[X] Apathetic
- [X] With the advances in biosculpting and the growing corporate monoculture aesthetic considerations finally experienced a convergence. While some subcultures remain, they're among the lower classes, maintained to allow more speciation among products. But among the upper class, there is only one respectable look. And they can promote it and enhance it and propagandise it all they want. After a point, after so many people, it just becomes samey.
I don't think it makes sense to be Flattered or Apathetic. We're a single corpo who's here on a business trip, and we've been told her hand in marriage might be on the table if we do our job right. And as somebody said above, status-signalling is hard coded into human psychology, and I really don't see that going away in a world where hyper-capitalism (a system-structure that relies on the atomisation of society, and commodification of individuals) has gone rampant.
Now, the yucky commodification of her hand being used as a bargaining chip aside, we're going to be conscious that whether or not we're interested in her, she's an important player in an important job that we really don't want to fuck up bc we are a corpo who cares about ladder climbing. Maybe we could be enchanted or tongue tied by her at first sight, but at the very least we (I think) would be curious or cautious. Apathetic to me seems much to emotionally deadened a response for somebody who's just had a near miss with death, and has stims in the bloodstream on a mission far above our pay grade. And flattered just doesn't make any sense. Flattered by what? Her eyes? The update didn't even detail her looking at us in a particular way or anything. Are we flattered every time somebody attractive and wealthy deigns to look at us?
Scheduled vote count started by FBH on May 30, 2021 at 3:02 PM, finished with 27 posts and 20 votes.
[X] Apathetic
- [X] With the advances in biosculpting and the growing corporate monoculture aesthetic considerations finally experienced a convergence. While some subcultures remain, they're among the lower classes, maintained to allow more speciation among products. But among the upper class, there is only one respectable look. And they can promote it and enhance it and propagandise it all they want. After a point, after so many people, it just becomes samey.
[X] Terrified
- [X] With the advances in biosculpting and the growing corporate monoculture aesthetic considerations finally experienced a convergence. While some subcultures remain, they're among the lower classes, maintained to allow more speciation among products. But among the upper class, there is only one respectable look. And they can promote it and enhance it and propagandise it all they want. The fact remains, the sight of any given corporate overlord will remind people of all the others.
You shouldn't feel this way. You've never felt this way before really but as you look at the beautiful and powerful woman in front of you, the one you have been asked to marry, and feel, detachment. It's a strange feeling like when you look in a mirror. This is a beautiful woman. But it's no more interesting that that. You look at her and think that you know exactly how much her face cost. You could, with a quick netsearch, figure out where she got it from from the way that it is shaped.
She raises, smiles at you, and you make yourself smile back and bow and introduce yourself. Polite, a little overwhelmed, the way you're supposed to be. You think you've pulled it off perfectly but as you look up at her you realize she's seen through you a little, and stranger, perhaps she doesn't completely hate that. "Walk with me." She says, and her bodyguards form around you.
"Of course ma'am." You fall in beside her. One of the vat troops picks up your case. She leads you outside, down to the street where personal lift shuttle is waiting. Two more bodyguards, these in full combat armor with rifles wait next to it. "You have a lot of security." You glance at the guards.
"I have an overprotective father." She says, perhaps a little too quickly then pauses as the pair of you load into the AV's back compartment. The guards step into the front, and the gull-wing doors close, leaving you alone. "That old reprobate Ichibangase speaks very highly of you."
"You know Ichibangase-san?"
"He was my mentor." She stretches out her legs. "I asked for him to come personally, but he sent me you."
"I'll try to live up to your expectations ma'am." You look her over, trying to decide if you trust her. You'll have to confirm with Ichibangase that they really know one another.
"I assumed you would want to ask me some questions about what happened with Mr. Wu." Sakura says.
"Yes. Can you tell me how he first came to be in contact with you?"
