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Shadow-"RUN!"

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Sun, 2014-01-19 20:15
#1
Steel Accord Steel Accord's picture
Shadow-"RUN!"
I just got back from reading the new guide to Shadowrun and . . . damn. I thought the creators of THIS game were harsh on the free market system! Now I'm almost relieved to re-read the Consortium elements of the manuals. I'm sure the creators of Shadowrun are professional, but whoever writes their lore entries is either WAY too into it, or hasn't given up his early 80's paranoia. Their fluff makes our own guys look like Donald Trump! It was actually quite enlightening. I thought the creators had a rather unfair bent against my more libertarian stances. That the Consortium wasn't necessarily the bad guys of the setting. Which, at the time, I thought they were trying to hammer into the reader/player's mind. When comparing the two though, the Consortium, and even the Socialite elites, are given a much fairer shake than the compared Megacorps. in the 4th World. To give my point a more visual representation. If both books were represented as conversations on politics and economics within their respective settings, EP would be a civil and respectful debate, with EP being somewhat fervent in it's stance against ANY form of hierarchy but also open to critique. SR would be the guy with a mohawk standing on a desk yelling in your face at how a Megacorp. CEO is worse than the Devil. "Well what if I wanted to be a street samurai who worked for EVO off the books as a deniable asset simply because I believe in the compa-" "WAGE SLAVE!" "Forget this! I'm going back to Mars!"
—
Your passion is power. Focus it. Your body is a tool. Hone it. Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
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Mon, 2014-01-20 01:51
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Steel Accord wrote:
Steel Accord wrote:
It was actually quite enlightening. I thought the creators had a rather unfair bent against my more libertarian stances. That the Consortium wasn't necessarily the bad guys of the setting. Which, at the time, I thought they were trying to hammer into the reader/player's mind.
The Consortium can hardly be said to be libertarian. The hypercorps have hijacked the political process, they dictacte legislation and control the monopoly of violence, and they use it to oppress the population, especially with their fabber restrictions. I mean, most libertarians have big issues with current western democracies, and the PC could be said to be worse than that.
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Mon, 2014-01-20 05:38
GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture
Also, Shadowrun is Neo
Also, Shadowrun is Neo-Cyberpunk. While Neo tones down the dystopian a bit, it still portrays megacorporations as basically evil entities akin to liches and black dragons in DnD.
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Mon, 2014-01-20 17:36
puke puke's picture
not just similar
There are lots of parallels between EP and SR. You'll notice a particular lot of similarities between some parts of the EP and SR4 rules, and even some of the setting and cyber/bio stuff written towards the later days of 4th ed. This is no doubt because a significant percentage of the PHS guys also wrote for CGL, and some of them date back to the Fanpro days. I'm not sure, some of them may have been working on the product as far back as the FASA days.
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Mon, 2014-01-20 21:44
Steel Accord Steel Accord's picture
Not saying that
Smokeskin wrote:
Steel Accord wrote:
It was actually quite enlightening. I thought the creators had a rather unfair bent against my more libertarian stances. That the Consortium wasn't necessarily the bad guys of the setting. Which, at the time, I thought they were trying to hammer into the reader/player's mind.
The Consortium can hardly be said to be libertarian. The hypercorps have hijacked the political process, they dictacte legislation and control the monopoly of violence, and they use it to oppress the population, especially with their fabber restrictions. I mean, most libertarians have big issues with current western democracies, and the PC could be said to be worse than that.
Oh I'm not saying that at all! I think the Consortium are a bunch of idiots who've purposefully restricted their profit and success margins through an unnecessary democratic system, and the regulatory Oversight; Keynesian economics at it's finest. What I'm saying is that the Consortium is given a fairer shake than the Big Ten Megacorporations of Shadowrun. The splat goes on and on, repeatedly asserting that the Megs regularly eat puppies. At least EP was aware, if only slimly, that those who choose to live in Hypercorps. habs are comfortable and happy.
—
Your passion is power. Focus it. Your body is a tool. Hone it. Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
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Mon, 2014-01-20 21:46
Steel Accord Steel Accord's picture
But that's just it
GreyBrother wrote:
Also, Shadowrun is Neo-Cyberpunk. While Neo tones down the dystopian a bit, it still portrays megacorporations as basically evil entities akin to liches and black dragons in DnD.
Post-Cyberpunk usually gives megacorporations at least a little nuance. Making them misguided and having grown way too powerful for their initial responsibilities. Shadowrun just seems to be stuck in the grungy 80's cyberpunk and content to stay that way.
—
Your passion is power. Focus it. Your body is a tool. Hone it. Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
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Tue, 2014-01-21 01:52
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Steel Accord wrote:Smokeskin
Steel Accord wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
Steel Accord wrote:
It was actually quite enlightening. I thought the creators had a rather unfair bent against my more libertarian stances. That the Consortium wasn't necessarily the bad guys of the setting. Which, at the time, I thought they were trying to hammer into the reader/player's mind.
The Consortium can hardly be said to be libertarian. The hypercorps have hijacked the political process, they dictacte legislation and control the monopoly of violence, and they use it to oppress the population, especially with their fabber restrictions. I mean, most libertarians have big issues with current western democracies, and the PC could be said to be worse than that.
Oh I'm not saying that at all! I think the Consortium are a bunch of idiots who've purposefully restricted their profit and success margins through an unnecessary democratic system, and the regulatory Oversight; Keynesian economics at it's finest.
It's the other way around. The democratic system is the hypercorps' powerbase - it's how they maintain the monopoly of violence and through that they control and oppress the population.
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Tue, 2014-01-21 12:50
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
One fun way even for us
One fun way even for us libertarians to have evil megacorps is to recognize that they are essentially AGI made out of humans and rules. How many megacorps have been designed to be friendly?
—
Extropian
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Tue, 2014-01-21 13:53
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Corporations are as evil as a
Corporations are as evil as a predator. The politicial system is what makes them seem evil by stripping citizens of their options to defend themselves. For example one "evil" legal strategy often used against people with legitimate claims is to just wait them out, let their legal and opportunity costs mount until they give up. Here in Denmark you have to wait around two years for even trivial cases, which makes such a strategy viable. Our courts are as effective as can be expected from any monopoly. If there was competition in the legal system, such wait times for court dated would disappear and corporations could be held accountable to a much higher degree.
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Wed, 2014-01-22 06:02
GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture
Steel Accord wrote:Shadowrun
Steel Accord wrote:
Shadowrun just seems to be stuck in the grungy 80's cyberpunk and content to stay that way.
