[JustADude]

Simple question here, that I'm quite sure will come up in my campaign relatively soon, so I want to head it off at the pass: How would a PLEC (Private Law Enforcement Company) like Knight Errant or Lone Star react to armed action by a Megacorp like S-K or Renraku going off their private property to perform armed action, such as retrieving something stolen by Runners?

I'm sure we can safely assume nobody gives a fuck about the Barrens, but what about in the more civilized parts of the Sprawl, where people actually pay rent and can walk around with minimal chances of getting mugged and/or killed and sold to organleggers?

[Crash_00]

In a word: Negatively.

That's why corporations hire shadowrunners as deniable assets. To be able to deny involvement. Chances are if Knight Errant finds themselves coming up against an SK strike force in full gear, their going to be calling in the big guns of the RRT and sending footage of the incident directly to the corporate court.

Now, depending on the circumstances, SK might be able to gain clearance from Knight Errant if they request it in advance if its a particularly cut and dry case (they stole from us, here's the proof, we don't have time for you BS), but with all these being different corporations, you could expect it to be like a jurisdiction battle between precincts on steroids.

[Mirikon]

Outside their extraterritorial domains, corpsec has to walk carefully. One of the recent Missions had a Horizon strike team ambush the runners at their safehouse, after word had gotten out that the researcher they extracted grabbed a look at some old texts. If the reward is high enough, they'll risk strikes into areas not under their control. The response by KE would depend on how things went down. Running battles through the streets of Seattle? They are going to get pissed at EVERYONE. Surgical strike on a safehouse that remained contained to one building? They won't be happy, and they may forward insurance and wrongful death claims to the corp, but otherwise may just call it a favor they can call in at some time.

[The Big Peat]

In a word: Negatively.

That's why corporations hire shadowrunners as deniable assets. To be able to deny involvement. Chances are if Knight Errant finds themselves coming up against an SK strike force in full gear, their going to be calling in the big guns of the RRT and sending footage of the incident directly to the corporate court.

Now, depending on the circumstances, SK might be able to gain clearance from Knight Errant if they request it in advance if its a particularly cut and dry case (they stole from us, here's the proof, we don't have time for you BS), but with all these being different corporations, you could expect it to be like a jurisdiction battle between precincts on steroids.

This.

To expand in my own thoughts.

If for some reason SK (to continue the example) really felt the need to send in their own people then

a) They'd probably try and be sneaky. What Knight Errant doesn't know about, it can't complain about. Squads of armoured troopers = no. Squad of people wearing black pyjamas jumping out of the back of an anonymous van = yes. Essentially, corporate shadowrunners.

b) If they can't be sneaky, they'd probably try and be really loud elsewhere to distract them. Or have someone expandable and dumb be loud.

c) They might well try and claim hot pursuit (does that apply in SR?) or some other legal excuse to get away with it. Or at least tie up KE until they've got away with it.

d) The other way of getting KE/LS to let them get away with it is blackmail and bribery. Depending on what and where they're sending it, that might actually be doable.

About the only occasion I can see

[Fizzygoo]

c) They might well try and claim hot pursuit (does that apply in SR?) or some other legal excuse to get away with it. Or at least tie up KE until they've got away with it.

To me this would be the default. Any extraterritorial corp would be allowed to give chase (in corporate friendly sprawls...aka nearly all of them, the only others being feral cities where...hell...there's not much local law other than the gangs running the place) so long as the corp alerted and informed the local law about the pursuit. If the corp (or the individuals from the corp) are paranoid about the nature of the need to chase the runners then they might not involve the local law...but in most cases they would end up working to capture them together with both spinning the event after the fact to make them look good,

"Today local law enforcement teamed up with corporate law enforcement to bring peace and stability to the city by apprehending criminals who broken into the corporation's facilities, murdered in cold blood several security guards [flash images of corpsec bodies in caskets followed by grieving spouses and offspring], destroyed corporate property, and stole undisclosed data which our sources say may have been a cure for cancer, depression, and cold feet. Local law enforcement was able to cordon off the criminals escape path while corporate law as allowed to corner and neutralize the threat allowing a new, peaceful, dawn to break on our beloved city. [interview with corporate law captain] 'The events of the past 24 hours showed that in law enforcement we are all brothers and sisters, working tirelessly to ensure the safety of every citizen regardless of race, gender, creed, or corproate/national affiliation.' Local law enforcement supplied our offices with criminal histories of the apprehended and deceased criminals which proves they were bad bad nasty mean people who hate everything and kick puppies just because they think it's funny."

