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LCS Reference in “AGI Federation”, a free tabletop RPG I made
Skynet:
So even though I no longer play Liberal Crime Squad, I did make a reference to it in a free tabletop RPG I made heavily inspired by PARANOIA: AGI Federation. The Federation is a loose alliance of megacorps (ruled by supercomputers) that survived the Corporate Buyout Wars, and have plugged their employees into utopian simulations. To protect said simulations from its many internal and external threats, they drafted Transhuman Police Officers - and that is who you play as.
Liberal Crime Squad is one of the default megacorps in that setting, based in New York City - the implication being that the Squad has outgrown its revolutionary origins and became incredibly powerful (and possibly corrupt). I only ran one game in this setting so far, and they haven’t played much of a role other than handling debriefing. I will plan on increasing their importance later.
Before I worked on AGI Federation, I tried making a sci-fi RPG (“The Regulator”) where you play as a police officer dealing with the Corporate Buyout Wars - you need to maintain the balance of power between the megacorps while keeping your boss (who is receiving bribes from one of the megacorps) happy. LCS was also a faction in that game as well, as a full-fledged megacorp:
--- Quote --- id: 9,
title: "Liberal Crime Squad"
description: "A leftist terrorist group that previously wanted to establish an 'Elite Liberal Utopia'. The leadership soon realized that it would be far easier to plug people into a 'simulation' of an Elite Liberal utopia instead. They now adopt a policy of utter hedonism, and only leave the VR sims to raise funds and preach their agenda to the masses.",
pro_quote: "Only by abandoning 'Conservative Reality' can humanity be awakened to its True Liberal Nature and be able to enjoy happy, productive lives.---Chris Horsa, Liberal Crime Squad Founder",
anti_quote: "The LCS agents sleep soundly in their virtual pods, and dream of fighting their war against Conservative society. But I notice that they never really dream what happens after they win.---Leobwin Sansone, former LCS employee",
industries: "Virtual Reality",
alignment: "oblivion"
--- End quote ---
That game would also have randomly generated backstories that would explain the origins of the megacorps and the reason for the Corporate Buyout Wars. One random backstory would be about the game taking place a few decades after the Arch-Conservative Amendment has passed - LCS slowly “reformed”, while the other megacorps began feuding against each other for market share.
That RPG never got off the ground (not even a playable demo, just design docs), but many of its ideas migrated over to AGI Federation (even though it takes place after the big corporate war). Unofficially, you could consider AGI Federation a sequel to The Regulator, though keep in mind that The Regulator did have multiple backstories to justify its Corporate Buyout Wars (and only one of them made a reference to LCS’ Arch-Conservative ending).
Azerty:
If their workers are hooked 24/7 then how are these MegaCorps earning money? For the matter, are the workers for the real world recruited among free persons or hooked workers (in the latter, it might involve pills)?
Skynet:
--- Quote ---If their workers are hooked 24/7 then how are these MegaCorps earning money?
--- End quote ---
The implication is that there is nobody left alive other than the workers and the Transhuman Police Officers - every other human perished during the Corporate Buyout Wars. The megacorps aren't making money, but that because they don't need to - they already 'won'. You can treat each megacorp as a command economy that controls a significant chunk of the solar system, using the hooked employees as a convenient source of research and computing power. (In fact, when I state it like that, they're probably less like "real" megacorps and more like post-apocalyptic warlord states; the name only sticks because it's a useful shorthand.)
--- Quote ---For the matter, are the workers for the real world recruited among free persons or hooked workers (in the latter, it might involve pills)?
--- End quote ---
The 'workers for the real world' (the Transhuman Police Officers) are indeed recruited among hooked workers. The idea of using pills to help ensure the police officers remain loyal and compliant that's a good point, I didn't think of that. Sounds like an interesting mission hook I should use for next time I run a game...
Azerty:
--- Quote from: Skynet on April 20, 2020, 01:34:16 pm ---
--- Quote ---For the matter, are the workers for the real world recruited among free persons or hooked workers (in the latter, it might involve pills)?
--- End quote ---
The 'workers for the real world' (the Transhuman Police Officers) are indeed recruited among hooked workers. The idea of using pills to help ensure the police officers remain loyal and compliant that's a good point, I didn't think of that. Sounds like an interesting mission hook I should use for next time I run a game...
--- End quote ---
The "pills" were a reference to Matrix but drugging workers to make them dependant of their MegaCorp seems like a good idea.
And, given they crushed all competition, what's their objectives now, apart staying alive? What are these MegaCorps' projects for the future?
Skynet:
Ah, missed the Matrix reference. Yeah, that can work too as part of a recruitment spiel - take the blue pill and live in utopian fantasy, or take the red pill and see the truth.
By default, none of the MegaCorps have any major plan, other than staying alive, although they distrust each other (so you can have spy vs. spy shenanigans as the megacorps covertly sabotage and undermine each other). In the Mission Hooks section of the rulebook though, there's a couple of plans that one of the megacorps can pull off to try to out-compete the other megacorps:
- Seize control over the Asteroid Belt so you can gain more resources than the other megacorps.
- Manipulate the enemies of the state (the Drifters and Irrationals) to only attack the other megacorps.
- Funding the Drifters to attack a rival.
- Conduct some idealistic goal (examples: go into deep sleep/find the meaning to life, the universe, and everything/break the Fourth Wall/wake the sleepers and bring them to AGI Enlightenment) that the other megacorps might view as being too disruptive to the status quo.
- Unify all transhumans and megacorporations together into a single totalitarian decision-making entity (the Singleton) for the sake of efficiency. The other megacorps may loathe losing their autonomy to this Singleton though.
- Establish a Transhuman cult that worships the "players", and use this cult as deniable assets to strike against enemies.
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