[TheWanderingJewels]

Which is rule #1 in the Biz, do not mess with someone who has been in the Biz a Loooooong time.

Because they know everyone, have favors from everyone + everyone else. And if yer a Pink Mowhawk maroon, do not draw the attention of said people ina bad way. They will make you life hell should they choose to do so. And there is little you can do to stop it

[Patrick Goodman]

I believe Perri is adopted.

Based on what? Not being argumentative, just kinda curious how you reached this conclusion. Her appearance with Jack in "Happy Trails" would seem pretty inconclusive, though I think she's his biological daughter, personally.

[Wolfboy]

Stry, I only have one point to make here and then i'll shut my hole. People are forgetting that fastjack wouldn't have to call in favors for something like that, people would be paying hard earned cred to get a shot at beating the hell out of clockwork just because "the kid" is something new we're see-ing in the shadows, a child being raised right before our eyes. It could be a complete meat mundane with no skills whatsoever and the people on jackpoint would leap to its defense just because its a new life and its one of ours.

[Stry]

Based on what? Not being argumentative, just kinda curious how you reached this conclusion. Her appearance with Jack in "Happy Trails" would seem pretty inconclusive, though I think she's his biological daughter, personally.

I thought I read it on one of the SR wikis or some other SR site, but I could not find where I read it.   I will default to you sense I have not read "Happy Trails."

[Tsuzua]

I'm actually rooting for Clockwork at this point.  Sure, he's not a likable character, but he's seriously the underdog here.  "Jackpointers pwn some random guy who made death threats on the internet" isn't that impressive, exciting, or noteworthy.  So I'm hoping he offs the kid at least before going down if it comes to that. 

Also it isn't like the rest of Jackpoint are automatically white hats.  They're ruined more than their fair share of lives for cash.  It just reminds me of "I may shoot people in the face for money, but at least I'm not a racist" tone Shadowland had.  It isn't even the fact that they're not horrible people that bugs me since how morally upright shadowrunners are varies wildy, just the general self-rightousness of it all.

[Red]

There is an old Gypsy saying: "I against my brother. My brother and I against our uncle. My uncle and I against the outsider." As Jack himself has said, everyone is free to say and so as they will, and their reps will reflect it, but no one may betray each other. Clockwork crossed that line. Honor among thieves is more than a moral imperative: it's a necessity of business. If your Johnson is always going to try killing you, you'll stop taking jobs. If the fixer always rips you off, you'll stop buying from him. And if your team is always trying to tear itself apart, people end up dead. Professionalism involves a degree of loyalty, and you're only as good as your word.

Unless you're Kane, in which case it's more killer luck, talent, and a really big ego.

Which brings me to my next point: a fair number of folks on JP are hardly whitehats. Hannibelle could hardly be considered entirely trustworthy, Johnny No has stated firmly that he will do almost any job if the money is right, Puck may be trying to make right, but he's got a whole lot of bad still weighing on him, and Rigger X has a bad habit of killing the teams he works with. There are more beyond, but I end to see the activity on JP as less about "doing what's right" and more about camaraderie. That and the fact that most of the things that they unite to fight against are the things which are utterly reprehensible or are commonly considered evil, even to criminals. Consider that child molesters rarely last in jail. Same for people who kill children. You may steal, you may lie, you may even kill, but you're not out there kidnapping babies. That kind of activity reflects poorly on the rest of the community, and pushes at the thin border that separates most shadowrunners from being utterly psychotic mad dogs. Runner like that, you'll note, tend to get put down.

And for lack of any better explanation, Clockwork made the mistake of peeing into the well from which he drinks: he went after people in his own network, people who have become friends, associates, contacts. And any savvy runner knows you take care of the things that take care of you, whether it's your gun, your body, your chrome, your wheels, or the VPN you subscribe to that gives you all that sweet intel and all those job leads.

It was a dumb move. Underdog he may be, but sometimes, the outsider really DOES deserve to be there.

[Tsuzua]

It was a dumb move. Underdog he may be, but sometimes, the outsider really DOES deserve to be there.

If he was just the punching bag of Jackpoint, that'll be fine.  He's a jerk and thus gets treated likewise.  Stuff like the Safehouses intro then works.  That's what I assumed the Clockwork deal was at the start.  A mild amusing comedic asides about the grouch who stays grouchy.

If it's actually suppose to be a threat and this is suppose to be dramatic, then it's not going to work because he's been the punching bag.  "Some dudes gang up and beat up a jerk who they individually are more badass than" isn't very exciting except as a feel-good measure to deal with stuff we feel powerless against in real life.  Since none of us have to worry about technomancer lynching, I'm not sure how much that matters.

As for the white hats, they're clearly trying to show Clockwork clearing in the wrong.  They mention him selling out technomancers for the bounty and threatening kids.  What has Fastjack, Netcat, and Slamm-O* done on screen that's on the same scale?  Since they're some of the most common posters on Jackpoint, they set the tone.  Also, it's more about the self-righteous aura the whole Clockwork arc has.

