[CanRay]

And Renraku slunk off with their tail tucked between their legs. Says a lot about how powerful corps are vs. (developed) countries. Granted there realy wasn't any profit involved in Renraku fighting the UCAS for control, but still.

That, and trying to fight off the issue would have gotten laughed out of the Corporate Court.  They've pulled that trick as well, so if they ruled against it, all their previous arrangements suddenly come into suspicion.

[Crimsondude]

As I recall, the UCC and Corporate Court sided with the UCAS. And this was also just after the Court had considered hammering Renraku with an Omega Order.

[Angelone]

I really admire Renraku for surviving all they did. The shutdown and the losing the Arc, Lanier basically straight up jacking them, and the behind the scenes sniping not to mention the feeding frenzy after their perceived weakness. With all that they came out shaken but not stirred.

I can't recall if Fuchi was bigger or not but it splintered, while Renraku is still chugging along. They took Kenny Rodger's advice to heart.

[Crimsondude]

Fuchi was the second-largest corp after S-K when it broke up.

[CitizenJoe]

Renraku is modular... Extremely modular.  From their coding to their corporate structure.  This isn't the same hierarchical structure of Fuchi or most of the other corps.  If they lose something, it is self contained.  The arcology was a project unto itself and the fallout was a small black eye in the North American division of Renraku.  While it is a big loss, it was also a huge money sink.  They may have lost that limb, but it was hemorrhaging cash to begin with.  The big loss was really any research that wasn't reported back to Chiba in last quarter of 2059.  A bigger black eye would be data loss in the matrix crash 2.0.  When your raison d'etre is to store data, and that suddenly goes poof, who is going to re-invest in an incompetent company?

[Angelone]

Fuchi was the second-largest corp after S-K when it broke up.

I didn't recall their size. It seems Villiers has the golden touch, can't quite crack that number 1 spot though. 

[hobgoblin]

If you want military clout, Ares, SK and aztech are more likely candidates.

[Crimsondude]

A bigger black eye would be data loss in the matrix crash 2.0.  When your raison d'etre is to store data, and that suddenly goes poof, who is going to re-invest in an incompetent company?

Because of Deus they came out of Crash 2.0 mostly unscathed and sitting on top of a pile of their fallen foes. They backed up the MRG in Singapore and kept redundant, offline backups of all of their data. So they are just fine in that regard.

[Mirikon]

Right, their core business (data storage and cyberware) was largely unaffected by the shutdown or the crash, which meant that they came out of things significantly better than their primary rival, Fuchi, and Novatech took the top spot on people's lists of corps to hate because of their IPO being the start of the Crash (hence the name change to NeoNET). And with MCT, Aztechnology, NeoNET, Horizon, Ares, Wuxing, and Evo all hogging the public spotlight at one point or another, Renraku has had a solid decade of not being the main guy in people's crosshairs. A corp like Renraku isn't going to just sit around and enjoy that, they're going to find something new, which is why some of us are wondering when that other shoe is going to drop.

[Black]

It was a tough time and place for Renraku.  The Corp War was raging in the shadows with everyone trying to gain an advantage.  The Acrology was located in the heart of Seattle, a major metropolis in the 2050s, and was sitting on three nuclear powerplants.  The Governor and other digantries where trapped inside (including a number of high level players in Renraku itself)... and then its CEO wandered of to Tibet. 

The UCAS didn't take control of the operation on the first night either, it happened with the full support of the UCC and with only weak resistence from Renraku (I loved that part of the Shutdown book, if for the fact that Karen King of Ares was chair of the meeting and shes a character I use regularly in my game)

In any other sitiuation, I think the UCAS would have been told to go away and live with it.  But with the other corps support and the obvious fact that Renraku just wasnt capable of cleaning up it own mess.... 

I wonder how may 'advisors' from other corps got access to Renraku tech.  I'm sure Ares was more then happy to consult on some of the stuff found in the Arc.

[CitizenJoe]

A bigger black eye would be data loss in the matrix crash 2.0.  When your raison d'etre is to store data, and that suddenly goes poof, who is going to re-invest in an incompetent company?

Because of Deus they came out of Crash 2.0 mostly unscathed and sitting on top of a pile of their fallen foes. They backed up the MRG in Singapore and kept redundant, offline backups of all of their data. So they are just fine in that regard.

Now you see, this is where I get confused.  I've got some people on these boards saying that the second crash wiped out all this information and people became SINless and all that rot, but then I also get rational business strategies that say that the Crash was just a momentary hiccup.  It's almsost like there are multiple authors trying to push different agendas. 

[Black]

A bigger black eye would be data loss in the matrix crash 2.0.  When your raison d'etre is to store data, and that suddenly goes poof, who is going to re-invest in an incompetent company?

