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Joshua
I wonder if you could...maybe do little jobs and stuff here and there. I mean, if you had the chance, would you? It doesn't seem hard. You could hack the Internet, beat rival gangs, escort people, do odd jobs.

What do you think?
FrostyNSO
Damn right you could, and there is definately a market out there for that sort of thing. wink.gif
Joshua
Wow! I gotta find out where!
Fresno Bob
It's called the Mafia.
FrostyNSO
Go to Coca-Cola and offer to blow up a Pepsi warehouse. They might just go for it.
Kagetenshi
The real stuff is probably going on places like Lockheed-Martin, Halliburton, other defense contractors, and DeBeers (big one, plenty of opportunities for mercenary work I'd bet).

~J
LynGrey
Why not apply at the local stuffer shack.. work register.. have your buddies rob it weekly.. and you get a cut of the proceeds =)
drakeraven
Go to www.blackwatersecurity.com. These guys are the no s*@t real deal cowboys. Only reason I found out about these guys is the fact that I was in the army and hung out with a special forces soldier for a few months. These guys are 'retired' soldiers who now make triple what they did on the government side to perform 'services' for nations who pay out top dollar.
hermit
Or go to russia and become a 'Kontraktniki', which is propably as close t a real shadowrunner as you're gonna get. Of course, having been a KGB agent really helps get your career started there (actually, it's more like you won't get anywhere if you haven't), so it just may not be the thing for you ...
Johnnycache
Or work an honest job and, y'know, "not die"

Sorry, just thought the thread should have some sort of disclaimer smile.gif
Panzergeist
The types of jobs that shadowrunners do are done in real life, but shadowrunners, as such, are sort of dependent on the whole SIN system. They exist in countries with poor census-taking systems, but in the US and similarly developed nations, it seems it would be hard to do.
Johnnycache
QUOTE (Panzergeist)
The types of jobs that shadowrunners do are done in real life, but shadowrunners, as such, are sort of dependent on the whole SIN system. They exist in countries with poor census-taking systems, but in the US and similarly developed nations, it seems it would be hard to do.

Well, shadowrunning - or any other sort of 'noble criminal' archtype - is actually dependent on the existence of a system or society worthy of contempt. In a decent nation with decent citizenry, 'shadowrunners' are just criminals.
Crimsondude 2.0
Nope, none of those in the world. Not one.
viggo
yeah man, you won't find corrupt democracies anywhere smile.gif
Gabriel (Argus #2323)
I hear that oil companies (and I'm sure other large corps) have their own private armies, ex-military hired security forces to protect their sites and interests at off-shore locations. Apparently, it's illegal for these paramil groups to operate within U.S. borders, but anything goes everywhere else. Also, they have intellegence departments and hire "spies" to keep an eye on potential problems and opportunities. This Shadowrun stuff is based on real life, chummers. It's just not here, yet. The companies aren't quite big enough or powerful enough. They dont have extraterritoriality, so it doesn't land in our backyard. However, I can easily imagine some oil rig in a dangerous area having its own beefy security force, or the standard industrial espionage. Just go into military/government training then head into the private sector. You'll be living the dream.
SL James
heh.

This stuff goes back (in the U.S.) to at least the railroad age, and the birth of the oil industry, back when the governments were a lot smaller and it really was dominated by laissez-faire attitudes towards private commerce. There is actually a short history of some of the more peculiar events in the 2e Corporate Security Handbook about private security firms like the Pinkertons and Wells Fargo.
Gabriel (Argus #2323)
Yeah, I forgot about that. "Rail wars" and junk... old school industrial espionage. Ever since there have been laws and industry, there have been those paid to break those laws and further the industry; at least, that's the way it seems.
SL James
Pretty much. I mean, in the grand history of things, SR's corporations are more the norm than the exception. It has only been relatively recently that they've been regulated as heavily as they are now or were in the late 20th century. There was a series of cases involving civil rights and corporations operating in the role of state actors, and one of the revelations was that the number of exclusively state powers is so few as to be almost meaningless when compared to the powers ceded to corporations and private entities before regulations began (and even still after laws like the Sherman Act).

