Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: Moonshine Fox on <08-31-15/1449:25>
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In a bout of idleness the other day I read through big D's will again and got to wondering. Has it ever been said anywhere what was behind the various doors that had rewards attached to them? Or were they simply left up to the DM to fill in?
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Depends on teh door. The one in teh Renraku Arcology, for instance, was in the Ultraviolet side of things in the Arcology's Matric.
The others, I don't think, have ever been publicly revealed.
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And even for that what was actually behind that door is a matter of debate like everything else in the shadows especially when it comes to the Big D's will. So even if we're explicitly told what was behind that door it could be propaganda from a rival Megacorp, Shadowrunners assuming the worst when a Megacorp is involved (and who could blame them), speculation based on incomplete information and/or miscommunication between factions that just can't get along. So have a ball, there are plenty of outs one can use if you have something you like better than what is considered "canon".
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Uh ... what was actually behind the Arcology 'door' (its existence being Matrix only) is not a matter of debate in the Real World, i.e. canon; it was a programmed-in point from which to observe the AEP for signs of AI emergence. While you can have confusion in your game, and are absolutely able to alter the canon of the SR world as it applies to your table, and while I'll admit to the in-world conversations being potentially confused, the canon on that one is pretty clear. Don't confuse crunch and fluff, both of which are canonical, with in-world writing, which can be error-laden, mutually exclusive, etc.
In regards to the one in the Aztechnology HQ in Tenochtitlan, it's been left open - but popular theory is that behind it is the lair of the 'Smoking Mirror', commonly believed to be a Horror-corrupted adult or great dragon, which is supposedly pulling the majority of the strings behind Aztechnology.
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Uh ... what was actually behind the Arcology 'door' (its existence being Matrix only) is not a matter of debate in the Real World, i.e. canon; it was a programmed-in point from which to observe the AEP for signs of AI emergence. While you can have confusion in your game, and are absolutely able to alter the canon of the SR world as it applies to your table, and while I'll admit to the in-world conversations being potentially confused, the canon on that one is pretty clear. Don't confuse crunch and fluff, both of which are canonical, with in-world writing, which can be error-laden, mutually exclusive, etc.
In regards to the one in the Aztechnology HQ in Tenochtitlan, it's been left open - but popular theory is that behind it is the lair of the 'Smoking Mirror', commonly believed to be a Horror-corrupted adult or great dragon, which is supposedly pulling the majority of the strings behind Aztechnology.
My apologies I seem to have gotten those two doors mixed up, I thought there was only the one door that was explained and even then there was some confusion about exactly what was behind it and the other one we straight up don't know and it was assumed to involve blood magic because it's Aztechonology and they didn't meet an excuse to use blood magic they didn't like.
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Has Smoking Mirror been revealed or left to rot by the authors?
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There's also a door in an S-K facility in Berlin mentioned in the will, but that hasn't been explained either.
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There's also a door in an S-K facility in Berlin mentioned in the will, but that hasn't been explained either.
At least, not in anything published yet.
<.<
>.>
*ninja smokepuff*
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Has Smoking Mirror been revealed or left to rot by the authors?
'Left to rot' as much as anything else concerning Aztechnology.
Consider that unless the PTB are going to take AZT out permanently, there really is no percentage in revealing who the Big Bad Behind It All is.
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Well, Aztechnology could be the corp going down via Lockdown. If this turns out to be the case, well, it'd be rude to not fill in some gaps, I'd think.
We'll see!
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I doubt that the Azzies are going to go down ever, at least not until the metaplot reaches the point that the Horrors come rushing across the mana spike. Behind the scenes, they serve too well as a Big Bad. In-universe, Aztechnology has so many fingers in so many pies and is just so damn large that actually taking them down would require a massive amount of firepower and manpower. You'd need the backing of the Corporate Court to begin with, and probably a couple of great dragons backing them up to make sure it gets done.
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Has Smoking Mirror been revealed or left to rot by the authors?
'Left to rot' as much as anything else concerning Aztechnology.
Consider that unless the PTB are going to take AZT out permanently, there really is no percentage in revealing who the Big Bad Behind It All is.
From Dawn Of The Artifacts: Midnight, page 7
"he Smoking Mirror is the dark, hidden secret of the popular public worship of Tezcatlipoca in Aztlan. While Tezcatlipoca has his own temples and his priests are major players in both Aztlan and Aztechnology, the Smoking Mirror cult is the stuff of rumors and nightmares. It’s said that the high-ranking priests are all blood mages. Some rumors even place high-ranking cult members at the highest level of Aztechnology. The most frightening of rumors are those that hint that the priests follow the dark god Tezcatlipoca made flesh, a living god who directs their every move …"
The primary antagonist of the adventure, Itztli (detailed on page 53), is also a member of this cult. Beyond that, I'll go with what Wyrm said.
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While I have a hard time seeing it happen, it would be interesting if the Azzie's fell. Considering it's a not-so-secret secret that the Horrors have them in hand, who would they pick to be their new representatives.
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Here's an interesting trick for all aspiring writers.
Take a look at yoru cast. The supporting people, the leads, the antagonists, each and every one.
Then ask yourself, "What would happen if they suddenly died?"
The method of death can matter (A shooting vs a heart attack, for instance, will drive different stories), but how would the death effect everyone else and what would it do with plots?
Because, let me tell you, if Aztechnology's the one y'all pick to go down, there's a whole lot of stories that can come out of that. What happens to Aztlan? Is there a refugee crisis? Who takes their place in magical goods? What happens with the horrors? Do we get to see the possibly-corrupted-dragon that's been rumored for decades? WIll they take anyone down with them?
Mind you, I had to go a step further and figure out *how* we could kill these guys. If the players chose Shiawase, who has a 'Golden Ticket', how would that even be possible? (Working out the ripples that the death of Shiawase would cause is also huge .. if the First Mega goes down, who's really safe?) ... What about Saeder-Krupp? Wuxing? NeoNET? Ares? If we snuffed out Horizon, would anyone even care?
Some megas are easy to find ways to kill off, while others are much, much harder. There're a few backdoors that were slipped into assorted products just in case, tho. Nobody's safe. Fuchi collapsed. Big D was elected president and then exploded. FatsJack lost his mind. Novatech and Cross both vanished due to teh Crash, and took Deus, Morgan, Mirage, and Alice with them. We can, and will, kill *anyone* if the story demands it. Yes, even them.
Hell, the Dragon CIvil War could very well have ended with *Lofwyr* dead, despite how angry it would have made the (rather large!) German playerbase.
Ain't nobody safe.
If you want to try it as an excercise, feel free! What would happen if Damien Knight died, or Johnny Spinrad, or Empress HItomi, or Lone Star. It could very well happen. The question then becomes, "Would it be interesting?"
