Beckoncall
World-Weaver and servant to the most-holy PC
Look at game mechanics and they have a setting with 8 or so warring corporations
World Building Shenzhiwu 2210 | Setting & Roleplay Concept
- Thread starter MDL
- Start date
Look at game mechanics and they have a setting with 8 or so warring corporations
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Do you want ideas on like a specific area or just in general?
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
Thanks mate, this is the kind of inspo I'm looking for. And btw what is this forum site?
I mean I'll take anything, but right now I was thinking about hacking and how it could work. Trying to build on what I established in the short text that I wrote. But anything that comes to mind I would love to discuss. If you have any similar settings you can think of and any aspects of futurism that you think are interesting.
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Ok, so, two questions:So I've finished an aspect of the world that I thought turned out pretty well. It concerns hacking, how it's done and what the relationship between corporates and hackers is. Thought I might as well throw this out here to see if anyone has any ideas pop into their head as they read it.
Anybody got any ideas?Exploitfarms and hacker teams are outlaw groups that infiltrate computer systems and networks to examine them for exploits (methods of breaking into a system). This process is known as “cracking”. The difference between exploitfarms and hacker teams is that farms opt to sell new exploits to the highest bidder, or deliver them directly to the client that hired them. Hacking teams - on the other hand - use their own exploits personally. They access accounts to steal money, acquire leaks of corporate secrets, or hold entire networks hostage for ransom - if they can swing it.
Both exploitfarms and hacking teams perpetuate a dangerous existence - but hacking teams are running especially high stakes. Depending on how they go about their business they can be increasingly targeted by private intelligence or corporate security. The PCCO does not investigate hackers or exploiters unless a violent crime started the investigation. This is often to the detriment of the groups themselves as PCCO divisions are far less violent than corporate security or private intelligence. Corporates generally detest hacking teams and have a complicated relationship with exploitfarms. They both seek the services of farms when they wish to go outside internal channels for intelligence, but they are well aware that the exploitfarm they’re dealing with could be selling data against them at the same time.
There are also ideological hacker teams that don’t hack for profit. They instead do it to further an agenda, be it political, religious (rare), or otherwise. The vast majority of ideological hacker teams are anti-corporate in nature and seek to sabotage corporate networks, or acquire damaging leaks that might induce scandal and align public opinion with their own. These groups are the most dangerous hacker teams to be a part of as they are a collectively high priority for private intelligence.
Being a hacker on Terra can leave you dead in the street mighty quick if you don’t stay constantly vigilant. Especially if you don’t possess the advanced technical skills or high-level social awareness required to remain anonymous. It can take just a single member’s sloppiness to expose the entire group. Sometimes hacking teams get sold out by one of its own members. These individuals are then labeled as “game” and their personal information is exposed to the entire hacking and exploit community. When an individual is tagged “game”, hacking groups and exploitfarms will go to great lengths to get to the individual, usually ending in assassination. The reality for these individuals has become so dire that certain private intelligence groups have begun providing source-protection for exposed insiders. Some hacking groups demand that members submit some form of collateral to ensure that they do not sell out.
The Cracking Process
Cracking has gotten increasingly hard during the last century and has reached a near impossible state in the last 50 years or so. The process is now solely in the domain of the utmost skilled and well organized. The unprecedented sophistication of megacorporate cybersecurity has demanded that cracking evolve into a more multifaceted endeavor. A combination of skills is required to make it work, which is why hackers working alone has become unthinkable. In today’s world cracking is a three-part process:
- Technical: The conventional hacking is done by an individual known in hacker circles as a “techie”. They spend most of their time in front of their workstation, exploring whatever network the group is trying to access and using their know-how to breach further into the system.
- Social engineering: The social engineer is the engine of the operation. They are experts in corporate culture and organizational structure, sometimes coming out of the corporate world themselves. They also maintain a plethora of fake identities that are as realized as any fake person could be. Any decent fake identity will be a registered citizen with bank accounts, daily expenses, an online presence, restaurant appointments, apartments, vehicles, you name it.
- Fieldwork: The final piece of the puzzle. “Agents” do all the work that can’t be done remotely, they also play the role of the social engineer’s many identities when necessary. They use these fake identities to gain access to corporate areas where they can pave the way for a “techie”. Often by planting software manually in server-rooms, or breaking into executive apartments to plant bugs into their security-cleared computers. Another aspect of their job is to be somewhat present as the day-to-day version of the fake identities they use, all done to strengthen the illusion.
@Dannigan @Kaerri @Wolf RawrrrBeckoncall @FoolsErin
Idea
1. Why do they not investigate into hacker teams unless there is a violent crime?
2. What good is signing a collateral with a criminal group? How could such a contract be valid under the law? And if it isn't then what's the point of making such a contract?
