for a citizen isn't getting locked up; it's getting fired. Because they don't just lose their job; they lose their home, and most likely their assets (since corps will pay in corp script whenever possible.) There will be managers and disciplinarians who obviously are charged with making the decisions, but they don't really resemble a judge, because they're not dispensing justice.

But corporations do have an obligation to their shareholders and there is a good chance that the average wage-slave owns a few shares of company stock. Stock options attract employees and give them incentive to stay with little actual cost to the corporation. It is a common practice today and will probably remain so. Bob in accounting may not get many votes in the major corporate decision-making, but he gets a few.
Also, keeping employees happy is good business. Employee retention and loyalty is very important to the success of any business. Say shirley in the Metahuman Resources department of a Renraku subsidiary tenders her resignation because Mitsuhama offered her a job. Although Mitsuhama won't pay as much, her new employment contract specifically states that he supervisor won't grope her breasts or make racist remarks about her ears. That is very important to her. Training a replacement for her will cost Renraku 80,000 nuyen. furthermore, every day that they go without a suitable replacement costs them 60,000 nuyen Of course, her knowledge also gives Mitsuhama a sizable advantage over Renraku if she is convinced to violate the unenforcable non-disclosure agreement in her old contract and she could easily entice other key employees to defect.
Corporations probably don't have many hard and fast laws, but they do have contracts and basic laws. Matters from petty theft to murder have to be dealt with fairly and accurately to prevent vigilantism and anarchy, a criminal court of some type and professional detectives to gather evidence is the best way to do this. There must also be a court to settle contract disputes. Contracts are everything in the business world and all employees are likely to have contracts that specify pay, incentives and duties. Employment contracts will also require employees to submit to corporate law, even for acts committed outsice of corporate jurisdiction.
finally, there is the situation of corrupt officers. If the President is embezzling who has the authority to send a hit-squad after him? A Judge, that's who.
Corporations would have two sets of laws. Criminal laws that cover everything from theft and murder to the age of consent and corporate rules, which would basically be civil laws and subject to administrative punishment or monetary damages, depending on the nature of the violation. Both would vary from corp to corp only slightly. For the most part, they would be uniform with the details varying depending on corporate culture and philosophy.
Back to Shirley, she would probably file racial and sexual harassment lawsuits in Renraku civil court. With several witnesses and security cameras to testify about the groping and anti-elf slurs, she would receive a sizable cash award that would be taken directly from her supervisor's paycheck. The supervisor with also face the wrath of his superiors and would probably be demoted and would certainly be transfered to prevent retaliation.

Corporate judges are probably paid from the corporate payroll but are certainly appointed for their lifetime and have their wages frozen with pre-determined raises and promotions based purely on seniority. This would allow them to be completely impartial when higher-ranking members of the corporation are involved.
I believe that there is also an intercorporate court to deal with relations and contracts between corporations. It is possible that it could also act as a final appeals court for intercorporate lawsuits and criminal proceedings in very race circumstances.
tjn
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
I think Lone Star as an organization would come down hard on people who destroyed LS property in that scale. Anyone who is anyone in the organization is going to treat them worse than copkillers.

Why would they? As the saying goes, revenge counts no beans.

They may be pissed off about it, but tossing even MORE assets at the problem, when 2 million has already gone up in smoke, makes no finacial sense. Would three million in losses be acceptable if they kill the runners? Four million? At what point does someone put a stop to the hemorraging? What's the point of pasting these runners into red smears if LS puts itself so far into the hole as to be unable to continue to function?

Also, I personally doubt the beat cops consider LS's "stuff" is more important then their comrades-in-arms. The suits may think different, but the suits are also not the ones putting their life on the line.

Edited cuz IR speel guud.
Skeptical Clown
Shriley can't file racism and sexual harassment suits in Renraku court, because those are standard operating procedure for Renraku wink.gif

Just because the megacorps are uber-powerful, doesn't mean they are good corporations. They have all kinds of terrible business procedures and inefficiencies, but they can soak it up because they ARE ridiculously wealthy. I tend to consider them as being just like Wal-mart would be if not impeded by troublesome things like human rights: pure evil.
Paul
QUOTE ("Skeptical Clown")
One big difference between the corporation and the government: The corp feels no obligation toward its employees.


Thats bad business sense. Not only are they likely to be shareholders, but even if they aren't they are assetts. Now like any assett some are more valueable than others.

However few corporations beyond the Mega's could afford this attitude. At least pubicly.

QUOTE
The employees are not just citizens of the corp, they're employees too. They WILL do what they are told, because they're not just going to get in trouble if they disobey, they're going to lose their job.


True-but keep in mind most of these people won't need to be told. They will be loyal Corporate Citizens.

QUOTE
Further, unlike citizens of a nation, employees have no rights.


I have absolutely no idea why you would say this.

Not only would the Employee handbook likely outline their various rights while on extraterritorial property, but it'd likely extoll the number of freedoms they have when compared to the rather restrictive bill of rights the UCAS has.

