Cowls: A World of Supermen and Subterfuge

[notthepenguins]

2. It puts a giant target on our heads as likely being the recent arsonists.

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The situation on the streets is not exactly so peaceful that "a new corp is going after the gangs" is going to cause a leap to "clearly they were also behind the mysterious arsons," provided we sideline Lima properly.

3. It does exceedingly little to endear us to the city, since we are brutalizing and killing those who are just trying to get by alongside the chronic fuckups.

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I think you're drastically overestimating how much the city cares about the members of the gangs who are tearing it apart.

[X] Immolator has a past as an [Ex Gang Member] and should be able to spearhead efforts figure out who'd take a second chance as a recruit of yours that's actually worth the effort. Shamus can back him up with any of his skills as a [Hacker] if and when necessary. [+2]

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You understand that this does nothing to the gangs in the short term, and allows them to regroup after the blow we just dealt them, right? It completely fails to capitalize on what advantages we have, letting the few benefits of the stupid death squad thing slip away.

 

[Ironanvil1]

Hmmm. I'm against recruiting the gangs to act as a militia.

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We wouldn't be "recruiting the gangs" - we'd be recruiting ex-gangmembers, the sort of people @Pandemonious Ivy is looking to attract, the ones who want something better, and putting them into a new organisational structure we control.

A lot of you seem to want to fiddle while Rome gets covered in accelerants, to be honest, given that the QMs have said we've still got approaching a thousand core gangmembers out there in the 18 blocks in question, including all the most dangerous enhanced ones who we haven't faced yet, and in a month, that opens up and we're looking at having to deal with an even larger area. They also still possess their cashflow, so they're going to start rearming as quickly as they can.

We, in contrast, have a small group of top tier combatants, but completely lack mass presence, and are distinctly short on sources of income at the moment. The militia/property concept deals with both these issues in concert, and should, if successful, leave us with an effective street security force, and a small, but growing economic base for them to protect, acting as a demonstrator for further expansion.

I mean, if you prefer, we can try pulling in the extra bodies we require from somewhere other than the gangs, I just suspect it'll be far more expensive, and won't have the same impact in siphoning off support from the gangs.

 

[Pandemonious Ivy]

The situation on the streets is not exactly so peaceful that "a new corp is going after the gangs" is going to cause a leap to "clearly they were also behind the mysterious arsons," provided we sideline Lima properly.


I think you're drastically overestimating how much the city cares about the members of the gangs who are tearing it apart.


You understand that this does nothing to the gangs in the short term, and allows them to regroup after the blow we just dealt them, right? It completely fails to capitalize on what advantages we have, letting the few benefits of the stupid death squad thing slip away.

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Quality feedback.

As much as we disagree, for the record, your input is helpful so thank you.

I'm thinking something similar, but Shamus works to find solid evidence on the rest of the gang while we support police officers when they go to arrest the leaders and get them off of the streets.

Seems like it'll capitalize by nonlethal decapitation. Thoughts?

 

[BrainInAJar]

Honestly, if we truly are unable to perform other actions until the completion of the militia and do not yet have fixed revenue...

[X] Sideline Lima Seven-Nine. You'll probably need to sideline them for, hm… the next month, or maybe two. It shouldn't cause a problem if you leave them to guard the office, but if people catch them fighting alongside you in the field while memories of your raids are still this fresh, they'll draw the proper associations. You can kiss your PR goodbye at that point.

Hmm. At this point, I do not think continuing to hit the gangs will necessarily translate directly into damage control. We do not have the advantage of surprise anymore, they know someone is targeting them, even if they don't know who. They will actually get to react now, and even if we may be personally secure, our assets and more importantly the community may not be so. Therefore I think some effort to protect the community is warranted.

I am fine with Sarpedon's action of putting the police on the streets with the support of Shamus, but I do not like how the vote above has Vector and Immolator fight the gangs directly, because it kind of undermines it. We would be basically be using the police as our clean-up crew, instead of a broader pacification.

I really want to take this time to undermine the broader support issues that establish these gangs, while they are still reeling from our punch. I can be convinced to support a smaller-scale action, but I think the violence is unnecessary now.

 

[notthepenguins]

distinctly short on sources of income at the moment.

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Correction: we're making $1-1.5 mil a month. I'm not sure how, but that is our current income.

The militia/property concept deals with both these issues in concert, and should, if successful, leave us with an effective street security force, and a small, but growing economic base for them to protect, acting as a demonstrator for further expansion.

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The if successful, combined with the rather hefty time investment (on our current time scales) to actually train them effectively, is my problem with the militia plan. It could very easily go badly; none of our people are trained in trying to reeducate and rehabilitate in that sense, we're trying to train people that we're going to then throw back into battle with their own friends and enemies, and we're trying to train people and then put them in duties protecting people who have no reason whatsoever to trust them. This could very easily go very wrong.

