What would be the skills to obtain sovereignty?

[Þorkell]

Does the corp have the following?
(a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by whswhs

If it has that ability to deploy armed forces BEFORE it is recognized as a legitimately existing state by other states, then it is a threat to those states. They have every reason to use military force to put it down before it actually uses those forces.

Maybe now. It used to be hiring a few gunslingers to guard ones trading post was considered just an extension of the right of a bartender to hire a bouncer. A real armed force could arise from mission creep especially if the company's turf is so far in the boonies that the government is not going to bother with it to much.

In point of fact I have my doubts about whether that is the case now. Modern first-world states have a strict casualty budget and I don't see how PR is going to tolerate using it for such means. It is a lot of work, it's urgency is not obvious and if we cannot get consensus for chastising the Taliban, why should there be consensus for suppressing a new state which might even be better rulers then any previous regime in any case? Why get into a Boer War redo for no particular reason?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Does the corp have the following?
(a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

That would define several business enterprises in history. Defined territory was acquired by the by, population was from the company town and/or previous inhabitants (who can be repressed or negotiated with or more likely some complicated combination that always throws everyone who thinks they know about history for a loop). Government was a need that evolved from possessing the first two. As was capacity to enter into relations with other states.

The aptly named Richard King really was a King. He bought up a spread at the time when the Texans, Mexicans, and Commanche, were fighting over it. He manned it by riding up to a Mexican settlement that was dying from drought and telling them that if they accepted him as patron and tended his herds they could move to better land. That gave him territory and population. He had force of arms from his company town's militia, a few mercenaries and one or two brass fieldpieces he had to watch his ranch house. The conditions of the time were so fragmentary that he was the highest authority in the area.

This is an example of how such an entity might evolve by default.

[hal]

After reading the posts up to this point, I have to wonder if everyone is on the same page as to what Sovereignty really means. What precisely is it?

Is it the ability to create laws, enforce those laws, and not suffer the consequences of ordinary law applied against the "actors"? For instance, if a police officer points a gun at you, how does his status as a police officer vary from that of a mugger who is also pointing a weapon at you?

Who establishes the right to take money away from you at threat of violence, confiscation of property and liberty - and call it "Taxes"? Can Sovereignty be revoked? For example, a group are in control of a government, have run the economy into the ground, people are starving, inflation is out of control, and people are either fleeing to other nations, or dying. A spark triggers a revolt, and after much bloodshed, the former government is ousted and a new one convened in its place.

When you get right down to it - all of government is a fiction. It is however, a fiction that has several centuries behind it, or even millennia of time behind it.

As has been pointed out - for a "state" to exist, it has to have resources. It needs food for its people, raw materials to produce good necessary for self-defense or offensive use. It has to have structure necessary to maintain order within its own "borders" and be able by means of persuasion or coercion - get people to work in concert with its overall objective - survival.

Could Switzerland maintain its borders if it went to war against all of its neighbors (or they with it?). Possibly. But the issue that comes to the fore would be "Why bother?" If there were a reasonable expectation that it would be worth the bother (say for example - the Swiss harbors terrorists that strike with impunity into the neighoring areas) - then it could very well happen that the surrounding states actively engage in such a war.

In the end? What needs to be discussed is what precisely is Sovereignty?

Now, if I had to deal with a player who said "Hey Hal, I want to do what the original poster suggests - how would you go about it?"

My answer would be "At what point in time are we discussing? Cyberpunk as set in the year 2048?" Then I'd simply state that the basic groundwork for creating corporate limited sovereignty already exists. Getting it to reach the levels as described in cyberpunk genre based stories, would require certain conditions to have been met.

More on my next post...

[hal]

First - land is already claimed by sovereign states of today's world. If you want to have sovereign rule in land already claimed by another "State", you either have to get them to relinquish claim to it (such as the Gadsden Purchase or the Louisiana purchase) or force them to relinquish claim by means of a victorious war or subject to a treaty as a condition to end a war.

For a corporation to hold "Land" in a sovereign state, they would have to agree to the purchase of the land and be held accountable to that state. On the other hand, history already shows us that one can hold land within another state and have sovereign claim to that land - called an embassy. There, the laws of the nation outside of the current state, hold sway (by agreement/treaty). If a corporation is to have that kind of a privilege - it has to be agreed upon in some manner.

But now we have another problem if you will - Corporations are allowed to exist by right of agreement. By that, I mean the laws of the land in what ever country, permits that corporate identity to exist. Multi-national corporations are simply a way of describing a corporation that has amassed "possessions" by law, in each of the territory that it operates within. Consequently, the multinational corporation is STILL hostage to the good will of what ever nation it operates within the claimed territory of that nation. All that needs to happen is for the government within that territory to simply state "Your corporation is illegal and all assets are to be divested, you are no longer permitted to operate within the confines of our borders."

What keeps things like that from happening? Internal laws within the nations themselves perhaps. Or, perhaps retaliation from other nations if the corporation's assets are seized unlawfully (ie nationalized) etc.

If a player wants to gain something along the lines of a corporate entity gaining some "sovereign" rights - he'd have to work within the system not just of the nation that the events are occuring within, but also other nations as well.

For that, I'd turn to TRANSHUAMAN SPACE TOXIC MEMES.