No if you were to say that in some situations a Corporation would absolutely disregard personal rights-then I'd agree. But this isn't a Beastmaster movie. People aren't slaves bound in shackles. They're slaves bound by subtler things-their life savings in corporate script that can't be exchanged, their psyche's twisted by years of subliminal messages and psychotropic exposure. They welcome their situation with open arms.


QUOTE
Corps don't need to provide due process.


I disagree. Due process may be much swifter, or have fewer options than some progressive countries-but I suspect there is still a grievance and appeal process.

Or at least the illusion of it. See how I keep mentioning that sort of thing? I think you're right-but only in certain situations.

Pelaka
I think the important question isn't how the corps deal with shadowrunners, but with regular law abiding citizens. They will need to provide some form of formal legal structure because their customers and business partners want stability... they want to be able to file civil and criminal and have a predictable outcome.

Contract law is probably the easiest to address. I wouldn't be suprised at all to find out that the corporate court has developed standards of contract law that the megas are required to agree to by treaty. Like it or not, the mega will face MANY contract disputes, both with other megas and with smaller companies. There will be formal processes to address contract disputes... they may be stacked heavily in the favor of the mega... but they will be defined. If a corp wants to weasle out of a contract they will do it with legal shenanigans... not by saying, "hey, I'm my own country... today I've decided its OK to ignore this contract."

For contract law I would expect to see alot of pre-gamesmanship. Today alot of contracts include clauses "to be governed by the laws of the state of XXXX." Part of the contract itself is an agreement as to which set of laws govern the contract. Small business might not have much choice... but when a large company signs a contract with a mega it will almost undoubtably have a section that clearly states what legal rules govern the contract (I would expect typically a 3rd partry... or what people "think" is a 3rd party).

On the criminal/civil side... shoppers visiting the public mall in the local arcology want to know they won't be kidnapped and sold into slavery by the mega. They want to know if they get robbed or assaulted the case will be handled fairly... or they will take their business to a non-extraterritorial mall. Likewise, if a salryman's son commits an act of teenage agnst (vandalism) the company will have to deal with this somehow. I'm sure there are alot of places where employees are effectively slave labor (such as the Africa writeups seem to imply)... but in most 1st world countries they will need to maintain the "illusion" of due process. It doesn't necessarily have to be fair... but it has to be predicable and "seem" fair.

Pel
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Skeptical Clown)
Just because the megacorps are uber-powerful, doesn't mean they are good corporations. They have all kinds of terrible business procedures and inefficiencies, but they can soak it up because they ARE ridiculously wealthy. I tend to consider them as being just like Wal-mart would be if not impeded by troublesome things like human rights: pure evil.

There is no doubt that they have their deficiencies, but they had to have been good intelligently-run corporations once. If they weren't then they wouldn't have become so wealthy in the first place. Besides, they can't be completly incompetent, because there are always other megacorps waiting to pounce on the weak.
It is natural the extraterritorial corporations would have developed court systems similar to those of their home country within a decade of the Shiawase decision. This is necessary for two reasons. First, corps are built on a rigid structure of laws;mostly contract laws. Without that structure the very concept of a corporation would collapse. The second reason is the people have to reliability knew what the consequences of their actions are and there must be some orderly way to take revenge. Without a criminal court system, corporate life would be an endless series of revenge-murders which would eventually cause bankrupcy.
Many corp officers may not like the idea of submitting to courts, but the courts were probably established long before they were even born (With the exception of Immortal Elves and Great Dragons) and megacorps are just big bureaucracies dedicated to profit. One thing that bureaucracies don't do is change.

It is good for business to treat people well, too. Workers are the backbone of any corp and oppress workers will eventually rise up. Of course, there are always goons and elite enforcers who can break up unions fairly well. This only works until the enforcers figure out that they have the real power. Those with the best and biggest guns have the right to rule. This inevetably results in a civil war which could only harm the company. I suspect that fair court systems were established pre-awakening by people who still cared and still had good business sense. A consistant semi-independent court system and investigatory force helps prevent this. Human rights and evil aren't mutually exclusive.
Skeptical Clown
QUOTE (Paul)
Or at least the illusion of it. See how I keep mentioning that sort of thing? I think you're right-but only in certain situations.

Well, cause I'm cutting through the crap between what a corporation says and what it does. In reality, employees are slaves. They're not bound by physical shackles, but they're bound financially and psychologically. They might think they have rights, and might be encouraged to do so, but in any situation that really matters, they don't. I'm sure that corps DO have some sort of discipline overview, but I distinguish that from a justice system because it's not going to be bound by the kind of things that bind a governmental justice system. No rights the corp feels compelled to adhere to, no sense of innocence until proven guilty. Even if employees are aware of this in some corner of their minds, it's probably a fair trade-off. Because the corp tells them what to do, but it does provide security. That's why even low-end employees are sort of ethically corrupt; they've sold their souls to be part of the beast, freedom for security.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (tjn)
Why would they? As the saying goes, revenge counts no beans.