I'm thinking something similar, but Shamus works to find solid evidence on the rest of the gang while we support police officers when they go to arrest the leaders and get them off of the streets.

Seems like it'll capitalize by nonlethal decapitation. Thoughts?

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We don't currently know where the gang leaders are. I think investigating that is a good step, and we can absolutely take them via surgical strike (lethal or otherwise), but we aren't currently capable of such a strike because we don't know their locations.

That said, leading the cops in to arrest them in a straight-up way is a no-go; remember, the cops are ex-cops, and thus can't arrest people, and that aside a straight-up arresting attempt is going to turn into a cops vs gangs straight fight. Which the cops, being a couple dozen standard police officer trained cops against substantially more auged up gangers fighting for survival, are not going to make it through. Even if we go with, I don't think we can handle those kinds of numbers without losing most or all of them.

 

[Pandemonious Ivy]

We lack information to capitalize in a productive fashion without more collateral damage.

I'd err towards gaining info over acting in most cases, especially this one.

 

[Tyrell]

Sigh. Sports clubs in areas like this literally become the glue to to the community. If you want to look good, there's no better way than this. PR wise a sports club is massive, also if you get a good program in three years time you could make some big profit if your sports programs are high quality.

 

[Ironanvil1]

The if successful, combined with the rather hefty time investment (on our current time scales) to actually train them effectively, is my problem with the militia plan. It could very easily go badly; none of our people are trained in trying to reeducate and rehabilitate in that sense, we're trying to train people that we're going to then throw back into battle with their own friends and enemies, and we're trying to train people and then put them in duties protecting people who have no reason whatsoever to trust them. This could very easily go very wrong.

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Success isn't guaranteed on any plan.
I suspect we're taking different things from "training". The ex-gangmembers should already have the basic skills to do what we initially want them to - looking intimidating, street awareness, and minor urban combat skirmishing. We're just looking to give them a mild initial overlay of tactics and discipline to make them more effective, and put the ex-cops in to lead them in small teams. We'd also not be throwing them into battle with their friends, given the diversity of gangs around. I'd envision us having a few squads of them around in unmarked vehicles or safehouses, ready to squelch any advances by unenhanced gangers, neutralising them as a threat to our plans, and allowing us to concentrate our elite forces against the dangerous chunk of the gangs.

We'd be offering them something more than what the gangs do, and after we get past this initial month, we can look at further training to shape them more towards being an actual security force, rather than a fast response to urban skirmishes.

EDIT: Having enquired with some of our military types on IRC, a month would apparently be enough for training to have a noticeable impact on their effectiveness.

 

[Arcus]

I'm not against recruiting individual gang members to form a militia, but I am very much against the idea of rearming them with the (lethal) weapons we just stole from them.

Our precision military squad killing 3 people caused a PR shitstorm. Can you imagine how enormous the relations clusterfuck will be if our militia decides to start a lethal gang war? I don't trust ex gang members to act like an actual police force instead of just acting like a larger, better funded and armed gang, so we're going to have to keep them on a tight leash at first.

The other thing is that we should avoid absorbing entire gangs, but instead reach out to individuals and small groups. We definitely want to break up the existing power structures so they don't carry over to the militia.

 

[Ironanvil1]

I'm not against recruiting individual gang members to form a militia, but I am very much against the idea of rearming them with the (lethal) weapons we just stole from them.

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We can give them non-lethals, but I was talking about arming them with the second tier stuff we steal from the gangs, not the top tier goodies.

Our precision military squad killing 3 people caused a PR shitstorm. Can you imagine how enormous the relations clusterfuck will be if our militia decides to start a lethal gang war? I don't trust ex gang members to act like an actual police force instead of just acting like a larger, better funded and armed gang, so we're going to have to keep them on a tight leash at first.

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That's the whole point of having small groups under the close supervision of our ex-cops, and very clearly aware of just how much more dangerous L79 are than them.

The other thing is that we should avoid absorbing entire gangs, but instead reach out to individuals and small groups. We definitely want to break up the existing power structures so they don't carry over to the militia.

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That's one of the basic points I've been reiterating - that we want to rehabilitate the gangers via bringing them in individually and breaking up their former structure into the new order of the militia.

 

[Tempera]

Correction: we're making $1-1.5 mil a month. I'm not sure how, but that is our current income.

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I have gone over this a bit in the updates, but I'll lay it out a bit better for you here.

Currently, your corporation focuses on producing civilian-level biotech augmentations. It also produces basic cyber security systems, which isn't something I've outlined in the updates so far. Beyond that, several businesses "donate" you portions of their weekly earnings, thanks to the blackmail materials you stole from the Syndicate. The $1-1.5m a month is projected earnings from those.