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
1. The PCCO, which is a re-establishment of the police force under the Parliamentary Committee for Corporate Oversight, as I have written in so far, only exists because a consensus of mega-corporation leadership saw that certain crime caused too much partisan bias and corruption when investigated by corporate controlled entities, such as corporate security organizations, which is the de facto police as the PCCO does not patrol, it only responds to crimes that have already been committed, and only certain crime. There are several domains that are deemed too sensitive by the corporations for control to be relinquished to an independent body, hacker teams - probably because of the potential for damaging information or any relation to corporates they might possess/be part of - is one of those domains. That's how the setting stands on this issue as of right now.
2. I don't know I mentioned anything about signing. I didn't mean collateral as a "legal" term, more as in its root definition. I've not yet established what this collateral could be and I might not include it in the final draft, but I thought it would be a sensible thing for more aggressive hacker teams to do when the consequences for betrayal could be so dire. I guess this could be some kind of damaging information on each member, or some control over their ability to disappear instantly, like controlling their finances, or keeping their earnings from the hacking in a trust of some sort, just speculating here.
These are good questions, the kind of stuff I need to keep it sharp.
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Alright, suppose that does make sense.
I think for that to work, it would have to work more like blackmail than a punishment- it woul dhave to be something taken in advance that cannot be returned if they betray the organization. And it would probably have to be of sentimental value- otherwise, the companies could probbably eaisly just offer up more money.
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
Yeah that is probably true. I guess that I'll either find something that works as the setting develops or I'll scrap that part of it.
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
Just did a major overhaul on this thread. Added a statement of concept including a summary of the history of Terra and Terrestrian society. I have been hard at work in august and thought I should share some of it with you. Check out those beautiful images 
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
Thanks mate, I'll start putting it together.
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
Idea
I have a question for you if you don't mind. Do currencies only change in value in relation to each other? What I mean is if I have only one official currency, can the corporate rulership create a system where that currency's value is fixed so that a cheeseburger, for example, would remain at 1$ forever?I hope that makes sense
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Not at all. In fact, even if there was only one currency, the value of the currency will still constantly change. For starters, the value of products themselves changes over time, based on interests, amount of them there is, new products coming into the market, and more factors than I could possibly list.
Similarly however, this also happens with money: as more money is introduced, the less valuable other money becomes. Over time money is also less valuable (loans come with interest because of this, getting money latter is less valuable than money you get now). This is the natural process of inflation, and why when one wants to look at or study markets from the past one has to adjust for inflation.
Many have tried, and history tells us it is impossible to keep stable value on things for long. The gold standard was the most successful attempt, but the strain of the war on the economy brought it down.
However, fixing prices is possible (though illegal in the world we live in). When one has a monopoly over a product, one can sell that product at a fixed prices. There have also been cases of cartels forming, this is groups of competing companies that control the totality of the market and arrange prices between themselves (and if they don't control the totally of the market, have enough influence to pressure other companies into following along with their scheme). Oil, for example, was one such case. Cartels are a lot less stable than outright monopolies though, because the moment one of them breaks the agreement and sells their product a little cheaper to get that share of the market, the whole status quo falls apart.
Lastly, I want to point out that fixing things at a higher price does not mean necessarily that you make more money. While you get more money from people who do buy your product, the amount of people who can or think it is worth spending their money on your products decreases as a result.
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
Ah yes, I see. That makes sense
So the fact that the British pound has been so valuable is that they have maintained inflation better than others?
That's interesting, how did that work?
Very interesting, I shall keep this in mind when writing about how corporations cooperate to maximize profits but also try to undercut each other and work around the system to gain an edge.
I see. That would be a good counter for the megacorporations just going for downright exploitation and starving people into paying as much as possible.
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Well, in real life there's never really just one cause for anything. Still, though I wouldn't be able to tell you what the main cause would be for that, since I'm simply not knowlegeable enough about the situation, the value of one currency over another has to to do with how much people procure one given currency over another given currency, not anything inherent about the currency itself.
Though it is true we have become a lot better at controlling inflation. The purpose of the central bank, in fact, is to pour money into the economy or remove money from the economy as necessary to try to keep things stable.
The gold standard had essentially two tenants, if I'm remembering correctly:
1. All money is backed by a reserve of gold that the country owns. This way the value of money and things is always attached to a specific amount of gold, whose sheer rarity makes it just common enough to do this, but too rare to change in value over a small period of time.
2. Countries allow complete free trade amogst themselves, and free flow of workers.
Market prices probably still changed though, due to how responsive the free market is with prices and the value of products. However, the money itself had a fixed and unchanging value. If prices had been fixed for products as well, it's possible both the value of money and market prices had remained stable (however if such were the case, people would end up just buying whatever products were undervalued and ignoring overvalued products).
In addition, the golden standard is great, as long as things remain healthy and relatively leveled among the countries. Abandoning the golden standard in order to be able to adjust one's currency to the real situation of the country was pivotal to the recovery of European efforts post world war two (or maybe world war 1... I need my books again when I get home)
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
Okay. But isn't hyperinflation related to a bad economy? But slightly higher inflation doesn't have to mean that one economy is worse than another?
Isn't it true that no inflation is bad for the economy? You know why that is?