Its not that. Its more that Shadowrun writers couldn't decide if they wanted to be Post Cyberpunk or "true" Cyberpunk. I for my part embraced the post cyberpunk feel, because Cyberpunk alone feels very... naive and childish after the 90's.
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Wed, 2014-01-22 06:50
Lilith Lilith's picture
What...
...you mean Japan [i]isn't[/i] going to dominate the world economically and technology [i]won't[/i] require big, bulky electronics that has to be hard-wired to everything else?
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Wed, 2014-01-22 12:54
AdamJury AdamJury's picture
puke wrote:This is no doubt
puke wrote:
This is no doubt because a significant percentage of the PHS guys also wrote for CGL, and some of them date back to the Fanpro days. I'm not sure, some of them may have been working on the product as far back as the FASA days.
Rob was an editor at FASA, and ran FanPro; he was the SR line developer from Year of the Comet -> after SR4. I wrote a little bit of one book for FASA (Target: Matrix) and got hooked into more things when Rob was developer under FanPro. I continued working on SR until about the SR 20th Anniversary Edition. Brian Cross got pulled in to edit shortly after FanPro started up, and did editing and writing work up until Rob stopped working on SR. Jack Graham, well, I don't remember a world without Jack, but I don't remember when I first met him, either. :D
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Fri, 2014-01-24 06:15
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
SR4 started going the way of
SR4 started going the way of transhumanism. I think the writers realized firstly, if they push it much further it won't be 'Shadowrun' any more, it'll be something else, and secondly, they've been getting a lot of push back. So SR5 throws a bone to us grognards. It works nicely for me; when I want transhuman, I play EP, when I want cyberpunk, I play Shadowrun :) As for the corporations, it's like Arenameonterous said. "Imagine an alien, Fox once said, who’s come here to identify the planet’s dominant form of intelligence. The alien has a look, then chooses. What do you think he picks? I probably shrugged. The zaibatsus, Fox said, the multinationals. The blood of a zaibatsu is information, not people. The structure is independent of the individual lives that comprise it. Corporation as life form. Not the Edge lecture again, I said. " Modern corporations are not a libertarian thing. A corporation is intended to limit personal liability, and make the paperwork easier, not to create a new entity with a right to speech and self-preservation. Shadowrun (and EP) take this example of a good concept that's gone wrong and push it to the extreme. Shadowrun isn't libertarianism, it's a plutocracy.
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Mon, 2014-01-27 09:16
ProfessorCirno ProfessorCirno's picture
One of the - if not THE -
One of the - if not THE - main theme of "cyberpunk" is dehumanization. People are turned into numbers and products. It's why so many cyberpunk games use some form of tracking on how many implants you shove in - cyberpunk is NOT transhuman. The theme is that literally dehumanizing yourself, be it physically or mentally, is a bad thing. The classic cyberpunk megacorps are there to reinforce that: it's not even other humans that are turning the world to garbage, it's faceless corporations. The entire system has been dehumanized. You aren't just a cog in another man's machine, there IS no other man. And frankly, isn't that the entire purpose OF a corporation? To create plausible deniability? The board isn't the one giving press conferences for a good reason. Honestly, a cyberpunk game with happy friendly corps is an oxymoron. The whole point is that the favored few rule everything - and you ain't one of them. So what're you gonna do about it? As for timing, I think there's a rather good reason cyberpunk seems to be making a comeback nowadays, and it isn't because of the "samurai" thing. The "lesson," if you will, of cyberpunk, is that the cost of unlimited geed is dehumanization. I'd wager plenty of people who thought that was fading away have been woken up rather sharply.
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Mon, 2014-01-27 10:54
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Insightful point about the
Insightful point about the dehumanisation.
ProfessorCirno wrote:
The whole point is that the favored few rule everything - and you ain't one of them.
Which is of course why most cyberpunk novels and games fail. The dehumanization aspect is important, but most readers and writers have a hard time grasping it. So they introduce feudalism instead: there are the Haves, they have power, and they can be fought by street scum. Essentially it allows you to map Robin Hood or any standard fantasy story about fighting unjust rulers into sf. When Elysium has its happy ending it is the fairy tale story about the wicked king's treasury being opened and given to the peasants. Tessier-Ashpool were not in control. They were just as trapped in the system as everybody else. The problem story-wise is that complete dehumanization makes for lousy stories (1984 nonwithstanding). There is no person to fight, and properly fighting a *system* makes a very abstract story few care to read (imagine a novel about reforming the European Union bureaucracy). Personalising conflict makes it vivid, turning it feudal makes it easy to understand... and then the dehumanization becomes nice intellectual windowdressing for those readers who care.
—
Extropian
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Mon, 2014-01-27 11:56
Leodiensian Leodiensian's picture
I think "We", by Yevgeny
I think "We", by Yevgeny Zamyatin, was the most dehumanization-focussed science fiction I've ever read (even 1984, which was inspired by We, seems to be a tad softer) and it certainly wasn't cyberpunk... It also suffers quite a bit from what Arenamontanus talks about in that it's kind of a mess of being unsure who does what, who IS what...
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Mon, 2014-01-27 13:24
thezombiekat thezombiekat's picture
seems they may have darkened
seems they may have darkened the SR corps since the early to min SR3 stuff i was most familiar with. my recollection was of a wide variety of moral stances from moderately questionable threw reprehensible and down to supernaturally evil. and with corps being represented as so large that divisions have different moral standings. but they looked after there employs (for the most part, and if they where loyal). corporate residential districts where clean, and low on crime. with ready access to moderately priced entertainment and health care. children where educated (and indoctrinated) so they would be productive in the future. the cage is so finely guided that most consider the 20 year lock in contract to be job security rather than slavery. the most evil corporation in SR was aztechnology. they practiced blood magic, including involuntary fatal sacrifice and a faction of there board was loyal to the horrors (demons) and actively worked to bring them to earth soon. but there public image is the suppliers of food and medicine to the world, including free clinics in impoverished areas. and these are for the most part genuinely helpful (they have been accused of disproportionately pushing birth control in orc dominated areas but that is all joe public has heard them accused of) compared to EP where we have corporations firing experienced terraformers on mars at the end of an indenture so they can replace them with unskilled indentures that are only a small fraction cheaper. workers denied basic mesh, communication and muse access as a 'control' measure when the psychological impact of doing so will result in suicide and the attendant destruction of a fortune in morphs and other equipment and filtered mesh access, games and muses hacked to encourage hard work and report attempts to plan dissident activities. workers on the surface of Venus getting no credit for time served if they die and in general being treated so badly they believe the company is actively trying to kill them as there contract nears an end, the quarts morph they work in is many times the price of the splicer they get on completion but the company is at a minimum indifferent to the accidents. races of sapients legally born into slavery sometimes with modified development to keep them controllable at expense of capability. while this is not all the EP hyper-corps these are all scenarios described in the books. and are all Saturday morning cartoon villain evil. that is evil done for its own sake or out of counterproductive stupidity. i never saw an SR corp engage in that kind of evil.