I also would think that corps with extraterritorial status would have made (and won) legal cases that "stolen property is, in essence, extraterritorial and the use of corporate personnel to retrieve said property is fully in their rights so long as they work with local law enforcement (i.e. at least inform them if only after the fact) about their legal and legitimate actions to reclaim their property by any means necessary."

[JustADude]

I also would think that corps with extraterritorial status would have made (and won) legal cases that "stolen property is, in essence, extraterritorial and the use of corporate personnel to retrieve said property is fully in their rights so long as they work with local law enforcement (i.e. at least inform them if only after the fact) about their legal and legitimate actions to reclaim their property by any means necessary."

Yeah, that's about what I was thinking, at least as far as the AAAs are concerned. There may be some territorial pissing matches, but there's no need for deniability for something totally legitimate and above board like retrieving stolen goods.

[Fizzygoo]

Yeah, that's about what I was thinking. At least as far as the AAAs are concerned.

Yeah, definitely for AAA, and most likely for AA (as they have extraterritorial status as well, IIRC). Sensitive, secretive, or especially publicly-negative data/property may be hunted in more clandestine ways...but for anything short of "we're testing the exposed brains kidnapped children" will lean more towards going through legal channels. That's the problem with the corps, they've written the laws to benefit them (or that's the fun thing...if you're the GM, hehe)

[The Big Peat]

I also would think that corps with extraterritorial status would have made (and won) legal cases that "stolen property is, in essence, extraterritorial and the use of corporate personnel to retrieve said property is fully in their rights so long as they work with local law enforcement (i.e. at least inform them if only after the fact) about their legal and legitimate actions to reclaim their property by any means necessary."

I have no idea of how good a legal basis that has but in terms of dramatic effect and in-game logic, to my mind that would give the megacorp a bit too much of an easy ride coming off their turf, and therefore I wouldn't use it. Besides, a lot of that stolen property was stolen by another megacorp, so its possible that so far that's been quashed as an idea. If you've gone to all that effort to steal the data, you don't want it to be easy for them to take it back. Just my preferences though. I imagine if that was in effect, a lot of megacorps would just fake the evidence whenever they wanted to go in there...

But yeah. Otherwise, that's fairly how I imagine it when hot pursuit applies. +1.

[JustADude]

I have no idea of how good a legal basis that has but in terms of dramatic effect and in-game logic, to my mind that would give the megacorp a bit too much of an easy ride coming off their turf, and therefore I wouldn't use it. Besides, a lot of that stolen property was stolen by another megacorp, so its possible that so far that's been quashed as an idea. If you've gone to all that effort to steal the data, you don't want it to be easy for them to take it back. Just my preferences though. I imagine if that was in effect, a lot of megacorps would just fake the evidence whenever they wanted to go in there...

But yeah. Otherwise, that's fairly how I imagine it when hot pursuit applies. +1.

Well, yeah; hitting the runners before they make the hand-off would definitely qualify as Hot Pursuit, I think.

[The Big Peat]

That depends - if you're following hot on their heels in a chase, yeah.

If however three days after getting robbed you get a tip-off and turn up at their safehouse going "Surprise!" - then that doesn't count as Hot Pursuit in my book. Its not even Lukewarm Pursuit.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Simple question here, that I'm quite sure will come up in my campaign relatively soon, so I want to head it off at the pass: How would a PLEC (Private Law Enforcement Company) like Knight Errant or Lone Star react to armed action by a Megacorp like S-K or Renraku going off their private property to perform armed action, such as retrieving something stolen by Runners?