The player would have to target the lawmakers. He'd have to target the politically connected. He'd have to offer ways to cement the deal NON-STOP. Then, once the Corporation amassed sufficient resources to equal that of a small nation, the player would have to find a way to make it so that his "soft power" was the equal of other nation's soft power. He'd also have to make it such that the corporation's hard power is either backed by other nation's military might, or have their own military power, or both. Kuwait exists today as an independent nation why? Not because of its own military. Not because of its own population. But because it was able to gain the benefit of other nation's military hard power.

Historically, Kuwait would have suffered the fate of other small kingdoms or nationalities when invaded by a larger more powerful enemy. It would have become a province, or part of a province, its children forced to learn a new language (perhaps) and then paid its coerced taxation to its new political masters. Likewise? If a Corporation could exercise the same level of coercion, then - if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck - it is likely a duck.

Thus - the targets of a memetic war would be the law makers themselves, the people with actual power, as well as the general populace in which the corporation has to operate within.

If the player wants to try for the first "Man-made floating city" per the Millennial Project by Marshall Savage - and make that the first "legal test" for establishing sovereign rights for a corporation, then - that's how the campaign would run. Want a Crystal Palace in space? Great, for for it.

Want to violate the already established Treaties by multiple states? Go for it - but then be prepared to wage war as is traditional. But then again, it might be an embarrassment if you can't find troops amongst your worker population to fight on your behalf!

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by hal

After reading the posts up to this point, I have to wonder if everyone is on the same page as to what Sovereignty really means. What precisely is it?

Is it the ability to create laws, enforce those laws, and not suffer the consequences of ordinary law applied against the "actors"? For instance, if a police officer points a gun at you, how does his status as a police officer vary from that of a mugger who is also pointing a weapon at you?

Who establishes the right to take money away from you at threat of violence, confiscation of property and liberty - and call it "Taxes"? Can Sovereignty be revoked? For example, a group are in control of a government, have run the economy into the ground, people are starving, inflation is out of control, and people are either fleeing to other nations, or dying. A spark triggers a revolt, and after much bloodshed, the former government is ousted and a new one convened in its place.

When you get right down to it - all of government is a fiction. It is however, a fiction that has several centuries behind it, or even millennia of time behind it.

As has been pointed out - for a "state" to exist, it has to have resources. It needs food for its people, raw materials to produce good necessary for self-defense or offensive use. It has to have structure necessary to maintain order within its own "borders" and be able by means of persuasion or coercion - get people to work in concert with its overall objective - survival.

Could Switzerland maintain its borders if it went to war against all of its neighbors (or they with it?). Possibly. But the issue that comes to the fore would be "Why bother?" If there were a reasonable expectation that it would be worth the bother (say for example - the Swiss harbors terrorists that strike with impunity into the neighoring areas) - then it could very well happen that the surrounding states actively engage in such a war.

In the end? What needs to be discussed is what precisely is Sovereignty?

Now, if I had to deal with a player who said "Hey Hal, I want to do what the original poster suggests - how would you go about it?"

My answer would be "At what point in time are we discussing? Cyberpunk as set in the year 2048?" Then I'd simply state that the basic groundwork for creating corporate limited sovereignty already exists. Getting it to reach the levels as described in cyberpunk genre based stories, would require certain conditions to have been met.

More on my next post...

Sovereignty is simply having no overlord.

What gives the right to rule is a combination of the strength to enforce it and a consensus that such rule is either beneficial, or not completely harmful, or not worth the bother of getting rid of. Hopefully there is a consensus that in some way the regime speaks for the population, usually by following rituals that satisfy the local criteria of legitimacy. The rituals vary in their effectiveness in choosing the one who shall direct the power of state and to be honest all of them are really rather absurd though some are less absurd then others.

The State called Britain exists because a Norman usurper won a battle and scammed the local elders with a bit of Vatican intrigue that had nothing to do with them. His descendants conquered the British Isles with equally disreputable means. The crown of England was bridled by the direct means of removing the head that wore said crown.

The practical reason the State called Britain exists is that it has in fact existed for a long time and no one in particular sees a reason why it should not.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Skills to obtain soverignity? Very simple.

According to GURPS Magic, the Control Person spell has the prerequisites of Telepathy, Mind-Sending, Mind-Reading, Borrow Language, Lend Language, and Beast-Speech.

From there, you just get access to the proper individuals and voila! you rule a country.

Why do people insist on complicating simple things?

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Does the corp have the following?
(a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Exactly.
No, no, no and no.

[Purple Snit]

It seems to me that you have simply posted a "question" that you have already answered in your own mind. You want this megacorporation for your game. You want it to take over and have sovereignty in your game. You already have the entire process laid out on paper from start to finish, and I really don't understand why you keep starting these threads in the first place. Once again, you aren't asking for ideas, or input, or criticism - you already have your mind made up what you are going to do, and nothing said here is going to make any difference. This isn't an exchange - it's just you saying "Here's what I'm going to do, isn't it cool?" The corporation takes over, builds a space station, overthrows world governments by bribery/assassination/coercion, or what have you, and ends up in charge one way or the other; skills and rolling are irrelevant if you are simply going to create Perks that give +5 to skills, ignore penalties, disregard history, laws and logic, and just do what you want to anyway.
I'm not coming to your table to say you can't do whatever makes you happy in your games - I just fail to understand one thing: why do you ask for input you fully intend to ignore anyway?

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Does the corp have the following?
(a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

I guess so, though so far it has been historically proven that the requirements are not entirely necessary. So far I think they would point to the spaceport for the a and b requirements, to the board of directors for the c requirement and to public contracts for the d requirement