Japan in Cyberpunk 2020

[blank_redge]

end of FS, Japan nationalized Arasaka.

Again, being that I've read none of the Firestorm material: is this redundant?

At one point in time, Arasaka seemed fairly cozy with the government (y'know, being not-too-distantly related to the Tenno, and all.)

Would Arasaka being nationalized have any discernible effects on how they operate?

 

[Sardukhar]

Oh, yes. It's a huge loss of face for them. Arasaka went from telling the Japanese government what they should do - politely, respectfully, with appropriate bribes - to being taken over by that government. While in disgrace. Their operations were in tatters, lawsuits against them galore, ( which may have become redundant after they were nationalized) and their upper echelon shattered.

It's as bad as you can imagine for a business entity. Worse than utter financial destruction, since even that leaves you at least a legal name and history. Once you've been nationalized, investors in the future will always remember that.

 

[blank_redge]

Huh. I'm trying to imagine Arasaka run with the efficiency of, say, a DMV office. Or any other large government entity of your choosing.

 

[Suhiira]

Huh. I'm trying to imagine Arasaka run with the efficiency of, say, a DMV office. Or any other large government entity of your choosing.

Consider your local city bus system.
They run, after a fashion.
Are they competitive vs privately (or shareholder) owned competitors?
NOT.

 

[Sardukhar]

Consider your local city bus system.
They run, after a fashion.
Are they competitive vs privately (or shareholder) owned competitors?
NOT.

Hmm. HMM. Interesting example. I run such a system. Of course we are more efficient. We have to be. Do we provide the service level the publicly-funded service does? Not even close. We cannot afford to. We fill other gaps.

This is why infrastructure is generally left to tax-supported entities that can lose money forever.

How this would affect Arasaka -and Japan- after 2025 is quite the question. Would they be run as an arm of the government? Would their nationalization mean absorption into public ranks? Would the Boys in Black then start to take over the government from inside, up to the Diet?

 

[wisdom000]

Hmm. HMM. Interesting example. I run such a system. Of course we are more efficient. We have to be. Do we provide the service level the publicly-funded service does? Not even close. We cannot afford to. We fill other gaps.

This is why infrastructure is generally left to tax-supported entities that can lose money forever.

How this would affect Arasaka -and Japan- after 2025 is quite the question. Would they be run as an arm of the government? Would their nationalization mean absorption into public ranks? Would the Boys in Black then start to take over the government from inside, up to the Diet?

More to the point, Arasaka is the Leading Head of a Zaibatsu, a conglomeration of corporations making everything from pet food to umbrellas, with agricultural, manufacturing interests relied upon the world over. Arasaka and their private military for hire and arms manufacturing are just the tip of the iceberg for them... the public face if you will.

In reality, Militech would never have stood a chance against them, it would be like Target trying to take on Wal-mart, if Walmart also owned Craft Foods, Monsanto, GM Motors, Coco-Cola, and McDonalds....

If arasaka were to be nationalized.... Japans economy would be not just devastated, but the impact would be felt all over the world....

 

[Sardukhar]

If arasaka were to be nationalized.... Japans economy would be not just devastated, but the impact would be felt all over the world....

Which, to be fair, it was.

 

[blank_redge]

Would they be run as an arm of the government? Would their nationalization mean absorption into public ranks? Would the Boys in Black then start to take over the government from inside...?

That's what I was driving at. That was Saburo-sama's grand design, wasn't it? Control of the government. Seems to me that being nationalized would just put Arasaka that much closer towards their end-goals.

 

[atomowyturysta]

That's what I was driving at. That was Saburo-sama's grand design, wasn't it? Control of the government. Seems to me that being nationalized would just put Arasaka that much closer towards their end-goals.

Actually if being taken over by the government had been Saburo's plan all the way, it kinda backfired. As his head was presented on a silver plate to the US President by the JSDF Supreme Commander and the people that used to be of any importance in Arasaka ranks are hunted down and killed by angry edgerunners (and US and Chinese inteligence as well I guess). What happens next depends how much do we want to use from V3. I use none. I run my games in post war 2032 with new conflicts and tensions but probably everyone has their own ideas obout what happened after CW4. Hmm... I guess that's a good idea for a post

 

[blank_redge]

Actually if being taken over by the government had been Saburo's plan all the way, it kinda backfired. As his head was presented on a silver plate to the US President by the JSDF Supreme Commander and the people that used to be of any importance in Arasaka ranks are hunted down and killed by angry edgerunners (and US and Chinese inteligence as well I guess).

Ah.

Yeah; again, unfamiliar with Firestorm, so I wasn't aware that Arasaka was neutered to that extent. It's a shame, really; they're WONDERFUL to use as the bogeyman in my games.

 

[wisdom000]

Ah.

Yeah; again, unfamiliar with Firestorm, so I wasn't aware that Arasaka was neutered to that extent. It's a shame, really; they're WONDERFUL to use as the bogeyman in my games.

Arasaka was wonderful in everyones games... which is one of the many reasons fan reaction to Firestorm and V3 was so negative. We like our boogymen. we like our nigh unstoppable force that does as much good as they do bad...

 

[atomowyturysta]

Arasaka was wonderful in everyones games... which is one of the many reasons fan reaction to Firestorm and V3 was so negative. We like our boogymen. we like our nigh unstoppable force that does as much good as they do bad...

