Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: DeathStrobe on <06-08-14/2235:46>
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So I was running Splintered State and at some point the Mega Corps use some criminal syndicates to do their deniable ops and try to steal a commlink from the runners.
This got me thinking about which crime syndicates would each Mega Corp use.
Ares – Mafia
Renraku, MCT, Shiawase – Yakuza
Wuxing – Triades
Evo – Vory
Which leaves Horizon, NeoNET, Saeder-Krupp, and Aztechnology.
I'd think Aztechnology would use the Mexican Drug Cartels, but Aztechnology pretty much ate all the drug cartels, so all illegal sources of income are now legal and goes in to Aztechnologies pockets.
NeoNet and Horizon might also use the Mafia like Ares.
I can't imagine Lofwyr would use any criminal syndicates for some reason. I guess, he ironically uses Humanis Policlubs.
Anyone got more details on Mega Corps and their ties to Criminal Organizations?
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The 4e VICE book has some info on this....
For the most part, most Megas actually don't use criminal syndicates that much as it has a detriment to their image (and cuts into profits)
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I should imagine they would only use them in exceptional circumstances, In the 4e corporate guide it said even MCT didn't like to use Yakuza all that often.
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Ares – Mafia
Not really. Ares turns a blind eye to some smuggling in and around Detroit and the Great Lakes so long as the Mafia fucked with the Quebeçois. That hasn't really been an issue in a decade, and Quebec has its own organized crime concerns.
Renraku, MCT, Shiawase – Yakuza
The Four Oyabuns. The Yakuza invested in MCT early on, and so The Four have special influence with the corp and with the Yakuza because they're both and neither. They own 45% of MCT, and there are some gumi that pledge direct allegiance to them, but The Four Oyabun know better than to fuck up their trillion-dollar corp on the penny-ante nonsense of street crime — even if it is "organized" syndicate shit.
Wuxing – Triades
Sometimes. But involving them means getting involved in the conflict between triads that are either aligned with Lung or other parties.
Evo – Vory
Nope. The Vory is one of the major factions always vying for influence with the Russian government and its internal factions, and its biggest competition is Saeder-Krupp and Evo.
I'd think Aztechnology would use the Mexican Drug Cartels, but Aztechnology pretty much ate all the drug cartels, so all illegal sources of income are now legal and goes in to Aztechnologies pockets.
It didn't eat all the cartels. It is all the cartels (the non-Ghost Cartels, anyway). It was a money-laundering front that became more profitable than the drug trade (which is saying a lot). It sells all those drugs legally now.
NeoNet and Horizon might also use the Mafia like Ares.
Celedyr has his own gang of English ne'er-do wells, the Knights of Rage, which may also count Darren Villiers among its members. But they don't really bother themselves with the mob.
I can't imagine Lofwyr would use any criminal syndicates for some reason. I guess, he ironically uses Humanis Policlubs.
No, but his brother did back in the 2050s. And then took over some Winternight cells around 2060-61.
The important thing to note is that many of the corps are worth far more than the syndicates combined, so it's only worth using them if it's really worth the corps' time and money. And given the location and circumstances, C.R.E.A.M. Allegiance between corps and syndicates doesn't mean shit.
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I should imagine they would only use them in exceptional circumstances, In the 4e corporate guide it said even MCT didn't like to use Yakuza all that often.
exceptional circumstances ?
I thought thats what Shadowrunners are for ??!
HougH!
Medicineman
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I should imagine they would only use them in exceptional circumstances, In the 4e corporate guide it said even MCT didn't like to use Yakuza all that often.
exceptional circumstances ?
I thought thats what Shadowrunners are for ??!
HougH!
Medicineman
Damn Mob Scabs taking our Jobs!!!
Support your Independent Shadowrunner today!
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I should imagine they would only use them in exceptional circumstances, In the 4e corporate guide it said even MCT didn't like to use Yakuza all that often.
exceptional circumstances ?
I thought thats what Shadowrunners are for ??!
HougH!
Medicineman
Thats what I meant, usually they would hire shadowrunners, so they would only go to criminal syndicates in exceptional circumstances. e.g they need some runners with a lot of street cred dead, and cant risk going to any fixer in the city since they may warn the runners.
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e.g they need some runners with a lot of street cred dead, and cant risk going to any fixer in the city since they may warn the runners.
Than they'd hire Runners from another Plex ( which isquite usual for a Nation/Countrywide Megacon)
Who knows if those Runners-to-be-Geeked don't have any connection to the Mob themselves ;)
He who dances in many Megaplexes
Medicineman
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Ares – Mafia
Not really. Ares turns a blind eye to some smuggling in and around Detroit and the Great Lakes so long as the Mafia fucked with the Quebeçois. That hasn't really been an issue in a decade, and Quebec has its own organized crime concerns.
Hey Crimsondude, I've been meaning to ask: why does Ares use the Ciarnello family as hired muscle in Splintered State? Wouldn't they just throw a KE team together instead?
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Beats me. I had nothing to do with that.
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For the same reason Ares goes outside the company for anything else: they don't want the left hand to know what the right is doing. Brining in KE likely brings in other divisions within Ares, perhaps divisions from another faction within the company. Bringing in official sources means that there is going to be official paperwork that will be available to those with clearance to see it, including the other board members. This not only means the two (living) board members who hate eachother, but also Nadja Daviar, because even though her proxy is dead, she still is entitled to all the reports a seat on the board entitles her to. On the other hand, shadowrunners and crime families get paid out of the 'black' budget, that there are no files on. No connection to the company. And then there's the fact that you use the right tool for the right job. You don't cut a tree with a scalpel, and you don't do surgery with a chainsaw.