*- Bull gets somewhat of a pass since he belongs to an older more pink mohawk era that didn't treat itself very seriously.

[CanRay]

The idea behind the Clockwork JackPoint page is that his score dropped even lower than when he sold out Netcat due to the threat on the little guy.

Clockwork does do some good on JackPoint, a lot of the tech guides were written by him (He's a technophile and rigger par excellance) and aside from the Technomancer cracks, he does provide a lot of useful information on other parts of Shadowrunning (Going back to Safehouses, he tells people how they can detect hidden floors from elevator acceleration/deceleration and what gear to have to do it.).

None of the JackPointers are two-dimensional characters, even if Kane comes close, and he's hardly around to "just" call out Technomancers and AIs as "Monsters".

That said, he is a miserable SOB.  But I've had friends like that myself who I could rely on no matter what.  Hell, there's times I am that miserable SOB.  I know I'm hard to be around most of the time.

[Mirikon]

That said, he is a miserable SOB.  But I've had friends like that myself who I could rely on no matter what.  Hell, there's times I am that miserable SOB.  I know I'm hard to be around most of the time.

Problem is, Clockwork's shown himself to NOT be the kind of guy you can rely on no matter what. And while the members of Jackpoint aren't all friends, and certainly aren't white hats, they are a tribe, of sorts. And he betrayed the tribe. You'll notice that the outrage over selling out Netcat wasn't that he tried to collect a bounty on TMs, but that he tried to collect the bounty on one of THEM.

That's bad enough. He could have walked his way back from that, even with being the wretched hatemonkey of spite. When he threatened the kid, though, that crossed a red line.

[CanRay]

His days on the JackPoint are numbered, even if he didn't break any official rules.  His days alive are possibly even a shorter number.

That said, he might still redeem himself.

[Bruce]

Things still seem ambiguous in Conspiracy Theories; either way, it doesn't look good for Clockwork, but it doesn't seem to be a slam-dunk bad guy thing yet.

[Falconer]

Quite frankly, I'd rather see the brat (Netcat) whacked.   The current iteration of shadowrun is a bit too fluffy nice... clockwork is one of the few remaining vestiges of the good old days.   /dev/grrl fills the hole neatly... worldly if still a bit naive... netcat has no excuse... she's just stupid/lucky and shoulda been left in a tamanous operation for parts long ago.

Any good story needs it's villains and right now the roster is a bit lacking with way too many bleeding hearts and politically correct tropes.

[Parker]

Quite frankly, I'd rather see the brat (Netcat) whacked.   The current iteration of shadowrun is a bit too fluffy nice... clockwork is one of the few remaining vestiges of the good old days.   /dev/grrl fills the hole neatly... worldly if still a bit naive... netcat has no excuse... she's just stupid/lucky and shoulda been left in a tamanous operation for parts long ago.

Any good story needs it's villains and right now the roster is a bit lacking with way too many bleeding hearts and politically correct tropes.

Interesting,...so you see 4th Edition full of bleeding hearts and the majority of runners too P.C. for your taste?   Maybe you're aching for the good old days of Teachdaire and Winternight.  After all, they were villians.  Of course, to work with them made your character a labeled bad guy.  Unless ya got off on shooting into a crowd of civilians and justifying it later as preventing possible witnesses from emerging.  Well?

[CanRay]

PC runners?

Netcat is pretty liberal and moralistic for a Shadowrunner, but don't forget that she is one because the alternative is not so drek hot.  (I don't want to be strapped to a table with my braincase opened up, do you?)

The rest are...  Hell, Kane fits in with them, 'nuff said.

[Red]

Well, to be fair, I will admit that having a small group means you get to know them better. Back on ShadowLand we had a large pool of regulars, but also a lot of visitors. The vast variety of posters, many of them only occasionally chipping in, meant we heard a large variety of opinions and sources, and we maintained a kind of "lost in the crowd" distance from many of them. Talon, Argent, Captain Chaos, Findler-Man, these were regular posters we got to know, but because there were so many people posting, if some of the regulars seemed a bit heroic, we still got looks at the vast majority of runners and were left to draw our own conclusions. Dragonslayer might have an obsession, but a moral code beyond screwing over dragons? Did Pyramid Watcher ever accept wetwork? Would Renraku Fox refuse to kidnap a child? The runners who we got an in-depth look at (Notably Matador and Hatchetman) were no angels.

In short, because there was ambiguity in numbers, we, the readers, we left to form our own opinions and color the world with our own perspective. To some of you, most runners are cold blooded killers. To others, more like a band of honorable thieves. And some of you will see runners as dark heroes. All possible. Looking out into a sea of names, many of whom you barely know, you rely more on your own idea of the world, and through that you become more invested in it.

JackPoint gives us a much smaller cast, with greater detail for everyone there. Some may love it. Some may hate it. It's definitely got it's benefits towards detail, but we lose the freedom to make our own details and customize it in our minds and memories by instinct. Kinda like old PlayStation games looking better in our nostalgia than they actually do on a screen.