[SpatulaODoom]

When I was writing a story in the Fic sub-forum a question arose.
Is there a magical equivalent to the Grid Overwatch Division

GOD was supposedly created (in a vein similar to Echo Mirage) in response to computer problems great and small, from the Crashes and AI scares down to simple scamming and cyber-crime.
Why can I find no mention of anything even somewhat similar in regards to magic?
If you need a big "nuclear bomb" type scare well there's the Great Ghost Dance. Really, is there anything bigger? Oh wait Chicago. And of course there's more recent Tempo. On top of that you've got smaller things like toxic/blood mages, free spirits, and even the common man's perception that any magician out there can mind rape you and blow up your house. And that's only the stuff the public is aware of.

As far as I can tell there are tons of magical organizations from the Atlantean Foundation to the Dunkelzahn Institute, but none of them act as anything resembling a police force. They have no actual legal powers that I'm aware of. Am I just missing the book where such an organization is located? Considering the relative scarcity of magicians I'm sure it wouldn't be as large as the internet police, but still it seems to me there'd be plenty of demand.

[Crimsondude]

When I was writing a story in the Fic sub-forum a question arose.
Is there a magical equivalent to the Grid Overwatch Division

Nope.

[CanRay]

When I was writing a story in the Fic sub-forum a question arose.
Is there a magical equivalent to the Grid Overwatch Division

Not by Mortal hands...

[Angelone]

It's much more difficult to control mana than it is the matrix. I'm sure people have tried but all have failed. With the exception of technomancers matrix jockeys need tools to do their work, tools can mostly be controlled, while magicians are born with their powers. . That's not counting that the matrix is a creation of man, magic on the other hand isn't so it's like trying to control the tides.

[Boomstick]

I think of this as wrong, cause indeed you can't control mana (and actually, you could, thanks to geomancy, feng shui or careful "sterilization"), but you can control actions.
Most of the control of hackers was on program and gear indeed, but also on a local level with IC and so on.
Now it will be on decks, as it is by protocols.
But regarding magicians, they might be born with it but they have to respect a bunch of constraining laws, it you read Magic in the Shadows/of the 6th world. So I don't think of it as "more difficult" for such powerful and large entities as governments and corps. Indeed, they can't achieve the same degree of control than if they were owning the whole thing, but I think this is relatively equivalent.

[Angelone]

Magic is freedom, all you need is your magic, your bike, and the open road.

[CanRay]

Magic is freedom, all you need is your magic, your bike, and the open road.

Drugs help too. 

[Angelone]

Magic is freedom, all you need is your magic, your bike, and the open road.

Drugs help too. 

That's how you pay for gas.

[Critias]

Individual security companies, police forces, and nation-states might have magical security divisions, but there's nothing as cohesive, world-spanning, and omnipotent as the GOD, no.

[Black]

Lone star had the department of paranormal investigation (DPI)

[Boomstick]

Magic is freedom, all you need is your magic, your bike, and the open road.

Well, I'll guess with new developments, we'll taste a lot more freedom as Ares made some breakthrought...

[SpatulaODoom]

So the question of "who you gonna call?" Is answered with a shrug?
It seems really odd that you wouldn't have need of something like that.
Every argument and situation that went into the creation of Grid Overwatch seems to have a magical parallel. Of note is the Astral/Matrix cross jurisdictional problem. You move at what, 6000kph when you're astral? If a guy who's meat body is in the CAS goes astral and heads over to Seattle to summon up some spirits on Aztech property to commit a crime in a Renraku facility who deals with it?

Sure individual police companies have their own magical investigation groups, but then again they also have their own cyber-crime specialists and hackers. Yet Grid Overwatch is still a thing.

Magic is freedom, all you need is your magic, your bike, and the open road.

And we all know how the Corporations feel about freedom. I'd also question the implied statement that the matrix can be easily controlled just because it's a creation of man. If that were true then why have so many organizations out policing it and yet still things are still so wild west. In addition there's things like AI's and sprites and ghosts in the machine. Sure individual nodes and components can be controlled, but the trix as a whole? In theory sure. In reality, good fragging luck chummer. I understand what you're saying, and to a degree I agree that it's a matter of degree, but just because it's easy doesn't mean it's not something that would be attempted.
The parallel is there with magic as boomstick indicated. Sure you can't control magic as a whole, but you can control individual mages and entities and localized regions.

"Reality" of the situation aside, don't you think the public at large would demand some sort of Magical overwatch division? Think about their perception of things magical.

[Black]

So the question of "who you gonna call?" Is answered with a shrug?
It seems really odd that you wouldn't have need of something like that.
Every argument and situation that went into the creation of Grid Overwatch seems to have a magical parallel. Of note is the Astral/Matrix cross jurisdictional problem. You move at what, 6000kph when you're astral? If a guy who's meat body is in the CAS goes astral and heads over to Seattle to summon up some spirits on Aztech property to commit a crime in a Renraku facility who deals with it?

Sure individual police companies have their own magical investigation groups, but then again they also have their own cyber-crime specialists and hackers. Yet Grid Overwatch is still a thing.

Magic is freedom, all you need is your magic, your bike, and the open road.

