Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Major Doom on <04-18-16/0806:51>
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I was flipping through Emerald Shadows, the book that gives facts about Seattle, which is within the new Seattle Sprawl Digital Box, and noticed the populations for each district is so small. Especially since this is the Seattle Metroplex and it's the 2070s. For example, Downtown has a population of 555,000 only. I summed up all the districts' populations, including Council Island (which I know is not officially part of Seattle), Outremer, and the Ork Underground, and just came up with 3,107,250. Why is the population for a dystopian future sprawl so low?
Now I don't know if those numbers just represent SINners, or both SINners and SINless. But wouldn't you think there would be a lot more people in Seattle? NYC to this day, in real life, has a population of over 8 million. I would think that in the 2070s with advances of science, people living longer, Orks producing offspring in litters, Seattle being a major sprawl, and many other factors, the population of at least the SINners would be around 10-15 million alone. Anyone have any theories?
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The urban grind kills off people at about the same rate that new ones are born. (Sounds odd, I know, but around 120 years ago, cities killed *vastly* more people than they produced, and required a constant 'feeding' from the countryside to stay viable) ... and, yeah, there's a large SINless population that isn't counted. The Underground, for instance, has somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 uncounted people due to that.
And you have no idea how much I want to kill that 'litters' thing off.
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"My" Seattle has a lot more population than that: Around 10 - 12 million, mostly SINless. But then, "my" dystopia includes vast masses of the Poor and Exploited living just outside the fences and walls. A highly instable society where only massive police violence keeps the revolution at bay. ;)
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a few thoughts about that:
1) the two Vitas waves killed ca 30-35% of all Humanity in the 2020s
2) the 3+ Millions are the SINners only (ImO).
you could add 1 or 1.5 Mio Sinless or more if you want your SR even more dystopian ;)
(look at the Post above mine )
3) CGL messed up the numbers ?
especially if you consider all the white refugees from the NAN after their liberation in 2030
with a few Dances
Medicineman
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There's a few reasons for the population numbers.
First, as Wak said, cities are NOT safe places to be. Cities where you often have running gun battles between shadowrunners, police, gangs, mobsters, corpsec, and more are even less so. Then you add in ghoul attacks, areas that are actively hostile to your health (Glow City), and more, and you have death rates that are only barely balanced by birth rates. The fact that most orks live in areas that are more prone to have high death rates also keeps the ork population in check.
Second, you have three rounds of VITAS, natural disasters, mass slaughters like the Night of Rage, wars (US balkanization, etc.), the Arcology Shutdown, Universal Brotherhood, and more that cause additional deaths.
Third, those numbers don't include the SINless, which could as much as double the numbers, or even triple them in some areas.
Combined, this makes the numbers much more believable. Remember, as recently as the 2030s the state of Oregon was all but completely depopulated! That's what allowed the elves to swoop in and make Tir Tairngire. A population of over four million people had been reduced to almost nothing. And Oregon wasn't one of the places worst hit by the troubles of the early half of the century.
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but like all Modifiers you shouldn't only take the negative ones into account ;)
There's the huge Number of growing Ork Population,or the huge amount of Refugees after the NAN War....
HokaHey
Medicineman
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Not thatmany refugees hit Seattle, oddly. Teh ones on the west coast largely went to California (Then still part of America) while the ones east went, well, East. Those to the south could go either way, or possibly stayed in the Pueblo, which was pretty chill about letting people hang out (unlike, say, the Sioux or, even worse, teh Ute!) ... so, those within, say, fifty miles of Seattle came in, but those further away probably went elsewhere. Then you get the assorted VITAS outbreaks, a large chunk of the meta population either A) bailing out for the Tir (back when it was for *all* metas!) or B) Dying in the Night of Rage, and from there, just the general grind. Orks are the one population that's expanding at a healthy rate, but even they have to face high levels of Ork-on-Ork crime, kidnapping/experimentation, excessive police violence, and general racism + short lifespans. Oh, and lots of SINless people, natch.
For some *strange* reason, teh Ork community doesn't trust the human-run government. Can't imagine why.
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Okay, reading this topic made me curious and since I have time on my hands today I did some checking.
Population statistics from Seattle districts present day (2013-2015 depending on city, taken from a quick google search) vs 2050 (first Seattle sourcebook, I don't have the new digital box)
District Present Day 2050
Downtown 662,400 545,000
(Present day city of Seattle)
Renraku Arcology N/A 70,000
Aztechnology Arcology N/A 5,000
Renton 97,000 218,000
Bellevue 133,992 209,000
Tacoma 203,446 375,000
Everett 105,370 229,000
Auburn 58,582 218,000
Snohomish 9,401 115,000
Ft Lewis 48,558 98,000
(Joint Base Lewis-McChord today.)
Redmond 57,530 498,000
Puyallup 38,609 506,000
Council Island 24,098 3,000
(Mercer Island today)
Total 1,438,986 3,089,000
My big takeaways from this is that Seattle today is geographically large but nowhere NEARLY as densely populated as New York City. (Thank God.) By the Shadowrun era most of the refugee population squeezed into the outlying districts while Downtown has stayed roughly the same but become more concentrated into Arcologies. The Ork Underground isn't specifically listed in the 2050 sourcebook, its population is either uncounted or figured into the Downtown population.
All populations in the 2050 book are estimates, the Redmond section specifically says the Redmond barrens population is estimated and could be anywhere from 300,000 to 700,000 due to the difficulty of counting the residents. If you want to vary the numbers much you can very easily assume there were huge inaccuracies when they estimated the SINless population.
Edit: I just checked the Seattle 2072 book. The populations given for all the major districts (Downtown, Redmond, Auburn, etc) are the EXACT SAME as the 2050 sourcebook. Funny how the population didn't change at all in 22 years, huh? ;D
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Well, the dragons, ghouls, shedim and other assorted nasties have to eat something, right? ;)
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I would say for certain that those numbers do NOT include the SINless.
For one, without a SIN, you are not technically a 'real' person, nor a citizen of a Country, thus not counted in a census.
As to how high of a SINless population, who knows. There have been 2 crashes that mucked up records, and we know from fluff that many people lost their SIN during the crash 2.0...