"Mr. Wu first approached me at a party, he had quite a reputation as a playboy, but I was still quite flattered when he hit on me. He was a beautiful man." She smiles at you, perhaps trying to shock you with her frankness. "At first it seemed just like flirtation, but now I believe he was trying to obtain my personal comm-code. Once he did that, he contacted me discretely and informed me he had information on large-scale corruption within the Shaiwase enclave. He refused to say more over the communication system, but he indicated to me that he believed it was an unauthorized organization."
"When was this party?"
"About two weeks before he was killed, April the 15th.
"Does the Corporation have a good relationship with the Taiwanese government?"
"I would say it's pretty good. We cooperate with them on security, and we are a major supplier of military augmentation to the Taiwanese military. You must have seen the vat soldiers at the airport."
"So they would have every reason to report truthfully on a threat to the corporation."
"Yes."
"Did you alert anyone else to the contact?"
"I followed standard procedures. If you get a unsolicited contact, you alert Ota-san, the head of security. We then took it to my father, who brought in Arai Kasumi his deputy. It was agreed I'd meet with Wu and see what he had. However another team was waiting for us, and he was slain."
"The other team knew the meeting spot?"
"I can't confirm that. It's possible they followed Wu's team."
That's a shame. It'd have been nice to have only four suspects. Still. "Alright. I'll need to interview your father, Ota-san and Arai-san of course, and inspect the crime scene--"
"It might be best if you didn't inform me too much of what you're doing Shiratori-san. I'll be bound to report it to my Father, Ota-san and Arai-san."
"Oh, of course." You shut up, feeling slightly foolish.
"I wouldn't stay at the enclave too much either." She says. "It seems like a place with a lot of secrets now."
You nod, then lean back, silent until you land. Kuge bids you goodbye and you follow a glowing line on your AR down to your room, a sheer white place with a large window on one side looking down on the city. A security case sits on the table, flagged for your attention. You inspect it briefly, finding it has good Osaka security seals, then plug your neural interface jack into it and after a throughly paranoid check for either black ICE or explosive trigger, send your clearance code.
The case hinges open to reveal a slimline combat cyberdeck, and a set a set of credit sticks and physical cash. You have 100,000 nuyen on credit sticks and another 20K in cash. A bonded credit card gives you access to an operational budget of 1 million nuyen. A small message pops up <<Remember to account for your expenses.>> Well of course.
The other item in the box is a mat service pistol and 7 clips of ammo. You plug in a set of gel rounds and holster it under your jacket, feeling a little better.
What to do now? It's probably too late to interview any of the three suspects.
[ ] Take a shower and have some dinner
[ ] Head over to the flood zone right away and see what things are like out there
[ ] Go see if you can find a way to speak to someone in the Taipei police
[ ] Get out of here and use the cash you've got to book into a nice hotel that's safely away from the enclave because you're paranoid
[ ] Get out of here and use the cash you've got to book into a nice hotel that's safely away from the enclave because you can have a good time there on the company dime.
Timothy Wu, chief aid to the Taiwanese minister of interior has been assassinated, along with two bodyguards. The killing came in the early hours of this morning when Mr. Wu was attending what sources close to the Republic of Taiwan's Ministry of the Interior as a clandestine meeting. Mr. Wu and his bodyguard were apparently ambushed by multiple armed individuals and killed after a heavy exchange of gunfire. He reported to have information that suggested large-scale corruption within Shaiwase, but was apparently ambushed before he could deliver it to Kuge Sakura.
Kuge Sakura: Daughter of the head of Shaiwase Taipei, reports she knows Ichibangase, is under heavy guard.
Kuge Akihiro: Head of the Taipei enclave
Kuge Sakura: met Timothy Wu at a party on April the 15th.
Kuge Sakura told only three people about the contact, her father, Ota, the chief of security, and her Father's deputy, Arai Ichika.
[X] Get out of here and use the cash you've got to book into a nice hotel that's safely away from the enclave because you're paranoid
[X] Get out of here and use the cash you've got to book into a nice hotel that's safely away from the enclave because you can have a good time there on the company dime.
