(01-05-2021, 08:05 PM)Labster Wrote: Been watching this thread, it seems promising.Yeah, I'm pretty certain Quincy knew from day one, or at least found out pretty easily. Perhaps he thinks they're useful to him in the long run - I keep bouncing around the idea that he wants Celia, the Only Sane Transhuman, to inherit his work - to be so ground down by the impossibility of her crusade against megacorporate excess that she'll start to see things his way. Or he sees her as a useful way to get rid of all the ambitious wackos who work for him but want his job - not just Mason, but even the more competent schemers like Mark Latus's Daniel Dumas.
Pretty sure her name should be Linna (or Rinna, I guess). Linna Yamazaki is supposed to be the "ordinary Japanese girl", Celia Stingray has two Western(-ish) names. The other leads have half-Japanese names -- I think there was supposed to be some symmetry here.
classicdrogn Wrote:Go ahead and try it; if it works, great, if not maybe you can adapt it for a later part. The only thing I'd absolutely keep from BGC OVA1 is the Silky Van as a mobile transport/support unit to let the Sabers deploy without being seen hop-skipping halfway across the city (or launching a highly distinctive aircraft RIGHT OUT OF THE SUPPOSEDLY SECRET HQ like in Crash...)
I really do like how Bob handled it in DW2, where Quincy knew damn well who was in charge of the Knight Sabers, but never moved directly out of his own ineffable plan. In a modern surveillance state, how you manage to hide this kind of machinery and deployment on a regular basis? I mean, they're good at opsec but all it takes is one mistake across years of vigilante action. Another approach would be to handle it like in Black Lagoon -- any of the three criminal factions could easily crush the Lagoon Company, but they remain useful as a neutral party. The Sabers could be the same kind of "neutral vigilantes" who get used by the other powers, like GENOM (via subsidiaries), USSD, Gulf & Western as much as achieving their own goals.
(Who-ee remember that fic? I tried reading it but found Latus's love of his own Villain Sue so annoying I couldn't keep going. No Armor Against Fate had similar problems, but Hagen knew how to restrain himself. I've never really liked those fanfics that so eagerly proclaim that the Sabers Cannot Possibly Win, that the most they can do is hope for the megacorp to behave nicely. Yes, yes, I know 2032 Celia was aware of that inevitability, but I had a problem with that, too. Megacorps don't have limits; they destroy obstacles, even if those obstacles include the rest of the human race. See Exxon's gleeful climate denialism as case in point. But enough of my politics.)
Anyway, putting the Sabers up as a neutral vigilante group, basically Shadowrunners with power armor, is all well and good, it makes sense, but then it runs into two obstacles:
1. Color. I'm pretty explicit in the script so far about acknowledging that the Sabers are made to be seen. They are very literally superheroes, playing with media obsession with such things to shine a light on things they don't like, to weaken the megacorp's holds on public perception. That doesn't seem like something any megacorp would like, trying to leverage people power in such a way. Of course, they can deploy their own spin doctors, fund their private little Ben Shapiros and PragerU's and other Vichy types to disparage the Sabers as a bunch of 'hysterical edgelords' or something like that. Or they could just ignore the rising complaints of the little people - after all, this is a world where GENOM is continuously automating more and more of the global workforce. GENOM-allied megacorps may not need to respond to public outcry because they can just send in Riot Boomers to deal with the proles. Hell, they could even start their own public idoru-powersuit groups who fight for them in a similar manner... but it would be so much easier to just give the nod to the CIA or whoever to get rid of the Sabers if they knew their identity.
2. People. What, you think Priss is going to accept the fact that GENOM knows who she is and what she does and only tolerates her Sabering because she serves Quincy's ends? Likewise, what about the Yoshida Miriam's of the world, the guys who decide to make their fortune within their home megacorp by taking the initiative and taking down the Sabers when they threaten one of their little pet projects? Even if Quincy has the whole megacorp under the 'don't hurt the Sabers' order... surely some exec would lose patience and whip out the Battle Boomers. All it takes is one pre-emptive strike.
So... yeah. Thinking about power dynamics like this really took the wind out of my sails. Because, at least in my little fanfic series, I kinda want the Sabers to win? Watch the megacorps collapse into irrelevance with the rise of some sort of plot-bullshit Singularity or the liberation of the Boomer mind? But damn. Really gotta suspend one's disbelief to make this sort of superheroic thing work. Reminds me of some stuff Linna said in Night Life.
This was sort of why I wanted to work in a big phat financial crisis, or some similar bursting of the bubble, midway through the series. Yes, the '08 crisis and COVID have entrenched the power of the powerful - but did it always have to be thus? Isn't the whole point of a crisis to show how shabby and slipshod the seemingly unstoppable Old Order is? Doesn't it take crises of such magnitude to make people upend the systems of power that govern them? But that almost sounds too misty-eyed for a cyberpunk story.
Ugh. I just want some optimism in my hypercapitalist dystopian sci-fi. Is that too much to ask? What do you guys think?