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I actually underestimated the damage VITAS did. I read on the Shadowrun wiki that the first strain killed off billions of people worldwide, with the second strain killing off close to another billion in the 2020s. Too bad though, because having overpopulation is a staple in a dystopian future.
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When you consider that there's a lot of polluted areas, that many rural areas are very dangerous to live in thanks to awakened hazards, and that some nations are extremely xenophobic, with the right tweaks you can easily justify why cities would be jam packed dystopias.
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When you consider that there's a lot of polluted areas, that many rural areas are very dangerous to live in thanks to awakened hazards, and that some nations are extremely xenophobic, with the right tweaks you can easily justify why cities would be jam packed dystopias.
Sure, but when it comes to Seattle there is limited amounts of those things -- but it is consistently described as being full, most people being in low grade apartments or squats (it seems even reasonably valuable wage slaves don't have houses), after fifty years the squats and slums still haven't evolved into something more livable .... to me the population density for the official population just isn't high enough to support that. At least not without assuming almost as many sinless as sinners. (All IMO)
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When you consider that there's a lot of polluted areas, that many rural areas are very dangerous to live in thanks to awakened hazards, and that some nations are extremely xenophobic, with the right tweaks you can easily justify why cities would be jam packed dystopias.
Sure, but when it comes to Seattle there is limited amounts of those things -- but it is consistently described as being full, most people being in low grade apartments or squats (it seems even reasonably valuable wage slaves don't have houses), after fifty years the squats and slums still haven't evolved into something more livable .... to me the population density for the official population just isn't high enough to support that. At least not without assuming almost as many sinless as sinners. (All IMO)
Not really all that unbelievable. Who is going to build this infrastructure?
The State?
Corps?
Private investors?
The State doesn't have the money to deal with urban infrastructure on that level. The State relies to tax revenue to fund everything, and with less and less entities (in the legal sense) paying taxes, and more and more demand for those same tax dollars, there just isn't that much left in the coffers for massive urban renewal.
Corps have rebuilt, and done so with Arco blocks, and Corp enclaves, and snazzy office buildings. All for those wageslaves that have earned a nice spot in one of the ivory towers. And NO, this is not where the lowest paid wageslaves live, these a re for the "important people"
Private Investors probably have done some rebuilding, but they are the really small fish, being able to handle at most one or two apartment complexes before their funds are tapped and have to wait for return. (There is a reason why low income housing is State funded.... Private investors can not wait the 5 to 15 years it takes to see a return on low income housing projects, WITHOUT state funding.) Of those built by private investors, most would be condo style pre-sold homes... which require a population with income that can afford a new home.... something that is hard for many people even today. (Fun Experiment for you! Go to your local Land Title office or Archive, and look up what a 1000sq/ft home cost in 1950. Compare that to today. I have in my area. in 1950 a house cost around $15,000 in my area. Now they are $250,000 minimum!)
The simple fact that large amounts of Seattle are slums points to just how dystopian it is out there. It points to collapse of a lot of things I think people here are taking for granted.
There is no more "welfare" or social services network, those died out long ago to Corporate greed and government insolvency. There is no universal health care (Canada) or Obamacare (US).
Heck, with out a SIN, you can not own property, have a bank account, vote, purchase goods legally, Nor do you have national rights and freedoms. At best you are considered an Illegal Alien, at worst you are target practice. (It's not murder to kill someone who doesn't exist. So prove the person I killed existed, show me his birth certificate, his driver's liecense, tax records, employment history - all those things a SIN tracks.....)
<Yes, the above is rather extreme.... but I can see someone out there making that claim. People make stupid claims all the time today.... Freeman Movement, Flat earth society, Affuenza>
I've seen this type of stuff first hand all over South Africa and the Sudan areas.
While working in Ghana, there were entire parts of cities just falling over. The government just doesn't have the money nor the man power to maintain the crumbling infrastructure, some of it dating back to the 17th and 18th century! The only reason I was there was a private company (which would be a Mega by SR standards) walked in, gave the government a LOT of money for the mineral rights. And even then, they pulled in 8800 workers from all over the world to build and run the mine, cutting the local population right out of the jobs, except for the most menial and labour intensive.
That mine was making over $2,000,000 PER HOUR of operation, every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 350 days a year. (with 15 days shutdown scheduled for maintenance). The Average wage paid to a Ghana citizen? $25 a day for a 12hr shift.... which is $20 more then minimum wage...
And, given the state of the Ghana government, I have tell you that the royalties paid on those minerals are not being redirected to housing.
Most people coming from Europe or North America have never really seen true poverty, nor governmental corruption or governmental sanctioned discrimination... So what happens when the system fails is very hard for many to comprehend. We have grown used to the comforts that our station has given us. If we want water, we turn on the tap. We want to eat something, we pull it out of the freezer, or go buy it from a store. when we can't find a job, we expect the government to fund us for a limited time (employment insurance).
In MANY parts of the world, getting a drink involves a walk of kilometers, to collect dirty, contaminated, water that has to boiled before you can drink it. If you want a meal, it whatever you can catch, kill, skin, butcher and cook.. or what you can grow... But if you are walking for Kilometers to get water, you're not growing much. Homes are made from whatever YOU can cobble together. Often times they are wood frames holding up bricks made for animal dung. Sometimes they are mud, and clay if water is readily available. There is NO electricity, or plumbing, or refrigeration.
I have been offered CHILDREN for purchase for my pocket change in some of these countries. Simply because my pocket change would feed the rest of his family for a month! Racism and Ethic lines are far more pronounced, and that doesn't even consider the caste systems many of these places still hold to... I have seen people detained and lead away to their probable deaths just because of the dialect they speak (not their skin color!)
Trust me, the world is a very fucked up place NOW. Be thankful you live where you live, and have the comforts you enjoy. Because some of the shit out there in the world really doesn't need to be seen, and nor will it stop.
(and now you know why I drink!)
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I actually underestimated the damage VITAS did. I read on the Shadowrun wiki that the first strain killed off billions of people worldwide, with the second strain killing off close to another billion in the 2020s. Too bad though, because having overpopulation is a staple in a dystopian future.
