Corporate Sovereignty and Crime
Not my problem.

Legally, corporate security from other corporates should not lift a single finger to do anything on a rival corporation's territory unless explicitly asked to, even if it could mean letting people die. For example, if a Saedor Krupp security agent was witnessing a robbery happen at a NeoTrans transport terminal, they'd have to stay out of it unless authorized, or the corporation could and likely would attempt to prosecute them.

Why? Corporations see their own security teams as well-oiled machines that will do exactly what they need to do, unless unknown factors are introduced. Random rival corporate security intervening is not only vigilantism, but also could impede efforts from the correct corpsec team.

So, if rival corpsec team is authorized, then what? Authorizing third parties to intervene should be met with some pushback by higher-ups. It makes your corporation's security team look ineffectual, and can possibly make it look like a rival corporation saved the day on your own territory, a humiliating prospect.

I suspect the WJF also work much like this, but should also ignore corporate security threats even as they escape, unless explicitly asked to help, with the reasoning being that the moment the WJF gets involved the individuals involved in the crime cannot be handed back over to the relevent corporation. It is now business of the Hall of Justice, and if the corporation would like to buy any fines the WJF assigns, they can, but otherwise, the corporation is removed from the equation.

So, the WJF are authorized, what now? Well, like before, there should be pushback from higher-ups for relying on the WJF to handle threats to the corporation. If the criminals targeting the corporation are not handled by the corporation, the security team looks weak and they lose a chance to interrogate and privately punish the criminals their own way, or even indebt them to do their own bidding (free of charge, as opposed to buying fines from the WJF).

Just some ideas I've been thinking about, I realize a lot of this isn't mechanical but rather, perhaps, cultural, but I don't think the Ideas board is strictly mechanical, either.

But you are right, on all points, corporations should probably be very much against any intrusion on their property by rival security teams, especially to neutralize threats that they logically shouldn't even care about.

I should also mention that this thread came in large part from reading Mirage's idea post about Paydirt Generation. This and the macguffins generated from that idea would make intercorporation heists much more common, I'd think.

I'm new around here, so I'm still learning exactly how Withmore works. But drawing from other cyberpunk-themed sources I'm familiar with, typically the corporations run themselves, and corporate land is practically sovereign soil. Governments don't normally concern themselves with what happens on corporate property because the corporations own the government. If the same is true in Withmore, I can totally see WJF being called off of something that happened on corporate property because "the corp will handle it their way."

The WJF is already in a position where they don't respond to stuff on corporate grounds unless authorized. Asking for a cultural shift to change where the WJF can't respond to murderers running out of a corporation without interaction with the corporation's CorpSec cuts off a lot of roleplay for people in a pretty major faction whose job it is to respond on non-corporate grounds. And I still haven't heard a good explanation as to why that would make sense. It'd make sense if the corporations told the WJF "No, we've handled what they've done on our property" (which again happens) but not the other way around.

What happens if there's no PC corpSec around and someone decides to come into a corporation, throw a bomb and waltz out? Because you don't need to xhelp for lobbing bombs topside anymore. And so that means there's no corpSec PC for the WJF PCs to coordinate with then.

If you don't want the WJF to respond to a person trying to flee a corporation after committing a crime, distract the WJF. Or try to kill them. Or use a getaway ride. Or bribe them ahead of time. Don't cut them off from roleplay.

Some seem starved of the type of RP some might have signed up for, given overt, responsive topside crime seems a little scarce. Consider times in which players can play and so on, it might be days, weeks in some cases even months, before a Corpsec player actually sees the RP action they want to be involved with.

I disagree with the idea we should look at ways of locked off potential RP that those types of players might enjoy, in fact I will almost go as far as to encourage it if it feels natural to do so. An off duty Corpsec agent of another corporation showing your Corporation up by stepping in where your own Sec is lacking seems incredibly on theme to me. It could be a motive to disrupt said Corpsec to make them look foolish, or to claim the bragging rights over a bounty, or just corporate pride in doing what that corp couldn’t do. Bragging rights, humiliation, power and weakness is a large themely part of Corporate life.

I do agree though that there should be much more pushback when this sort of thing happens, to use a theoretical example. On live TV at an event run by one corporate, an off duty sec member of another corporation saves the day, that should be utterly humiliating for the event runners in every way. That could create lots of RP in handling the situation, overcoming the humiliation, putting down the other corporation, smear campaigns, power struggles, staged crimes to show you are strong.

I think we could look at the situation not to chop off and lock down RP, but open up new avenues for RP. As for the potential ‘stepping on players toes’ for long work and established RP in setting up or otherwise trapping a criminal, for that work to be undone by a random element, I think honestly that is just one of the things people (myself included) have to take on the chin, for better or worse.

Take this with a pinch of salt, this is a well informed outside perspective of corpsec play, but I hope it gives some food for thought.

This has been my Ted Talk,

Good bye.