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Tue, 2014-01-28 21:37
Steel Accord Steel Accord's picture
Modern corporations
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Modern corporations are not a libertarian thing. A corporation is intended to limit personal liability, and make the paperwork easier, not to create a new entity with a right to speech and self-preservation. Shadowrun (and EP) take this example of a good concept that's gone wrong and push it to the extreme. Shadowrun isn't libertarianism, it's a plutocracy.
Modern corporations are to decrease individual liability yes, but not in the way you're thinking. As businesses succeed and profit, they get bigger. To incorporate a business is just to make it more manageable than one person could possibly handle all on their own. (At least by today's standards of human capability.) All to continue to make good products and provide better service. Now, what you ARE probably thinking of, these "too big to fail" economic zombies artificially kept alive through tax dollars, are not true free market corporations but crony capitalism. Something that, unless your Ares, you probably don't have a problem with in Shadowrun because the state has been rightfully kicked in the teeth.
—
Your passion is power. Focus it. Your body is a tool. Hone it. Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
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Tue, 2014-01-28 21:39
Steel Accord Steel Accord's picture
Elysium
Arenamontanus wrote:
Insightful point about the dehumanisation.
ProfessorCirno wrote:
The whole point is that the favored few rule everything - and you ain't one of them.
Which is of course why most cyberpunk novels and games fail. The dehumanization aspect is important, but most readers and writers have a hard time grasping it. So they introduce feudalism instead: there are the Haves, they have power, and they can be fought by street scum. Essentially it allows you to map Robin Hood or any standard fantasy story about fighting unjust rulers into sf. When Elysium has its happy ending it is the fairy tale story about the wicked king's treasury being opened and given to the peasants. Tessier-Ashpool were not in control. They were just as trapped in the system as everybody else. The problem story-wise is that complete dehumanization makes for lousy stories (1984 nonwithstanding). There is no person to fight, and properly fighting a *system* makes a very abstract story few care to read (imagine a novel about reforming the European Union bureaucracy). Personalising conflict makes it vivid, turning it feudal makes it easy to understand... and then the dehumanization becomes nice intellectual windowdressing for those readers who care.
I knew that movie was gonna suck from the trailers. Here's a question! If they had a machine that can cure cancer, and many people on earth were terminal, WHY DIDN'T THEY SELL IT?! Even if you slashed the prices, the money made from that campaign would be astronomical! Not to mention it basically makes the entire bullshit plot pointless.
—
Your passion is power. Focus it. Your body is a tool. Hone it. Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
Top
Tue, 2014-01-28 21:48
Steel Accord Steel Accord's picture
No, that's not the point
ProfessorCirno wrote:
And frankly, isn't that the entire purpose OF a corporation? To create plausible deniability? The board isn't the one giving press conferences for a good reason. Honestly, a cyberpunk game with happy friendly corps is an oxymoron. The whole point is that the favored few rule everything - and you ain't one of them. So what're you gonna do about it?
The point of corporations, like almost all free market tools, is to SERVE a market. Whether that service is food, medicine, entertainment, etc. eventually it gets to big for one person or even a small group to handle. So you bring in a CEO . . . . hold the hairs on the back of your necks people, they're not demons. (That would be the lawyers. XD) The board looks over their credentials and decides of they would be a fit to run their business. And if he does go off the rails and takes the company in a direction they don't want to go in . . . I refer you to my favorite scene in Robocop. "Dick, YOU'RE FIRED!" *PRIME DIRECTIVE INVALID "Thank you." BANG
—
Your passion is power. Focus it. Your body is a tool. Hone it. Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
Top
Tue, 2014-01-28 21:55
Steel Accord Steel Accord's picture
Damn
thezombiekat wrote:
seems they may have darkened the SR corps since the early to min SR3 stuff i was most familiar with. my recollection was of a wide variety of moral stances from moderately questionable threw reprehensible and down to supernaturally evil. and with corps being represented as so large that divisions have different moral standings. but they looked after there employs (for the most part, and if they where loyal). corporate residential districts where clean, and low on crime. with ready access to moderately priced entertainment and health care. children where educated (and indoctrinated) so they would be productive in the future. the cage is so finely guided that most consider the 20 year lock in contract to be job security rather than slavery. the most evil corporation in SR was aztechnology. they practiced blood magic, including involuntary fatal sacrifice and a faction of there board was loyal to the horrors (demons) and actively worked to bring them to earth soon. but there public image is the suppliers of food and medicine to the world, including free clinics in impoverished areas. and these are for the most part genuinely helpful (they have been accused of disproportionately pushing birth control in orc dominated areas but that is all joe public has heard them accused of) compared to EP where we have corporations firing experienced terraformers on mars at the end of an indenture so they can replace them with unskilled indentures that are only a small fraction cheaper. workers denied basic mesh, communication and muse access as a 'control' measure when the psychological impact of doing so will result in suicide and the attendant destruction of a fortune in morphs and other equipment and filtered mesh access, games and muses hacked to encourage hard work and report attempts to plan dissident activities. workers on the surface of Venus getting no credit for time served if they die and in general being treated so badly they believe the company is actively trying to kill them as there contract nears an end, the quarts morph they work in is many times the price of the splicer they get on completion but the company is at a minimum indifferent to the accidents. races of sapients legally born into slavery sometimes with modified development to keep them controllable at expense of capability. while this is not all the EP hyper-corps these are all scenarios described in the books. and are all Saturday morning cartoon villain evil. that is evil done for its own sake or out of counterproductive stupidity. i never saw an SR corp engage in that kind of evil.
Why can't the Hypercorps. and the Consortium in general be more like that? I like the grey area that the Megacorps. were in. Allowed for some classic "good vs. evil" setup if you just picked the lighter shade of grey and attacked Aztechnology! I had this really cool concept for a human Street Samurai who worked for EVO. He was a transhumanist who, while he didn't have a problem with metahumans or spirits individually, distrusted magic on principle. He saw magic as something that was almost always used to oppress people, where technology, even when used for ill, was still very empowering and democratizing.