Back when overpopulation of the world was a serious
concern, people turned to the mighty soybean as a
promising food source.
Thanks to several global plagues and ecological
disasters, world population is not quite as big a concern
as the amount of arable land on the planet, but the net
result is the same.
Page 41,Food. Core Rulebook.
Shadowrun instead has diseases that wipe everyone out or turn them into the undead....pretty sure thats not any better. :D
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Excellent post Reaver, thanks for that.
Now imagine that insanity propagated into the urban ghettoes of 2076 and you have your picture of future-dystopia.
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If you look at periods of urban population growth--late 19th cen Europe for example--you generally have some sort of agricultural crisis driving migration to the cities. While I could see some sort of Grapes of Wrath riff taking place in the Sixth World ("I hear Ares is hiring in Detroit..."), getting to Seattle is pretty tricky for displaced persons given its geography.
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Not to mention the "Enemy at the Gates" siege mentality during the early part of the north American break-up.
Why go to Seattle, when they could be the next warzone?
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But when the NAN were being created, there would have been a lot of displaced persons, and enough may have tried Seattle. And later on, with all the poverty and unemployment, just the rumour that there were none in Seattle could have driven people there (who may not have been able to afford to leave again).
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I think Vitas pretty much says it all really.
That stuffed reversed population growth back 1/2 a century or more, IIRC.
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I think Vitas pretty much says it all really.
That stuffed reversed population growth back 1/2 a century or more, IIRC.
a little more then that..
Remember, VITAS was treatable. Very expensive to treat with very rare drugs, but treatable.
So who got saved? The rich. Who has a low birth rate? The rich.
Who died off in droves? The poor. To the point that some countries (like Morocco?) were almost completely depopulated. However, the poor also have high birth rates.
So what you end up with is wealthy countries having the least deaths, and those deaths confined to the poorest class. While in poor countries, you have massive death with only a few surviving.
During the VITAS outbreaks, cities either saved or killed you, depending on your countries supply of medicine. In wealthy countries, being in a city meant quick emergency response. However in poor countries that didn't have treatments, cities became killing grounds as you now jammed so many hosts for the virus to pass to in a geographically small area.
And don't forget to use the numbers from 1985. (SP was published in 1988/89 or so, and the numbers just continue from there).
No, I think the bigger killers in Seattle and North America where the Nights of Rage. No one REALLY knows how many meta humans died in those nights of fire.... And my guess is its a lot higher then the 'official' numbers.
Or, a 3rd possibility.
The info we are using itself is a '3rd wall' document. Meaning we, as players, are seeing a document from inside the fiction, and not a document ABOUT the fiction.
(something they do like to do....)
And, who compiles those stats in game? What advantages do they have for putting a spin on it? Where are they getting their info? What are their accuracy rating?
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>>> (like Morocco?)
I remember Madagascar ;)
Nevertheless , some Guys over at Dumpschock did the math (Kudos to those Nerds :D )
and estimated a worldpopolation of 6.0 to 6.5 Billion People (in 2075)
But please don't ask me for Details, i'm happy that I can remember the general Numbers
The spread of Metaraces in the Run Harder (Schattenläufer) startled me at first but once You get used to them they seem plausible
HokaHey
Medicineman
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The numbers have been criticized in the Seattle books. The figures are generally only SINners, and not necessarily corporate citizens. The syndicates protect census takers even in the parts of the Barrens they control (political-criminal-corporate circlejerk), but taking it all into account I'd just assume it's the number of eligible voters (The Supreme Court just ruled that the census must count everyone, but the SIN/SINless divide makes it clear that's not even remotely likely in the UCAS), or in other words, adult UCAS SINners. The real population is "whatever necessary for your game." I rather like the idea that even the published numbers are unreliable because they are in-character and that seems to be the only thing you can be certain isn't in Shadowrun anymore (because then it gets into people getting mad about that).
I actually underestimated the damage VITAS did. I read on the Shadowrun wiki that the first strain killed off billions of people worldwide, with the second strain killing off close to another billion in the 2020s. Too bad though, because having overpopulation is a staple in a dystopian future.
VITAS 1 killed 25% of the world's population. VITAS 2 killed 10% of the world's population. That doesn't take into account collateral deaths from other diseases or effects from VITAS breaking down civilization. Additionally, that doesn't account for all of the non-fatal cases that could have produced permanent effects.
There is no more "welfare" or social services network, those died out long ago to Corporate greed and government insolvency. There is no universal health care (Canada) or Obamacare (US).
Not necessarily in the UCAS (though this is true in Seattle), since adoption of Canada's welfare system is why the CAS seceded in the first place.
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@Medicineman:
Very well could have been Madigasscar. Knew it was a North Africain country, but didn't know exactly which one.
@CrimsonDude:
Yea, when Canada and the US joined they adopted the Canada welfare system. But I have a feeling they abandoned it right quick. Here's why (coming from a Canadian).
The Canadian welfare system has 2 contributors. The federal government, and the Provincal government. Together these 2 governments assign funds to cover the following ministries.
Health
Education
Social services and development
Under just those 3 headings are a host of other sub-ministries as well. But we will look at the big 3.
On a Federal level HES funding accounts for 63% of all Federal revenue.
On a Provincal level, it gets harder to find as the orovincal governments play 'hide the buck' a lot more. However for the Province of BC (my home province) HES funding takes up 85% of the provincial revenue. (Healthcare alone is 50%).
And no. Healthcare is NOT free in Canada. I pay a $276 PER month 'fee' for my 'Medical Service Plan' that I don't use as I pay $375 to a private insurer for medical. (Due to being out of country for up to 11 months a year).
So really, in the province of BC, the cost of just Healthcare is 50% of the provincal GDP + the MSP monthly payments of 2.25million people paying an additional $69 a month minimum.
Now apply that to the SR world and the upheaval they went through. I seriously doubt the 'welfare state' survived.
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>> @Medicineman:
Very well could have been Madigasscar. Knew it was a North Africain country, but didn't know exactly which one.
Or maybe both locations ? ( I didn't mean to correct you )
Vitas , I guess, ravaged especially severely in Africa ( and maybe Asia too ? )
With a Sunday Morning's Dance
Medicineman
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On a Federal level HES funding accounts for 63% of all Federal revenue.