Because of Deus they came out of Crash 2.0 mostly unscathed and sitting on top of a pile of their fallen foes. They backed up the MRG in Singapore and kept redundant, offline backups of all of their data. So they are just fine in that regard.

Now you see, this is where I get confused.  I've got some people on these boards saying that the second crash wiped out all this information and people became SINless and all that rot, but then I also get rational business strategies that say that the Crash was just a momentary hiccup.  It's almsost like there are multiple authors trying to push different agendas. 

I always got the impression it was big, and thousands of people did get their records wiped... I suspect non-corpers mostly, people who didn't have the protection of the fail-safes put in place by the people with the money and resources to do so.  But the world got back on its feet relatively unscaffed.  Not many corps when down, and none of the megas, which suggest a great deal of continuity. No country toppled, the workers got paid, society didn't crumble.  I believe the first crash was much more devestating.  Now, the world has become a tad more resilient.

[CitizenJoe]

Oh and I figured out how the wired matrix infrastructure could be damaged as badly as some people make it out to be.  In some areas where the right of way for power lines and such are restricted, they will sometimes run the power lines and fiber optics as a bundle.  Not just on the same pole, but actually a combined 'smart' cable.  In those areas where the grid isn't physically separated, a power surge could blow out something on the far end, which lessens the capacity of the system, causing the next weaker node to blow, etc. in a cascade failure.  Since the power line and datalines are bundled together in those areas, when the power line blew, it melted the fiber optics as well.

Note that in many areas, the expensive 'smart' cables aren't necessary so the 'last mile' of the cable is likely separated and sent out to homes that way.  Most likely, the transformer stations where the power gets stepped down is where the cable splits and also where the physical damage was apparent.  Getting power up and running on the grids would be relatively easy, since the cable is fairly basic.  However, re-running all that 'smart' cable (or even fabricating it in the first place) would take too long.  So its a matter of get power up in a week, or get everything up in 18 months.

A major issue with this theory is that it necessitates that the gridlink system build into the highways of Seattle is completely fried and would mean digging up the entire roadway to replace.  Local municipalities might be able to cobble together something, particularly downtown Seattle, where the gridlink is accessible from below, but the vast stretches of highway connecting the metroplex would likely be a non-starter.  That would seem to mean more gas powered cars again, since electric cars would have to rely on battery power.  That means more pollution and gas prices going up.

That doesn't address the data loss though.  If people lost SINs and whatnot, that had to be a direct assault on the SIN registry.  I think that whatever vulnerability was exploited or whatever safeguards were put in after the Crash, these are the methods that allow the Erased quality to be effective.

[hobgoblin]

A bigger black eye would be data loss in the matrix crash 2.0.  When your raison d'etre is to store data, and that suddenly goes poof, who is going to re-invest in an incompetent company?

Because of Deus they came out of Crash 2.0 mostly unscathed and sitting on top of a pile of their fallen foes. They backed up the MRG in Singapore and kept redundant, offline backups of all of their data. So they are just fine in that regard.

Now you see, this is where I get confused.  I've got some people on these boards saying that the second crash wiped out all this information and people became SINless and all that rot, but then I also get rational business strategies that say that the Crash was just a momentary hiccup.  It's almsost like there are multiple authors trying to push different agendas. 

Well SINs are a bit of a oddity, as they seem to get their "strength" from their user history. That is, they are code that follow each person from birth to ashes, across a whole host of databases. And it may well be that these databases do not get wholesale wiped, but that various subtle errors are introduced (bit rot) that pile up across the system and results in a SIN getting flagged as invalid or forged. Now if this happens while your out of town for some reason your pretty much hosed.

I think that is what we are looking at more than massive wipes of data. There data is still there, but changed. Maybe there was a rapid fire series of transfers that resulted in the fortunes of a person spread across multiple accounts? A pain in the behind to roll back at best, especially if they all look legit as far as the bankers can tell.

As a real life example, consider the kind of pain ID fraud can cause for future credit checks.

[CitizenJoe]

There's a catch 22 in there.  If you are dependent on your SIN, then you use it a lot and there is a lot of data out there to resist tampering.  Lots of opportunity to borrow it, but not easy to wipe out (unless you hit the SIN registry).  If you have a weak SIN, you don't use it much and thus you aren't dependent on it.  Losing it would be inconvenient but you weren't using it much anyway. 

Of course, the simple rumor that the SIN registry is corrupted is enough to cause financial collapse. 

And for those that think I'm just complaining, I'm actually trying to add story which can be hooks for games.  Did the SIN Registry get corrupted?  Or did some people simply take advantage of the chaos and target specific people?  If the former, getting access to that ability would be a fortune and a big target on your back (think Sneakers level plot).  If the latter, why were those people targeted (Pelican Brief).