[RustedChrome]

I guess my take on the difference is where I see the core lines and how it effects the runner on the street.
Lone Star sells security and does other stuff on the side
Ares is a weapons manufacturing giant which has a security division
The way I see it if you look at the high enough numbers Ares is willing to fund KE right out of advertising budget for the new gear ( and the KE income gets funneled somewhere else, and I bet KE almost always operates at a loss in UCAS so they can request tax write offs and...)
In any case KE people have more access to milspec than LS and are trained or told to use it if they can get away with it
Collateral damage isn't too much to worry about to an AAA especially if you know that with the right PR the news nets will run it for you (and the shell news comps that Ares actually owns) and every banana republic dictator drools over the trivid of what that new shiny gun can do

Of course that can work for the average runner who is smart
KE doing security for the place you need to hit and you heard a rumor that they just finished ironing out the last set of bugs on the X1-511 Sniper rifle they were playing with.  Hit another Ares building and hack the advertising and shipping data.  Does it look like they left notes that the new toy is going to come to town.  And hey are they renting offices with overlooks near various properties including the one you need to hit that would give some chill fields of fire.  Good thing you didn't walk into that ambush.  Though a lone sniper not expecting anyone but his friends to know where he is wouldn't be to hard for a team to take down would it.  Interesting confusion if the support sniper started taking pot shots at KE people.  And the gun not on the market your fixer could do something with that right.  And those other rifles, the shipping docks and the buildings where they are going to might be extraterritorial but the street between them isn't.  I'm sure Lone Star would love to catch Ares moving prototype military sniper rifles through the streets...

[SlowDeck]

I have a question...

Give the Knight Errant security is from Ares and not their own corp, is it possible they might be more amenable to hiring runners to take care of dirty work and do undercover investigations than Lone Star would be?

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Yes and no.

Executives - not officers - who come into KE from other parts of the corporation are more likely to do so, certainly.  At the heart of it, though, KE provides security for Ares against criminals - shadowrunners - and there's a mindset that tends to come with that sort of individual.  Yes, cops use their little roster of snitches, but a security guard just doesn't trust anyone.  I would actually think that LS would be more likely to use shadowrunners to get the dirt ... but you never know.  Tosh Athack seemed willing enough to use 'runners ...