On a Provincal level, it gets harder to find as the orovincal governments play 'hide the buck' a lot more. However for the Province of BC (my home province) HES funding takes up 85% of the provincial revenue. (Healthcare alone is 50%).
That's similar to how Medicare is funded. It's a mess.
>> @Medicineman:
Very well could have been Madigasscar. Knew it was a North Africain country, but didn't know exactly which one.
Or maybe both locations ? ( I didn't mean to correct you )
Vitas , I guess, ravaged especially severely in Africa ( and maybe Asia too ? )
- 450 million dead in India.
- 11 million of 14 million dead in Madagascar.
- 550 million dead in sub-Sahara Africa, estimated (which would be a higher rate than Madagascar's). No one bothered to count.
- India fared better than the U.S., which was depopulated by 1/3. So 100+ million dead just from VITAS.
One other thing to note is that VITAS 2 came along around the same time as Goblinization. The 10% global fatality rate includes people who became orks and trolls but who were murdered and had their deaths covered up as VITAS-related, like the real Kenneth Brackhaven.
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>> @Medicineman:
Very well could have been Madigasscar. Knew it was a North Africain country, but didn't know exactly which one.
Or maybe both locations ? ( I didn't mean to correct you )
Vitas , I guess, ravaged especially severely in Africa ( and maybe Asia too ? )
With a Sunday Morning's Dance
Medicineman
Just an FYI, but Madagascar isn't a North African Country. It's an island in the Indian Ocean off the East Coast of Africa.
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I have to say it makes sense to me you have roughly 60 years of population growth immigration etc for Seattle vs massive pandemics, lower quality living, dealing with the fact there might REALLY be a monster in the closet eyeing not just the kids but the whole family for a meal and that's not even considering the paranormal creatures roaming around that might want to do the same. Given that having Seattle almost tripple in population just counting the official citizens seems reasonable. As for dystopian sprawl as has been said this is a world where its very much you pay or you go hungry. I see it more like Robocop the population per square foot isn't overwhealming but anyone with money for investment isn't looking to go in and upgrade the plumbing, housing, health care etc they're looking to bulldoze the lot, evict those living there and build a shiny new arcology for their valuable workers. A lot of people are going to be living in a one room apartment bed, cooking, maybe if they're middle class a bathroom and hearing the neighbours through the walls because anything better costs a fortune. I've been looking at property recently to buy my own place and the difference based on location is immense. I can get a one bedroom, one bathroom, one car park space place around where I am currently for around 400-500 thousand, if I try to get the same anywhere near Sydney where I actually work it almost doubles to 700-800 thousand. Here you have a city with no social services, no care for the average person so spending a huge fortune on a place to live makes sense, when most people can't afford that there's no new building so people are living in squalor or arcologies.
Then we can also look at the qualities if you want a dystopian future. A medium lifestyle is 5,000 nuyen a month, a 40 hour job is 5,000 so its get married and save as much as you can from their income till one of you has to stay home to take care of the kids, live a medium lifestyle with no money put aside for emergencies/the future or live a low lifestyle and save some of your income.
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40 hour workweek? You slacker. You'll never get ahead with a part-time attitude like that!
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You joke but a lot of jobs nowaday's (dr, lawyer, etc) consider you part time if your working less than 60. However the only way to increase work hours/pay with the mechanics is to be famous so 40 hours it is.
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Well, legally speaking, 'part-time' is only applicable if you work less than 30 hours a week.
40-50 is closer to the 'average' job. Now, wanting to impress people and do better? Your wageslaves in Shadowrun are generally doing 60+ if they want advancement, and if someone comes along with that kind of attitude there's a chance they'll find themselves out of a job (at least in that department).
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Legal where? ;)
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Good point, Shadowrun setting probably ignores ALL of that.
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https://hbr.org/2006/12/extreme-jobs-the-dangerous-allure-of-the-70-hour-workweek we're working more and more hours whereas recent studies http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-19/proof-that-working-less-is-actually-better-for-your-brain/7337436 seem to indicate working even a "standard" week is potentially bad for your health. Apply that to a shadowrun world and I can see the wageslave working 70 hours full time and the elite working 30.
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I wouldn't agree with that, Senko. So what if you're elite? If you work 30 hours and your rival works 40, someone is going to have an advantage, and the minor health benefits (which you could get from your super-medical program) aren't stacked in your favor. They might be 'at work' for only 40 hours a week, but they probably have their noses in their commlink a few hours a day on top of that, working so they keep their edge (and position). I'd put upper management and the like at around 50-60 hours of work a week, depending on their schedule and concerns (if things aren't busy, they can slow down), whereas the lower tier is doing 60-70. Any less and they might start replacing you with a drone or more willing employee.
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40 hour workweek? You slacker. You'll never get ahead with a part-time attitude like that!
40 hrs? Work week? What are these odd words you spew? All the time, every time is work..even when sleeping...
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We've mentioned the 72 hour workweek a few times in publication. It's probably closer to 50-60 for most, but corporate drones are bkilling themselves to scratch ahead of the ratrace. Drugs and BTLs are everywhere to keep people moving, Matrix-based entertainment is handy as it lets you keep a smaller place to live, and burnout certainly happens as the urban life grinds people out.
Is it any wonder that every year, the Salish hit their immigration limit on Seattlieites who want to give it all up, toss away the suit, and go live with a pinkskin tribe?
(For the history-minded in the crowd, this used to be a HUGE issue in early American colonies... the hard work and oppressive society drove numerous settlers away to live with the native tribes.)
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40 hrs? Work week? What are these odd words you spew? All the time, every time is work..even when sleeping...
"work week"? that's the designated time between weekly-scheduled recreational activities provided at minimal cost to enable greater efficiency with regard to corporate assets, right? I'd admit that 40 hours does seem woefully inadequate accounting for the remaining time, but as long as meal-times, rest periods, etc. can be leveraged with other HR-approved tasks and activities, who's counting? It all comes out to 168 hours in the end.
For that matter, who needs "retirement communities" when older-model assets can still be used to shore up the corporate culture, or conduct informal training and surveillance?
