Hey gang. This next weekend my players are going into CorpSec for the first time. They have avoided it dilligently for the last year of our games, but their lack of income has forced them to take a job that heads into CSA space. They are terrified.

I reakly want to actualize this dread of theirs. Statistically and fact-wise, I know enough about CorpSec to run an adventure there. But that doesn't seem like enough to me. I want to capture the feel of the sector. The bureaucratic nightmares, the never-ending checkpoints, the tariffs and fines... I want this all to come off as genuine, but not boring. I want the CSA to be an annoying money vacuum, but I also want them to be scary, like they could whisk off my players for some minor violation at any time.

Anyway, what I'm asking you for is some ideas or input about making CorpSec scary. Any of you GMs sent your players there yet? What'd they do to them? How'd tour players come out of it, how'd they treat the sector?

Thanks!

The easiest way to frighten them is to demonstrate the consequences of non-compliance (and compliance) right in front of them. Have a few randoms brought in for questioning, unable to pay the fees, get into arguements, etc. right in front of them in line. Then show them the consequences of the various actions. (Not too large) Bribes are expected, paperwork must be filled out correctly, security is omnipresent (but mostly busy with their own tasks), surveillance is everywhere (just rarely actively observed). If you show the party examples of what happens when other citizens break and follow the rules -- as well as the meta-rules governing the situation, they'll be both terrified and reassured.

Should be fun.

Think of the burocratic scenes from Hitchhiker's Guide, Brazil and Juptier Ascending and play with the ideas presented in them.

Also, don't forget that the corporate sector has a different set of laws and morals, to the point where industrial espionage carries a death penalty while murder probably is life imprisonment. Play up the idea of this area that is all about corporate entities and the 'little man' is not really considered. Large parties with ritch dignitaries, armed with small powerful pistols, willing to assassinate and take out a rival competitor because its 'good business'.

I would read some old cyberpunk novels. That may help get some of the paranoid, money is everything, life is cheap, the corporate master rule all vibe you are looking for.

This:

Is probably one of the most comprehensive sources of CSA info there is. Check the D6 Holocron.

The big thing to think about is imagine if Walmart, NBC/Comcast, Boeing, Ford Motor Co, FoxxCon, AT&T, Microsoft, Verizon, Amazon, Apple, Halliburton, and any other major company teamed up and were given an entire continent to rule and exploit as they wished. What would it be like?

The bureaucracy for the CSA serves a different purpose. In the Empire, a conventional government, it's needed because it's a way to push the economy. Bureaucracy isn't cost effective, but it does allow you to employ a lot of otherwise unemployable people in a system that ensures even a total dud won't fail too badly. So CSA bureaucracy will initially seem really smooth, with the service reps knowing where you need to go and who to talk to (or at least the service support droid will) and it'll even be in the same building and possibly the same floor. On the other hand, individual service reps will also be pressured to push things along fast and have failures taken out of their pay. So a player with all his data-ducks in a row will get quicker and faster service then he ever would in the empire, but a player without may find that bribing a CSA rep will be harder because a few hundred credits to falsify your datawork won't be worth the risk of a audit.

Fees and tariff should also reflect that corporate mindset of protecting CSA business on every level, from the carrier to the raw materials source company, everything should be about unfair competition over actual "real" concerns. If you're a certified CSA contract transport operator, it'll be all nice and smooth. You hit the checkpoint, swipe your card, show your ID, pay your toll, the SpaceESPOs do a quick check to make sure your manifest matches your hold (at least as closely as the person at the door of Sam's Club checks your receipt to your basket anyway) and you're done.

If not... Hmmm lets see, you're not a certified transport so that'll be a 30c independent operators fee, another 20c environmental fee, a 40c contribution to the Naval support fund, a 10c fine for not properly displaying your company logo on the exterior of the ship, and you'll need to sign this major-carrier non-compete agreement, and pay the 10 credit per ship's encumbrance processing fee, you're transporting GunganBerries... that's a class 5 controlled substance here so that'll be another 3c/enc carried for licensing, and another 8c/enc fee to cover parasite scanning and fumigation...And that should cover you to the next planet's checkpoint.

This actually might be a neat way of incorporating business non-threat/threat. A YT-1300, even carrying nothing and intending to carry othing, would still be considered a "threat" to local shippers simply by being classified as a freighter. A firespray ( as long as it's not loaded with heavy weapons) would be classified as a patrol/enforcement craft, not a freighter, and so could skip some of that non-compete garbage...

more later...

Star's End is the worse thing ever

A prison you cannot escape because you are put into stasis

I just hope they fixed the flaw in blowing up the reactor below the building causing said building to reach orbit

Star's End is the worse thing ever

A prison you cannot escape because you are put into stasis

I just hope they fixed the flaw in blowing up the reactor below the building causing said building to reach orbit

You kidding? The prisoners largely survived that incident. That's what we call a feature! "Prisoners will be keep safe and secure in even the worst conditions possible. Even a reactor core explosion won't do any real harm, ensuring your captives will be available for future interrogation, or public execution."

Star's End is the worse thing ever

A prison you cannot escape because you are put into stasis

I just hope they fixed the flaw in blowing up the reactor below the building causing said building to reach orbit

You kidding? The prisoners largely survived that incident. That's what we call a feature! "Prisoners will be keep safe and secure in even the worst conditions possible. Even a reactor core explosion won't do any real harm, ensuring your captives will be available for future interrogation, or public execution."

I can't think of a better way to make it well into the future than being frozen and imprisoned for hundreds of years. It'd be a great way to watch the universe change (and make a ton of money off of interest).

Star's End is the worse thing ever

A prison you cannot escape because you are put into stasis

I just hope they fixed the flaw in blowing up the reactor below the building causing said building to reach orbit

You kidding? The prisoners largely survived that incident. That's what we call a feature! "Prisoners will be keep safe and secure in even the worst conditions possible. Even a reactor core explosion won't do any real harm, ensuring your captives will be available for future interrogation, or public execution."

I can't think of a better way to make it well into the future than being frozen and imprisoned for hundreds of years. It'd be a great way to watch the universe change (and make a ton of money off of interest).

Well except as a criminal it is very likely that they have either frozen your assets or stripped you of them. This is the Empire and Corps after all.