Dunklezhan was neat, but after he died, he became HUGE. We're *still* drawing plots from his will, what, 15, almost 20 years later? He's VASTLY more useful as a corpse than he ever was alive. Would MCT or Evo be the same?
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That's part of what I was driving at. Aztechnology isn't just a megacorp that can be divvied up or swallowed whole like Fuchi or CATCo. They're an actual nation, with a general populace and an army and borders and everything else that goes along with that. I know that each AAA is basically like a parceled-out country on its own, yes, but none of them command an area or populace as large as Aztechnology does. You literally can't tear down one unless you take out the other, which is why the Azzies are safe from destruction. With their magical might and numbers, the amount of force needed to tear them down would be almost global at this point.
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Au contraire. Aztechnology, because of its base, makes it easier to nail to the wall -- you have a specified target. It's a lot more difficult if the greater majority of your activities is primarily economic warfare; when you can engage your opponent so blatantly in all-out 'screw you and the caballo you rode in on', throwing tanks, fighter jets, carrier groups, and Thor shots into all-out physical war on their primary holdings, with black/shadow operatives taking care of taking their 'excessive options' off the board, the comparatively-more-delicate economic conflict is less difficult.
Much of Aztlan, given the chance, would be willing to be not-part-of-Aztechnology; ask all the Catholics who are persecuted, and those who kowtow to the Corporate State Religion in order to 'get along' and move up the ladder. Would it require an Omega Order? Well, sure, but it'd require that of any corporation which didn't either a) self-implode (Fuchi) or b) lose its main driving force in the middle of a major cataclysmic computer crash (CATCo, despite how much I despise them). So if / when you can cut Aztechnology away from Aztlan, you'll start to have an easier time of it. But only start to, because it's still a AAA-rated corporation, and it's still going to be a tough fight, just like every other megacorporation.
Aztechnology going down, though, sure would make the streets a hell of a lot darker and meaner.
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If we're talking about who's going to fall from Lockdown... well NeoNET are the obvious choice since Boston IS their hometown and location of their global headquarters, of all the AAAs they would be the easiest to go down from the Lockdown. What would that mean? Well, NeoNET hold a lot of the keys to the wireless Matrix, as well as being up to their eyeballs in the CFD mess... there's a LOT of dreck that could fly around hitting everyone if they go down.
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Aztechnology survived an Omega Order. I think they are the only ones to do that. Aztechnology defeated two dragons. Aztechnology is providing like half the food in the world. They put out the most optical chips. You could irrefutably prove that Aztechnology is the Devil and the vast majority of the world would pause for a moment to stare at their soyburger and then go right back to watching their trideo. Aztechnology going down makes no sense. If they did go down halve the world population would go down with them. It's like saying the inverse Rapture happened (or actual Rapture if you follow the White Hat Aztlan theory).
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You know, I was just thinking about how other megas went down. Particularly Fuchi... Fuchi was a mega by way of owning JRJ International. Novatech picked that up to stay Mega. Then NeoNET picked it up. It never really went down, just changed form. Yamatetsu became EVO, BMW became Saeder Krupp. Even Aztechnology used to be ORO. Anyway, that just got me thinking that taking down Aztechnology doesn't need to mean removing it from the playing field, it could simply mean changing it as a plot device...
I just mentioned the White Hat Aztlan Theory. Basically, it goes like this. There is something WORSE out there and Aztechnology is preparing us for it, like inoculating for the flu. Aztlan is the bad guy the same way that Thera was the bad guy in Earthdawn. They fricken' saved everyone's lives with the Rites of Protection and somehow they are the bad guys. Aztechnology being 'evil' stems largely from Dunkelzahn and Harlequin saying so. But if you presuppose that a dragon named Black Fang and an immortal elf have their own agenda, you can see how their opinions might be a bit biased.
That brings me to how to take down Aztechnology... They don't go down, they have their hand forced and reveal that they were the good guys all along. As much as Dunkelzahn claimed that he was protecting us from The Enemy and Blood Magic, he kept it secret from the general populace... and used blood magic himself. So, Aztechnology reveals that whole old secret plot about the Horrors and then roll out their line of defensive technology that they have been developing to fight these evil spirits for decades.
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Aztechnology survived an Omega Order. I think they are the only ones to do that. Aztechnology defeated two dragons. Aztechnology is providing like half the food in the world. They put out the most optical chips. You could irrefutably prove that Aztechnology is the Devil and the vast majority of the world would pause for a moment to stare at their soyburger and then go right back to watching their trideo. Aztechnology going down makes no sense. If they did go down halve the world population would go down with them. It's like saying the inverse Rapture happened (or actual Rapture if you follow the White Hat Aztlan theory).
Not an actual Omega Order. More of ... hrm. A Theta Order? It's as close as anyone's gotten thusfar. Of course, you could *see* an Omega Order in the future...
The Azzies beat *one* dragon, Sirrurg, and might have had help with that ... note that when he went for his Limit Break in the big fight, his magic backfired and turned inwards instead of killing everyone in a 10 Kilometer radius. Not that any Azzie will ever *admit* that it was anything but their cutting-edge MilTech, of course. :) In the process, their food production was *devastated*, losing their primary food production zone (NatVat), and suffering a blight across their own crops that turned them into a desperate food *importer*.
They're not happy campers just now, but are putting on a nice show to keep people distracted from that.
Speaking of distraction! Everyone in Boston is looking to pin the whole mess on a mega other than itself. Does it really matter who *was* guilty if someone pops up with proof of who *is* guilty?
*peers at Lockdown*
Boy, some of teh bribes being waved at player characters were awfully large. Wonder how many Shadowrunners would do something immoral in order to get a bigger paycheck?
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I believe an actual Omega order was issued on another minor (A, maaaaaybe AA) corporation. The 'Theta Order' is the Ensenada strike, and it was more along the lines of the corporate court giving Aztechnology a 'warning shot across the bow': "Play nice or we'll wax you like a brand new Lamborghini." As Danchekker showed, however, taking out a major megacorporation (he was after Novatech, but any of the other Big 10 are applicable) was less a matter of doing it completely on your own than it is prying apart your economic structure - and once blood is in the water, the rest of the sharks come a-feeding.
This means that in at least 80% of the cases, the corporations and facilities that make up Aztechnology simply won't have AZT on the door or in the ledger books any more - they'll have S-K, or ARES, or EVO, or MCT, or Yakashima, or any of a couple hundred different corporations that would quite willingly take a bite out of the AZT, or snap up any scraps floating in the water.
For the sake of clarity, however, in regards to the other examples offered:
Fuchi / Novatech / NeoNET: JRJ International was never 'picked up' - it was a quiet internal transfer by the primary (and, technically, constant) owner, Richard Villiers, from Fuchi Americas to Novatech. That transfer, when Villiers made Novatech public, allowed Villiers to a) swipe a corporate court member from Fuchi (as one is permanently assigned to JRJ-or-its-parent-corporation) and therefore b) become a AAA megacorp by default. When Novatech pulled the IPO and wound up merging with Erika and Transys Neuronet, the new corporation (NeoNET, literally 'New Novatech-Erika-Transys') became the parent - though you can bet your toes that Villiers remains the overwhelming shareholder of JRJ International.