Company Men (corp shadowrunners) are semi-deniable assets used for Just This Sort Of Thing.  Show up at the exchange, shoot the runners, kidnap the Johnson and get their stuff back?  Sure.  Do it as quietly as possible?  Absolutely.  Remember, unless it's immediate hot pursuit -- and even that can get dicey for even a megacorp -- the law of the corporations is 'don't provably shoot the place up'.  As has been pointed out, this is why they hire shadowrunners, through three layers of deniable assets.

To get back to the 'hot pursuit' angle, the short answer is: Depends.  Is the corp you just hit (Ares) in good with local law enforcement (KE)?  Is there some friction (Saeder-Krupp)??  Or are they sworn enemies (Lone Star, Aztechnology)??  Understand that any collateral damage able to be provably laid at the pursuing corporation security forces' feet is going to cost the corp money, and if the local cop corp is feeling even vaguely pissy (they usually do, because being pissy on the side of the citizens will increase their approval rating, making keeping the multi-billion-nuyen contract easier), they will do all they can to provide that evidence.  'Oh, sure, those shadowrunners did some damage, but your cars smashed up thirty five others and caused over five million in property damage.  Pay up.'

This is why having Inter-Corp Politics as a knowledge skill is a Good Thing.  An example in a previous edition (SR2?) had a runner team running like hell from a Knight Errant team after having hit a site whose security contract was 'up for renegotiation', and crossed into territory patrolled by Lone Star.  LS pulled them over, they quickly explained the situation and basically offered a bribe to the Star.  The Star told them to beat feet, then got into the KE team's face to demand what the hell they thought they were doing, driving around at high speeds in THEIR patrol area.  Know the political lay of the land, and it's entirely possible that the guys who should be stopping you will become your temporary best friends, just to tighten the screws on the people you just messed with.

[Mirikon]

+1 to you, Wyrm. This is EXACTLY the kind of things runners should look into.

[Simagal]

There was a mention that Aztechnology has a training facility in one of the barrens of Seattle.  I could easily seem them taking care of business during a convoy to or from training. It would also depend a great deal on neighborhood.

[CitizenJoe]

Note that outside of their turf, most of their equipment is illegal and not even permittable.  If proof can be had, any company has to pay compensation for the damage it does.  Again, this is why they hire deniable assets. 

Some notes about extraterritoriality. 
Corps can claim 1200 meters above the surfaces around their area.  While that is well and good, they can't claim an area claimed by another authority.  i.e they can't buy the lobby of a building and claim all the floors above it.  Seattle has a very busy airspace, and most of it is controlled by SeaTac airport.  That control is sort of an inverted layer cake shape though, so there is space below the layers in many locations.  However, Fed. Boeing also has many airports in the area which grab up the airspace beneath the SeaTac controlled airspace. 

Fun note:  The Renraku Arcology enters SeaTac controlled airspace about half way up.  That means intercontinental and suborbital flights are blasting by within a hundred meters every day.  Imagine looking down from your office to see the incoming flight from Japan with your bosses.

The MCT building "downtown" is pretty much directly in line with the landing pattern for northbound flights into Fed. Boeing Field.  Fortunately, most of their flights can be directed out into bay instead of past the MCT towers.  However, should FB and MCT get into a pissing match, FB could arrange to have flights blast by the MCT offices during every important meeting "due to weather conditions".  In my setting, the Cavilard Research Center (MCT facility) in Bellevue takes up the whole park/wetlands area south of it.  The south end, where the river lets out into the lake, has a small harbor for MCT vessels, but the airspace above and north to I 90 is controlled by FB-Renton.  By contrast, Cavilard is one of the few zones large enough that a corp would risk shooting down a plane in their airspace without fear of it crossing the border.

[farothel]

I have another, related question: how big are AAA-corp armies actually?  They have a real army, but how much of one.  I assume that corps such as Ares, Aztec and S-K have bigger ones than Horizon and NeoNet, but is their size put somewhere in a book?  And breakdown in ground, air and sea forces?