Yeah. Arasaka's great. They have the style. Militech is just a bruiser. Still I use Militech as a 'good guy' and once or twice PCs got really puzzled when they realized that at that particular moment Arasakas playing on the right side and their trusted employer not so right...

 

[wisdom000]

Yeah, same here... Militech was never actually the good guy, though they often swung on false patriotism to make themselves look like they were. In fact, they were far mroe harmful, both to a political, and an economic climate.

Their soldirs and gear are about on equal terms though.

 

[Sardukhar]

Ah.

If Arasaka is your bogeyman past your first dozen or so games, maybe less, you're Doing It Wrong.

Why is Arasaka the bogeyman? Because they are ruthless, fearsome, driven and fully consumed by their own agenda.

How are they different from the other megacorps and would-be megacorps? Really only in presentation.

They are -obvious- about it. Boys in Black. Security in places Edgerunners shouldn't be. Japanese. Etc.

If your players haven't noticed that every other Corp in 2020 is -also- like this, (some even worse), then they've missed a fundamental Truth of Cyberpunk.

Don't you remember that first time in your first cyberpunk campaign where you found out our employers were actually the bad guys? That the people you worked for were as bad or worse than the people you'd just survived fighting? Wasn't that a great feeling?

Until not too long after, you were working for Arasaka and thought nothing of it. Made sense, why not?

At least until your player started fresh characters who hadn't clued in yet - or even better, some hyper-rare principled character like a Cop, Nomad or Medtech who refused to compromise their principles. Those are the best kind to ruin.

This illustrates partly why I'd like to get some new players playing with us. They have such sights to see.

 

[Suhiira]

I personally LOVE characters (my own or others) that have a moral stance on things.
It's far more fun to run/play a game where the characters occasionally consider IF they should take a job offer.

 

[wisdom000]

Ah.

If Arasaka is your bogeyman past your first dozen or so games, maybe less, you're Doing It Wrong.

Why is Arasaka the bogeyman? Because they are ruthless, fearsome, driven and fully consumed by their own agenda.

How are they different from the other megacorps and would-be megacorps? Really only in presentation.

They are -obvious- about it. Boys in Black. Security in places Edgerunners shouldn't be. Japanese. Etc.

If your players haven't noticed that every other Corp in 2020 is -also- like this, (some even worse), then they've missed a fundamental Truth of Cyberpunk.

Don't you remember that first time in your first cyberpunk campaign where you found out our employers were actually the bad guys? That the people you worked for were as bad or worse than the people you'd just survived fighting? Wasn't that a great feeling?

Until not too long after, you were working for Arasaka and thought nothing of it. Made sense, why not?

At least until your player started fresh characters who hadn't clued in yet - or even better, some hyper-rare principled character like a Cop, Nomad or Medtech who refused to compromise their principles. Those are the best kind to ruin.

This illustrates partly why I'd like to get some new players playing with us. They have such sights to see.

All corps are evil and insidious, even the ones that are generally beneficial...

Look at Monsanto, which was the big baddy for a large campaign of ours. We did everything we could to bring them down, and finally managed to track down the board of directors, and started eliminating them... only to realize that as evil as the corporation is, as utterly abhorrent as its practices are, they also feed the world, and due to their genetically modified seeds and pesticides, and their shutting down of 90 percent of privately owned family farmers, if they go under, here comes a food shortage of biblical proportion...

None of that serves to make Arasaka any less scary, especially since most of those monster corps use Arasaka or Militech as their security.

 

[jacqsynn]

I personally LOVE characters (my own or others) that have a moral stance on things.
It's far more fun to run/play a game where the characters occasionally consider IF they should take a job offer.

I love having a character with some type of morals, like my Nomad Splayagh (I know bad name) that killed everyone that insulted his Leather Jacket or worse shot it. Last count he had killed at least 15 Solo's in straight up gun duels, ok the players of those Solo's really didn't like him very much but then they shouldn't have insulted his jacket.

 

[wisdom000]

I love having a character with some type of morals, like my Nomad Splayagh (I know bad name) that killed everyone that insulted his Leather Jacket or worse shot it. Last count he had killed at least 15 Solo's in straight up gun duels, ok the players of those Solo's really didn't like him very much but then they shouldn't have insulted his jacket.

Marv: "That's a damn fine jacket..."

 

[jacqsynn]

Yep that was pretty much it, and well before I ever heard of Marv he and my character were very close in outlook and morals.

 

[atomowyturysta]

I like to make agendas of my villains not-so-black-and-white. I love using Militech, Arasaka, Petrochem, EBM and Lazarus (which according to fluff is a corp with a kind of moral spine) also like Storm Technology, however I trashed the part with "nomad corporation" which I thought of as 'bullshit'. Militech hired by a multibillionare to protect rain forrest, Arasaka's team taking down human trafficking netrwork thus saving hundreds of lifes, Lazarus protecting the flight of British Queen to her homeland. I love situation where the players working for some holier-than-thou persona with holly-and-mighty cause are the real badgus in the scenario. Stopping Militech from instaling nuklear defences is some african research compounds may cause the nukes fall into hands of some lunatics that think that blowing Tokyo out of the face of the world will stop Arasaka from taking over the world. I personally don't like anarchists so my campaigns are basicly "Corps are ruthless powermongers. Anarchist are dicks"
And I think I got sidetracked... What was the post about again?