[PauloAM]

   Evening chummers,

What would be necessary to completely remove a megacorp from the Big Ten? Maybe even destroy it?

It should probably be the climax of a long spanning campaign, sure. But what kind of runs do you think would be necessary to achieve such a feat? What plots could revolve around it? I dunno about you, but to me, it sounds truly epic! How would you guys do it if you were the GMs ?

[Herr Brackhaus]

Look at the Lockdown book. The events in the book will eventually culminate in the fall of a mega, and they had to try to bring a Dragon back from being an e-ghost by imprinting millions of CFD-infected nanites with his encoding and letting them loose on his physical body. Then, everything has to go to hell and the governments and corps have to quarantine a whole city, and only if the news get to the right corp does someone actually fall.

In other words, it would probably take an inordinate amount of "the GMs script says so" machinations.

[PauloAM]

What do you mean by these machinations?

[Herr Brackhaus]

"Machinate, verb, to contrive or plot, especially artfully or with evil purpose"

In other words, the GM would have to have some big players working against the corp you'd want to fall, with the players taking part in the action rather than orchestrate it. I think it is extremely unlikely that a team of runners would topple a megacorp on their own; Art Dankwalter literally had billions of nuyen at his disposal and he still failed to break Novatech, though he did come close.

[Novocrane]

Think of a modern multinational corporation, and imagine what it would take to bring them down - by external act or internal screw up.

Now consider that each of those is 'only' a corporation, and that there are dozens of multinationals tied together to make a megacorporation.

It takes a lot, and even then the component parts of an MC usually survive to end up somewhere else.

[Glyph]

Player characters may be minnows compared to the megacorporations, but you also have to remember that the megacorporations are in a state of constant hostility and paranoia with respect to each other, and they have a lot of other enemies.  A determined group of shadowrunners might be able to wound one of the megas enough for the other sharks to finish it off, but it would take some doing.

If you want to GM such a campaign, maybe the megacorp could be vulnerable in a way that the shadowrunners could exploit.  Maybe they are doing something that even the other megas would disapprove of, and are frantically trying to suppress a possible leak.  Maybe they have made a really boneheaded marketing decision that could be the start of a downward spiral for them.

From the PC end, it depends on whether it is their idea in the first place or not.  If it is their idea, then have them do a bit of legwork, then give them some places where they might find incriminating data, some shady dealings that they can possibly expose, and maybe some personalities they could exploit (so the head of R&D is butting heads with the head of security, hmm).  In addition to this, there can be enemies of the corporation that could be convinced to be allies, some of them less than savory if you want to introduce some moral ambiguity into the mix.  For it to have any chance at all, you will probably need to run a less realistic, more cinematic game - and not just gun battles, but half-assed plans working more often than they should.

If the PCs are not starting out with toppling a mega as one of their goals, they could be dragged into the initial conflict by a contact being threatened, or a job that is really a setup, or the classic dying person who hands off an explosive bit of data to the PCs, who become the next targets of corporate pursuit.  Then just have the corporation act like the villains in many action movies or adventure books - instead of just leaving the hero alone with nothing but a few clues, they keep coming after him, and keep tipping their hand more and more in the process, until the hero finally beats them.

[PauloAM]

Thanks! That was really helpful!

[kasper]

does it have to be a mega corp?

could it be a smaller AA or AAA rated corp. those would be easier.

[Vibral]

I personally would never even give the players inkling that what they were doing had a chance to truly wound a AAA Corp. It just isn't going to happen. However if I was going to allow it I would require combined effort on behalf of several other coprs/entities of immense influence and power to even get close.

[BetaCAV]

A bigger threat to Megas, I would think, would be internal infighting. There would be people not only alert to signs of trouble (such as runners generally herald), but are actively watching for it, in order to separate their tiny empire (and possibly exclaim "Mine!", even if it's not, and even if they can't). At some level, execs aren't looking for an extraction for themselves, or to acquire talent by means of one, but are hoping for a disaster just big enough to put some space between their group/division/office and the rest of their company. Even making another section look bad may be enough for them to get a bit of extra funding next quarter... and next quarter is "long term planning".

Then there are the scavengers; consider a contemporary office, how long is a chair empty (after someone leaves or is fired) before people start going through file cabinets and desk drawers to claim whatever is left behind? Now institutionalize this into an "asset redistribution team"... there's a whole lot of work inside a corp, for whoever is "Next On Scene" (as opposed to "First On Scene", which is usually Security) for their wage. They probably aren't well loved by security, but are adept at stumbling into any booby-traps left behind, that the guards doesn't trip over chasing the runners out. One could easily make an entire campaign out of playing these "rats".

When competitors are added to the mix, runners may not even make it out of the building, before the assets start getting divided up. THIS is what the rank and file CorpSec are generally there to prevent, not the initial attack by the runners -- which is what LS/KE or whoever's HRT is being paid for.