They may be pissed off about it, but tossing even MORE assets at the problem, when 2 million has already gone up in smoke, makes no finacial sense. Would three million in losses be acceptable if they kill the runners? Four million? At what point does someone put a stop to the hemorraging? What's the point of pasting these runners into red smears if LS puts itself so far into the hole as to be unable to continue to function?

In a case like you mention, they'd probably just toss the runners on a most wanted list, then send in the big guns as soon as they can. Especially if this is an ongoing thing; it makes a lot of sense to burn five million nuyen in a day to kill people who destroy a million nuyen worth of stuff every other week.

QUOTE
Also, I personally doubt the beat cops consider LS's "stuff" is more important then their comrades-in-arms.  The suits may think different, but the suits are also not the ones putting their life on the line.


But the suits are the ones who dispatch the HTR teams.

~J
Thanos007
Here's an idea. Maybe, due to treaty, all employee contracts are identical and disputes etc are handled by the Corp Court. Haven't quite thought this completely through but it would still leave the corps with a lot of power by intimidation and cover up. It also relieves them of having to deal with a lot of stuff and wasting time and money.

Thanos
Paul
I fail to see any of the MegaCorporations buying into that idea. It reduces their own Sovereignty, and it also means a player who knwos how to work the system could in theory circumvent their own control over a scenario.

I think the Court primarily deals with the real serious flare ups between Corporations, not individual employees.

Plus its more fun if the rules aren't the same. means my PC's have to learn a new frame work each time.
Paul
I would like to reccomend that everyone break out their Sprawl Survival Guides and flip through pages 40-42.

I think its a decent base for us to work from in here.
BitBasher
Anyone wanna paraphrase for me? I'm at work... And havent gotten through that whole book yet.
Jason Farlander
a couple of relevant points:

-LS can not enter corp property without a warrant, but this restriction is often ignored. If you have a SIN, ignoring this restriction can result in the invalidation of your arrest. (if you lack a SIN, it doesnt matter, since you wont get a trial.)

-a warrant is not required to request matrix logs, credit histories, phone records, and similar information, nor to conduct surveillance (except in the case of wiretaps and mindprobes)

the remaining section deals with the UCAS court system, which is not particularly relevant to what a Corp will do to a criminal. But no, by canon it does not seem that corps tend to have contracts with LS, which makes sense in a way - they might have (legitimate) concerns that LS would abuse such a contract in order to conduct some nice corporate espionage. "Well the perp broke into the weapons research lab, so, as per our *contract,* we had no choice but to follow him and confiscate the information he downloaded as evidence."
Skeptical Clown
If Lone Star goes busting into corp property without permission, they're going to be in a heap of trouble. Those rent-a-cops can get shot just like any other intruders, and LS doesn't have the finances to match up against a real megacorp.
BitBasher
QUOTE (Skeptical Clown)
If Lone Star goes busting into corp property without permission, they're going to be in a heap of trouble. Those rent-a-cops can get shot just like any other intruders, and LS doesn't have the finances to match up against a real megacorp.

LS is a real megacorp, they're a double A and extraterritorial, one step below the big 10 on the corporate scale.
Skeptical Clown
I was sorta joking. But you get what I mean; it's no different than if Canadian cops go barging into the U.S. arresting people. That's nearly grounds for war.
lspahn72
I love Corp Prisons.

Here how i work it:

1. Go to Corp Court. This is just a formality

2. Get convicted. Duhhhhh.

3. A Corp Prision has a contract or accepts bids from Mega-Corp

4. Now your in some third world sh*t hole, with no civil rights, and basicly waiting for you to die or your sentence to run out. Of course if you die, the prison never tells cause they dont want to lose there money!!


I have made one in Amazonia, Kenya, and on the Atlantic Shelf(Underwater).

Thanos007
QUOTE
If Lone Star goes busting into corp property without permission, they're going to be in a heap of trouble. Those rent-a-cops can get shot just like any other intruders, and LS doesn't have the finances to match up against a real megacorp.


My guess would be that LS informs that they are in pursuit and the suspects are going on to corporate property. In most incidents the corp says ok come on in. Then the corp security monitors LS officers on site and maybe co-ordinates with them for capture. In other cases, sites that are highly secretive, LS officers may be told to wait at propertys edge, escorted by corp security to ensure LS stays a way from sensitive areas with in the building.

Thanos.

Who just read pages 40- 42.
Pinel
QUOTE (Skeptical Clown)
I was sorta joking.  But you get what I mean; it's no different than if Canadian cops go barging into the U.S. arresting people.  That's nearly grounds for war.

Your comparison is valid, except that most of the time it's the other way around, so there's little risk of war:

But... Sir, you're not really supposed to... hey, stop ! wait ! err... please ?

and I'm (kind of) joking too biggrin.gif My point is that the gravity of a territorial intrusion depends on the size and power of the intruder and the "intrudee". Lone Star wouldn't think twice about driving right past (or right through) the security checkpoint of a minor, national corporation - doing the same at the continental HQ of SK is another matter.
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