[Senko]

I'm just curious if a corp had a popular, lucrative celebrity making them a lot of money how would they react if the person got caught up in a potentially embarrassing situation. I'm not talking evil allying with a toxic shaman to sacrifice babies and try to summon a great blood spirit then corrupt it. I'm just thinking major sports star had too much to drink and got into a brawl at a pub, a tv talkshow host abused and hit another employee or it was found out that a popular singer of an all girl band was really a boy in disguise kind of situation where it could be embarrassing if it got out but isn't something that is going to be a threat to their power base. Would they publish the story like we do today and punish them, reveal the situation but level a token series of punishments that don't mean much, cover it all up? How do you think they'd react?

[Whiskeyjack]

Depends on the corp.

Horizon would use incredible PR spin to make it look like that was their plan all along, for the increased publicity, or that a fight was staged, etc.

A Japanacorp might very likely sever all contracts and sue them for a very obscure morality clause or something.

[Reaver]

Pretty much the same as now.

Sponsors put distance between them and the professional. They stop endorsements and issue statements of outrage. Until it blows over and the public moves on to the next scandal...


Look at Tiger Woods and what happened...

[Senko]

That was what I oringally thought but then I started wondering given how influential and overwhealming shadowrun corps are compred to even today would events play out the same. I can see the Japanacorp severing ties and initiating legal proceedings but I can also see a double A corp convincing all its citizens to believe their version of the truth if that person is important enough to them. Its the difference between finding out a popular singer was doing drugs today even if his sponsors want to keep it quiet there's a lot of other people who'd work to make it come out whereas in the shadowrun world there are other options. That drug use was legal as it occured on corporate soil, paying off/making witnesses dissapear, being lucrative not just to them but to rival corps who also want to keep it quiet especially if the incident occured on their soil and they're concerned about being accused of setting him up.

I just watched Bridge of spies and the political games and one upmanship between the US, Russia and Germany was what prompted all this. I wont give details to avoid spoiling the movie for those who might go and see it.

[psycho835]

What they said. I'll just add that 4E "Anarchy Subsidized" deals with just that. Horizon hires you to carry out an idol's character assassination so that Mitsuhama will sever the contract, allowing them to grab her and use their l33t PR skillz to rebuilt her public image. Within a year - PROFIT!