So. Who's up for a run on one of Ares Macro-Tech's community living centers?
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I wouldn't agree with that, Senko. So what if you're elite? If you work 30 hours and your rival works 40, someone is going to have an advantage, and the minor health benefits (which you could get from your super-medical program) aren't stacked in your favor. They might be 'at work' for only 40 hours a week, but they probably have their noses in their commlink a few hours a day on top of that, working so they keep their edge (and position). I'd put upper management and the like at around 50-60 hours of work a week, depending on their schedule and concerns (if things aren't busy, they can slow down), whereas the lower tier is doing 60-70. Any less and they might start replacing you with a drone or more willing employee.
I was actually thinking more work smarter not harder as I can see several professions (acting, mages, top level deckers) where you'd want them at their best not burnt out and if there is medical proof a shorter work week is actually more productive overall those "elite' professions would have protections to ensure your valuable resources are producing at their best not their most. What good does it do you to get 120 hours out of an employee you can't replace easily if the work they produce has simple errors that they missed because their exhausted, hate the job and are planning to quit (or try anyway). Which would you rather a mage who worked for 120 hours but had a habbit of saying the wrong words because they're exhausted or a mage who did less hours but who's quality of work was significantly better (and safer to your continued health) because they were alert and happy in their job?
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You're assuming it would be more productive overall. I honestly doubt it would be more productive to work 30 hours than 50 (more than that and there probably would be more signs of problems). And I don't know where you're getting 120 hour work-weeks in my post, because I never suggested that. Wakshaani is saying 72 is closer to the norm for drones anyways. It isn't like the megacorporations want you to enjoy a few decades of retirement on their dime; they'd probably be happy if by the time the wage-slave retires they've got a bad heart and will die within the decade (rather than three of them).
The real goal of the megacorporations isn't to make people work that hard. That generally involves things like compensation or pushes them to their limits in a negative way. The real goal is to make them want to work that hard, motivate them to push themselves to the limit. Sure, the job 'requires' 40 hours a week. But everyone in the megacorporate culture knows that's 'slacking.' And if you're slacking, someone more dedicated and productive than you will come along and take your job. And if you want to get a promotion, you better be working harder than the people above you, otherwise you obviously don't deserve their spot in the hierarchy. You know you're only getting paid for those forty hours, but if you don't want to lose that job, or if you want to get one that pays you better for your time, you have to put the work in. One day, through sheer hard work and determination, you could become a manager.
Now, real secret behind this is that in a dystopic megacorporate future, there's a glass ceiling somewhere in there with very few holes; those holes are there to relieve pressure and let the higher-ups say 'see, you CAN work your way to the top if you try!' Most people won't actually advance that far. The few that do are either phenomenally good or are side-lined into something that doesn't really matter after their promotion ceremony was used for the propaganda that it is. The majority of your management and higher-ups would have been hand-picked and groomed for those positions or acquired from other sources. They just make it look like you can advance so you'll put as much effort into pleasing them as possible. No kid will jump for the cookie hanging twenty feet in the air. But if it dangles enticingly just out of reach, you'll have those kids climbing over each other to get at it. Then you lower the string once in a while, a kid manages to snatch it, and all the other kids know there's a chance they get a cookie too, because they can see the crumbs all over that kid's face.
Even wage-mages have to deal with this, because while they're rare, they're not that rare. There's about as many competent magic users around as doctors or lawyers, per million. Sure, you can't just train anyone to be a mage (not that everyone you'd try to train to be a doctor or lawyer would succeed either), but recruiting is as easy as going to a slum-school, assensing all the kids, and making scholarship offers to the ones who ding on your magical radar. Not all of them will accept, or even pass, but some will. It takes a little more time, but the loyalty is much better (given you're saving them from poverty and other problems of living in a slum, it is somewhat built-in). And now there's competition between those wage-mages. It isn't as much about the risk of losing your job; it is more about the opportunity to get a better one. Having magic doesn't make you immune to wanting to improve your position and secure more pay, more rewards, etc. It's a competitive megacorporate culture, after-all. Do you want to be the lackey summoning test spirits until you almost pass out from Drain every day, the mage who uses assensing to supervise and record the results of the testing, or the boss who is getting all the credit for your hard work and going on a cruise-liner in the Carib League as a reward for it? You don't want to be the first one, do you?
Burn-out/exhaustion is totally a thing that can happen to higher-ups anyways; one of the main kinds of extractions is the rich, well-paid wage-slave who is unhappy with his workplace paying you to get them out of there.
Another facet of the dystopic megacorporate culture to remember is that your happiness and comfort are not priorities, ever. Your efficiency/productivity is what matters, and if giving you a vacation once in a while is what boosts your productivity, that's what they'll do. If drugging your tap water with drugs to alter your mood is what will boost your productivity, that's what they'll do. If holding your family hostage is what will boost your productivity, that's what they'll do. If you aren't worth it and someone else is, they'll drop you out of that position and replace you. You're not a person, you're a tool, a cog. If you aren't running perfectly, they might apply a little grease or file off some rough edges for you; or they'll flat-out remove you and replace you with a better part. Getting a new cog and gears is easier than maintaining one that is past its prime, and if you're a more special kind of tool, maybe they'll keep you going a bit longer. Once you can't keep up, though? Once you tip the line between cost-effective and a drain of resources? Either you're going to be fixed or gone.
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I'm not getting 120 from your post I'm getting it from mine and the first article I linked, the 30 hours being better quality is the second one I linked where they found people perform worse at the extremes 0 hours and greater than 30. As for comfort vs productivity as you said there are times when you get more out of people by ensuring their happy and well rested then driving them to the limits. I'd actually include doctors in that category as well just like you don't want a mage messing up a ward spell and summoning a bunch of insect spirits you don't want a doctor accidentally removing your liver rather than your apendix. Even in corporations today there are skill sets that are simply too valuable to push the person too much. Take where I work they've got a shortage of engineers but they can find more so they tend to push them, on the other hand there's one weird computer signalling system that only 2 people in Austalia actually know the ins and outs of and they'd rather pay one of them large sums of menu to contract when needed than train someone knew to use it. Even with easier things they can and do make decisions that don't make sense financially. The defensive driver trainer recently quit and even though they're sending out memo's and new procedures because the company has already had over a million dollars in damage to company vehicles they'd still rather send someone off to an external course costing several grand than get a new internal trainer who can supply the course at a few hundred dollars.