So, what you're saying is that one dollar was in direct relation to an amount of gold and the value of that gold was one dollar? But if prices still changed what was the point of the standard? And doesn't the value of gold increase by the day? I'm confused
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
I went in and split some paragraphs to improve readability.
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Hmmm...ok, let me put it like this. Imagine two people in a desert, drinking water. One of them is a native to the desert, another a tourist. One drinking their water marginally faster isn't necessarily a big deal, in fact it may only be natural that the tourist drinks the water faster as they are less used to the conditions. But if they are drinking down these insane gulps, they're gonna run dry pretty fast, and are in dire straights.
Similarly, a degree of inflation always happens in economy, and while it is a bad thign in controlled amounts it doesn't have a very visible impact. In reality it's both natural and inevitable by the nature of things that inflation happens, so it's not a direct indicator of the health of an economy. Hyperinflation on the other hand, means that the value of a currency is plummeting overnight.
Why inflation is a problem is an issue that boils down to it "erodes the foundations of how an economy operates", mainly in that it causes disarray and distrust. But for that I need to explain a few points:
1. Money is a representation of value. It's simple to understand "well, I already have five cartons of milk, so it's not worth it to buy even more milk at the same price, because I need this money to buy something else". However, the idea of the value of value itself changing, that's a harder idea to wrap one's head around. You can't replace value yet you need it for an economy to function. You can quantify that value, but if that number is changing then the quantification established itself becomes shaky.
2. Economical agents are rational agents according to basic economic theory (Keynes contested this and such contest was pretty helpful in get us out of the great depression, but it's still a highly debated topic today), this is they choose what appears to them to be the optimal choice among available ones (the concept of "availability" includes something one finds morally abhorrent, for example, as "non-available", and the optimal choice is not necessarily an objective optim, nor an optim by the same standards for everyone).
Inflation changes the optimal mid-decision. What happens, when suddenly your life savings aren't worth what you thought they were worth? When, because their money is valued less, people spend more of their income on basic necessities, therefore reducing the profits or potentially leading to bankrupcy in more extreme cases so-called "luxury goods" businesses? And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Normally inflation isn't this drastic, and is accompanied by general economic growth that offsets it, but such is it's danger.
3.A fun fact about our economy is that a good chunk of the money in the modern economy doesn't actually exist. See, when a bank keeps your money, they then use it to loan money to other people, and collect interests from that loan. That's how they make a profit. However, the money they are lending isn't theirs, it's yours. So now, both the person who loaned money from the bank and yourself "own" that money, thus creating a situation where that money was appearantly created out of thin air.
But what happens if everyone suddenly couldn't trust the bank and wanted to get their money back? Well, the bank doesn't have the money to give back anymore. Part of the 2008 crisis had to do with this.
This is but one example of how important trust is to the economy. Money is a scrap of paper and random chunks of metal: it is only valued because people trust in the value of that money. Back when there were things like the gold standard, it helped sustain that trust, because it made all money have real value backed with gold. Money being unstable erodes that trust as well. Any form of receiving money in the long-term is impacted by what that is worth changing.
Being honest though, as I mentioned before, I'm just a college student still. My explanation probably wasn't the best and it certainly wasn't comprehensive. I advise taking it more as an abridged explanation.
Well, for starters, the gold standard began by evolving rather than being downright created. There was some artificiality in keeping it as a stable system for a while, but a good part of how it came to be was the result of the historical evolution of monetary systems.So, what you're saying is that one dollar was in direct relation to an amount of gold and the value of that gold was one dollar? But if prices still changed what was the point of the standard? And doesn't the value of gold increase by the day? I'm confused
That said, besides trust which I already mentioned (not that it's relevance should be underestimated) the golden standard fixed the value of money. When the prices of products changes this will reflect changes in the market. In a free market, things people want more will typically cost more cause there is a limited supply and more people are willing to pay a higher price for the product, thus making it profitable to raise the price. Products people don't want result in the people with those products having to reduce prices to raise demand. Thus, prices changing somewhat helps both consumers and sellers obtain the most profit and value they can collectively obtain, by adressing the point where the interests of consumers and producers meet.
However, this is assuming that throughout the whole process, the money always has the same value relative to itself. To perhaps put it another way...
Under the gold standard there is essentially no inflation. Was no inflation. Reason for this being that gold itself is really good at mantaining it's value basically nomatter what. Even if the world goes in crisis, gold tends to remain more less at the same value, historically. That is what is so special about gold. So when you hear that "gold increases it's value by the day" the one telling you that is probably comparing gold to the general currency, which unlike gold, tends to loose value over time (inflation).
And this is all not to mention the other big thing the gold standard had, and which we did manage to mostly recover within Europe, which is free flow of trade and workers. But that one has less to do with inflation and more to do with risk and taxes.
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
Well besides inflation, the price of gold is increasing as less of it becomes available on the planet and it becomes more expensive to retrieve because of deeper mining.
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Hmm...wasn't aware of that. Well, the more you know.
MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
The largest gold mine in the world is in South Africa at a depth of 4km. They bout to hit the balrog any minute. SA sits on 50% of the world's gold reserve.