BMW --> Saeder-Krupp, ORO --> Aztechnology, Yamatetsu --> EVO: naming conventions, though only the first two are permanent, non-disenfranchiseable members. Keruba got bought out by Renraku (I may be wrong on this, since for this moment I'm relying on the Wiki, which clearly hasn't been thoroughly updated in years), which means Renraku is theoretically in the same position as NeoNET - Keruba being theoretically vulnerable to being bought out from underneath them, though I somehow also remember this as being incorrect; Keruba --> Renraku was, I thought, just a name change, but like I said, I could be wrong.
As for White-Hat Aztechnology, well, here's the thing: if given the devil as proven (AZT being 'shown as being the devil'), if you figure that people are going to shrug their shoulders at that, they're going to do the same thing on AZT's big reveal to prove they aren't bad guys - which is to say, 'yeah, right, whatever'. And in truth, it's exactly that which would backfire on them - because they're making weapons against bad things that they claim are going to come across in two hundred or five hundred or a thousand years, at the earliest. People will say, 'Oh, yeah, right, pull the other one. Here, have a bullet to the head.' Basically, you can't have it both ways.
And since there's no evidence, either with the IC fluff, the OOC fluff, or the crunch, that Aztechnology is doing what the 'White Hat Aztechnology' theory suggests, and in fact every single piece of evidence is a full and direct indicator of the opposite - that the PTB at the AZT are in fact trying to suck up to the super-nasty-bads in order to be 'off the menu' - it really kinda looks like the WHAZT theory has nothin' but hot air and sweet rainbow-farting unicorn wishes behind it. :/ Sorry. Remember - 'out-of-game-world' means there isn't an 'unreliable narrator' issue; facts is facts.
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I think it comes down to whether or not you think Samuel Colt is a hero.
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Ironically, the Azzies DO have in their possession Rainbow Farting Unicorns.
Unfortunately, they have already weaponized (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU8wakfv3N0) them. ;D
So... yeah
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I think it comes down to whether or not you think Samuel Colt is a hero.
... and once again, we have to wonder what life is like out in the soy-bean field past the bleachers, because you sure as hell ain't on the baseball field like the rest of us. If you want to get taken seriously, Joe, you really need to not throw off some sort of non sequitur that you think is somehow apropos without, y'know, pretending (or being) pretentious and not drawing the parallels. Get with the rest of us.
And Sendaz ...
... I will track you down, and I will hurt you. Badly. :P
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Samuel Colt made the handgun available to the masses, essentially letting them control their own destiny rather than forcing them to rely on someone else to protect them. Samuel Colt is either a hero like Prometheus for giving fire to Man, or a villain, like Prometheus for giving Fire to Man.
Dunkelzahn was keeping the Horrors hidden away because he didn't think we could handle it. I'm suggesting that Aztechnology is actively working on means to fight the Horrors rather than hiding from them. Aztechnology is the new Colt.
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Well, your conspiracy theory would certainly be helped if you were able to provide proof - whether fiction, in-game in-character suspicion, in-game fluff text suggestion, or out-of-game straight-out facts, all of which would have to be canonical (i.e. actually parts of SR books) - that Aztechnology was doing that, as compared to the myriad sources that state that Aztechnology is, in fact, attempting to collude with the Horrors, bring them across early, etc.
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Samuel Colt made the handgun available to the masses, essentially letting them control their own destiny rather than forcing them to rely on someone else to protect them. Samuel Colt is either a hero like Prometheus for giving fire to Man, or a villain, like Prometheus for giving Fire to Man.
Dunkelzahn was keeping the Horrors hidden away because he didn't think we could handle it. I'm suggesting that Aztechnology is actively working on means to fight the Horrors rather than hiding from them. Aztechnology is the new Colt.
Uhm, Dunkelzahn did a LOT more then simply hide the horrors because he (rightly) figured we couldn't handle them or would try to ally with them. He sacrificed his own life and then bound his spirit with a massively powerful artifact and a cyberzombie shell in order to patrol the boarders of astral space, smoothing out mana spikes that would let the horrors come over sooner. The main spike of the Great Ghost Dance almost was a bridge in direct help of an AZT blood mage cabal. Big D's spirit (renamed Lethe at that point since what he did cost him most of his memory) took direct hand in throwing the horrors back and shattering the bridge.
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And to be entirely correct, Dunkelzahn wanted to talk about what was coming. Harlequin talked him out of it.
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This brings us to the Dunkelzahn is a Jerk Hypothesis. This is along the lines of Superdickery... don't go there if you have work to do. Dunkelzahn's Will has dozens of things that prove he was a dick. I can point out the Dickery from his first encounter in the Sixth World. Where was he found? Where was his lair? Whose lair was in proximity to where Dunkelzahn was first found? Dunk was caught red handed looting another dragon's lair and then spun it as a media event.
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Jerks don't commit suicide to save the world from an impending apocalypse.
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Jerks dupe the population into voting for them, just so they can access the magical power accessible from the Name President of the UCAS. Then, rather than fulfilling campaign promises fakes a murder, uses blood magic, and takes a bunch of people with him into an astral rift.
Now as far as committing suicide for the greater good, I'll just point at any number of suicide bombers and get this thread locked.
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Dunkelzahn was a charasmatic, nice dragon.
He was also a successful great dragon. Inhuman, powerful (and a running theme in Shadowrun is about how power corrupts), used to maneuvers centuries long in the making, against those used to that and more.
Nice, charismatic, winning of the hearts of the UCAS. Just like successful corporate spokesmen everywhere.
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Jerks dupe the population into voting for them, just so they can access the magical power accessible from the Name President of the UCAS. Then, rather than fulfilling campaign promises fakes a murder, uses blood magic, and takes a bunch of people with him into an astral rift.
Now as far as committing suicide for the greater good, I'll just point at any number of suicide bombers and get this thread locked.
I didn't say anything about "the greater good." I said "impending apocalypse." Big difference.
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This brings us to the Dunkelzahn is a Jerk Hypothesis. This is along the lines of Superdickery... don't go there if you have work to do. Dunkelzahn's Will has dozens of things that prove he was a dick. I can point out the Dickery from his first encounter in the Sixth World. Where was he found? Where was his lair? Whose lair was in proximity to where Dunkelzahn was first found? Dunk was caught red handed looting another dragon's lair and then spun it as a media event.