Still I'll let it drop here since I suspect this is under one of those personal view things where neither of us is going to convince the other to change their views.
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For the record, in the industrial world 10 to 12 hour WORK (as in hours worked, minus two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch. So add an hour to that for time on site) day is not uncommon. Add to that a 90minute commute both ways....
So we are at 14 to 16 hours with commute, breaks and work in a 24 hour day. And our contracts stem usually in 14-7, 20-8, 30-14, 43-18 day cycles.... so you are working up to 16 days, 43 days in a row with out a break. (And this is also why industrial workers can clear $10,000 a week. All the overtime and double time)
THIS IS NOW! Not SR ficton. I know many a lawyer who works more then 8 hours in a day as well...
Unless you are a public servant, or an educator, or a first line banking professional, the 35hour work week is a myth today. Don't care what any study has to say, regardless of its validity.
Spend some time in the developing world or 3rd world, and you realize that '40 hour work week' is even more horseshit. People in developing/3rd world countries 'work' 60 hour weeks just to NOT make ends meet, then do 30 to 60 more hours of sustenance work to fill in the gap. (Things like hauling water kilometers so they can drink and clean. Farming/hunting so they have food. Making clothing. Recycling for extra money.)
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That's why I linked both articles the first one is talking about what people actually work 60/70 in some cases 100+ with no holiday's to stay competitive in today's world, the second is talking about where people actually do perform better i.e. around 30 hours and that 0 is as bad as 70 in terms of quality of work. I was speculating on how that could influence a world like shadowrun with the expendable/easily replaceable assets pushed to work very long hours to stay competitive but the ones you want to keep are protected and work significantly less so you get better work out of them. I'm well aware of how long people actually work I'm not that ambitious or desire to make millions in a few years but I still leave home at 4:10 and get back at 5:10 so my "work" day is actually around 13 hours and I work 9 on, 5 off so I'll see an average work week of around 60 hours myself and the guy's chasing overtime to pay off debts and the like will often be working every weekend not just one so that by itself pushes that work up to 70 hours plus. Which doesn't even address the one's with a second job they do outside of work.
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Unless you are a public servant, or an educator, or a first line banking professional, the 35hour work week is a myth today. Don't care what any study has to say, regardless of its validity.
That may indeed be the case in the USA, however in Europe there is a piece of legislation called the Working Time Directive. It's a wordy, boring piece of legislation, but it boils down to the fact that nobody can be forced to work more than 48 hours per week. You will be asked when joining a company if you wish to opt out, but if you don't then any attempt to push your working week beyond 48 hours is illegal. You're also not allowed to work two shifts without a minimum 11 hour rest period between them. You may change your mind about opting out at any time.
This isn't just office workers, but every single person not employed in a few specifically exempt professions (Armed Forces and Police Officers are the biggest exemptions). Also, if you're self employed or a manager/executive who sets their own hours you're outside legislation.
Of course, this was all implemented after 1989 so in the Shadowrun universe it is unlikely to have ever existed.
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Remember, too, that Shadowrun corps are, essentially, robber barons from the Gilded Age. You're expected to work at a grinding pce, spend your cash at the company store, and watch management ruthlessly crush all opposition to their feudal monopoly. If you die the day you retire, that's a full win for them. Even better is if you hammer out through your productive years, then die after training your replacement having given the corp your best twenty years.
They ... are not nice people.
(Take a look back at the working conditions of the industrial age sometime. Yikes.)
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Reaver's description of worked hours is spot on. Various other industries follow it as well--try working 38 hours in Palo Alto. The Sixth World is that made worse.
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Yes it's a distioopia but it's not a he'll dimension where everyone suffers all the time. You can only push employees so far before you lose them or create gaping weaknesses in your structure and skilled professionals (mages, doctors, deckers, etc) aren't that easy to replace especially if you have a bad reputation. Then you have other factors such as the major influence in corporate culture being Japan at a time when they still tool good care of their employees. Studies showing a happy worker is better for the bottom line than one who doesn't care. Forget ethics, forget human decency from a bottom line perspective there's only so far you can push before the benefits stop outweighing the drawbacks.
Again it's personal views but I can't see any job where the employee pool is low (mages), high risk and high skill where you need people at their best (air traffic controllers) or simply involve a full corporate Sinner being like that
I CAN see a mage voluntarily working 70+ hours to make loads of money (20k+ Nuyen a month) or a manual labour job paying low money for very long hours. I can't see a brain surgeon having to work 70+ hours just to make ends meet. Nor for that matter them being allowed too (Europe's hour limitation laws). You want the people doing that kind of work to be bright eyed and bushy tailed (maybe literally) because the potential lawsuit if they muck up and instead of hooking up a new Deck instead make the decker brain-dead could cost millions. Maybe billions in knock on effects.
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Uh, that is actually a somewhat valid description of a dystopia; "an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one."
You think you can only push people so far, but go look back at the Industrial Revolution, third world countries, etc. Look at millennia of slavery. People can and will adjust and function in order to survive. They're even more likely to do so if they don't think they have another option, or have hope that it will get better. Both of those concepts are something the megacorporations wholeheartedly support and suggest, even if it isn't true.
This whole 'taking good care of you' thing is extremely relative to start, and has gone downhill in this dystopian setting. Human rights (or sapient, or whatever you want to call them) have been getting trampled for decades. A sizable fraction of the world's population can be murdered with no legal repercussions. Sure, the megacorporation offers a great pension... But they're going to make you earn it, to start. And if your health is in decline due to the conditions you worked in and you'll only ever claim a fraction of the pension they promised... Well, they just pocketed that money as a win.
As far as the bottom line goes, that's not always accurate. It isn't about making a perfect product 100% of the time. It is about getting as much profit out of someone as possible. They don't have to worry about unions or labor laws or morality. Sometimes, getting the most out of someone involves training and care. Sometimes it means working them to the bone, then moving them a little so they work to a different bone.
