[grid_roamer]

We were taught to think that bad = criminal outlaw. If it's bad, there ought to be a law banning it and law enforcement to go after the perpetrator.

In Shadowrun setting (and generic cyberpunk setting at large), corporations are bad. Because of the aforementioned teaching, we tend to think that what they do must be illegal and that they just don't get caught for some reasons, like law enforcement and the government at large not doing its duty.

But it doesn't work like that. Corporations are legal beasts by nature. They do not break the law. What they do is have the law rewritten the way it suits them. And it may includes still having the government cracking down on anyone who does not respect the law (including the corporations who did not realize they were no longer in the alpha predator pack).
That's typically the case for everything extraterritoriality allow the megacorporation to do: they can have for free the government harassing all those A-rated smaller competing corporations for trying to do what the big boys do.

The thing is, it works with the "megacorporations" as a whole. Nine of the Big Ten may agree that, say, a 5% flat tax for megacorporation is the Right Thing to balance UCAS budget and fund Pentagon procurement plans. If the head of Renraku Americas tries to pay only 4.87% to proudly display a better profit margin than Renraku Asia at the big board, and get caught, he may find himself on the wrong end of a decision (or worst, a congressional inquiry) based on a report written thanks to intelligence anonymously handed over by other megacorporations intelligence services, backed by politicians whose campaigns were funded by these corporations, and covered by medias owned by them.

So corporations aren't Bad since they prompte Running.

And true, they make laws to suit themselves but that does not make them a legal entity. They lack or did lack a moral justification for their actions hense the distinct possibility that someone will get killed just for doing what they, the corporations expect. something immoral and illigal.

Or get killed just being in the wrong place at the wrong time or not bad enough to take what you want or just not being bad enough to carry a gun whenever possible. also illigal in the shadowrun setting.....

[grid_roamer]

My question is an exploration of ideas for runs; where runners are working for a gov't entity against a corporation or other gov't entity.

Corporations are basically an allegory for the feudal kingdoms of old Europe, in SR; however, the corps-as-villains is almost cliche at this point. At the same time, secretive gov't organizations conducting less-than-legal operations is almost cliche in RL fiction (even though it happens at an increasing rate these days, but I digress).

So my challenge to myself is to devise a likely conspiracy where a gov't agency seeks to control the corps through infiltration and assassination. . The details of the run  can handle myself.

The only difference is they dont openly declare each other in wrong doing. No profit in that....

[Crunch]

Lusis, you might look at the potential of Megacorps using governement agencies as a catspaw or cutout. For instance Ares wants to hit Aztechnology, but wants to avoid any potential blowback so instead of hiring runners herself the head of Ares Atlanta calls a contact in the Confederation Intelligence Agency and has the contact tap a slush fund to pay for a run against a nominally Aztlaner target that would hurt Aztechnology. So even if the runners get caught Aztechnology would have to trace the money through the CAS government before Ares gets implicated.

[Lusis]

I'll point out that while we harp on the big corporations for rigging the game legally and politically; there is a whole other side to the coin. The politicians and bureaucrats also seek to rig the game in their favor, consolidate their power, etc. Simplistically put. in the corporate world, money is above power. In the political world, it is the opposite.

SR blurs these lines; however. Power has been shifted away from the political realm into the corporate one, and big business is a feudalistic quasi-governmental system on steroids. The question I have, is where does this leave the politicians and bureaucrats? Their prime motivation is the acquisition of power; so are they just going to let the corps have it all without pushing back? Are bureaucrats in SR just hacks and any an all talent is in the tank for the Big Ten?

[Lusis]

Lusis, you might look at the potential of Megacorps using governement agencies as a catspaw or cutout. For instance Ares wants to hit Aztechnology, but wants to avoid any potential blowback so instead of hiring runners herself the head of Ares Atlanta calls a contact in the Confederation Intelligence Agency and has the contact tap a slush fund to pay for a run against a nominally Aztlaner target that would hurt Aztechnology. So even if the runners get caught Aztechnology would have to trace the money through the CAS government before Ares gets implicated.

While it makes perfect sense, I'm more inclined to throw a monkeywrench in the plot, and say that a group within the CIA seeks to infiltrate Ares and conduct a false-flag operation that would lead to their downfall. Prompting Congress to enact a law that essentially takes over the company and brings it under the perview of the UCAS/CAS/whatever government, therefore establishing a national governing body as a force to actually be reckoned with.