I addition to what Red_Cap said, you can't apply metahuman standards of jerkiness to him easily because he was a fragging DRAGON!!! They tend to have a different set of rules and values then we do. Yeah, there was some jerk things in his will, but if you read these entries, it sounds like those people deserved it. A lot more of it was granting wishes and issuing SINs and encuragment for tech and mystic developments or to push people in directions that he thought would be good for them (ie, the chess set). He also paid back a debt with LOTS of interest from a debt that could have been as far back as the 4th age. He tried to do right by the world at large, not just his race like other dragons might.
He didn't fake a murder, he did kill himself. Also, show me where he used mystic associations with the presidental legacy for extra power. He used the power that could only be gained from his own death at that point in the awakening. I think he even lamented that the issue came to a head quicker then he had thought as the Songbird wasen't holding back the horrors like she had in the past due to the aformentioned AZT blood magic cabal corrupting the astral area around her. It's debatable if he know that his death would rip open the rift or cause the deaths it did, but he could have seen those deaths as a sad cost of saving Billions of other lives. Needs of the many and all that, and not even dragons know all there is to know about magic in the 6th age.
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Re: 4th World Debt. There is no proof that the debt existed. Dunkelzahn gave a very large sum of money to an unstable man with a grudge against Richard Villiers. The end result was a lot of deaths and chaos.
Re: the power of the President of the UCAS. A 4th World magic technique came from something called Naming. When you give something a Name you give it power. The Name "The President of the UCAS" has a lot of power. By becoming the President, he gained access to that power. Check the Will. Is it feasible that he included all of the specific dates and instructions if he did not have plans for suiciding when he did? He could have implemented his plan at any time, but he waited until just after he was inaugurated. He needed the extra power from the UCAS to implement his plan.
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Or he wanted to be inaugurated as an example of how humanity can let non-humans take office and all that. He was a big, shining star for the whole equal rights thing. He could easily have gone 'well, I need to sacrifice myself, but may as well do something good along the way...'
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I always love listening to you, CitJoe. I wonder how many other devs read you for ideas for Plan 9.
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I really need to get the whole theory published. I just don't time right now due to work.
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Fuchi / Novatech / NeoNET: JRJ International was never 'picked up' - it was a quiet internal transfer by the primary (and, technically, constant) owner, Richard Villiers, from Fuchi Americas to Novatech. That transfer, when Villiers made Novatech public, allowed Villiers to a) swipe a corporate court member from Fuchi (as one is permanently assigned to JRJ-or-its-parent-corporation) and therefore b) become a AAA megacorp by default. When Novatech pulled the IPO and wound up merging with Erika and Transys Neuronet, the new corporation (NeoNET, literally 'New Novatech-Erika-Transys') became the parent - though you can bet your toes that Villiers remains the overwhelming shareholder of JRJ International.
While the sourcebooks do refer to an arrangement that make JRJ International a subsidiary of Neonet and a personal holding of Richard Villiers, it is the financial equivalent of a 30-tons flying lizard: it can be written in a sourcebook, but it's nonetheless not actually possible without magic. The very definition of subsidiary status requires majority ownership. If Neonet doesn't own a majority of JRJ stock, it's not a subsidiary (and thus it doesn't receive its AAA rating). If JRJ owns a majority of JRJ stock, then Richard Villiers is not "personnally owning it".
What's possible is Villiers having stock options that allow him to take JRJ control back in a snap.
BMW --> Saeder-Krupp, ORO --> Aztechnology, Yamatetsu --> EVO: naming conventions
BMW still appears as a subsidiary of the Saeder-Krupp group. How the group was actually restructured to form Saeder-Krupp is not clear (Corporate Shadowfiles and Corporate Guide don't even agree if it happened under Michel Beloit or Lofwyr). Indeed, they would have been silly not to keep the founding prime megacorporation as the head company and rename it.
They could have done it because they intended the company to remain headquartered in Germany. Fuchi or Renraku could not do it because they were Japanese companies who took over respectively an US and a Slovenian company.
Although it doesn't have any significant consequence, this also applies to Yamatetsu/Evo. Evo is Yamatetsu renamed. But Yamatetsu is not Yamatetsu. That is, there is a Yamatetsu company incorporated in Russia who is legally a different company from the Yamatetsu company incorporated in Japan.
I hear you say "They are extraterritorial megacorporation. Where they are headquartered doesn't matter. They are their own country." It actually does (besides, no, they are not countries). Megacorporations can write their own law to apply to their employees and inside their facilities. But shareholders are not employees. They own the megacorporation. A CEO cannot "revoke" shareholders he doesn't like. Damien Knight would have done it a long time ago if he could ; even Aztechnology could not legally remove Oliver McLure from its board. Besides, megacorporation also are shareholders themselves, and they likely don't want their subsidiaries to be able to "secede" from the parent company. The entire megacorporate system relies on ownership rights. Shareholder ownership is established by the laws of the land a corporation was incorporated in. That makes the country megacorporation are headquartered in important.
There are rules so that the extraterritorial privileges granted by the Corporate Court extend to parent companies and subsidiaries. But each of those are distinct legal persons. And the Fuchi/JRJ case shows that those rules nonetheless strictly prevent founding status to be transfered (otherwise, their lawyers would have it done).
So the Corporate Court acknowledges for instance Keruba of Slovenia as one of its founding member, a company incorporated under Slovanian laws. Keruba/Renraku can incorporate "Keruba" companies all over the world and transfer them ownership of the group, only the company in Slovenia (whatever its name may now be) has a founding status.
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The distinction between an AA corp and an AAA corp is that AAA corps *control* a seat on the Corporate Court. The seven founding companies have permanent seats. Ares, Shiawase, Mitsuhama, ORO, Keruba, BMW, JRJ. If you control one of those companies, even if that company is just a holding company, you control who it puts in the seat. And since you control that, you are therefore a AAA CORP. They aren't otherwise fundamentally different from an AA corp.
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The distinction between an AA corp and an AAA corp is that AAA corps *control* a seat on the Corporate Court. The seven founding companies have permanent seats. Ares, Shiawase, Mitsuhama, ORO, Keruba, BMW, JRJ. If you control one of those companies, even if that company is just a holding company, you control who it puts in the seat. And since you control that, you are therefore a AAA CORP. They aren't otherwise fundamentally different from an AA corp.
Each AAA megacorp also owns an equal percentage of the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank.
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Though it's arguable that if you can acquire a justice, you're automatically worthy of a right to that equal (up to 1/13th) percentage of the ZOG. Of course, this really does mean that there is a fundamental difference between a AA-rated corporation and a AAA-rated megacorporation - the ability to influence the most powerful of your peers into acknowledging your equality with them. And that's something that, so far, only a very exclusive number of corporations outside of the Starting Seven have managed to do ...
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One thing that bugs me is that they HAD seven members. That means no ties in voting. But then they went to 8... and then, instead on 9, they jumped to 10. It's like they want hung huries.