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Hell I always figured the only reason the organized crime guys don't incorporate is because the Corporate Court doesn't want any more competition. Particularly not from groups as cutthroat and nasty as the AAAs.
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One organized crime group did. They're currently called Aztechnology.
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One organized crime group did. They're currently called Aztechnology.
So THAT'S why there is not a Mafia, Inc. What was it from Snow Crash? Uncle Gino's Pizza?
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One organized crime group did. They're currently called Aztechnology.
So THAT'S why there is not a Mafia, Inc. What was it from Snow Crash? Uncle Gino's Pizza?
I found information in Sixth World Almanac and a couple others. But, basically, they were originally the ORO Corporation, which itself was three drug cartels banding together.
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I totally remembered ORO after you posted. I believe the Aztlan sourcebook goes into great detail.
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One of the Five Families is run as a corporation, and a consortium of mafioso own Franklin Associates, the firefighters in Seattle and elsewhere, among other things.
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Organized crime tends towards organization - which means all in all, there is a sort of business plan. It's just, y'know, criminal.
ORO formed when a bunch of cartels (not just three, though it was named after the initials of the last names of the leaders of three of the biggest) purchased a mineral development corporation, then used what was undoubtedly prior knowledge to 'discover' and then exploit a billion-dollar molybdenum find off the coast of Central America. That is what gave them the cash to jump into the big leagues; it'd be like, I dunno, New Moscow Oil Ltd. (owned by the Vory) purchasing the mineral rights to comparatively worthless land in the middle of Sibera and then, six months later, 'miraculously' discovering a lake of oil big enough to rival the Middle Eastern fields. Suddenly they're one of, if not the, top oil company in the world. And then the Vory have enough cash to basically buy the Russian government out from under Putin, withdraw from international copyright laws, rip off every intellectual property out there and sell them on the open market for pennies on the dollar. And then re-brand themselves as 'Rodina, Inc.' and become 'respectable'.
That said, the only reason that the major organized crime groups might be able to be rated as AA megacorporations - y'know, presuming you wanted to rate them - is because they're international. As has been pointed out time and time again in regards to the Yakuza and the top shareholders of MCT, the cash flow of all the Yakuza put together wouldn't make them a major division of a AAA megacorporation. And the Yaks are in a two-way tie for first for 'most dominant global criminal organization'. (No offense, but the Triads are maybe a distant third. Everyone else is essentially just a relatively local ethnic crime group.)
That said, I do like the breakdowns of 'who would use whom, presuming they would use them at all'. And Lofwyr would use pretty much any policlubs, not just Humanis.
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As far as the Japancorps are concerned, it should be noted that they grew out of the keiretsu and zaibatsu which when you boil it down are not so far removed from the tekiya who are one of the roots of the yakuza. That said I definitely agree with the fact that the item that differentiates organized criminals from the companies is that one side is much more open about the fact that their 'business' is illegal.
No offense, but the Triads are maybe a distant third.
That's just what they WANT You to think.
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Plus, just like any other corporation, if you become big enough to get noticed by the bigger corps, you are big enough to be taken over or destroyed by them.
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No offense, but the Triads are maybe a distant third.
That's just what they WANT You to think.
No, not really. See, what the two big OC groups in Shadowrun (and let me emphasize that: in Shadowrun) have in common with each other is something that the low-level groups simply don't - a capacity, a capability, to be flexible in regards to the people with whom they work, and of whom they accept into their midst. Ask yourself what it would take to get someone into your Group Of Choice. Both the Mafia and the Yakuza will give pretty much anyone work for years, allow you to be their gopher. If you prove your loyalty again and again and again (and again times about a zillion, but still), you can get made. Would it be easy? Oh, hell no. But it would be possible, eventually.
The Mafia of SR is composed of the original Sicilians, and the Irish, and the French, and the Algerians, and the Greeks, and a whole bunch of others who were never Italian in the first place. The Yakuza in SR may not currently include rengo of Koreans, or Native Americans, or etc., but they are in many ways (and in many places) slowly evolving the 'we don't accept nobody who ain't one of us already' thing into something that does permit The Other to become one of them, so long as The Other is loyal unto and beyond death.
Almost all, if not actually all, of the other crime groups are self-isolationist. They recruit and accept members from their own kind - Grey Wolves, Koshari, Seoulpa Rings, Vory v Zakone and the Triads as well. (Yes, I know that depending on the specific leader, the definition of 'our own kind' can sometimes be flexible, but it begins and ends with that leader. And yes, I know that the Vory and the Triads are counted as 'major' by the Vice book, etc. but neither has the sort of penetration that the Yaks or the Mob do.)
Another point is, simply, the level of violence intrinsic to their operations. The Mob and the Yaks can pull out the stops - and for them, those can be really big fraggin' stops. But they don't revert to it immediately the way the other, smaller, younger syndicates do. It is in part because of size, but it's also because of maturity and societal penetration. They focus less on overt violence - which gives tremendous leverage for a short period of time - and more on influence acquired by other means (financial, legal, whatever), which is leverage writ large and long. Any expansion of a smaller group outside of their personal zone in a major international-level sprawl like Seattle - Chinatown, a NAN enclave, the Russian zone - leads to that quiet influence being applied simultaneously with defensive stuff. Why put your head out where it can be blown off - or raise your profile so that the citizenry calls for your elimination - when you can simply nudge a councilman or two to get a block rezoned, buy out and demolish a warehouse, or refocus KE's attention on the upswing in violence in the target area?
The Triads remain violent. Their members can't even be questioned at length, which isolates them. And then there's the question of whether they see the civilians as protectees or prey ...