You act as if Europe's labour laws still exist after the Euro-Wars, the dissolution of multiple countries, two Crashes, multiple VITAS outbreaks, the Awakening, the Shiawase Decision (remember that megacorporations of AA and higher have extraterritoriality, they only have to follow their own laws and nominally the CC mandates on their property), etc. Even if they still existed, they wouldn't apply on megacorporate grounds.
You also really seem to be missing the part where the megacorporations don't have a bad reputation among the general populace (especially not their own citizens). They have this thing called propaganda, which they're really quite good at. They're literally taking people from the slums and giving them a marginally better option, or flat-out lying to their people and saying everything outside of their aegis is horrific. And for the most part, it is. They don't have to be honest, they don't have to care.
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Remember the "we are the 99%" movement a couple of years ago?
Same idea.
1% of the population lives like kings. These are the VIPs of Megacorps, Presidents/Prime Ministers of countries, and their chosen few. If you have something of value to these people, be it power, clout, magic, skills, or just plain smarts, you live like a king.
If you don't fall into that1%, you are left fighting for the scraps that they leave.... along with the other 99%.
So yes, SOME people live well, even if they are not the "kings" of the Castle.... but SOME is a far cry from even "a few". And the numbers tell you, What? 5% of the population is awakened? Well, that's great for that 5%, they get a marginally LESS shitty world then the mundanes of equal stature.... BUT its still shitty based on what you know or expect.
And I doubt you will ever get it.
Gamers, come from a social class that really doesn't understand poverty or corruption that well. By the very definition of the hobby, we have to be well off, come from a country with a high social index, and have enough personal freedoms and financial success to actually afford our hobby. Folks, the saying "All the hard work has been done" holds pretty true for many of us. Our country protects us, has Laws that keep us safe and allows us to thrive. We have a system of government that is corrective and evolving.... all hallmarks of a Developed Country, Which 95% of us come from....
Compare that to some other countries, heck, even better off Developing Countries like Ghana.
Systemic corruption on all levels of government.
NO social services
NO health care
NO running water for 70% of the country
NO electricity for 40% of the country
Rampant Racism
Basic educational system with NO mandatory enrollment.
Folks, unless you've seen it. You can not believe it. And if you've never gone without, its hard know what it's like without it.
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I thought mages (total not active) was only around 1%. Its a preference thing as I said me I find those "The world is horrible, everyone suffers, you can never hope for even a little respite" type worlds get old very fast. On the other hand a world where a mage can work a 40 hour week and make 10,000 a month because they're that valuable while the Janitor works 60 for 2,500 and the guy in the corner office does NOTHING and pulls down 5,000 because while he's utterly incompetant he is a full corporate sinner and has been getting promotions to his current position of VP in charge of Falderoll because of it offers a lot more room for interesting story telling. I'm not arguing it is or isn't any specific thing here just suggesting possibilities such as certain professions (air traffic controllers, doctors, mages, nuclear technicians, etc) could well get something similar to Europes 48 hour max legislation. That corporations may well treat their employees reasonably well rather than working them to death because unlike a Dystopia this isn't you work for us or you don't work its you work for us unless Renraku, Sony, Shiawase, etc, etc offer you better conditions.
If you want a world that's a crumbling ruin of civilization or the elite corporate CEO's rule earth from their orbitting satellites (elysium) then go ahead. For me I have different tastes.
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Yeah, 1% of the population is 'Awakened.' It ends up being 2,500 or so out 1,000,000 who have an appreciable talent and the capability/sanity to use it. Which is about the same percentage of the population as lawyers and doctors.
I think if you're having problems with dystopic settings... Maybe don't play them?
You really don't seem to understand that the guy in the corner office can't do 'nothing' if he wants to keep that office. It's not a charity, it is a megacorporation. If you don't perform to expectations, they'll either 'fix' you or replace you. Dog eat dog world. You earn it, or someone else will. Unless you've got some kind of stellar blackmail or other one-of-a-kind thing on your side (at which point, you sort of did earn it), it isn't going to happen.
You also don't seem to understand that the Megacorporations don't tell people that they can leave, nor do they usually let them sign contracts that legally allow them to leave. The entire corporate culture is designed to be an 'us vs. them' mentality, where everybody who isn't from the home-countrycorporation is an enemy. They make you afraid of the outside world, while assuring you that they are perfectly safe and will take care of you. There's now third generation corporate citizens out there, who literally know nothing of the outside world/culture besides the processed drek that is filtered through corporate censorship. On top of that, all of those people they draw in? Besides being the ones to offer the true golden ticket, they sign newcomers in with extremely binding contracts that will ruin a person's life if they try to renege or quit. Clauses that legally prohibit you from working for other megacorporations, clauses that make you have to pay back everything the megacorporation silently provided with crippling interest, etc. etc. And even if you opt for it, sometimes they still won't let you leave. The megacorporations want their money's worth, and they'll get it out of you by any means necessary. Why do you think extractions paid for by the extractee are a known part of the setting? They're trying to avoid those penalties for leaving, or when their megacorporation won't let them go. It is a dystopia, never forget that.
Megacorporations probably do treat their valued employees somewhat better than your average wage-slave. More benefits, more rewards. They're still not going to be working for 30 hours a week. They get paid and rewarded too much for that. They probably have a 40-50 hour work-week, and then pull their extra, unpaid time just like everyone else raised or indoctrinated in their megacorporate culture where competition is king.
You do realize the Corporate Court rules from Zurich Orbital, right?
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And don't forget, out of those 2500 with 'usable' Talent, not all of those are going to be capable of working a corporate lifestyle. Those with the Talent tend to be a bit eccentric at times. So of that 2500, you may have just 2000 who can hack it in corporate life, while the others fall into the shadows, become gangers, work to protect their neighborhood, go off to live in the wilderness, become toxics, turn to insect totems, and so on. And that 2500 also includes talismongers as well.
But MijRai is right. Shadowrun is a Dystopian setting. Labor laws have pretty much gone the way of the dodo, and unions are nonexistent. People are locked into contracts they can't get out of, and brainwashed to the point that they don't want to leave. They are told that, if they fall below their goals, they'll be sent out of the safety of corporate life, into the terrible lands outside. So they work 70 hours a week, and don't complain too much, because that's the price you pay for safety.