—
Your passion is power. Focus it. Your body is a tool. Hone it. Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
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Wed, 2014-01-29 05:08
thezombiekat thezombiekat's picture
Steel Accord wrote:I had this
Steel Accord wrote:
I had this really cool concept for a human Street Samurai who worked for EVO. He was a transhumanist who, while he didn't have a problem with metahumans or spirits individually, distrusted magic on principle. He saw magic as something that was almost always used to oppress people, where technology, even when used for ill, was still very empowering and democratizing.
an interesting position. one i would disagree with. magic is inherently empowering to the user without inherently dis-empowering others (although it can be used to do so). technology on the other hand is empowering to the producer and dis-empowering to the user who is dependent upon the producer those that control production of technology have people they care about. (close family, friends) with whom they share that control leading to a small incestuous network of people at the top. those that use magic also have friends and family. but they can not grant them the ability to use magic so they use what power they have to look after those people. people capable of using magic are distributed randomly threw the population and there are low limits to how much personal magical power you can draw to yourself and to control. the mega-corps all maintain there control threw legal monopolies on the production of technological items. and practical oligopolies on the production of essential supplies such as food. only a very few employs could leave a corporation and take means of producing technology with them because they are not mediated by labor but by patents land and machinery owned by the company. so only a bare minimum need be given to an employ who works with technology. magic is ultimately controlled by magicians. corporations must entice them to do there bidding and should a magician leave the corporations ability to use magic is reduced. now most magicians are users of technology and consumers of its products but the means of magical production is still a person and there is unmet demand for magical services at every level. the means of technological production is the factory, and workers must compete for the few jobs available.
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Wed, 2014-01-29 07:40
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
thezombiekat wrote:an
thezombiekat wrote:
an interesting position. one i would disagree with. magic is inherently empowering to the user without inherently dis-empowering others (although it can be used to do so). technology on the other hand is empowering to the producer and dis-empowering to the user who is dependent upon the producer.
Ah, so that is why open source software is evil and hegemonic! And we are all disempowered by our dependency on Wikipedia.
—
Extropian
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Wed, 2014-01-29 10:21
thezombiekat thezombiekat's picture
but in shadowrun open source
but in shadowrun open source and creative commons style projects have an extremely low presence. in fact there are only 3 projects mentioned in SR built on those lines and all of those are criminal in nature. shadow-land, the Denver nexus and magic under-net. there are rules listed for building your own deck (from purchased components). and writing your own software. you can buy software on the open market or the black market but there is no open source or Napster style option available even for the lowest rated, buggiest software. looks to me like the cooperate court managed to kill it all, probably because members copied open source code, backdated it and sued the producers into oblivion. after all what open source group could afford a lawyer that could convince the cooperate court to go against its members interests.
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Wed, 2014-01-29 10:31
ProfessorCirno ProfessorCirno's picture
I'm not here to debate
I'm not here to debate politics, but you are completely and entirely missing the point. The Corps CAN be "grey" morality, but that's not what's important. The point is not that the corps are evil demon monsters - simply that they are not, and never are, your friend. Now, if you wanted to run a game about a group of dudes who sold out and just became more grunts who follow the authorities, you are welcome to do so - just as, in EP, you could run an Overwatch game, dedicated to protecting the Hypercorps and hunting down any Firewall agents who try to meddle in their affairs. Again, if you want a game where the corps are some sort of good guy, or all modification is great and humanity is just expanding their own definitions and going all in to transhumanism, you aren't just in the wrong game, you're in the wrong genre. Cyberpunk IS NOT TRANSHUMANISM! A guy who thinks technology is always a net gain and is totally cool and humanity is always going to get better is literally incorrect. Objectively so! 'ware makes you less human; this is a physical fact of the setting. The whole point of 'ware is that human beings are intentionally dehumanizing themselves to be "upgraded." That's not a transhumanist perspective, but, again, cyberpunk is not transhumanism. Someone who constantly destroys their body to shove as many upgrades into themselves as they can is a crazy person. Again, often literally so, as low Humanity or low Essence or whatever you want, in most cyberpunk games, leads to Bad Things. Technology is also not inherent democratizing, especially in setting, because They Afford it, You Don't. Even Eclipse Phase covers this; there's a stark difference between what the Glitterati and hypercorp elites have, and what others have. It's why the Clanking Masses are a thing across Mars. In Shadowrun, the high powered rich elite have custom made delta-grade bioware that's seemlessly fit to work inside their bodies, doing relatively little to no damage to their essence. You? Guy from the streets? You get to hack off your arm or take the melon baller to your eyes to get that simple edge up. I feel the basic problem is that you're approaching all of this with the most idealistic view possible. Of course the corps aren't bad guys. Of course technology is always helpful. Of course all things just get better. Of course the future will be brighter and more wonderful. But cyberpunk is, well, "punk." It's NOT optimistic. The only optimism is that you, the player, might have a chance to change things. It's a crappy world where the gap between the elite and everyone else is as wide as possible, to the point where the rich can even become eternally young, living in beautifully sculpted habitats and mansions, never once breathing the poisoned air or so much as glancing down the broken streets of the Barrens. You? They had to build all that on top of something. They eat steak; you get krill mush. They drink fine wines and aged scotch; you get soycaffe. They have their nervous system genetically enhanced from samples of their own DNA; you get wires shoved down your spine. So again: What're you gonna do about it? Yes, cyberpunk is about dehumanization. But it's also about FIGHTING it. C'mon, "punk" is right there in the name, did you think this was about selling out or just giving up? Typically games tend to go down two avenues. The first is simply greed. What you're gonna do about it is take the runs, keep your heart cold and your cash colder, save up, and try to buy your way out, and I feel SR4 of all editions pushed for that, with many adventures having utterly horrible premises with the assumption that PCs would do them anyways because hey, it's good money. Speaking personally, I abhor this and feel it's missing the point. The second is higher minded; you aren't a Runner out of pure greed, but because you CAN'T do the corporate wageslave thing. You got something to fight for, and dammit, you're gonna fight tooth and nail. Running gives you an excuse and a paycheck to fight exactly who you were gonna fight anyways. CyberPUNK. You don't sell out, you pull your mask up and light that fuse. Again, if none of this appeals to you, it's not a problem with the genre. It's that you don't like the genre. And that's cool; there's plenty of genres I simply cannot get into ("Steampunk"...ugh!). But railing against cyberpunk for being cyberpunk is...well, odd, I suppose.