Feasible?

[Sengir]

Corporations are not sovereign.

Well if it's in bold then it must be right...

For AA megacorporations, all it takes is seven judges of the Corporate Court to vote "yes" for them to loose AA status, extraterritoriality and everything they had that break the laws of the countries where it's located.
For Evo, Horizon and Wuxing, it requires a majority vote from the Big Ten (involving weighted votes formulae) when their representative seat on the court is up for reelection.
For the founding members of the court, it would require a rewrite of the Corporate Court charter, which may be slightly more complicated to reach, but it still does not make them sovereign.

So, if another nation or body of nations have the hypothetical ability to decide at some point  they don't like an entity being sovereign, that entity is not? Looks like you just proved that no nation is sovereign, because neighbor states or even the UN might at some point  formally declare "nah, we don't recognize X as a sovereign nation anymore", done.

[Crunch]

Lusis, you might look at the potential of Megacorps using governement agencies as a catspaw or cutout. For instance Ares wants to hit Aztechnology, but wants to avoid any potential blowback so instead of hiring runners herself the head of Ares Atlanta calls a contact in the Confederation Intelligence Agency and has the contact tap a slush fund to pay for a run against a nominally Aztlaner target that would hurt Aztechnology. So even if the runners get caught Aztechnology would have to trace the money through the CAS government before Ares gets implicated.

While it makes perfect sense, I'm more inclined to throw a monkeywrench in the plot, and say that a group within the CIA seeks to infiltrate Ares and conduct a false-flag operation that would lead to their downfall. Prompting Congress to enact a law that essentially takes over the company and brings it under the perview of the UCAS/CAS/whatever government, therefore establishing a national governing body as a force to actually be reckoned with.

Feasible?

Feasible, unlikely to succeed, but feasible. Although frankly the CAS would be unlikely to target Ares as they're pretty chummy with the CAS/UCAS military industrial complex. you can put as many cutouts as you want.

For instance-
Aztteschnology  is using
Aztlan Intelligence to control a
Texan Seperatist Group to infiltrate
the CAS intelligence apparatus to manipulate
a UCAS based AA corp into Activating sleeper agents in
The UCAS FBI to begin a deep cover false flag operation
To pit Ares and Renraku against each other.

Could be really byzantine. Actually looking at that there's a reasonable chance that you could put together a random corp plot generator...

[Crimsondude]

The amusing thing about the New Revolution is that while it had infiltrated the CIA and other aspects of the federal bureaucracy pretty thoroughly, it hadn't managed to touch the NSA or DIA.

hehehe

It very much touched the DIA. The only spy agency the NR didn't infiltrate was the IRS's Enforcement Division.

[Silence]

It's also been a few years since I read the material.  And by the way, the CASS uses their EPA like a baseball bat to the knees of corps that screw up.

[Nath]

So, if another nation or body of nations have the hypothetical ability to decide at some point  they don't like an entity being sovereign, that entity is not? Looks like you just proved that no nation is sovereign, because neighbor states or even the UN might at some point  formally declare "nah, we don't recognize X as a sovereign nation anymore", done.

An entity ceases to be sovereign when it loses either independence or authority over its territory, or when it ceases to exist altogether.

Nations can willingly submit to international treaties, but they can also unilaterally ignore or exit them. They can do whatever they want at home. Another, more powerful nation can decide that it deserves invading them or toppling their government by force. When a government changes it policies because of the (perceived) certainty of an invasion if they don't, you can put their independence in question, and thus their sovereignty. Yes, a few years ago, the idea of an "international community" bound by UN decisions did exactly that for a lot of countries. Just like in Shadowrun, the threat of Corporate Court economical sanctions appears to be enough for most countries to no longer be truly independent and sovereign.

Megacorporations on the other hand, adhere to the Corporate Court charter, which contains, along with the Business Recognition Accords signed by most countries, provisions which require all these corporations and countries to stop accepting a corporation's authority over its properties when the Corporate Court says it no longer fulfills the requirements.

A corporation cannot seriously expects its security and military forces would be able to hold off all the other megacorporations and all the countries it operates in from exerting their authority inside its facilities, while dealing with the economical sanctions. Only the Big Ten may possibly consider that they are so important for the world economy and have enough WMD at hand to ensure economical or military MAD (like the US or China nowadays) that it puts them in a gray area were they're neither truly independent nor really dependent, but interdependent.