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... which is why they have 13 justices. They will never have a tie, because at this level, no justice is going to abstain. And from time to time, even if one corporation possesses multiple justices, they may just split their vote onto either side of the issue at hand. Do you ever actually read the source material?
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Each AAA megacorp also owns an equal percentage of the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank.
Refering to percentage is an unnecessary complication. The Zurich-Orbital Gemeinshaft Bank actually issued just one share to each AAA megacorporation. It's a stock that cannot be split, and cannot be traded anyway. The complete illiquidity of a share accounting for one tenth of trillions of nuyen in assets is thus not an issue.
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Percentage did matter when the Big Eight had to dilute their 12.5% stakes to 10% to account for CATCo's and Wuxing's ascendance in the 2060s.
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... which is why they have 13 justices. They will never have a tie, because at this level, no justice is going to abstain. And from time to time, even if one corporation possesses multiple justices, they may just split their vote onto either side of the issue at hand. Do you ever actually read the source material?
Well that's not really anything I've heard of, mainly because I'm still new to the game.
Chill the frag out, not everyone has been playing since the start, not everyone has access to or read every single source book.
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... which is why they have 13 justices. They will never have a tie, because at this level, no justice is going to abstain. And from time to time, even if one corporation possesses multiple justices, they may just split their vote onto either side of the issue at hand. Do you ever actually read the source material?
Well that's not really anything I've heard of, mainly because I'm still new to the game.
Chill the frag out, not everyone has been playing since the start, not everyone has access to or read every single source book.
It mostly stems from it's origins, I believe, from the original US Supreme Court which historically has always had an odd number of Justices to avoid a case where there's a deadlock because they can't get a majority, they just added Justices due to their being more Megacorps but the odd Justice rule was kept.
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... which is why they have 13 justices. They will never have a tie, because at this level, no justice is going to abstain. And from time to time, even if one corporation possesses multiple justices, they may just split their vote onto either side of the issue at hand. Do you ever actually read the source material?
Well that's not really anything I've heard of, mainly because I'm still new to the game.
Chill the frag out, not everyone has been playing since the start, not everyone has access to or read every single source book.
If you were the one who was being spoken to - by which I mean to say if you'd been the one who had posted immediately previous to my post, or even if you'd posted at all in this thread - then you might have a right to talk as you did in your second sentence. You aren't, you didn't, you therefore pretty much don't. Since you're still new to the game, though, I don't expect you to have even known that the megacorporations were originally 7 members; while the number of justices is discussed in places other than just the corporation sourcebooks, I'll concede that it's possibly obscure.
However, the person I was talking to - still not you, note - HAS claimed to have read the material, hence my irritation and contempt. If you insist on injecting yourself into the middle of a conversation and taking umbrage at things not addressed to you, however, you might need a raincoat. Or armor. Because this 'I'm a newbie, cut me some slack' excuse goes right away the moment you start acting like this.
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I would like to point out that regardless of your phrasing, when I puzzled about 8 justices and hung juries it prompted new information educating us in something that apparently isn't public knowledge. So kudos to me for teaching something new. And thanks to Wyrm for his marginal assistance.
Now as a followup, if ten justices are appointed by each of the big ten, how are the last three appointed?
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This is where it gets fun.
According to Corporate Download pg 21, each Justice sits for a six and a half year stretch unless recalled by their corp who usually shoot the fragger if they have screwed up that badly to require a recall. Due to the staggering, there is normally an election every six month.
There is a special commission that is made up of 2 reps from each of the Big 10 that gets to vote on the new Justice being put forward by their corp.
So Corp A may submit their candidate, but the commission still gets to vote on whether that particular person get to fill the spot or not.
However the votes are not as simple as 1 rep=1 vote. Oh no, rather they use a complex formula based on all sort of details to 'weigh' that vote so a more prosperous Mega's vote will carry more weight than a less powerful one.
Plus you there is a clause that specifically protects the original 7 from ever losing their last seat on the Court (edit)so if it's the Azzies only spot on the CC only they could put forward a candidate for that slot-though again the commission could still reject that specific candidate and require another from the corp, though it would have to be a real whack job like Mr. Darke to get turned down I would imagine since messing around like that by the other corps will be remembered when time comes for their own justices comes up for election(/edit).
Plus since this clause only extends to the original seven, that does mean a company like Wuxing could potentially lose their seat and hence their AAA status, since being AAA is dependant on their holding a place on the CC. Fun no?
So right now Ares I believe still has two justices sitting, though that may well have changed, but that is where your extras are coming from.
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Everything in the books is 'public knowledge', CitJoe, and you didn't do a damn thing except express your contempt for what you saw as being SR's stupidity. Stop breaking your arm trying to pat yourself on the back for 'teaching something new' with the someone else who actually taught the information 'giving marginal assistance'.
Justices are selected, as I recall, every six months, meaning that a judge's appointment lasts for six and a half years. If the judge 'lost' belongs to one of the Founding 7 but that's the only judge they have on the board, the judge has to be appointed out of that corporation. If not - whether it's a Founding 7's second judge, or if it's a judge belonging to a corporation that is NOT of the Founding 7 - it may be appointed (by the rest of the court, I think, but I'd need to double-check that one) to any other corporation. If it's appointed to a corporation that's not already represented on the board, that corporation automatically gains AAA status, and is assigned an equal share of the ZOG Bank. (Which DOES make money, as well as having other benefits for the corporations, like very large, very-low-interest loans.)
EDIT: Sendaz gives a more complete version. :) Thanks, Sendaz!!
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You'll probably see more about the way the court operates, including getting judges, and an updated composition of who those judges are in the next corporate book. That's kinda the place for that kind of thing after all. :)
Which reminds me! I need to set up a poll...
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Percentage did matter when the Big Eight had to dilute their 12.5% stakes to 10% to account for CATCo's and Wuxing's ascendance in the 2060s.
I did not say percentage doesn't matter. I said they're an unnecessary complication. The Big Eight diluted their one eighth stake to a one ninth stake by electing Wuxing candidate in 2059, then to one tenth by electing Cross Applied Technologies' candidate in 2060.
Percentage are a convenient way to quickly give people an idea of how votes and dividends split. In fact, they actually really don't matter, because shareholders votes and dividends are always calculated according to the actual total number of shares, and not some numbers artificially rounded up or down.
While that made no difference there was the Big Eight or the Big Ten, it was when they were the Bigh Seven or the Big Nine because 14.28571428...% and 11.11111111...% are not practical numbers for calculus. While referring to them as holding a one seventh, one eight, one ninth or one tenth stake is equally convenient to quickly give people an idea of how votes and dividents split. That's possible because Zurich-Orbital Gemeinshaft Bank have such a low number of shares (as opposed to regular corporations, whose number of shares rather are something like 5,805,840,028).
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Depends on the corporation; depends on the shares.
Berkshire Hathaway A: 1.635 million shares outstanding. Trades at around $200,000 per share. Receives no dividends, does not split.