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Wed, 2014-01-29 11:45
Lilith Lilith's picture
ProfessorCirno
That was a lovely post, and while I can't personally claim to be an expert on cyberpunk (my only real experiences being 1) reading [i]Neuromancer[/i] and 2) GMing Shadowrun for 3 years), I can certainly echo that the sentiment of fighting against the tide is something I've always tried to capture in my SR4 games. (And I also second the "ugh" comment as regards Steampunk. [i]Ugh indeed[/i].)
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Wed, 2014-01-29 18:21
Steel Accord Steel Accord's picture
I see your point
ProfessorCirno wrote:
I'm not here to debate politics, but you are completely and entirely missing the point. The Corps CAN be "grey" morality, but that's not what's important. The point is not that the corps are evil demon monsters - simply that they are not, and never are, your friend. Now, if you wanted to run a game about a group of dudes who sold out and just became more grunts who follow the authorities, you are welcome to do so - just as, in EP, you could run an Overwatch game, dedicated to protecting the Hypercorps and hunting down any Firewall agents who try to meddle in their affairs. Again, if you want a game where the corps are some sort of good guy, or all modification is great and humanity is just expanding their own definitions and going all in to transhumanism, you aren't just in the wrong game, you're in the wrong genre. Cyberpunk IS NOT TRANSHUMANISM! A guy who thinks technology is always a net gain and is totally cool and humanity is always going to get better is literally incorrect. Objectively so! 'ware makes you less human; this is a physical fact of the setting. The whole point of 'ware is that human beings are intentionally dehumanizing themselves to be "upgraded." That's not a transhumanist perspective, but, again, cyberpunk is not transhumanism. Someone who constantly destroys their body to shove as many upgrades into themselves as they can is a crazy person. Again, often literally so, as low Humanity or low Essence or whatever you want, in most cyberpunk games, leads to Bad Things. Technology is also not inherent democratizing, especially in setting, because They Afford it, You Don't. Even Eclipse Phase covers this; there's a stark difference between what the Glitterati and hypercorp elites have, and what others have. It's why the Clanking Masses are a thing across Mars. In Shadowrun, the high powered rich elite have custom made delta-grade bioware that's seemlessly fit to work inside their bodies, doing relatively little to no damage to their essence. You? Guy from the streets? You get to hack off your arm or take the melon baller to your eyes to get that simple edge up. I feel the basic problem is that you're approaching all of this with the most idealistic view possible. Of course the corps aren't bad guys. Of course technology is always helpful. Of course all things just get better. Of course the future will be brighter and more wonderful. But cyberpunk is, well, "punk." It's NOT optimistic. The only optimism is that you, the player, might have a chance to change things. It's a crappy world where the gap between the elite and everyone else is as wide as possible, to the point where the rich can even become eternally young, living in beautifully sculpted habitats and mansions, never once breathing the poisoned air or so much as glancing down the broken streets of the Barrens. You? They had to build all that on top of something. They eat steak; you get krill mush. They drink fine wines and aged scotch; you get soycaffe. They have their nervous system genetically enhanced from samples of their own DNA; you get wires shoved down your spine. So again: What're you gonna do about it? Yes, cyberpunk is about dehumanization. But it's also about FIGHTING it. C'mon, "punk" is right there in the name, did you think this was about selling out or just giving up? Typically games tend to go down two avenues. The first is simply greed. What you're gonna do about it is take the runs, keep your heart cold and your cash colder, save up, and try to buy your way out, and I feel SR4 of all editions pushed for that, with many adventures having utterly horrible premises with the assumption that PCs would do them anyways because hey, it's good money. Speaking personally, I abhor this and feel it's missing the point. The second is higher minded; you aren't a Runner out of pure greed, but because you CAN'T do the corporate wageslave thing. You got something to fight for, and dammit, you're gonna fight tooth and nail. Running gives you an excuse and a paycheck to fight exactly who you were gonna fight anyways. CyberPUNK. You don't sell out, you pull your mask up and light that fuse. Again, if none of this appeals to you, it's not a problem with the genre. It's that you don't like the genre. And that's cool; there's plenty of genres I simply cannot get into ("Steampunk"...ugh!). But railing against cyberpunk for being cyberpunk is...well, odd, I suppose.
I see your point, and it may not be my genre. However, there are cyberpunk, or rather post-cyberpunk works that do have benevolent megacorporations with protagonists in nice suits rather than mow hawks. I just thought Shadowrun could be played that way given a different interpretation (and perhaps political slant). On the other hand though, maybe Steampunk IS my thing. While a lot of it does bring up the inequities of the Victorian era, it also highlights the wonder and progress of technology and how it advances society rather than diminishes it.
—
Your passion is power. Focus it. Your body is a tool. Hone it. Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
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Thu, 2014-01-30 02:46
ProfessorCirno ProfessorCirno's picture
Steel Accord wrote:On the
Steel Accord wrote:
On the other hand though, maybe Steampunk IS my thing. While a lot of it does bring up the inequities of the Victorian era, it also highlights the wonder and progress of technology and how it advances society rather than diminishes it.