And we all know how the Corporations feel about freedom. I'd also question the implied statement that the matrix can be easily controlled just because it's a creation of man. If that were true then why have so many organizations out policing it and yet still things are still so wild west. In addition there's things like AI's and sprites and ghosts in the machine. Sure individual nodes and components can be controlled, but the trix as a whole? In theory sure. In reality, good fragging luck chummer. I understand what you're saying, and to a degree I agree that it's a matter of degree, but just because it's easy doesn't mean it's not something that would be attempted.
The parallel is there with magic as boomstick indicated. Sure you can't control magic as a whole, but you can control individual mages and entities and localized regions.

"Reality" of the situation aside, don't you think the public at large would demand some sort of Magical overwatch division? Think about their perception of things magical.

No more then they require similar global overwatch for modern concerns.

There was potential when the UB affair broke, but then Ares stepped in and it appeared that the Corporate Council had it undercontrol... and since then?  Magically, from the publics point of view, its been quiet.  Martix though?  With the Crash and Technomancers and all that valuable corporate data been exposed?  There is both a public drive and more importantly, a corporate need for some sort of regulation/security at a global scale.

But there just isn't the drive from a corporate or public view for similar for magic.  Local security is handled locally when it comes to magic.  Except for the bugs, there is no gloval magical threat... that the corps or the public is aware off.

Also, policing magic appears to be very much a national/corporate juristriction affair.  Unless something major happens on a global scale, these local authorities are unlikely to support giving up their control for some global entity... and from a Corp Council view, there is neither the profit or risk drivers for them to push for that control.

[Angelone]

So the question of "who you gonna call?" Is answered with a shrug?
It seems really odd that you wouldn't have need of something like that.
Every argument and situation that went into the creation of Grid Overwatch seems to have a magical parallel. Of note is the Astral/Matrix cross jurisdictional problem. You move at what, 6000kph when you're astral? If a guy who's meat body is in the CAS goes astral and heads over to Seattle to summon up some spirits on Aztech property to commit a crime in a Renraku facility who deals with it?

Sure individual police companies have their own magical investigation groups, but then again they also have their own cyber-crime specialists and hackers. Yet Grid Overwatch is still a thing.

Magic is freedom, all you need is your magic, your bike, and the open road.

And we all know how the Corporations feel about freedom. I'd also question the implied statement that the matrix can be easily controlled just because it's a creation of man. If that were true then why have so many organizations out policing it and yet still things are still so wild west. In addition there's things like AI's and sprites and ghosts in the machine. Sure individual nodes and components can be controlled, but the trix as a whole? In theory sure. In reality, good fragging luck chummer. I understand what you're saying, and to a degree I agree that it's a matter of degree, but just because it's easy doesn't mean it's not something that would be attempted.
The parallel is there with magic as boomstick indicated. Sure you can't control magic as a whole, but you can control individual mages and entities and localized regions.

"Reality" of the situation aside, don't you think the public at large would demand some sort of Magical overwatch division? Think about their perception of things magical.

No more then they require similar global overwatch for modern concerns.

There was potential when the UB affair broke, but then Ares stepped in and it appeared that the Corporate Council had it undercontrol... and since then?  Magically, from the publics point of view, its been quiet.  Martix though?  With the Crash and Technomancers and all that valuable corporate data been exposed?  There is both a public drive and more importantly, a corporate need for some sort of regulation/security at a global scale.

But there just isn't the drive from a corporate or public view for similar for magic.  Local security is handled locally when it comes to magic.  Except for the bugs, there is no gloval magical threat... that the corps or the public is aware off.

Also, policing magic appears to be very much a national/corporate juristriction affair.  Unless something major happens on a global scale, these local authorities are unlikely to support giving up their control for some global entity... and from a Corp Council view, there is neither the profit or risk drivers for them to push for that control.

This. The Matrix has crashed a few times and there's now people who can change it with their minds, meanwhile on the magic front there's old man McGuiness who heals people and animals in the neighborhood and casts illusions for the kids every now and them. Sure there's bad magicians out their but they are nothing like those technomancers who can ruin your life with a thought.

[Boomstick]

This. The Matrix has crashed a few times and there's now people who can change it with their minds, meanwhile on the magic front there's old man McGuiness who heals people and animals in the neighborhood and casts illusions for the kids every now and them. Sure there's bad magicians out their but they are nothing like those technomancers who can ruin your life with a thought.

Not like the fluff didn't tell they are portrayed in over the top ways, as well on the good than on the bad side.
Karl Kombamage. Seriously, that would not make people feel like mages are dangerous? When they are so much into what fictions usually dictate to them?
Add onto it the fact that there are really monsters that can take on your body and transform it into the aberration of the week, or else replacing you and keep on behaving like nothing happened like the Tommyknockers, the fact people had to leave their country and were brutally smacked down by these Native American they previously considered as lowly and primitive (I mean, don't think all real americans think like that, but in the context of SR, corps did their homework working PR for this during the ressources rushes) just because of Magic, a Dragon who razed Teheran (yeah, indeed, mostly not by himself, but still), others who destroyed planes, who fight above cities or make tables turn in various wars (like in California or Denver, and in Amazonia) and no, indeed, there would be no reason to be worried;)