Berkshire Hathaway B: 2.453 billion shares outstanding. Trades at around $130 per share. Receives dividends, may split.
WalMart: 3.206 billion shares outstanding.
Etc. In my modification of the corporation trackers from previous corporate books, I built S-K like Berkshire Hathaway - you can invest, even get dividends, but Lofwyr owns the vast majority of the 'Saeder-Krupp A' shares (as in 99.999% - he gives a share or two to people as personal rewards), which means he's the one that calls the shots no matter what; even a unified vote of the S-K.B shareholders can't oust him. Aztechnology has a similar, but not identical, scheme ...
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Those are preferred shares. They get dividends paid out first, but have no voting power.
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In case anyone couldn't translate CitJoe's referenceless statement, he's talking about the Berkshire Hathaway B issue.
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Preferred Shares is a common practice in corporations. If you're asserting that there are only 8 or 10 or 13 shares of Z-O Bank, I don't believe it. I would believe 13 voting shares and bazillion of preferred shares.
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It is a funnier animal than you might think as from the corporate guide pg 31 we have this:
The Z-OG Bank is controlled lock, stock, and barrel by the
Big Ten. The fact that they own equal shares in the bank is one of
the greatest incentives there is to keeping the Big Ten at ten—back
when Cross and Wuxing joined the world’s most exclusive club,
the members of the then-Big Eight all lost a little bit of influence
in the Z-OG Bank, since they had to share it with two other
shareholders. So while the Big Ten coordinate together to promote
their efforts through the Corporate Court and the Z-OG Bank,
none of them ever forget that they’d have even more power if one
of their compatriots fell by the wayside.
The Z-OG Bank is organized to keep everyone involved and
a little bit hungry. There are only nine seats on Z-OGB’s board
of directors (the holders of those seats are collectively known as
the “Gnomes”); each director represents one mega, and each of
them serves a nine-year term. That means that someone’s term
ends every year. When that happens, the corp that person was
representing takes a year off from board membership, rejoining
at the beginning of the following year. Currently, Ares is suffering
through a year off of the board; next year, Wuxing takes the trip
to purgatory. Corporations live in continual dread of the year off,
and they are making plans on how to endure it from the moment
their nine-year term starts. Then they spend the year off frantically
making plans for the next nine-year period so their board member
can hit the ground running.
The board is selected by the Big Ten CEOs themselves.
During their time on the board, they collect two salaries; one from
their parent corp, one from the Z-OG Bank. In theory, this makes
directors continually remember to balance their loyalties between
their corp and the bank. In practice, this makes a position on the
board even more coveted than it would otherwise be, meaning
those who make it to the top are cutthroat survivors. On the plus
side, the high level of compensation makes the directors fairly
resistant to bribery, which is important to the CEOs.
In many ways it is a modern verison of the kieretsu model albeit in a bit looser organization, interlinking the corps and the Z-OG.
So can the common Joe (no pun intended CJ) on the street buy stock in Z-OG?
I don't think so... he is part of the system everytime he uses nuyen to purchase things as well as his account might be with Z-OG or other banks, but not as a shareholder since Z-OG does not need to have anyone outside of the corps as shareholders and they are also virtually printing money, so they are both Bank and Mint rolled into one.
Plus do not forget Z-OG actually buys and sells other companies stocks as well, like the time Miles Lanier sold out his shares in Renraku to Z-OG at below market price just to mess with the big red R, so it has considerable powers by itself.
But I could be wrong and maybe Nath can shed some light on this as he does have a better grasp than I for all things financial in-game.
Edit: dug a bit further back and in Corporate download pg 23 they mention how Global Financial Services, the forerunner of Z-OG, was basically handling the majority of money transactions by the Big Seven and how precarious this was if this were to fall apart so they convinced the corps to basically hand it all over to the CC so as to ensure a balance to inter-megacorp power and to prop up the CC authority and this would become the Z-OG we know and love today. No mention is made of shares/stocks during this transition beyond it all being handed over to the CC, so it could be there are type B sort of stocks but they never seem to be mentioned anywhere.
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Actually, Lanier was forced to sell his shares (at below-market price) as part of the settlement agreement that 'turned him over to Fuchi' for corporate espionage; he didn't do it just to mess with Renraku. Afterwards, it's undoubted that Renraku and/or its board were required to buy the shares from the ZOG, probably at market price, which just goes to show that they make money coming and going.
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But wasn't that actually more of a parachute out that Villiers and Lanier had ready to use once their own little search & sabotage operation to find out the source of Renraku's recent breakthroughs and possibly undermine whatever it was had run it's course?
"My stock in Renraku has always been worthless," Lanier said. "Renraku should
have been smart enough to stay where it was instead of trying to mess with the top-tier corporations."
Saigo raised an eyebrow and a slow smile dawned on his face. "So that's it,
eh? You still hold some loyalty to your former employers at Fuchi. I am
surprised, Lanier-san. You are not the honorless mercenary I thought you were.
My compliments. I originally suspected that your falling out with Villiers was
anything but genuine, but you convinced me otherwise. Those attempts on your
life made by Fuchi after your appointment to the Renraku board were ... most
convincing."
"They were meant to be."
"And Villiers allowed you to give Renraku information on Fuchi operations
simply to improve your alibi."
"Sacrifice a few pawns to capture the king," Lanier said. He didn't mention
that those Fuchi operations had most belonged to the Yamana and Nakatomi
families, who were arrayed against Villiers as well. By leaking information on
them to Renraku through Lanier, Villiers was killing two birds with one stone.
"All to allow you the opportunity to infiltrate Renraku and discover the
secret of the rapid growth threatening Fuchi's bottom line. Only you seem to
have discovered more than you bargained for."
Plus Lanier turns himself in to Fuchi forces, Renraku did not get to hand him over.
Edit: Though afterwards I am sure the Red Samurai would have loved to have had a few minutes with him before his unexpected departure. ;)
"It seems that Miles Larder, formerly an employee of Fuchi Industrial Electronics and
a member of the Renraku Board of Directors,was responsible for the security breaches
we attributed to Renraku, and Mr.Lanier alone was the source of the information providing Renraku with product
advancements similar to developments in progress at Fuchi.
Mr. Lanier has chosen to surrender himself to Fuchi authorities and has confessed to
directing operations against us as part of an effort to test our Matrix
security measures. Fuchi has accepted Mr. Lanier 's explanation of the events,
and he wishes to make reparations for involving the Corporate Court
unintentionally."
"Just a minute," Napoli said, finding his voice. "Miles Lanier is a major
stockholder in Renraku Computer Systems. Are you saying he has continued to
work for Fuchi during this time? That's a conflict of interest! Mr. Lanier
signed numerous documents stating that he had terminated all of his
associations with Fuchi Industrial Electronics."