Perhaps funny enough, that's why I hate Steampunk so much. The Industrial Revolution may as well have recreated a biblical hell on Earth. To coast over that entirely and focus on how wonderful it was to be an imperialist is...distasteful, to me.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 03:01
ProfessorCirno ProfessorCirno's picture
To kinda help show the mood,
To kinda help show the mood, I'm going to quote...well, NOT a cyberpunk game, but instead Alpha Centauri (which is a truly wonderful game even like a thousand years after it was made). Take for example how cybernetics are seen: "I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier into the synapses of the machine—just as the good doctor intended. But what I cannot shake, and what hints at things to come, is that thoughts cross back. In my dreams the sensibility of the machine invades the periphery of my consciousness. Dark. Rigid. Cold. Alien. Evolution is at work here, but just what is evolving remains to be seen." "The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army of demons." But let's go farther into pure theory of human enhancement, to Yang's quotes. Starts simple enough. "We hold life to be sacred, but we also know the foundation of life consists in a stream of codes not so different from the successive frames of a watchvid. Why then cannot we cut one code short here, and start another there? Is life so fragile that it can withstand no tampering? Does the sacred brook no improvement?" Easy to agree with, right? But then we go farther. "Why do you insist that the human genetic code is "sacred" or "taboo"? It is a chemical process and nothing more. For that matter -we- are chemical processes and nothing more. If you deny yourself a useful tool simply because it reminds you uncomfortably of your mortality, you have uselessly and pointlessly crippled yourself." Ok, getting a bit more extreme here, a bit more nihilistic. Let's go farther. "What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output." Now it's growing more uncomfortable. I don't care that you suffer because I can reach into your mind and change that. Indeed, what this ends up leading to is... "My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?" So you can kinda see where the "technology is NOT a force of good" comes from. Now let's use this to examine Cyberpunk style capitalism. Morgan? "Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill." "Of course we'll bundle our MorganNet software with the new network nodes! Our customers expect no less of us. We have never sought to become a monopoly. Our products are simply so good that no one feels the need to compete with us." "Wealth is the universe's way of rewarding those who are clever and efficient. Those who scorn it are turning their backs on the imperatives of life. They should be careful. We all know what happens to those who lose at the game of evolution." "And when at last it is time for the transition from megacorporation to planetary government, from entrepreneur to emperor, it is then that the true genius of our strategy shall become apparent, for energy is the lifeblood of this society and when the chips are down he who controls the energy supply controls Planet. In former times the energy monopoly was called "The Power Company"; we intend to give this name an entirely new meaning." And Domai's view of this? "The managers always talked about having the view from 30,000 feet.The only problem with having the view from 30,000 feet, is that at that height, everyone looks like ants."
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Thu, 2014-01-30 05:45
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
ProfessorCirno wrote:To kinda
ProfessorCirno wrote:
To kinda help show the mood, I'm going to quote...well, NOT a cyberpunk game, but instead Alpha Centauri (which is a truly wonderful game even like a thousand years after it was made).
Indeed, I am still playing it.
Quote:
"What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output."
Actually, this is a dark version of Buddhism (normal Buddhism would throw in some compassion). I actually recite this quote every time I am in pain: it helps. However, analysing the quotes of our Dear Leaders for a consistent ideology, let alone a view on capitalism or cyberpunk, is not going to work. They represent utterly disparate views, the whole game has a storyline that is orthogonal to cyberpunk. I would argue it has a pretty unwarranted dislike for capitalism (look at the penalties for the Free Market society choice compared to the others), but then again, it shows religion as being dogmatic, science as being unethical, the humanist Lal is hypocritical and environmentalism being new age paganism. Basing an argument on it does not work, no matter how great the setting is. "The righteous need not cower before the drumbeat of human progress. Though the song of yesterday fades into the challenge of tomorrow, God still watches and judges us. Evil lurks in the datalinks as it lurked in the streets of yesteryear. But it was never the streets that were evil."
—
Extropian
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Thu, 2014-01-30 10:54
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
ProfessorCirno wrote:
ProfessorCirno wrote:
Perhaps funny enough, that's why I hate Steampunk so much. The Industrial Revolution may as well have recreated a biblical hell on Earth. To coast over that entirely and focus on how wonderful it was to be an imperialist is...distasteful, to me.
I don't know, the Industrial Revolution seems to be a great turning point for the better in human history. How can you possibly not like that?
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Thu, 2014-01-30 11:12
bibliophile20 bibliophile20's picture
To be fair, the Industrial
To be fair, the Industrial Revolution was pretty hellish to live through if you weren't one of the privileged few. On the other hand, one could make the very accurate argument that previous eras were hardly any better in the oppression of the masses by the privileged few, and at least the Industrial Revolution started off a rise in the standard of living (although the privileged few keep trying to stay on top of the masses, by any means necessary). But, by the standards of the time, from pretty much every metric, the Industrial Revolution was hell--on the environment, on the economic security of the lower classes, on its effect on warfare, and various other areas. Just because it kicked us, as a species, loose from being tied to the limits of our muscles does not mean that it was some kind of universal positive.
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"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

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Thu, 2014-01-30 11:54
Lilith Lilith's picture
Cliche but...
The old proverbs about not being able create something without destroying something else comes to mind in that regard.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 11:56
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
bibliophile20 wrote:But, by
bibliophile20 wrote:
But, by the standards of the time, from pretty much every metric, the Industrial Revolution was hell--on the environment, on the economic security of the lower classes, on its effect on warfare, and various other areas.
That's just not true. There were plenty of positive developments too, and I'd argue they were more important. Child mortality dropped drastically and life expectancy increased drastically. Working hours decreased. Literacy rates increased. And so on and so forth. I'm sure it sucked being a poor factory worker, but that guy wouldn't have had a nice life before either. It's an interesting discussion if being a farmer, not living as long, and seeing more of your kids die, is a better or worse life than being an inner city worker in worse living conditions, but living longer and seeing more of your kids survive.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 12:15
Lilith Lilith's picture
Meh
My problem with Steampunk as a genre isn't so much any criticism of the Industrial Revolution and its effects (positive or negative), but just the general pro-imperialism tone of the setting. All that ever comes to my mind is a bunch of Victorian nobles on a gilded zeppelin looking down at the barbarous natives of the savage lands and chuckling in bemusement before they fetch their brass-and-copper rifles to take pot shots at them. (yes I know there's more to it than that, but that doesn't make me like it any more, especially in the face of better alternatives)
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Thu, 2014-01-30 12:37
bibliophile20 bibliophile20's picture
I'm not denying those
I'm not denying those positive developments either. During that time, we managed our eighth singularity as a species (going by the definition of a "singularity" as an event or development that radically changes the social status quo in a manner and extent that the previous social formulae are rendered effectively obsolete) after fire, tools, agriculture, the wheel, domestication, writing and the printing press (Again, this depends on how you count them). We managed to finally slip free of the limitations of a muscle powered society and raise the possible standard of living to the point where our lower class live lives that kings of past millennia would be envious for what we have available. What I am saying is that we should recognize that it had both positive and negative effects, and that denying or dismissing either end--the good or the bad--is doing both history and ourselves a disservice. And simply claiming that the Industrial Revolution did not do tremendous damage to the environment (see the mass logging of the Americas for one example), or did not enable weapons of mass killing (see the Gatling Gun for one example), or did not actively harm the economic security of the lower class (see Homestead Strike for one example) does not simply make the existence of those negative aspects of the Industrial Revolution just disappear. They happened. So did all of the positive aspects (Railroads. Standard timekeeping. Mass infrastructure. General effects of large scale industrialization. The chain of effects that eventually lead to our modern society, with all of its positives and negatives). But simply attempting to brush the negatives off as unsubstantiated claims of "that simply isn't true" or "it sucked to be a poor factory worker, but he was doomed to a crappy life regardless"--those are disingenuous arguments at best, or flat out denial at worst. They diminish the fact of those factory workers who were abused and treated as disposable, as well as the other effects, which need to be acknowledged in their context.