[Sengir]

Megacorporations on the other hand, adhere to the Corporate Court charter, which contains, along with the Business Recognition Accords signed by most countries, provisions which require all these corporations and countries to stop accepting a corporation's authority over its properties when the Corporate Court says it no longer fulfills the requirements.

...and then what? Does the world police appear and put the corporation (the legal entity) into prison? Because anything else is the same which might happen to a real nation, which you insist are completely different...

[GiraffeShaman]

...and then what? Does the world police appear and put the corporation (the legal entity) into prison? Because anything else is the same which might happen to a real nation, which you insist are completely different...

It just doesn't happen. They have too much riding on the status quo to interrupt it. The system is rigged in their favor, so there is pretty much no reason big enough to challenge it. We actually do have a good example. Renraku Shutdown. Renraku clearly wanted to handle the situation with their own forces and was making threats. They ultimately were forced to back down.

[GiraffeShaman]

SR blurs these lines; however. Power has been shifted away from the political realm into the corporate one, and big business is a feudalistic quasi-governmental system on steroids. The question I have, is where does this leave the politicians and bureaucrats? Their prime motivation is the acquisition of power; so are they just going to let the corps have it all without pushing back? Are bureaucrats in SR just hacks and any an all talent is in the tank for the Big Ten

The beuracrats are just like current beuracrats. For most of them their goals to maintain and increase their budgets. The difference is their budgets have been slashed, so they are even more hungry. And yes, many of them are corporate shills, just as many cops are bought by someone.

There are more bought politicians in the SR setting, but that does not mean it's the only kind. For example, racial politics are a huge thing. Both pro and anti meta. There's a surprising amount of racist voters, as shown by the rise of Brackhaven and the generally racist nature of the Renton government. (Hah, I lived in Renton for a couple years in RL. Freaked me out after reading all about it in SR)

[Black]

While I agree with Nath that Corporations are not sovereign entities... corporate citizenship does cloud the issue.  Does a nation entity which recognises the the citizens of another entity,also recognise that the 'nationality' of the entity exists and therefore the entity is in fact a nation-state?

In otherwords, if UCAS allows for Renraku employed wageslaves to renouces their UCAS citizenship and take up Renraku citizenship, isn't the UCAS actually acknowledging Renraku as a peer and fellow nation-state?

[grid_roamer]

So, if another nation or body of nations have the hypothetical ability to decide at some point  they don't like an entity being sovereign, that entity is not? Looks like you just proved that no nation is sovereign, because neighbor states or even the UN might at some point  formally declare "nah, we don't recognize X as a sovereign nation anymore", done.

An entity ceases to be sovereign when it loses either independence or authority over its territory, or when it ceases to exist altogether.

Nations can willingly submit to international treaties, but they can also unilaterally ignore or exit them. They can do whatever they want at home. Another, more powerful nation can decide that it deserves invading them or toppling their government by force. When a government changes it policies because of the (perceived) certainty of an invasion if they don't, you can put their independence in question, and thus their sovereignty. Yes, a few years ago, the idea of an "international community" bound by UN decisions did exactly that for a lot of countries. Just like in Shadowrun, the threat of Corporate Court economical sanctions appears to be enough for most countries to no longer be truly independent and sovereign.

Megacorporations on the other hand, adhere to the Corporate Court charter, which contains, along with the Business Recognition Accords signed by most countries, provisions which require all these corporations and countries to stop accepting a corporation's authority over its properties when the Corporate Court says it no longer fulfills the requirements.

A corporation cannot seriously expects its security and military forces would be able to hold off all the other megacorporations and all the countries it operates in from exerting their authority inside its facilities, while dealing with the economical sanctions. Only the Big Ten may possibly consider that they are so important for the world economy and have enough WMD at hand to ensure economical or military MAD (like the US or China nowadays) that it puts them in a gray area were they're neither truly independent nor really dependent, but interdependent.

Dependence on others is a condition of Sovereignty. International Trade is almost wholly regulated by Treaties, in turn regulated by the U.N.
Peace treaties and regulation of Armed Forces is only regulated by the U.N.
And very few countries even bother to pen the responability to do the same.
No nation can say they dont rely on others for trade, some more than others. And no nation can say that they dont rely on the U.N. as the governing body.