High value employees, like your top-line researchers or high-power mages, have better conditions, get more leeway, but are locked in even tighter, always have guards 'for their safety', and are still required to work long hours, because if they aren't working what their subordinates are, then someone from management may decide they aren't worth the money any more. Until you get to the very top, that's the way it is. And even at the top, you're not exactly sitting back, eating caviar and sipping champagne through the work day. Sure, you're not slaving away on an assembly line, but do you know how much work a Damien Knight or Lofwyr has to put in to keep their corporate empire running?
If you want shorter work days (with the increased risk of sudden lead poisoning), you drop out of the corporate world, and enter the shadows.
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This is a good point. The megacorporations have gone to the trouble of having citizens and cultures and constructing arcologies and enclaves for their employees. They don't treat employees like chattel quite like we do in hyper-capitalism because the megacorps aren't capitalist, they're neo-feudal sovereign entities. So they aren't going to be quite as ruthless and uncaring as American corporations are because they don't have the pressures from shareholders for the most part and they don't have the identity and cultural inclinations to just grind down employees as disposable quasi-freelancers. That being said, the cafeteria at Google is for the company's benefit, not the employees'. The benefit to the employees is collateral. The same goes for the benefits and treatment of citizens by megacorporations.
In fact, there is a strong argument to be made that corp citizens are like Roman citizens and the outside employees working for them or at subsidiaries are Roman slaves. WAGEslaves if you will.
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Actually, my numbers don't include Toxic Magicians, Insect Shamans or Blood Mages; that drek falls under the insane category (not that Blood Mages can't work in megacorporate society; look at Aztechnology!).
It's about 1,800 Aspected Magicians, 200 Full Magicians and perhaps 500 Adepts, with Mystic Adepts falling somewhere in there. The 1,800 breaks down to 600 Aspected Sorcerers, 600 Aspected Conjurers, and 600 pitiful Aspected Enchanters, by my understanding. Most of those Enchanters probably get into talismongering or the practical field-work involved, as they're the most populous group with Alchemy (the only skill that lets you harvest reagents currently). Conjurers make great security professionals/force multipliers, sorcerers are defined by the spells they learn.
I'd also cut down the numbers who can/will work megacorporate down more as well; there's federal/state, private sector, megacorporate, and illegal options for all of those eccentric mages who follow different magical paradigms. I'd say maybe 50% could cut it.
My final point is that I would stress that the top of the pyramids can never laze about, because they have to keep their position secure. Everyone (or close enough as to make no difference) with the capability to try wants your spot . If they can't take and hold their place on top, the corporate leadership has a long way to fall. In my mind, they probably work themselves harder than the clueless wage-slave, because they know what is in store for them if they go down. Unless they have a way to make a lateral move elsewhere, at least.
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My final point is that I would stress that the top of the pyramids can never laze about, because they have to keep their position secure. Everyone (or close enough as to make no difference) with the capability to try wants your spot . If they can't take and hold their place on top, the corporate leadership has a long way to fall. In my mind, they probably work themselves harder than the clueless wage-slave, because they know what is in store for them if they go down. Unless they have a way to make a lateral move elsewhere, at least.
Indeed.
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Actually I understand that quite well I just prefer to run my games somewhat differently and the novels I've read also have things not as bleak as you'd paint it.
It may be a taste thing but I just don't read the books/mechanics the same way you do. Like CrimsonDude said this is not western capitalism this IS some unqiue variant that evolved from a different world and different dominant culture. Not to mention all the people who aren't actually working for a AA/AAA one will be under the countries laws. As for locking the employee's up so they don't see the outside world sure they try and do that but again unlike most Dystopia's there isn't a Us or Noone situation. There are dozens of AA+ companies working hard to undermine their competitiors and steal their top talent.
As for mage's you also need to include in those numbers all those traditions that aren't suited for a corporate lifestyle s MirRaj said. The number of active, useful mages could be a lot smaller than most people think. Lets look at Seattle's numbers of around 3 million people.
3,107,250 = 31,072 magically awakened.
Sounds good doesn't it there are over 30 thousand mages you can hire but then you need to consider the following . . .
AGE: How many are too young/too old to work?
SOCIAL CLASS: How many slip through the cracks because they never got properly tested, how many more in a dystopia you prefer?
TRADITION: How many are of a tradition that doesn't work well for a corporate lifestyle?
INTEREST: How many don't want to be a mage at all?
POWER LEVEL: How many don't have enough magical ability to be a full mage or even useful?
PREJUDICE: How many got targetted/killed by policlubs and are running scared or loading up on cyberware to dull the magic?
EMPLOYER: How many simply go to work for someone else?
UNSUITABILITY: How many are simply not employable for some other reason?
Lets use MijRaj's numbers as I don't have time for major research.
2,500 = 200 full magicians. 2500/200 = 12.5. So 1 in 12.5 full magicians 31,072/12.5 = 2,485 full magicians. Now reduce that number by all the other factors too old, too young, not interested, not suitable, not enough power, not of a suitable tradition? Out of that 2,500 thousand full magicians you could wind up with an actual trained, useable pool of only a few hundred for a metropolis of several million people.
My final point is again I AM NOT SAYING IT IS THIS, I am saying these are factors YOU CAN USE IF YOU WANT in your game.
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It's a gilded cage.
But it's still a cage.
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You're getting my numbers off by a bit, Senko. Mine already factor in unsuitability/lack of power/insanity, etc. The 2,500 functionally Awakened is out of 10,000 'Awakened' individuals (all of them, no matter how minor their talent or if it drove them insane, broke them, they burned out, etc.), out of 1,000,000 people. It doesn't factor in age (which shouldn't be too large of a concern, getting them while they're young is a great method) or motivation. It also runs the gamut from your average Magic 3 dude to Harlequin levels of Initiation. On top of that, why would megacorporations not hire aspected magicians? They have a built-in excuse to pay them less than their fully capable brethren (you can't do every Mr. Mage can, so you don't rate).