"Nevermind the hole in the building, just keep the equipment from 'walking away' through it. When the legal team arrives, try not to let them get dead.".

[Mr. Black]

You may want to find a copy of Cyberpunk. Part of their version of "Prime Runner" Campaigns was indeed bringing down megacorps. And every GM should have a copy of Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads!, also Cyberpunk and also talks about bringing down megacorps. For those uneasy at the idea of PC's doing it, the examples given involve PC's at the height of their skills. So a party made of James Bond, Gandalf, Elvis, Elon Musk/Steve Jobs, Edison/Tesla, and the Greatest Hacker Ever. And they all die at the end...

[Reaver]

The 10 megas control about 80% of the world economy (4e corp guide).

Its not accurate, but if we look at RL 2014 world economic numbers, we can get an idea of how big that is.

In 2014, the estimated world economic output was a liitle over $77 trillion, which means about $61 Trillion flowed through Megacorp hands (or about $6 Trillion each, if they all took an equal share, which they don't)

Or, in other words, more then the current GDP of some G7 countries! Then there is the physical size to deal with.... Megacorps are huge and vast, much like they mythical hydra, they don't die easily.

And just like a hydra, they have many many heads. If you look into the holds of any Megacoro, you'll see its like a spiderweb. Companies own companies, which own conglomerates, which own conglomerates, which own companies! So tangled is this web that some Megacorps don't actually know who and what they own!
(Going back through the Fluff history of SR, tgere have been several times megas have hired runners to hurt a company, only to later find out they actually owned said company! Ares is famous for this...)

Then there is the fact that a runner team is highly localized. While they could possibly totally riun a mega in a single town (and even then I highly doubt it), its only ONE town. It would be like a hang nail to you.... sore, a little painful, but not going to stop or even slow you down much.

Without an international backer and international support, there is just no way to chop down a megacorp tree....

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

They way Ares has been the past 2 editions (I've never understood all the Ares hate) it's not usually a mistake when Runners are doing a job against another part of Ares. It's fractured 3 ways at the very top level with a bunch of other fractions down the scale... Ares is probably the closest Mega to toppling before NeoNET decided to swallow a thermonuclear grenade to see what it tasted like. I hope everyone sold out to Lowyfer since I don't like the CFD plot at all and don't want it have any lasting effect. I just want all the headcases to get on a space ship & fly away, so I can promptly ignore it ever happened!

[Csjarrat]

You could do some serious damage, but you'd have to get much of the world media to do your handiwork for you, which would be tough given its out of your control.
If you find something dirty enough and hang it out in public to be seen by enough people, you could trigger a sell-off of shares and write billions off the company assets.
Obviously they'd be doing their level best to gag you and the media orgs, and all the interested parties that own those shares wouldn't like to see them lose any value either.
Plus you'd have to actually get really good evidence of something really juicy out of them in the first place.
Even small companies survive big scandals though, so unless the other megas jumped in and finished them off, you'd still be left with a weakened mega. they'd sell off a few divisions, sell off some assets and fire a few fall guys, issue some contrite statements and pay off a few victims. ultimately they're fairly likely to survive whatever the runners can throw at them, short of a nuke in the basement of global HQ going off in business hours!!

[CitizenJoe]

Being AAA requires one of two things.  Either you own a founding corporation, or you're so big and powerful that the cout votes you in. 

Ares, Oro (Aztechnology), BMW (SK), Shiawase, JRJ (NeoNET), MCT, Keruba (Renraku) are the founding 7.  Yamatetsu  (EVO) got voted in on their merits. Wuxing and Horizon got in after the second Crash.

Ares doesn't have enough skin in the Boston Game, plus they are on course for implosion via infestation as a different story arc.  SK is strong enough to survive even if they lose BMW.  Aztechnology has a country so they aren't going down.  Shiawase is too diversified to go down entirely.  Wuxing has the coins of luck, so they're basically cheating with magic plus they have the whole PPG on their side. EVO fought their way in, taking them down would take an alpha strike against Yuri and Buttercup, a sudden global dmination by Humans and then Shiawase,  Renraku and MCT feeding on the remains.  MCT is conservative and we'll defended.  They'll never reach number one with that strategy but they won't fall either. Renraku is divided by region and can suffer significant amputation and still come back, if someone internally grabbed up Keruba,  maybe to sell it to EVO, Wuxing or Horizon then maybe they would fall to AA status. 

I think NeoNET is vulnerable.  If CFD proves to make the wireless matrix unsafe, plus internal devisiveness, I could see crippling legal hits from the PCC and Renraku.  They could snatch up JRJ, then PCC merges with Horizon, using the JRJ as a means to have a permanent seat.