—

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

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Thu, 2014-01-30 16:37
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
bibliophile20 wrote:
bibliophile20 wrote:
But simply attempting to brush the negatives off as unsubstantiated claims of "that simply isn't true" or "it sucked to be a poor factory worker, but he was doomed to a crappy life regardless"--those are disingenuous arguments at best, or flat out denial at worst. They diminish the fact of those factory workers who were abused and treated as disposable, as well as the other effects, which need to be acknowledged in their context.
The "that simply isn't true" was not directed at your examples, but your lead up to those examples: But, by the standards of the time, from pretty much every metric, the Industrial Revolution was hell It was the "pretty much every metric it was hell" I disagreed with. I also don't think it diminishes the factory workers' condition to compare it to what came before for people like them. I recognize that what China has done in the last 20 years is one of the greatest humanitarian results in modern times, lifting nearly 700 million people out of deep poverty - but I'm certainly not saying that many of them don't still lead very harsh lives. I'm saying deep poverty is worse, no more, no less. And I'm most certainly not making an excuse for the Chinese Party's oppressions of the people. I agree with practically everything else you wrote, last post and the one before that.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 00:40
ProfessorCirno ProfessorCirno's picture
Welp, I didn't think I'd see
Welp, I didn't think I'd see people arguing that literally chaining women to their posts in a factory to ensure they burn to death when the place catches fire would be justified, or that the consistent mass suicides in China from workers getting so bad that employees (rather then improve conditions because hey, that costs PROFITS) try to put nets around the roof to stop them would be a grand humanitarian effort, yet here we are. The problem is all those wonderful things you listed? Yeah, no, most people didn't get that. Quality of life very, very sharply spiked DOWNWARD for all but the rich elite. Disease rose to an all time high. Industrial workers worked anywhere between 10-12 hours a day and still didn't make enough to gain a "decent life." [i]Infant[/i] mortality went down; [i]childhood[/i] mortality rose. Overall life expectancy for the non-elite spiked sharply downward, as well. Those who tried to fight to improve conditions were murdered; unionizers and their families gunned down by both industrialists and the government. People moved from farms to sheer urban squalor. General height amongst the urban population - including the military - fell. Pollution reached never before seen levels. We're going beyond optimism at this point and landing in the realm of pure fantasy. Yes, eventually, the Industrial Revolution started to slowly make things better for everyone - eventually. But for a very solid chunk, you saw what you see whenever any new technology begins to grow substantially: the rich benefit. You don't.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 02:48
thezombiekat thezombiekat's picture
prior to the industrial
prior to the industrial revolution large amounts of labor was used in spinning yarn, weaving cloth, sewing clothes, working mettle, moving goods and myriad other essential tasks i don't think about every day. these workers where poor, but there existence was stable, for generations the work they did had been needed and while they where not well payed. the value of food and shelter had stabilized with there pay so they could live. then there was the industrial revolution. the amount of labor required was reduced greatly. those that worked in the factory's where payed less and given worse conditions than the previous workers because for each person with a factory job there where 10 people put out of work by the factory doing what they had done. those that where employed where treated as replaceable precisely because they where replaceable. and the owners cared for naught but profit and held the ear of the law. this is the little i know about the industrial revolution. there may have been advances and improvements in other areas, and it did last a significant time so statistics will vary based on when you measure them and how accurate the source data is. but for the workers in the industries changing to machinery things predominantly got worse during the revolution. i can see why people would hesitate to play in this setting without addressing the point lest they feel like the bad guy.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 04:10
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
ProfessorCirno wrote:Welp, I
ProfessorCirno wrote:
Welp, I didn't think I'd see people arguing that literally chaining women to their posts in a factory to ensure they burn to death when the place catches fire would be justified, or that the consistent mass suicides in China from workers getting so bad that employees (rather then improve conditions because hey, that costs PROFITS) try to put nets around the roof to stop them would be a grand humanitarian effort, yet here we are.
No where did I write that I justified chaining women to their post, or anything even remotely like that. I was saying deep poverty was worse, no more, no more less, and I specifically mentioned for example the oppression in China was not something I saw any excuse for. So just to make it totally clear - there are many powerful people in China who are utter bastards because they unfairly ruin or end people's lives. But while there are many horrible things happening and I hope (and expect) that things will improve, those things are in no way an argument against them turning capitalist and the progress they've seen in the last 20 years. They have made huge progress, but there is still problems. Compare it to someone who has spent their life doing good deeds but then kills someone for personal gain. Should they be convicted for the murder? Of course - no good deed excuses a murder. But does that mean that their good deeds were in reality bad? Of course not.
Quote:
The problem is all those wonderful things you listed? Yeah, no, most people didn't get that. Quality of life very, very sharply spiked DOWNWARD for all but the rich elite. Disease rose to an all time high. Industrial workers worked anywhere between 10-12 hours a day and still didn't make enough to gain a "decent life." [i]Infant[/i] mortality went down; [i]childhood[/i] mortality rose. Overall life expectancy for the non-elite spiked sharply downward, as well. Those who tried to fight to improve conditions were murdered; unionizers and their families gunned down by both industrialists and the government. People moved from farms to sheer urban squalor. General height amongst the urban population - including the military - fell. Pollution reached never before seen levels.