And to put it in even further perspective, consider that legally cities, municipalities and certain other inter- and quasi-governmental regional entities are really no more than a special type of corporation (municipal corporations; which is why cities are "incorporated"). There is nothing stopping a corporation like Lone Star from existing IRL.
Gabriel (Argus #2323)
Fascinating and frigthening. Then again, what are the conditions to create a situation like in SR? When do corporations start to really F*** over their emlpoyees? Things aren't great now, but when do they start to get worse? Was it all the devastation? The creation of dozens of new nations? I guess there are just laws in place now that protect the people to a degree, and in shadowrun those laws get bypassed.
SL James
Part of it was massive deregulation in the 1990s (which is heavily glossed over in the histories in SR3 and SR4) and 2000s - a continuation of trends begun in the 1980s under Reagan. I don't think most SR players anymore have a real appreciation for how big a deal this was. Consider that before airline deregulation, the federal government had quotas on airlines' routes, destinations, distances, ticket prices, and so forth. The only reason small airports existed was because airlines were forced to fly into smaller cities like Buffalo to have access to their major routes. It wasn't until airline deregulation that the Hub and Spoke Model could even really exist in the United States.

The other aspect was that corporations in Shadowrun were based on models in the 1980s where Japanese corps were pretty much seen as unmerciless and demanding extreme loyalty (which is saying something when you consider industry loyalty in company towns like Detroit).

You have to go back and start reading through the older sourcebooks to get an appreciation of how badly the world (and specifically the U.S.) was headed before the Awakening. One of the things that people seem to miss when thinking that SR should look like Real Life (hence the sudden sea-change in tech in SR4) is that a lot of the circumstances that allowed for them IRL never existed in SR. It's suggested that either Bush lost in 1988 or was beaten in the 1992 primary by a candidate who was even more hardcore conservative than he was (which could have actually happened had the Gulf War not have happened). The economic and social breakdown in the 1980s and the widening of the income gap got much, much worse in the 1990s under President Lynch (even compared to how badly that disparity has become IRL). The U.S. was becoming a very violent and very Depressed (as in economic depression) country (one of the reasons for the Resource Rush starting in 2002), and that led to the whole corporate security movement (most of this is described in the Corporate Security Handbook) where corps were hiring mercenaries to guard their facilities. Because the U.S. wasn't the only place to go to Hell - a lot of places did after the end of the Cold War.

As for technology, one of the reasons why it wasn't as "advanced" (or at least, not in the same way as IRL) was because it was built up the way several massive corporations wanted it to be (e.g. the Matrix) designed - for their benefit. It's kind of like now - assume that Net Neutrality was nothing more than a joke, and that DRM and proprietary software is ubiquitous and enforced with everything the corps could muster.
ChicagosFinest
To do real life shadowruning, Get a real fixer. There out there I assure you, my fixer is my barber. Lets just say if I'm short on rent or need some medicine to "relax" he's my go to guy and normally comes through. He know harder "elements" that do worse but would only admit to it if you knew the right way to come at him. Not that I ever needed to do any hard core running but I bet it's not that hard to become a shadowruner but to be and stay a shadowruner is probably the hardest thing to do simply because you cant get caught and so many people do get caught in the middle of a crime
nezumi
I think the one important part of "running" is finding your niche. If your background is computers, unless you've practiced driving, have invested in your vehicle, and have serious, professional racing skills, leave the driving to someone else. In SR, we normally operate in teams. In IRL, we rarely happen to be close enough friends with a computer hacker, a B&E specialist, a gun fanatic, a professional race car driver, and a student of the occult to form a criminal group. Again though, this is where a proper fixer would come into play.
cat228
i live in the greater c-attle area, and i see the things developing closer and closer to the fiction that we called cyber punk and shadowrun every day.

a few years ago a friend of mine who was in need bought a computer on a street corner out of the back of an aquaintences car - it was a "spare" computer from where he worked.

if you know where to look you see it all around you. i will ahve to find the info again, but there is a pow wow set for 2010 to bring together several indian nations.

as far as the acts of real life shadow running - yes. there are corps that have to watch over thier interests and want to steal those of others. Pepsi and Coke had a round of this reciently - and lets not forget the pirates attacking ships off the coast of Africa last year (and probably still). Or political adversaries disappearing - by deniable assets shall we say.

it happens.

if you want to get into the biz, that is your choice but i hope you either have good insurance or no next of kin.

just my 2 nuyen.gif
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