Your security budget represents an enormous portion of the budget the company has. This is because Alfonso believes that you are going to use those funds to provide him with assets he can use to generate more funds than he puts into your budget. So far, you haven't, but at the same time, so far, you've mostly been spending the personal assets Ezmerelda donated to her security budget. Of the money Alfonso has allocated you, you've only spent $2m. You've definitely made the business back some of that. Ezmerelda has lost a substantial portion of the money she invested herself, though.

We'd be offering them something more than what the gangs do, and after we get past this initial month, we can look at further training to shape them more towards being an actual security force, rather than a fast response to urban skirmishes.

EDIT: Having enquired with some of our military types on IRC, a month would apparently be enough for training to have a noticeable impact on their effectiveness.

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You can also hire people in to provide dedicated training for your troops. There are many businesses out there who provide people with that kind of thing for free.

Our precision military squad killing 3 people caused a PR shitstorm. Can you imagine how enormous the relations clusterfuck will be if our militia decides to start a lethal gang war? I don't trust ex gang members to act like an actual police force instead of just acting like a larger, better funded and armed gang, so we're going to have to keep them on a tight leash at first.

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You can, of course, take steps to ensure their loyalty. The how is up to you, but that is a possible measure you can take.

We lack information to capitalize in a productive fashion without more collateral damage.

I'd err towards gaining info over acting in most cases, especially this one.

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My hints are still not being taken, I see.

I'll be nice and tell you something outright, then:

You are not restricted to having an administration department, a biotech department, and a security department. I'd hoped you'd all seen that when having Shamus gave you an IT department and having Darius gave you a legal department, but apparently not.

If you want to gain information, consider making yourself an investigatory department. I've already given you the name and typical hiring costs of a man who can lead such a department. You can also use write-ins to try and provide the basics for such a structure.

(You can also try and steal assets to use for your departments, like you did with the biotech assets stolen from the illegal biomod clinic. *coughcoughcybertechdepartmentcoughcough* )

 

[Pandemonious Ivy]

I have gone over this a bit in the updates, but I'll lay it out a bit better for you here.

Currently, your corporation focuses on producing civilian-level biotech augmentations. It also produces basic cyber security systems, which isn't something I've outlined in the updates so far. Beyond that, several businesses "donate" you portions of their weekly earnings, thanks to the blackmail materials you stole from the Syndicate. The $1-1.5m a month is projected earnings from those.

Your security budget represents an enormous portion of the budget the company has. This is because Alfonso believes that you are going to use those funds to provide him with assets he can use to generate more funds than he puts into your budget. So far, you haven't, but at the same time, so far, you've mostly been spending the personal assets Ezmerelda donated to her security budget. Of the money Alfonso has allocated you, you've only spent $2m. You've definitely made the business back some of that. Ezmerelda has lost a substantial portion of the money she invested herself, though.

You can also hire people in to provide dedicated training for your troops. There are many businesses out there who provide people with that kind of thing for free.

You can, of course, take steps to ensure their loyalty. The how is up to you, but that is a possible measure you can take.

My hints are still not being taken, I see.

I'll be nice and tell you something outright, then:

You are not restricted to having an administration department, a biotech department, and a security department. I'd hoped you'd all seen that when having Shamus gave you an IT department and having Darius gave you a legal department, but apparently not.

If you want to gain information, consider making yourself an investigatory department. I've already given you the name and typical hiring costs of a man who can lead such a department. You can also use write-ins to try and provide the basics for such a structure.

(You can also try and steal assets to use for your departments, like you did with the biotech assets stolen from the illegal biomod clinic. *coughcoughcybertechdepartmentcoughcough* )

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Read you. Loud and clear!

[☆] Raid a nearby Sydonia branch, steal some tech, and convert a GODLIKE.

It worked last time, dammit.

 

[Tempera]

MJ and I are also going to want you guys to have a finalised plan by... this time tomorrow. We'll be closing votes and writing the update then.

 

[Ironanvil1]

Added this to my vote - open to refinements if people have them.

[] USER MOTION Research Department
Found a Research Department, to investigate opportunities and threats available to us. Shamus, Darius, Immolator etc, can all contribute to this, to gain us a better awareness of the environment we're operating in, and seek out business opportunities for us to exploit.

 

[Vindictus]

(You can also try and steal assets to use for your departments, like you did with the biotech assets stolen from the illegal biomod clinic. *coughcoughcybertechdepartmentcoughcough* )

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Oh, yeah.

I had noticed that.

It's pretty nice that we can actually sort of use those cyber-engineers we bought a few turns ago now :lol

 

[Tempera]

Oh, yeah.

I had noticed that.