Much of what you're saying seems to be factually false. I'd be happy to look at your documentation though. Here's what I found: this page http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davidjstokes/1700.htm has several metrics at 50 year intervals. All seem to improve during the industrial revolution. Life expectancy increased, work length fell, the pay for a farm laborer dropped by 25% but the price of bread dropped by more than 80%, population increased dramatically in size. Now I'm going to go through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#Social_effects and copy-paste into positive and negative sections below: NEGATIVE the academic consensus that the bulk of the population, that was at the bottom of the social ladder, suffered severe reductions in their living standards. shantytowns: Sanitary facilities were nonexistent. These slum areas had extremely high population densities. It was common for groups of unrelated mill workers to share rooms in very low quality housing where eight to ten people may occupy a single room, which often had no furniture These homes would share toilet facilities, have open sewers and would be at risk of developing pathologies associated with persistent dampness. Disease was spread through a contaminated water supply. urban people—especially small children—died due to diseases spreading through the cramped living conditions. As late as the year 1900, most industrial workers in the United States still worked a 10-hour day (12 hours in the steel industry), yet earned from 20 to 40 percent less than the minimum deemed necessary for a decent life. However, harsh working conditions were prevalent long before the Industrial Revolution took place. Pre-industrial society was very static and often cruel—child labour, dirty living conditions, and long working hours were just as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution. Child labour had existed before the Industrial Revolution, but with the increase in population and education it became more visible. Many children were forced to work in relatively bad conditions for much lower pay than their elders. Conditions were dangerous, with some children killed when they dozed off and fell into the path of the carts, while others died from gas explosions. [long section with description of specific work injuries]. POSITIVE Prior to the Industrial Revolution, advances in agriculture or technology soon led to an increase in population, which again strained food and other resources, limiting increases in per capita income. This condition is called the Malthusian trap, and it was finally overcome by industrialization. Conditions did improve during the 19th century as public health acts were introduced covering things such as sewage, hygiene and making some boundaries upon the construction of homes Health conditions improved over the course of the 19th century because of better sanitation; the famines that troubled rural areas did not happen in industrial areas In the introduction of the 1892 edition of Engels (1844) he notes that most of the conditions he wrote about in 1844 had been greatly improved. Consumers benefited from falling prices for clothing and household articles such as cast iron cooking utensils, and in the following decades, stoves for cooking and space heating. The population of England had more than doubled from 8.3 million in 1801 to 16.8 million in 1850 and, by 1901, had nearly doubled again to 30.5 million. As living conditions and health care improved during the 19th century, Britain's population doubled every 50 years. Europe's population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by 1900. Some industrialists themselves tried to improve factory and living conditions for their workers. The Industrial Revolution led to a population increase, but the chances of surviving childhood did not improve throughout the Industrial Revolution (although infant mortality rates were reduced markedly) During the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically. The percentage of the children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5% in 1730–1749 to 31.8% in 1810–1829. The application of steam power to the industrial processes of printing supported a massive expansion of newspaper and popular book publishing, which reinforced rising literacy and demands for mass political participation. Wiki quoting ends.
ProfessorCirno wrote:
We're going beyond optimism at this point and landing in the realm of pure fantasy. Yes, eventually, the Industrial Revolution started to slowly make things better for everyone - eventually. But for a very solid chunk, you saw what you see whenever any new technology begins to grow substantially: the rich benefit. You don't.
Did some things become worse during the industrial revolution? Absolutely. Did other things improve? Also absolutely. And of course, when we look at what followed the industrial revolution, it was the beginning of something truly amazing. I wrote that the industrial revolution was a turning point for the better, which I think we can all agree to. I objected to the statement that "from pretty much every metric, the Industrial Revolution was hell", and pointed out that there were several positive aspects also (I didn't say that bad things didn't happen, merely that there were also many good things). I don't see that as going into the realm of pure fantasy? I'm not sure if you think I'm claiming that the IR was a dance on roses for everyone involved (which I'm not), or if you think me and wikipedia and the other sources I looked at are wrong. If the latter is the case, I'm more than willing to look at any sources you might have - it would hardly be the first time that the official consensus was wrong.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 06:12
Killebrew Killebrew's picture
Hmm, rather amusing seeing
Hmm, rather amusing seeing the transition from Shadowrun to the Industrial Revolution. Though, perhaps an apt comparison in some ways.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 10:55
bibliophile20 bibliophile20's picture
Whoa, guys. Calm down.
[color=orange]Whoa, guys. Calm down. ProfessorCirno, perhaps Smokeskin is factually incorrect. But don't attack him for those potentially incorrect statements. Attack those statements and show how they're incorrect. But your first paragraph was a pretty much straight up attack on Smokeskin, with the extreme examples of abuses and attempts to tie him as approving of those. [/color]
—

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

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Sun, 2014-02-02 23:11
Steel Accord Steel Accord's picture
You know . . .
Maybe I should just stop posting all together. No matter what, insults get thrown around, and I'm not even here to defend my stances to begin with.
—
Your passion is power. Focus it. Your body is a tool. Hone it. Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
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Mon, 2014-02-03 02:17
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
I think you liven up the
I think you liven up the place :) Keep up the good work!
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Sat, 2014-02-08 14:27
Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture
I honestly can't say I find
I honestly can't say I find any problems with the depiction of the megacorps in Shadowrun. By 5th edition I think they've done a good job blending the old 80's vibe of cyberpunk with a more modern feel. Megacorps are the enemies of the setting, that's a given. But some are less "evil" than others. The Evo Corporation, for example, is all about transhumanism, this is explicitly stated in the book. Hell, their board of directors is incredibly strange, consisting of , Buttercup (a free spirit), an Ork (as Chairman), an eccentric space scientist, and a SURGE changeling. But at the end of the day, they are in it for profit. Does that make them bad guys? Dunno. Personally, whenever I run Shadowrun I don't go out of my way to make the megacorps sympathetic or altruistic, but I don't depict every corporate big-wig as an evil mastermind who would sell his mother into slavery if it meant money. Because while there might be corporate execs who would be that cruel, there are just as many shadowrunners who are just as cold-hearted. Many 'runners would rather not murder a family of some rival executive, no matter how much they get paid. Many others, however, would have no qualms with it. And that's what I like most about the setting: the corps and runners need each other. One cannot exist without the other, even if they hate each other's guts. The runners need money, the corps need deniable assets. It's a relationship that is maintained by necessity. It's strange, I find less issue with Shadowrun depicting the megacorps as monolithic enemies than I do with Eclipse Phase's blatant biases for certain groups. Can't put my finger on why.
—
"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.” -Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union address
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Sun, 2014-02-09 15:56
Steel Accord Steel Accord's picture
I can see your point.
The latest book just seemed to go out of it's way to beat me over the head with how facelessly evil they are supposed to be. Rather than letting me draw my own conclusions. I actually wanted to work for EVO!
—
Your passion is power. Focus it. Your body is a tool. Hone it. Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
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Sat, 2014-02-22 02:10
The Doctor The Doctor's picture
Arenamontanus wrote:Ah, so
Arenamontanus wrote:
Ah, so that is why open source software is evil and hegemonic! And we are all disempowered by our dependency on Wikipedia.
Only when there is noCONNECTION CLOSED BY HOST. ~/$
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