"That's correct," Osborne replied crisply. "It seems his testing of Fuchi
security measures from the outside was entirely Mr. Lanier's idea. He then
presented his findings to Fuchi executives. I understand they were most ... illuminating."
"And Fuchi is currently holding one of Renraku's corporate citizens? Mr. Chief
Justice, how can this outrage even be-"
Osborne cut in before Napoli could finish. "No longer a Renraku corporate
citizen, Justice Napoli. Mr. Lanier has offered to sell his shares of Renraku
stock to the Zurich Gemeinschaft Bank, at slightly under current market
value."
Napoli's jaw dropped at the announcement, which brought raised eyebrows from
many of the other justices. By selling his shares, Lanier was cutting his ties
with Renraku. By selling them to the ZGB, he was effectively giving control of
those shares to the Corporate Court, giving them additional leverage over
Renraku. And by selling the shares at below market value, Lanier would
certainly trigger concerns about Renraku's stability and growth on the world
markets, causing the corporation's stock values to drop for a while until
Renraku tried to assuage the fears of its stockholders. Renraku's rapid growth
would be brought to a shrieking halt while they cleaned up the mess, allowing
the other megacorporations time to get their own affairs in order and close
the gap behind Renraku's lead. All in all it was an elegant solution requiring
the Corporate Court to do nothing but accept it.
Edit: The agreement to sell certainly kept him out of Renraku hands once his part in this was revealed, but seeing as this was an op pretty much given Villier's blessing from the start and though they can not admit that to the court obviously so their rep presented it as Lanier on his own, it would seem like that they made good use of it and again may have been part of the plan all along because someone would have called foul one way or the other when everything came to a head and it was a real good get out of jail free card.
And it did seriously mess with Renraku.
Maybe it was not the original intent, but Laniers and Villiers knew that such an unusual and sudden sell would have repercussions on any stock so that was a bonus on top of everything else..
Villiers listened to Lanier's entire story about the Renraku operation to gain
access to the secrets of the otaku. About how Babel, not Ronin, had turned
against his former employers and put an end to the otaku project, which
appeared to have damaged many Renraku cutting-edge technologies being readied
for the marketplace. Speculation was rife among the Fuchi execs whether or not
Renraku had acquired some of those developments from the otaku and whether they might
have been wiped out by the virus by accident.
Lanier voiced the opinion that the mysterious "Leonardo" decker allied with
Renraku was himself an otaku who passed information on to the corporation in
exchange for the money Renraku supposedly poured into his "research and
development." If it was true, then the otaku themselves had dealt with
Leonardo's indiscretions through Ronin and his virus. It was unlikely any
other otaku would be breaking ranks in the future to aid the megacorporations.
That sat just fine with Villiers, who knew first-hand how much trouble rogue
Matrix elements could be. It was better not to have bit players mucking up the
actions of the megacorporations.
Renraku was set back by the damage done by the Babel Virus (as it quickly
became known in Fuchi circles). The corp was not out of the game by any means,
but the playing field had been leveled quite a bit. Fuchi was still Renraku's
biggest competitor, but they had a better chance working against a Renraku
stripped of the advances provided by the otaku Leonardo. While Renraku
scrambled with damage control, Fuchi was working on getting some new
competitive products out on the market. They were still the number one
computer corporation, and Richard Villiers would see to it they remained that
way.
Dumping Lanier's stock on the Zurich Gemeinschaft Bank would also serve as a
firewall against Renraku's expansion for a while. Already the stock markets
were getting the first hints of a shift in the higher ranks of Renraku
Computer Systems, and word of the stock transfer was spreading out from Tokyo
and London to the exchange in Boston where it all began, just like a virus
making its way through the body of the world, spreading information and making
changes where it passed. Soon enough the world would know something big had
happened to Renraku even if they -would never really know the whole story
behind it. The corporate spin-doctors would see to that.
Of more immediate concern was the trouble brewing within Fuchi.
The Japanese families still simmered over the increased power Villiers had gained. Lanier's return to the fold did nothing
to improve the Japanese faction's opinion of Villiers.
Accusations of grand-standing covert operations concealed from the shareholders were flying
fast and furious. The only thing keeping the Yamanas and the Nakatomis from
trying to have Villiers removed outright was Lanier's success in putting the
brakes on Renraku. As far as everyone else was concerned, Villiers and Lanier
were heroes who'd pulled off a masterful scam against Renraku and got away
with it.
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I'd call it 'sharp enough to take advantage of a sudden advantage', myself. Considering I rather doubt they knew about the disbursement being in the Will before the Big D bit it ... though officially, yeah, he was 'forced'. :P :) (Meh. Didn't entirely like Technobabel, but I suppose I should re-read it.)
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Fair enough, if Lanier had not had those shares, Villiers would have had to do something else to try and figure out how Renraku was pulling ahead and even if they had still gone with the Lanier defection/infiltration route it would have been a lot dicier getting in as deep and far messier for his exit.
Lanier took our jobs!
I agree the whole will disbursement of Renraku shares seemed awfully convenient and raises tons of questions in itself.
We know Dunkie had his claws in many pies owning stocks in several corps, but say he had not needed to pop his own scaly backside to stop a certain bridge from forming and had a nice healthy term, where would that have left Fuchi when Renraku started cranking out the new Leonardo-enhanced line?
How would the Big D have played something else to help level the playing field?
And say Big D had died 10years later instead, wouldn't that stock bequest been pretty silly then?
How often did he revise said will?
I always wondered if the will had a program that had many computing branches that constantly revised and updated it to keep up with conditions and settings set by Big D.
I know, I know it's just a plot device, but still. :P
Technobabel was a decent read, especially given it was Kenson's first edit:piecenovel (forgot he was already writing sourcebooks) for the SR line.
Some people still complain about the Talon series, but in the end it was a fun read even if there were lots of things you as a player could probably never pull off at the table yourself. And hey, who wouldn't want a spirit that turns into a sweet, sweet ride when you need it?
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How much respect do you have for Dunkelzahn? Do you think that the fallout from his will was intentional or accidental? Do you believe that he had other plans in place to make sure the end result happened? Like I said, how much respect do you have for him?
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How much respect do you have for Dunkelzahn? Do you think that the fallout from his will was intentional or accidental? Do you believe that he had other plans in place to make sure the end result happened? Like I said, how much respect do you have for him?
Personally I have an immense amount of respect for the guy. He is one of the few players in Shadowrun that one could argue made himself more influential by removing himself from the board entirely.
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How much respect do you have for Dunkelzahn? Do you think that the fallout from his will was intentional or accidental? Do you believe that he had other plans in place to make sure the end result happened? Like I said, how much respect do you have for him?