It's pretty nice that we can actually sort of use those cyber-engineers we bought a few turns ago now :lol

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Unfortunately they were biotech assets, so you're still nil on the cybertech front

 

[MJ12 Commando]

The Difference between Augs and Enhanciles

So you may have noticed a tiny bit of a retcon in the recent post where I referred to enhanced individuals as 'augs.' That's because I ended up realizing that the 'civilian'/'military' distinction was rather pointless given that the military doesn't just use pure enhanciles. So I ended up making up another neologism for them to make it a bit less confusing than some civilians having military-grade augs because they were given a package of softer sci-fi hypertech and some military people not being capable of accepting military-grade augs yet being enhanced.

Augs are people who are augmented, but not quite to the level of enhanciles. Augs tend to cluster around the more realistic, sci-fi (rather than superhero) level of powers. Lima Seven-Nine are all augs, who have dermal hardening to survive shrapnel and pistol bullets, cybernetic eyes to see in the dark or see thermal signatures, wired reflexes which make them react faster than normal, cyberlimbs that make them a little stronger and faster than an unaugmented but world record athlete... But they can still be successfully engaged by other guys with rifles and find that inconvenient. Generally, augs reflect that by having high base stats and traits, rather than superpowers. Rich civilians tend to be augs, because they can afford physique boosts to always look good and intelligence/etc boosts from gene-tweaks and cultured biomods. Elite soldiers, too, rather than just national guard and second echelon troops, also tend to be augs-as do high end criminals, like your friendly neighborhood shadowrunners.

Enhanciles are people who are given much more drastic modification with commensurately drastic capability enhancement. Becoming an enhancile is much more expensive, and it requires a certain psychological profile and genetic compatibility which is less common than the ability to accept augs. They tend to look more human on the outside, but inside a lot of things are not where they're supposed to be, made of entirely different stuff, or removed entirely and replaced with more efficient replacements. Enhanciles are generally a combination of a lot of different forms of technology mashed together, and have capabilities which are far more comic-book than cyberpunk. Ez, as an enhancile with a heavy physical focus, can easily lift and throw something weighing a ton, will raise her eyebrow slightly if you try to threaten her with a regular rifle, run fast enough to break road speed limits, and punch hard enough to kill someone in power armor.

Even Immolator with his lack of 'actual' phys-augs and his gangly physique is probably not much weaker than a member of Lima Seven-Nine in a fistfight and certainly much more durable. Their tactical score represents a small team, his represents himself and nothing more.

The difference between the two blurs in some areas-today, most early 'enhanciles' would count as augs, and very high-grade augs-Ghost in the Shell-style military full cyborgs, Chinese posthumans, Category A Russian warbots, etc.- might end up with low end 'superpowers.'

 

[Vindictus]

Unfortunately they were biotech assets, so you're still nil on the cybertech front

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Wait, I thought they were marked as a cybertech installation facility, uh, thing?

[double checks]

You also now have the basic equipment to install, if not actually develop, non-enhancile grade cyberware.

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Well.

Apparently I was right, but also wrong.

I still get to laugh at our buying assets we can't even use in order to maintain a balanced portfolio, I guess.

 

[Tempera]

I still get to laugh at our buying assets we can't even use in order to maintain a balanced portfolio, I guess.

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That's definitely a thing you guys did.

It's not impossible to recover from, though. It provides you with an immediate boost if and when you guys actually do get a cybertech department going- assuming, of course, that that doesn't take so long that your recruitments get immensely bored and quit.

 

[Ironanvil1]

@Tempera , @MJ12 Commando so where does the money in the 18 block area we're looking at come from? How do the inhabitants earn a crust?

 

[Imrix]

Chinese posthumans, Category A Russian warbots

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... Your ideas intrigue me sir, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[Arcus]

Is clearly glorious communist hivemind with superpowered bodies and intellects.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

@Tempera , @MJ12 Commando so where does the money in the 18 block area we're looking at come from? How do the inhabitants earn a crust?

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Probably relatively low-skill corporate jobs-factory worker, medical test subject, drug dealer, rent-a-cop-plus the secondary, illegal economy which results when the legal economy is kind of shit. Which is to say, 'the same things but without a license.' There's also black-market stuff like selling unlicensed GMO foods and illegally imported 'military-grade biomodification' and other fun stuff.

 

[Ironanvil1]

Probably relatively low-skill corporate jobs-factory worker, medical test subject, drug dealer, rent-a-cop-plus the secondary, illegal economy which results when the legal economy is kind of shit. Which is to say, 'the same things but without a license.' There's also black-market stuff like selling unlicensed GMO foods and illegally imported 'military-grade biomodification' and other fun stuff.

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What kind of factory work?

 

[MJ12 Commando]

What kind of factory work?

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The kind that probably gets you cancer or maimed because you're competing with machines. So... very Victorian and terrible.