[X] Go see if you can find a way to speak to someone in the Taipei police
I am really enjoying this look at the life of a security agent working for a megacorporation. I think it would be interesting to break from the traditional plot of most Shadowrun fiction by having the protagonist remain a loyal "Wageslave" with his home corporation rather than becoming yet another Shadowrunner. It would be a lot of fun to focus on the life of our protagonist as he continually rises in power and privilege while overcoming professional and personal challenges.
[X] Go see if you can find a way to speak to someone in the Taipei police
I am really enjoying this look at the life of a security agent working for a megacorporation. I think it would be interesting to break from the traditional plot of most Shadowrun fiction by having the protagonist remain a loyal "Wageslave" with his home corporation rather than becoming yet another Shadowrunner. It would be a lot of fun to focus on the life of our protagonist as he continually rises in power and privilege while overcoming professional and personal challenges.
[X] Get out of here and use the cash you've got to book into a nice hotel that's safely away from the enclave because you're paranoid
[X] Go see if you can find a way to speak to someone in the Taipei police
[X] Go see if you can find a way to speak to someone in the Taipei police
I am really enjoying this look at the life of a security agent working for a megacorporation. I think it would be interesting to break from the traditional plot of most Shadowrun fiction by having the protagonist remain a loyal "Wageslave" with his home corporation rather than becoming yet another Shadowrunner. It would be a lot of fun to focus on the life of our protagonist as he continually rises in power and privilege while overcoming professional and personal challenges.
You know all AAA corps have in house shadowruning department or multiple of them. Not as expendable and sometimes specialized. Most famous of this are Renraku Red ninjas. So we can have both but more boring missions and no bonus income for difficulty but it remains stady and some of gear price is covered by corp plus access to best clinics with latest cyberware built by your corps or its partners. In fact that is one of possible endgame retirement goals for tabletop.
I am really enjoying this look at the life of a security agent working for a megacorporation. I think it would be interesting to break from the traditional plot of most Shadowrun fiction by having the protagonist remain a loyal "Wageslave" with his home corporation rather than becoming yet another Shadowrunner. It would be a lot of fun to focus on the life of our protagonist as he continually rises in power and privilege while overcoming professional and personal challenges.
I think describing a hotel as 'safer' than the enclave in this situation isn't wholly accurate. At best it's differently dangerous. It's a lot easier to deploy deniable assets against a hotel that may be more difficult to trace back to the source. If the internal affairs investigator dies in the enclave, some very large red flags go up back in Osaka. If they get caught in a crossfire during a shadowrun gone wrong at some hotel because they opted not to stay in the secure enclave suite they were assigned, flags will be raised but they will be more a tepid sort of orange than red, and of at best middling size. We can be under surveillance in our room in both cases, and it's really a toss-up whether our enemies would know more about what goes on in our room in the enclave or a hotel room they decide to surveil. Sort of depends on exactly how much clearance and power they have, and over who. Their best bet is to blackmail or bribe us into cooperating if we stumble onto anything juicy, which they can do almost as well either way.
Regardless, we won't be discussing the case in some random hotel room any more than our room in the enclave, so surveillance is sort of irrelevant. We hardly want word of a corruption scandal to leak to other corps, and ours isn't the only one who can surveil a room.
If we go to a hotel, it should entirely be because we want to party at a level well beyond our pay grade, and possibly drown our dysmorphia.
We skipped eating at the airport and we're hungry. The clock may be ticking, but there's no need to be undignified about this. It's been two days. We are unlikely to find evidence that can't wait for a shower and dinner. We've had a hell of a day.
[X] Take a shower and have some dinner
I am really enjoying this look at the life of a security agent working for a megacorporation. I think it would be interesting to break from the traditional plot of most Shadowrun fiction by having the protagonist remain a loyal "Wageslave" with his home corporation rather than becoming yet another Shadowrunner. It would be a lot of fun to focus on the life of our protagonist as he continually rises in power and privilege while overcoming professional and personal challenges.