I smell a set-up. But to answer your questions: generally intentional, because everything that happened is fallout, and not all of it was bad; one can make the argument that the majority of the fallout was good, or at least progressive as compared to regressive. Had he lived, he would have made sure that things kept moving in the direction he wanted; death 'merely' forced him to speed up the events by sudden disbursements, revelations, etc. In regards to your question about 'respect', quite a bit - but 'respect' does not automatically mean 'like', or even 'work for'. But your question reminds me of a conversation in a fantastic movie, 'Grand Canyon', with Danny Glover and Kevin Kline in it:
Rocstar: I'm gonna grant you that favor, and I'm gonna expect you to remember it if we ever meet again. But tell me this, are you asking me as a sign of respect, or are you asking because I've got the gun?
Simon: Man, the world ain't supposed to work like this. I mean, maybe you don't know that yet. I'm supposed to be able to do my job without having to ask you if I can. That dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you ripping him off. Everything is supposed to be different than it is.
Rocstar: So what's your answer?
Simon: You ain't got the gun, we ain't having this conversation.
Rocstar: That's what I thought: no gun, no respect. That's why I always got the gun.
Rocstar (functionally 'random punk #1'), you see, doesn't understand that he's not the one getting the respect; the gun is. He also doesn't understand that if he didn't have the gun, he wouldn't trying to be ripping off 'that dude' who's waiting with his car; he'd be trying to actually do something with himself.
"Yeah, fine, Wyrm, but how does this apply to the 'respect Dunkelzahn' question?" He's a Great Dragon; love him or hate him, you have to respect the gun.
Getting into the underlying question - the one that CitJoe is trying to pounce with - no, I don't think Dunkelzahn was a jerk. I think he had a plan, thirty or three-hundred years long, and that his pieces were moving into place slowly, subtly, and with a minimum of negative impact. I think that he kept in mind the fact that he just MIGHT kick the bucket, and so he had that thirty/three-hundred-year plan boiled down into a bunch of large, indiscrete, relatively clumsy moves that nonetheless got a lot of what he wanted done - or at least things moving in the direction that he felt the world needed to move. The problem with it, of course, is that the gross movements represented in the will DID cause a lot of collateral damage, as well as getting done a lot of the things he wanted done.
So again, sorry, CitJoe - your two pet theories really have neither proof nor sufficient traction to be canonical, or even to come out of any canonical character's mouth besides Plan 9's.
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Yes, it is a bit of a setup. The supposition is that things that happened as a result of Dunkelzahn's Will were intentional and not mere chance. The further implication is that if things happen under his plan A, he had back up plans to make sure it happened.
Here's one string of events... Deus, Shutdown, attack on Villiers, Novatech IPO, Matrix Crash, Novatecheck merging with Celedyr to form NeoNET, CFD.... what's the end game? Dunkelzahn's E-Ghost transplanted making him Dragon Jesus.
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Uh-huh. Because Dunkelzahn was omniscient, and knew that the dumbass head of Renraku was going to put a kink bomb into his ultra-loyal samurai computer program's head, and turn it against him for that?
Things happened as a result of the Big D's will, yes. Not everything that happened was capable of being predicted, whether by magic or by Matrix. As per the Will, Dunkelzahn's own plans only extended out seven years - which, not too coincidentlaly, took us to Crash 2.0, after which NOBODY knew what was going to happen.
*shrugs* You're interesting and amusing, CitJoe, I'll give you that. You make conspiracy theories and proposals that I don't think anybody could possibly come up with, backed up with (often literally) no proof but your own imagination, but hey, it's interesting, and fodder for someone's game, I'm sure.
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You know Dunk had crazy stock in Renraku, he did put Lanier on the Board or something. The rumor has it that the Renraku 'door' was a virtual one into the ultraviolet host. Opening that door would have released Deus. This is an example of the redundancy in his scheme. He didn't need the kill switch, Deus was going off the rails regardless.
Do you have enough respect in Dunkelzahn to believe he COULD have pulled off this level of planning. Is he that level of smart?
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You know Dunk had crazy stock in Renraku, he did put Lanier on the Board or something. The rumor has it that the Renraku 'door' was a virtual one into the ultraviolet host. Opening that door would have released Deus. This is an example of the redundancy in his scheme. He didn't need the kill switch, Deus was going off the rails regardless.
Do you have enough respect in Dunkelzahn to believe he COULD have pulled off this level of planning. Is he that level of smart?
Deus became self aware and twisted to hate when the kill-code was implanted into his core system. He was programed as the ultimate example of Samurai loyalty, and was then betrayed by his master. He pulled a rather literal version of going Ronin and turned against his one time master. Big D was good, but that's a chain of events with too many x-factors to predict in any but the vaguest of ways. Besides, the door was to a monitoring room overlooking the SCIRE code architecture. It was kinda like the viewing are of an operating theatre.
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How much respect do you have for Dunkelzahn? Do you think that the fallout from his will was intentional or accidental? Do you believe that he had other plans in place to make sure the end result happened? Like I said, how much respect do you have for him?
I respect him a fair bit because in all his sorce books and novels, he always seemed to have the best intrests of the planet and all the various peoples living on her and wanted to push them into being better then they were, to reach more of their potential as it were.
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So the door was looking into the SCIRE code architecture, which Deus was supposed to run, if not live there... and Dunkelzahn essentially told every runner out there to hit that room for a load of money... But you don't think Dunkelzahn had any knowledge of the situation?
That shows a distinct lack of respect for the cunning nature and long term planning of dragons in general and Dunkelzahn in particular. So, yes, you're right. Under your perception of Dunkelzahn, he could not be a jerk.
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No, it shows that magic has no influence of purely matrix activities and Big D wanted to know what was going on with Renraku's big project. If he had lived he'd probably have taken a more direct hand in it's investigation, but everything got left up in the will. If he suspected anything (and to be fair, a lot of people did) he may have taken a direct claw in the matter, but with his untimely death he put the word out for the keyboard cowboys to deal with it, knowing runners (deckers usually more so) would share the information with the world, trying to prevent what happened from happening, or at least minimizing the damage.
And no, it doesn't show a lack of respect in Dunkelzahn. He might have been knowing and powerful, but neither of those are prefixed with an "all-". He didn't know everything, especially where the matrix was concerned which is why he hired people to investigate these things and report back or simply did research on them.
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Actually, CitJoe, it shows that you know absolutely nothing about the game, and have barely read anything but synposes of its books. You're a conspiracy theorist who possesses nothing but 'popular knowledge' - like those people who believe that Oswald could not have pulled off three aimed shots in nine seconds with a bolt-action rifle, or any other of a half-dozen unbaked theories. You really haven't any grasp of the game information at all, so please - do keep reminding us of this any time you want to bring out your theories. I recommend using this statement: "I don't really know anything but the bare basics about Shadowrun, but What If ... ?" It'll save people who actually read the background material an awful lot of time, because we won't need to take the time to repeat all the things that've been stated about the Shadowrun universe that prove you wrong.